Page 21 of Entombed By Blood

An instant of clarity teases at the edge of my thoughts, and I leap for it.

Cain will consider it a weakness if I stay in this coffin. To pass this test, I have to face it head on.

I don’t want to.

God. All I want is more blood.

My fingertips push the lid open without my conscious command, the tips of them getting singed for their trouble.

It’s nothing compared to the fire in my throat. The thirst overwhelms everything, made worse by the scent of blood still lingering in the room.

Just thinking of drinking from my new thralls hours ago, sinking my fangs into them, makes me pant. From desire. From hunger. Both.

Rich, immortal blood is risky, I remind myself.

No one’s around, and that’s probably for the best. Feral instincts demand blood, no matter who it comes from. I catch the scent of new blood, faint, but it’s there, coming from the room beyond this one. My fangs ache, and I gravitate toward the half-open door like a moth to the flame.

The carpet is soft under my scabbed feet, the texture foreign after so many years of suffering cold metal. It cushions my steps, making me silent as I cross the room to the doorway where the smell grew stronger.

The room beyond is obviously a kitchen, but so much of it is alien that I might as well have stumbled into a different world. Gleaming steel, red tiles, and black marble cover every surface. One of the walls is made entirely from glass, covered by dark blinds that hide the outside world and any hint of what it looks like now.

It’s dark, foreign, and unwelcoming.

Ihateit.

I’ll never be able to see the colours red and black again without thinking of that dress.

Cain knows that.

It’s probably why he chose this place.

My thoughts dissolve as my eyes find the wineglass of blood on the counter. It smells like the stuff in the bag.

Sweetness and frivolity tempered by seductive temptation.

It sloshes against my chin as I upend the glass and gulp it down like air.

Sogood.

It feels like ice against the blistered skin of my lips.

It tastes human, but more. What kind of witchery is it that makes the most basic of blood taste so divine? On par with the complex tastes of vampire and lycan, yet laced with the unmistakable tang of mortality.

There has to be more somewhere.

My thirst demands I find it.

I yank open cupboard after cupboard, staring in dismay at all of the things I don’t recognise so neatly stacked between things which haven’t changed.

There’s a mortar and pestle, right beside a square of glass which flashes numbers into the gloom. A pastry brush beside the strangest looking whisk I’ve ever seen.

There are buttons everywhere, but no blood.

My dismay only grows as my search becomes more and more frantic. My mind turns back to the four males in the apartment. Thralls.

Mine. Mine to drink. That’s how thralls work.

I take a half-step toward the door.