Page 14 of Blood Lovers (American Vampires #1)

You exist.

I stagger out of the bar , so drunk I can’t even focus my eyes. I crash into the cinderblock wall as I cut the corner into the alley, then stumble away from it, my boots shuffling through a puddle.

They’re gone. My entire family—just gone.

And I’m still here.

Why?

That’s what I’ve been asking myself since the fire at the church burned them alive. No one else, just them.

He wants me to think it was God, but it wasn’t God. It was him. The Devil has been following me for weeks.

So when I look up, focus my eyes as best I can, and see him—in all his evil glory. Wings, and teeth, and grotesque face—I am not even afraid.

I hold my arms out wide, practically begging him to take me.

Because who cares?

They are all gone.

My life is over.

The next thing I know he’s right up next to me. Holding me, like we’re lovers about to kiss. I know time has passed. I know I’ve been talking to him. I also know I’m giving in.

And now he’s asking me a question. “Are you sure?”

I’ve been looking into his eyes and they are not the evil I was expecting. Oh, he’s ugly as fuck and doesn’t smell very good, either. But his eyes—there’s something behind them. Something hidden.

In my drunken state, I imagine it could be a soul.

“Ryet.”

“That’s not my name.” I slur the words like a drunk.

“It is now. Listen to me. I need you to be sure. I need you to make this choice of your own free will. I need you to see me. Look at me.”

His command comes out harsh and sharp and suddenly I find myself looking at him.

“No. Look at me.”

My eyes wander away from his and I take a step back because we are so close, I have to do this in order to see his whole body. He’s a demon. Something right out of Genesis or Revelation. Something… fallen .

When I look back up he’s smiling. Changing, too. There is something behind those eyes of his. Someone else. Something beautiful.

“You’re making that up, Ryet. I’m not beautiful. But you certainly are.” The demon is a man now. A tall, broad-shouldered, square-jawed, ice-blue-eyed man with dark blond hair that is a little bit slicked back and long enough to touch his shoulders and curl up a little bit. He lifts up his hand and pushes some wayward hair out of my eyes. He’s staring at me. Expectantly. Like he’s waiting for something. “I need you to answer.”

He’s getting impatient.

No. Wrong word. He’s afraid of something.

“You think I’m going to say no. Don’t you?”

“Everyone says no. Because I do not lie to them when I ask this question. Why in the world would they ever say yes?”

I throw him a drunken grin and let out a huff of air. Then my hand is on his cheek. He’s very beautiful, actually. And that’s not a word I use for men. “Are you a man?”

“No. I’m a monster. See it, Ryet. I need you to see it.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I sigh these words out. “What do you want?”

“You.”

“So?” I step back away from him, extend my arms wide. “Here I am.”

“You haven’t said yes yet.”

“Haven’t I?”

“You’re too drunk. Maybe I should come back tomorrow?”

I look away from him, my vision blurring as I gaze down the dark, empty alley. “I won’t be here tomorrow.”

He lets out a long breath. “And why’s that?”

I look him straight in the eyes. Well, I have to close one of mine to make the double vision go away. And then I look him straight in the eye. “Because I’m going to go home. And I’m going to get a rope.” He puts up a hand, but I keep going. “And I’m going to go into my garage, turn on the car, tie that rope to the rafters, and hang myself. And if, by some chance, I don’t die from the hanging, I will suffocate from the car fumes.”

He frowns at me. “You seem to have thought of everything.”

“I will die. And then I will go to Hell. And I don’t care. I will not live without them. I refuse .” Then I set my jaw, letting him know I’m done.

“But you have still not said yes.”

“Yes.”

“What are you saying yes to?”

“You. Take me. Take my soul. I don’t want to know the God who killed my family. I don’t want to worship Him, or bow to Him, or do His work. I want to kill Him.” I pause here. Because even my drunken self knows I’m crossing a line. And I decide I don’t care. “Will you help me kill Him?”

“Do you even know what I’m offering you?”

I nod. “I heard you. I might be drunk, but I heard you. You will take my soul and make it yours. And in exchange, I will live forever and the memory of them will be gone.”

“Forever is a long time. It’s not forever, Ryet. There are many conditions. You will be mine. You will work for me and do my bidding.”

“Just make the memories go away or I will go home and end it myself.”

He sighs. Like he’s tired. “All right. That’s all I needed. Do you want to know what happens next?”

“No.”

He doesn’t tell me, either. But he moves slowly. So I can mentally keep up, I think. He takes two steps towards me, closing the little distance between us I created when he ordered me to look at him, and then his arms are around me in a hug.

I fall into this hug. Like he is my father. Like his hug is love.

Then he whispers things in my ear. “You’re pretty. You will have a good life with me, I promise. You will live long, and see things that men cannot see. You will walk through dreams, and you will find another way forward. I promise.”

He likes that word ‘promise.’

“I promise, I promise, I promise.” He says it over and over as he kisses my neck and the shivers run up my spine.

Then I feel him open his mouth, the tips of his fangs pressing against the skin on my throat. The pressure, but no pain, as he carefully bites into me.

Immediately, I lose time. I might even fall over.

Not because he’s drinking me, but it just… feels… so good .

Bliss.

I don’t know how long this lasts, but slowly my dismal, blurry, hazy world turns into a lovely golden stream of light shining down on us and I feel energized, and hopeful, and happy.

I pull back, unsure for a moment why I am allowing this man to embrace me.

He’s so beautiful. And he’s looking at me like we’re lovers.

“What the fuck?” It’s weak, and so is my push.

But the man, Paul, puts a finger over my lips and immediately, I stop struggling.

“Be good now, Ryet. We’re almost there. Just one last step.”

I struggle a little, unsure of what I’m doing. But then he bites his lip and blood trickles out. Suddenly, the scent of him fills me up, taking the place of the people I was mourning.

Who were they again?

Who cares?

All I see is Paul. And all I want is his blood.

I suck it off his lips as we kiss, drops at a time when all I want is a flood. “More.” I say this word over and over again. “More, more, more…” I reach for him because I cannot stop myself. All I want is him.

Paul taps my nose, chuckling. “That’s enough for now, boy. But don’t worry. There’s more to come.”

Then he’s leading me through the alley. Down the dark streets of the town I no longer care about. Past shops, and houses—maybe even my own house—until we stop outside one just at the edge of town.

I want to pay attention to things. Details like… where the fuck I am. But I just don’t care. The only thing I care about is him. He’s still holding my hand when he stops at the foot of a bed.

He turns to me, those piercing, ice-blue eyes locked with mine, and he begins to loosen my tie.

I look down at myself, wondering why I’m wearing a suit. But I don’t care. So I just look back up at Paul as he pulls the tie through my shirt collar with a swish of silk. He drops it on the floor and rips my shirt open. Buttons fall off, skittering across the hard-wood floor. He places his hot hands flat on my chest and my heart pounds against his palms.

“You are so beautiful,” he says. “And you taste like youth. Sweet and whole.”

He doesn’t taste sweet and whole. He tastes like something else altogether. Something very, very evil. The opposite of what I was.

And I want more.

He just continues to stand there, looking at me, so I lean in, ready to bite his lip open myself.

When I do this, his fingers pop the button on my slacks. And I know this is not something I’m interested in. I know this.

But at the same time, it feels like a fair trade.

It’s just a transaction, really.

Sex for blood.

So I don’t stop him. And he doesn’t stop me.

We’re in bed, naked, and I’m sucking on his lips, and his hand is between my legs, pumping me into the most erotic experience I might ever have.

I drink him as he pulls the climax out of me, over and over again.

And sometime later, after my lips are sore from sucking the tiny drops from his, and my body is weak and spent, I lean in to his neck and, once again, he lets me.

I know I will pay a price for this, but I don’t care.

I bite him, and I drink him, and he says, “Now you are mine.”

I drink him until I’m so full, I simply fall to the side murmuring, “Yes. Yes. Yes.” Until the purple comes and when I wake up, I’m in San Francisco. And I have no idea where I came from or how I got here.

All I know is that I am Ryet and I am his.

The purple leaks into the San Francisco hotel room. Enough of it for me to understand that I am not really there. It’s just a memory, or the future, or some other space in between.

“Oh, you’re here.”

I sigh, pinching the space between my eyes, then look over my shoulder at Paul, who is sitting in a chair near the window, smiling crookedly in my direction. “Did I, or did I not, tell you to get the fuck out of my dreams?”

He stands up, walks over to me, places his hands on my shoulders, and stares into my eyes. “You’re dying. I thought you should know.”

My heart skips. “What?”

“Dying, Ryet. Sixty-five years is a long time for a scion. They typically expire around thirty.”

I blink. “ What ?”

“Thirty. I’ve kept you going these last several decades because I have kept you close this whole time. I do not let you feed on anyone but me, and then only once a year or so. It was always just enough to rejuvenate you. But it’s not working anymore. Haven’t you noticed?”

“Haven’t I noticed what?”

“Your memory. It’s starting to come back. Pretty soon you’ll not only remember their names, but their faces too. And then you will be back in that moment like all these decades never happened.”

I think I quit breathing. And my mind begins to spin. These few sentences contain so many possibilities, I can barely count them all up.

I can know them again? I can die?

“Death won’t be what you think.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t get to die , Ryet. You were so religious once, I figured you’d remember this part.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Revelation 9:6, of course. ‘And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.”

I stare at him, trying to process what he’s telling me.

“And then there’s that Job passage. ‘Why is light given to the miserable, and life to the bitter of soul, who long for death that does not come , and search for it like hidden treasure, who rejoice and greatly exult when they can find the grave?’ You don’t get to die, Ryet. You are the living dead now. You will never find that grave and rejoice in it.”

I just furrow my brow and continue to stare at him. Then I place my hand on his chest, right over his heart. It thumps under my touch. “But you have a heartbeat.”

“I do.”

“And a pulse, and warm blood, and—”

“Because I am not dead, Ryet. I drink the Black blood. And you will too, if you want to be like me.”

“Be like… a vampire?”

“It’s a nice word. It’s got a lot of interesting lore attached, hasn’t it? And I am ‘the vampire.’” He does air quotes around that word as it comes out of his mouth. “I am the monster they are referring to when they tell the stories. But it’s just one of many fancy ways of saying ‘demon.’ You sold your soul that night, Ryet. You understood that.”

I sigh out my words. “I did.”

“And now the piper’s here. It’s time to pay. Unless…”

“Unless I become like you.”

“Why do you say it that way? Am I so bad? Sixty-five years. You know me better than anyone these days. Far better than Lucia, certainly. And Josep. He’s just a casualty of his own sense of righteousness at this point. Unable to get past the guilt. At least Lucia relishes her life and doesn’t waste it the way he does.”

My foggy brain has no chance of keeping up with those words. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

He places a gentle hand on my cheek, soft smile on his face, gazing into my eyes. “You do. You absolutely know what I’m talking about.”

“Hell?”

He shrugs. “It has many names.”

I push his hand off me, turn away, and walk across the room to create some distance. “OK.” I turn back to face him. “All right. I’m ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“Hell. Just… how do we speed it along? How do I get my memories back? I don’t care where I end up, I just want to remember them.”

Paul’s stoic face breaks into a sad smile. “It’s funny, you know.”

“What is?”

“That you are willing to go to Hell to remember them when sixty-five years ago you were willing to go to Hell to forget them.”

He’s right. That’s some next-level irony right there.

“But…” Paul… well, I hesitate to use this word. Because it’s typically not a word that describes him. But he wilts. He visibly wilts. “You’re not going to Hell, Ryet.”

“You just said—”

“You’re going to drink the Black witch, Ryet. She’s the answer for you. She’s what you need to be worrying about.”

My breathing is suddenly erratic. “So it was a lie?”

“What was a lie?”

“I won’t get my memory back.”

“Is this really all you can think about?”

“Yes.” I growl the word at him. “Sixty-five years, Paul. I’ve been walking around with no memory of them for sixty-five years. They’re all I’ve ever thought about.”

“That’s not true and you know it.”

“It is. You have no idea—”

“Don’t I?” He laughs. “Do you want me to give you the memories? So we can get past these stupid feelings that you don’t even have? Should I get pictures of them and come back? Should I put you in a dreamwalk and send you to your wife’s bed so you can fuck her one last—”

I hit him. Hard. Hard enough to make him take two steps to the left. When he turns back to me, eyes alight with fury, his lip is bleeding. It is pooling in the corner of his mouth and dripping down his chin.

He laughs at me because there is hunger in my eyes. I can feel it rising up in my stomach like an ache.

But this is a dreamwalk and that blood isn’t even real.

He dabs at his lip with a fingertip, then offers it to me.

I shake my head.

“If this were real life, you would not be able to say no.”

“So what?”

Paul walks over the chair and takes a seat. He props his ankle up on the opposite knee. He’s wearing jeans tonight. Dark jeans and a midnight-blue button-down shirt. Boots on his feet, the kind that lace. He is as beautiful as always.

Except he’s not always beautiful. I know this. It was his true form that I said yes to sixty-five years ago.

He takes a breath and tries to restart this conversation. “You are dying. You must drink the Black witch. If you do, you will not go to Hell. It’s a real place where the Darkness lives incarnate and I’m not the one in charge there. No one will love you. You will get those memories back for a little while, but you won’t care about them because you are looking at an eternity of slavery. And not even the sweet face of your lovely wife, Jane, or that little baby, Susan, will be enough to get you through it. You will degrade into nothing but energy. And then you will just be... evil.”

He shrugs with his hands. Like it can’t be helped.

But I am stuck on those names. “Jane and Susan.” I smile. Because even though I can’t see their faces, I know that very soon I will.

Paul must read my mind or something, because he says, “What about Syrsee?”

“What?”

“She’s nice, right?”

I shrug. “Yeah. She is.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Don’t fuck with her.”

“How have you not figured this out yet? She’s the Black witch, Ryet. It’s Syrsee .”

“What?” Now I’m just annoyed. “Why do you always have to take it one step too far?”

He bellows out a laugh. Then his face goes serious. “Syrsee is the Black witch. I am in the cottage with her right this moment. You are passed out sick. Do you recall getting sick?”

I huff out a breath. “Yeah.”

“You drank her last night.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “How do you know that?”

He just shakes his head at me. “Ya know, perhaps you’re telling the truth. Maybe you are preoccupied with that family of yours. It would explain your cluelessness.”

“I took a few sips from her lip, that’s it.”

“That’s the only reason you’re still with me, Ryet. You took a few sips. But you need more. Much, much more.”

I shake my head. “No. I’m not going to kill her to save myself from the eternal damnation I have certainly earned.”

“She won’t die. In fact, she’s going to enjoy it. Maybe even more than you do.”

I sit down on the bed. Paul immediately gets up and sits down next to me. His arm snakes its way around my shoulders and he pushes on my head until my cheek is resting on his collarbone. “We’re going to get through this.”

I want to fight him, but he smells good.

“I need you to wake up and drink her. Do you hear me, Ryet?”

“I don’t want to.”

“You will. Trust me.”

“Give me their faces.”

He wilts again. Not like he’s tired, but like he’s disappointed. “I will. But I can’t do that until you drink her. If I give you those memories, the curse changes. And you will die before I can stop it. Go back. Wake up. Drink her until you are so full, you could not take another drop. And then we’ll talk about Jane. I really can give you a final—”

“Don’t say it.”

“Well, you get the idea. But first”—he pushes me off him and stands up—“you drink her.”

“Are you still there? In the room with her?”

“Only in spirit. There are unexpected forces working against me. I’m not sure who they are, or what they are planning, but I cannot be there in person. If I could, you know I would, right?”

When I look up at him, he’s got a weird look on his face. Like he’s… afraid of something. Like he’s afraid I don’t believe him.

“Do you love me?”

He nods without hesitation.

“Why?”

“You’re so—”

“Don’t, Paul. Don’t say ‘beautiful.’ You call them all beautiful. It doesn’t mean anything.”

He hesitates and I feel like time stands still.

Who am I to this demon?

Why is he so infatuated with me?

I treat him like shit. I dismiss him. I ignore him. I insult him. I hate him. “What did I ever do to earn this love?”

“You exist.”