The moon was bright that night. Like daylight. I didn’t need any extra light to see where I was going--and of course, he was there.
Isn’t that always how these stories go? But it’s true.
I met him on the Riverside a ways up on the road from my house.
I remember the dialogue--I’d memorized it--but seeing this, doing this, was crazy. It was insane.
Katie didn’t know I was going to complete what she’d read. I concealed it from her, but I harbored no regrets. I didn’t want her to see this.
“….tainted my Arbados, my human--what have you done? Are you out of your mind, Azrael!?” The words came to my lips easily. I’d read the thread so many times…
And then he skips a great deal of dialogue, his response being:
“Offer yourself to me.”
I breathed heavily. I can’t help being excited by this; he’d already touched me and his poison was strong against my skin.
I took the pin from my hair, just as was written, let the silver hair roll down my shoulders. My bare shoulders. I’d worn a dress of dark green that was (at Azrael’s choosing, as is custom, he was the “sighted” one for this meeting) translucent, the sleeves weren’t sleeves at all but billowy and shimmering and see through. They started at my elbow and went to my wrists; attaching with a thin ribbon on either side to the lace trim on the top. No bra; I didn’t want him to ruin any (and he would have), but I did wear underwear, you could see the red fabric through the dress. But my shoulders? Bare and clear. Healed.
Bare…. for a few more moments.
Knowing what was coming didn’t help me; I knew the pain was coming. Looking desperately at the tree line, the road, anywhere where there would be people, I remembered what I’d said to Alice:
You know that, at the last moment, there is no rescue? That nobody comes? There is only his teeth on your precious neck, only the pain that comes from Love to protect you. Is that aid enough to you?
Suddenly I was stronger, better. Why? Why did that make a difference?
I love her. I love her and I will always, whether she does me or no; and though I’d told her she could have stopped it, she could not have, not without making the information afterward invalid, and I needed that information.
I pull my hair to the left shoulder, tilt my head towards him. I can smell the alcohol on his breath, see the triumph glimmering in his gaze. Fear strangles me, tears begin to roll. I bite back a sob; my shoulders tremble.
He slaps me. It smarts.
“Did you want something?” Snarls Ryan, “Offer yourself!” Oh, dear. Azrael is improving--anything can change now.
“Please, sink your teeth into me again, Azrael,” I whimper, angry that my voice is so weak, “Please, make me alive again.”
He walks towards me, pushing me against a tree. There is no table here, this is human land. No, there are only the words and the actions.
“Azrael,” I plead; I beg him not to harm me with my eyes and my voice, “Azrael.”
The blood is warm against my skin as he tears down my thin lace border that runs along my breasts. His teeth are sharp. Unlike other vampires, he is not gentle, their winsome Prince--no, not gentle at all! I write otherwise at times, for the young ones, to protect them from doing something foolish against one infinitely more powerful than they, but…. Oh, my God, the Pain.
He’s right. He was right to edit me; I scream. Loudly. His hand flies over my mouth to muffle my cries as he feeds on me, as instinct forces me to struggle against him.
I scream and I keep screaming as he continues to silence me, his eyes rolling, drinking my blood until I feel dizzy. Those cries are my way of fighting, and I had promised I would fight.
Women, men, humans everywhere long for what I have experienced. They think it’s somehow a big sexy thing, being bitten, having your soul taken from you, seeing it on his teeth in the low-hung moon.
Well it isn’t.
It hurts. You don’t moan and beg, you scream. It’s involuntary to resist; your body wants this to stop. It’s being set on fire, and not in the subtext way. You want it to stop, every moment, the entire time. You, if this were you, could make it stop, could walk away. Takes a really sick human to not do that, to want this.
Unlike you, I have no choice. I have no will to resist. I had made a vow.
I keep my promises.
After his first drought, he pulls from me, I gasp in a high-pitched almost-scream and his teeth dislodge from my shoulder. “Is she worth it?” He says now, referring back to the earlier idea where we followed what we’d written.
Katie’s face, with River Song hair in a green sweater she doesn‘t own, swims to my eyes. Her eyes are my gold-brown, her ear pokes wistfully from behind that crazy hair. Her shoulders are broad. Her scarred face is smiling. Katie. Katie.
“Always,” I sob, and suddenly this--this--Whatever it is--it doesn’t matter. Katie. This is for Katie.
Back into my shoulder. Again, the scream that no one listens for.
And then we have our conversation. He proposes the crazy idea again. Dyrim comes into the grove.
Like Ryan got to chose my outfit, I had a right to hers. I could have her come in whatever I wanted to.
I told her to dress warmly.
When she came to me, when I delivered my words, they weren’t angry as they had been when I’d written them. They were soft and apologetic.
Too late did I understand that she, too had done this for love.
Still, when she moves her hair, when she reveals the bare and smooth skin, my pulse quickens. This is my chance. This is my chance. Her blood could be on my teeth, I could repress her screams.
I can’t. I can’t do it. I will not punish another for Love as I have been punished--so I jump at Ryan instead, and he laughs a brief moment before catching me and biting me again, drinking and drinking and drinking.
He leaves me unconscious and wounded on the ground behind my house at about four a.m.
I saw Katie that very day, fight her that very day, driven to teach her to defend herself.
“I’m fine, see?” I pull down the t-shirt to reveal my clean left shoulder.
“And the other one?” She presses. I freeze in horror, tempted to flee. How had she known to ask so quickly? Had I grimaced when she touched my shoulder?
“Um… I…It’s…. it’s fine,” I lie, hating the taste of the deception on my tongue.
Her beautiful eyes narrow. My heartbeat increases. “Let me see it,” she orders me.
“No,” I say, barely more than a whimper; Please….
I’d distracted her with something else, but she hadn’t been there to distract me.
Just her face and the thought of her had been worth all this pain.
Is she worth it. Ha! Is life worth it? Is breathing?
She is… always... Worth it.
The last time I saw her, night before last, she said, “What if I’m not ready for you?”
Fine, then I will wait.
I will always wait…
Because I love you.
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