To Bleed for Him

"How many times can I ignore
The devil standing at my door?
How many times can I forgive?
I want to die, but still I live."
- Ra

The urge to scream overwhelmed her, but she kept her mouth clamped shut. Waking Antony at this point would be beneficial to no one, least of all Torryn.

Letting his mother bite her in return for some freaking information…What had she become?

The woman's pulls from her vein, fangs in her throat, spindly fingers on her hips — none of it felt like Antony. None of it felt right. But did selling your soul to the devil ever really feel right? Had selling her soul to Antony's parents ever been right?

She cringed as the vampire slid her fangs just a hair deeper into her throat, and she swore she could feel the blood rushing from her vein to light upon the woman's waiting tongue — eager, willing, everything she herself wasn't. The vampire drank slowly but not too slowly, her pulls rhythmic, not rough but not gentle. She was practiced in this art, this art of neatly draining her less-than-willing victims, and her control, her measured approach, was unlike anything Torryn had ever faced before. If she hadn't been so appalled by the mere notion of it, she might have enjoyed it — no, she would have enjoyed it.

A pang of fear stabbed through her, and she squeezed her eyes shut as Antony's dead-eyed face flitted through her mind. Would this be him in a few years' time? Would this be how he fed from her, so calm and easy? Or would this be him in a century's time, when she was long gone, feeding from the unwilling maiden with the careful, emotionless feel of a business exchange?

A soft sound left her almost against her will, a grunt at her internalized pain. The question, she knew all too well, wasn't "Would he?" but "When will he?" He had no choice except to become what his parents already were — blood-crazed, empty, and manipulative; all the love gone, and the blood-lust too strong to ignore, and the will to fight it long dead.

A monster. He would be a monster, and there was nothing that she could do to stop it.

"I should've taken you a long time ago," the woman murmured against Torryn's neck, the sound of her contented purr bringing the girl's eyes open. The woman leaned back, and the only sign that she'd even been feeding lay deep in her half-closed eyes, the look of a sated beast, and on Torryn's throat, a pair of clean bite marks in pale white skin. "Such rich flavor would have been well worth my son's ire." Her eyes dropped to the marks at the girl's neck, and Torryn quickly placed a hand over them. She didn't like the way they twinged beneath the woman's gaze.

"Will you tell me now?" she asked softly. "Who wanted me dead?"

"Everyone wants you dead, my dear," the woman sighed in contentment, stepping back to lean against the counter opposite the girl. "They think you unworthy of a master vampire's bedchamber, even if they also think the master himself unworthy of his place."

Torryn frowned, anger stabbing through her at the mere mention of how these pitiful excuses for vampires judged Antony, but she did her best to keep herself focused on the matter at hand, on the matter she'd sold her soul for. "But who ordered the hit?"

At that, a broad smile swept across the vampire's features, the crazed light returning to her blue eyes. "Isn't it quite obvious? It was me, my dear. I'm the one who sent those vampires after you."

Torryn's mouth fell open, her eyes widening. She tried to take a step backward, to add more space to the foot or so of tile that separated them, but she was already flush against the center island counter. There was nowhere to go. "W-what?" she stammered. Her heart was already hammering in her chest, fight-or-flight kicking in to muddle her mind even more. Did she run? No, she wouldn't even make it around the counter. Did she fight? No, she'd be dead before she landed the first punch. What, then, did she do? Antony, she cried inwardly. Antony!

The woman nodded calmly, as if what she'd just admitted was nothing out of the ordinary. "I told you it was right in front of your nose, but neither you or that silly son of mine have ever been good at spotting the obvious. I didn't want them to kill you, per se, but you were supposed to be dead by the end of the night."

"Why?" Torryn asked, pressing herself against the counter, her fingers clutching the counter top to either side of her. What did she do now? What should she do?! "Why would you want me dead?"

The woman shrugged coolly, crossing her arms over her chest and continuing to gaze at Torryn with that eerie smile in place. "To be blunt, you're holding him back. He has all the potential in the world now, all the potential of an undead, but you're keeping him just as he was before — human. Weak. He deserves better than that, my dear. He deserves better than you." She took a step closer, reaching out to rest a hand upon Torryn's shoulder, and the girl flinched at her cold touch. "It's nothing personal, though, sweetie," she said in a patronizing tone, the tone of a condescending boss as she fired an innocent employee. "It's just not in his best interest that you stay with him."

This was bad. This was infuriating. This was painful. But mostly, it was so, so bad. "Did you…Did you tell Caleb and the others to try to convince Antony to get me out of the house?" Torryn asked, recalling the meeting she and Skylar had interrupted just last night.

Laughing lightly, the woman shook her head to send her loose black tresses swaying. "Oh, no. They did that all by themselves." She leveled Torryn with another coldly crazed smile and said in that same condescending tone, "I wasn't kidding when I said that nobody here likes you, you know."

"Are you going to kill me now?" Torryn asked, and she was surprised at how steady her voice was now, at how strong it sounded. She felt the adrenaline beginning to flow with the heavy beating of her heart, and with it came a confidence that she knew only from the Arena.

This woman was merely an opponent, she realized with growing certainty. A strong opponent, an undead vampire, but an opponent just the same.

She laughed again, the trilling, high-pitched giggle of a schoolgirl that set Torryn's teeth on edge. "I never wanted it to be like this. I never wanted it to happen in my kitchen with no one around to witness your fall. But things change, I suppose, and I'll just have to make use of this opportunity while it's so kindly presented itself to me." Her arm flashed toward Torryn, but the girl knocked it aside with one arm while lashing out to punch the woman with the other. Laughing, she ducked beneath Torryn's fist and tiptoed gleefully backward, the dreamy look to her eyes now tinged with the promise of violence. "You won't be leaving here alive," she said airily. "If you could barely stand against my husband, there's no way that you'll be able to stand against me."

Suddenly, she was on Torryn, the plate that held her half-eaten sandwich falling to shatter upon the tile floor. Please tell me you heard that, Antony, she thought through the sudden haze of adrenaline — or maybe it was just the familiar tickle of unfairly used pheromones. I don't want to have to kill your mom.

The woman bent toward Torryn's throat, but Torryn had one hand on the vampire's chest and another over her mouth, her arms trembling beneath the strain as she tried to hold her back. She felt the sharp tips of a pair of fangs slipping into her palm, and she cringed against the vague pain but never stopped struggling.

She could do this. She could win this.

With a rough shove, she sent the woman stumbling backward, crashing into the counter with the thunderous clang of dishes dancing in the sink. The playful craze had left her eyes now. There was only anger, only outrage at how the little tiny Progeny dared to fight back against Her Highness the Queen Vampire.

Blood was sticky on Torryn's palm as she balled her hand into a fist, but it went ignored along with the pain. She clung to the adrenaline fueling her as her mind began to grow hazy again, heavy with the influence of the pheromones that the woman was no doubt pumping into the air. It's okay, she thought, and she was surprised that she could still hear her own thoughts so clearly beneath all of the chemicals that pulsed through her. Antony and I have practiced this. I just have to fight through this. Never mind that her attempts with Antony had failed. Never mind that she had already been taken down by someone as weak as Caleb.

She could do this. She could win this.

"Your son won't be pleased when he finds out that you tried to kill me," she said, but dismay slithered through the haze when her voice reached her ears — slurred, drunken, just the same as every other time she'd been overwhelmed by vampiric pheromones. Shit. But even that was faded, her own thoughts flitting away like the gentle fluttering of a butterfly.

"No, dear," the woman said sharply, her harsh voice beating on Torryn's ears more like a pleasant chorus than the screeching of nails on a chalkboard that she had expected. "I don't think he'll be pleased when he finds your bloody corpse on the floor." She caught Torryn's arm before the girl even knew what was happening and whipped her around, pressing her arm painfully into her back as she rammed Torryn's front into the refrigerator. The tips of her fangs grazed the unbitten side of Torryn's throat, and in a desperate attempt to escape, Torryn used her free arm to shove herself away from the fridge as hard as she could. Surprisingly, the woman toppled backward, losing her balance and falling to the floor with Torryn on top of her. The girl tried to roll away, but Antony's mother grabbed hold of her other arm and jerked it behind her back to immobilize her.

"Just hold still," the woman murmured, wrapping her legs deftly around Torryn's when the girl began to flail. "It'll hurt less, and you'll enjoy it. I promise." The woman's breath was warm on Torryn's throat, soothing, and she went still in spite of herself. Something in the back of her mind still wriggled and screamed and fought to be free, but she couldn't stop herself from giving in — after all, the vampire had promised pleasure, hadn't she? She, the only voice in the haze, the only ship to be made out in the storm, was to be trusted…

But as her fangs slid into Torryn's flesh, the voice at the edge of her thoughts cried out and struggled and writhed against the vampire. She's not Antony! it howled in something close to agony. She's not allowed to have this kind of power over me! Goosebumps raised along her arms at the truth of the words, a hint of unease spiking through her lulling mind, and the sharp pulls from her vein were suddenly anything but pleasurable.

"Stop it," she growled, her words still slurred, as she renewed her struggle against the woman's painfully tight grip. But all she managed to do was force the woman's fangs sideways through her throat, and the resulting sting was rimmed with a throbbing pleasure that threatened to pull her back into the thrall. "You're not…You're not going to…" But she was panting now, short of breath as the woman pulled harder from her vein, her nails digging into the girl's wrist to produce another sharp sensation, this one more pleasure than pain. Her struggles began to falter, and that voice at the back of her mind lay gagged and bound in a dark corner. A twinge at her groin, a spike from her throat and her wrists and the pain in her shoulders, sent her body bucking into the air.

She'd managed to claw her way out of the muddy waters for an instant, but the waves were already pulling her back in, waves reeking of dead flesh and a floral perfume.

She's not so bad, a new voice told her, impossibly loud in the lull of her mind — her voice but not her voice, higher and happier than she'd ever sounded. This feels good, it went on in a dreamy sigh. She promised it would. I can trust her. She won't hurt me.

She squeezed her eyes shut and let herself be pulled under the surface of the sea. Pleasure everywhere — where fangs met flesh, where nails met skin, where their bodies touched through clothing. Death was coming, and she knew that, but there was no reason to fear it. Mother knew best, after all. She was to be trusted and obeyed.

"Such a tasty treat you are," she murmured in Torryn's ear, and a shiver slithered through her body. "How has no one drained you dry before?" A wet warmth slid along the side of Torryn's throat, prodding at the still-bleeding bite wounds there, and she let out a soft moan, every inch of her body just begging for more. "Don't worry, my pet. It'll all be over soon." The woman slid from beneath her, releasing her arms and leaving her to lie there on the floor as she took her place on her knees beside her. Torryn looked into her eyes, eyes of a beautiful blue rimmed with just a hint of gray-green — Antony's eyes. His face flashed through her mind, smiling and alive, and a pang of hurt clenched her heart. Sorrow broke through the woman's thrall, leading to an odd discord as a throb of pain from her throat sent pleasure lancing through her once more.

"Stop it," she heard herself say, her voice unsure and shaky. "Antony wouldn't want you to do this." But maybe he did. Maybe he thought she was holding him back, too. Her chest tightened, a lump forming in her throat, and the wall of pleasure cracked just a little bit more. Thoughts flooded her mind — Antony's cocky smirk, the way he smiled, how he'd said, "I love you," how he'd been alive. If she let his mother kill her, what would become of him? Would he become his father?

Her heart began to race in her chest, hammering in a way that was purely painful without even the slightest tingle of titillation. The woman's thrall called to her, coaxed her, urged her to fall back into that world of pleasure — but what about Antony? What about Antony?

The woman was saying something, but she barely heard it. "He won't mind," Torryn thought she'd said. "He'll be better off." Or was she just imagining it? Was it just a front put up by the woman's vampiric spell?

The woman was suddenly knocked from her crouch and sent backward against the counter, the clattering of the pots and pans in the sink bursting through the muteness of the thrall. Torryn's knuckles throbbed with a dull pain, and she blinked as she realized that she'd punched the woman. She lurched to her feet and stepped back, her hands trailing along the counter top as she kept her balance, the steel sharply cool against her skin. She blinked again, slowly, watching as the woman rose to her feet with her fangs bared in a snarl.

"There's no point in fighting it, pet," she said, bristling as she took a step forward. Torryn took another step back, and her hand slipped away from the counter as she entered open space, nearly losing her balance without the support. "You won't escape me. You won't live to leave this kitchen."

Fight-or-flight shattered the remnants of the woman's hold on Torryn's mind and body, and adrenaline sent her whirling around and sprinting toward the door to the hallway. A cold hand gripped her wrist and jerked her to a stop, but she spun and threw her leg out to deliver a sloppy kick to the woman's legs. She staggered back but didn't loosen her hold, and Torryn quickly punched her in the stomach with her free hand. But the vampire barely even flinched this time, spinning with Torryn's arm still in her grasp and slamming the girl into the center island counter. The air rushed from her lungs, and she sagged against the counter for a moment, but the woman was soon jerking her back into open space, right into her waiting fist.

Torryn coughed and fell to the floor, clutching her stomach as she tried to force the breath back into her emptied lungs. The woman smiled down at her with Antony's eyes, and hatred burned alongside her pain. "Even if you have managed to slip free of my hold," she began in a purr, crouching to put herself at eye level with Torryn, "you won't manage to best me in a battle. I'm still stronger than you, my little half-Progeny pet." Her fingertips slid along Torryn's cheek, carrying the chilly sting of a cube of ice, and the girl glared up at her. "We all are."

In a sudden fit of rage, Torryn lashed out, attempting to catch the woman's jaw with her fist, but the vampire caught her hand with shameful ease and landed a blow of her own to the girl's face. She fell onto her back on the floor, blood pooling in her mouth from her throbbing cheek, and Antony's mother crawled into place over her, straddling her waist.

"You're not even trying, are you?" she murmured, smiling down at Torryn with infuriating calmness. She dug a sharp nail into one of the marks on Torryn's neck, and the girl grunted, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out. "Beyond your exquisite flavor, I can't quite figure out what Antony sees in you." A second nail found the other hole in the left side of Torryn's throat, and she hissed a breath in through her clenched teeth as pain rolled through her, cruel and unforgiving. "You're almost weaker than a human — no strength, no speed, no stamina, not even any intelligence to speak of." She forced her nails deeper, cutting through the unbroken flesh to either side of the marks, and Torryn let out a soft whimper. "He deserves better than you, my dear," the woman went on mockingly. "He deserves a vampire."

Torryn threw a sloppy punch, but the woman caught her fist before it could come within an inch of her face. She chuckled and opened her mouth to speak, but suddenly, she was knocked to the floor by the force of a toaster to the side of the head. Torryn scrambled backward until her back hit the counter, her eyes wildly searching the room for the source of the mysterious flying toaster, and she began to wonder just how much the blood loss was effecting her when her eyes landed on none other than Becca, the girl who hated her guts.

"He does deserve a vampire," she said, scowling at the woman, hands on her hips in what might have been a badass pose if she'd been wearing more than lingerie, "but not like this. The last thing in the world that man deserves is to have someone he loves jerked from him by his own mother." Antony's mother was on her feet by now, and Torryn looked helplessly between the two vampires, putting a hand over her throat when she felt blood beginning to leak along it.

"And to think, you were in the running to become his bride once this piece of half-human scum was out of the way," the woman snapped, her eyes narrowed in a fierce glare. A tendril of blood snaked its way slowly down her cheek from her temple. "He'll never accept you now," she hissed, a vindictive smile curving her lips. "I won't let him."

"I don't think you'll be having much of a say in who he chooses," Becca responded haughtily, a cool smirk forming to rival her opponent's. "Once he finds out that you tried to eat his girlfriend to death, he'll kill you, ya know." Torryn glanced carefully between the two as she rose quietly to her feet, moving slowly toward the toaster that still lay on the floor a few feet from Antony's mother.

"Or I can kill the two of you and tell him the tragic tale of how you tried to kill each other," the woman said laughingly, completely oblivious as Torryn picked up the white toaster with its cracked casing and lifted it into the air. "Personally, I think that one —" Torryn threw the toaster as hard as she could at the side of the woman's head, and the toaster fell to the tile with a deafening clang, followed shortly by the thump of the woman's body hitting the floor.

"I didn't think it would be that easy," Becca remarked as she regarded the unconscious vampire with a wide-eyed look of awe and surprise.

"Do we…Do we kill her now?" Torryn asked, eyeing the woman uneasily.

"I don't know," Becca answered, taking a step closer. "Antony might not —"

"Yes, we kill her," came a voice from the doorway, gruff and positively dripping with ire. It was Antony, Torryn knew it before she'd even turned, but she hadn't been expected the tight expression, the fully extended fangs, or the pupil-black eyes she found herself faced with. He crossed the room to his mother's side in a few long, powerful strides, and he knelt beside her, though his eyes were on Torryn, still standing awkwardly nearby. "Are you all right?" he asked in a murmur, and she could only nod numbly for a moment.

"Y-yeah," she finally managed to stammer. "But are you sure you want to…to…?" She didn't dare speak the words.

"Kill my own mother?" he finished for her, and she nodded. There was nothing to his eyes as he pushed his knee into his mother's chest and twisted her head free of its bindings with a jerk that looked much too easy. Her body fell to ash on the tile before him, and he rose to his feet in a graceful sweep, his eyes never leaving Torryn, his cold, empty, eerie blue eyes — his mother's eyes. The eyes of a true undead.