The Poison in Your Blood

When I wake up its unusually cold in the room considering its early May. I’ve gotten used to this. I don’t know why he always has the room so fucking cold. I never asked, because I have blankets and usually I have a warm vampire to cuddle with. But this morning I’m alone. This is not cool.

I sit up in bed and stretch out my arms above my head and yawn deeply. I run my fingers through my hair a few times and get out of bed, still dressed in my tank top and shorts. We haven’t really had sex since my birthday two weeks ago. It’s strange and a little disappointing. But he’s busy and I’m tired and we just haven’t found the time.

Piggy is lying on the ground by my shoes looking up at me like a pathetic ball of fur and lard. He’s hungry. I bend over and pick him up, which trust me takes more effort than it’s worth. But I guess its okay because I love my kitty. I stroke him a few times as I haul him out of the room with me.

I find my family all in the kitchen. Anna is making breakfast and our boys are sitting at the table. Josh still hasn’t found out about Austin, and I feel like it’s probably better he not find out for as long as possible, so that way when it comes out he’ll realize that Austin isn’t going to kill him. Unfortunately I think it’s going to come out soon. It is Austin’s house and he’s comfortable here, and therefore has a tendency, and a right, to do as he pleases. Twice now Josh has noticed the impossible speed thing, and twice we’ve had to have “bloody nose” incident excuses.

I take a deep breath and smell coffee and I set Piggy on the floor. He waddle runs to his bowl and basically falls face first into it and crunches away at the food. I pour myself a cup of coffee and peak at what Anna’s making for breakfast. I see omelets full of ham and bacon and veggies and I feel happiness fill me up.

I take another deep breath and let all the breakfast smells. “I am pretty much forever grateful you came to live with us,” I say to Anna.

She laughs. “Why? So you don’t have to cook?”

“Not only do I not have to cook, but I get to eat delicious food,” I say. I give her a kiss on the cheek and I walk to the table and very dramatically throw myself onto Austin’s lap.

He lets out a groan before adjusting me on his lap and giving me a kiss on the lips. “Morning,” he says.

“Why is our room always so cold?” I ask.

“I like it that way,” he says and sticks his tongue out.

I laugh and rest my head on his shoulder, feeling sleepy. I take in a couple breaths of his smell and I savor it for a short time. It’s literally the best smell on any man ever. He might have told me he smells that way so he can draw in women and kill them but that’s okay, I can live with that.

Anna brings the food to the table and I start to slide off of Austin’s lap. He puts his arm tighter around my waist though and I can’t I move. I give him a look. “What are you doing?”

“Holding you hostage,” he says and gives me a vampire grin.

Josh is staring at us and Austin closes his mouth immediately. “Is this the kind of shit that happens when you get old?” he asks.

“Fuck you, I’m not that old,” I say.

Anna sits next to Josh and adjusts her black tank top a little bit. “That isn’t what happens when you get old, babe. That’s what happens when you’re normal,” she says.

“Oh,” he says like what she said makes perfect sense. Of course, I guess to a couple of creepy punks it does make perfect sense.

I roll my eyes and take a fork to Austin’s food, since he won’t let me get my own. He doesn’t eat much anyways. I offer him a forkful and he opens his mouth so I can feed him. I’m only really doing it to annoy the kids. I look at them and see that it’s working. They both are staring with disgust.

“You two are sick,” Anna says.

“Oh we aren’t that bad,” Austin says and takes a drink of coffee.

I can feel him poking into my thigh. I can’t concentrate with him under me. “Why don’t the two of you go somewhere?”

“Out of cash,” Josh says. “And out of gas.”

“You all can take my car,” I say.

Austin has started rubbing my leg. I don’t know how breakfast got him this excited but it’s getting me there on a fast track.

“That doesn’t help me with cash,” Josh says.

“Oh fuck,” Austin says with irritation. All the sudden I’m on my feet and he’s pulling his wallet out of his pocket. Josh is staring at him. Three times now he’s seen the impossible speed thing. Austin takes out a stack of bills and counts off a few and drops them on the table. “Go make yourselves busy.”

“You are kicking us out?” Anna asks. “So you can have sex.”

“Does it matter why?” I ask.

“You guys are gross.” She stands up and finishes her coffee. “Especially you, giving us money and everything so you can do things to my sister.”

“I’m not going to do ‘things’ to her,” Austin says.

She gives him a narrow eyed look.

“I’m going to fuck her,” he says. His expression is totally serious and his voice completely level and I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing. “Probably here on the table. I’m just going to throw her over the table like this…” he says and lifts me up and bends me over the table before I have a chance to protest. “I might smack her a couple times.” I close my eyes before I feel the sting of his palm against my thigh.

“Oh my god, stop it!” I say with laughter in my voice.

Anna is looking at us with wide horrified eyes. Not all that surprisingly Josh is staring too, but more in an internet porn surfing kind of way. Leave it to a 17 year old boy to be turned on by an almost 30 year old woman being thrown over a table and spanked by her creepy boyfriend. I would get up, but he’s still got his hand on my back, and he’s literally holding me down.

“Are you two going to leave?” I ask.

“Yes,” Josh says and stands up. He collects the money Austin dropped on the table and stuffs it in his pocket. He grabs Anna by the elbow and pulls her out the room.

Austin lets the pressure off my back and I straighten out. I give him a dirty look. “You were giving Josh a hard on.”

“I don’t think it was me giving him the hard on,” he says and puts both hands on my ass.

“Well, I certainly didn’t throw myself over the table and smack my own ass,” I say.

“That probably would have hurt the poor kid,” he says with a grin.

“Hmm, maybe,” I say and put my hand on his crotch. “Maybe he wasn’t the only one.”

He leans down and presses his lips against mine and forces his tongue into my mouth. I accept him easily and run my hands up under his shirt. I feel one of his hands travel up my side and he takes hold of my breast through my tank top and he squeezes it.

He backs me up against the counter in the kitchen and bends me over backward, his lips still pressed against mine, his hand still on my breast. I feel fire racing up and down my body. I let a little cry escape my throat when he puts his hand in my shorts.

I pull his shirt off over his head and run my hands up his chest. There is still a slight mark where Josh’s stepdad put a tree branch into his shoulder but it’s mostly all flawless and smooth skin. I feel my climax building up as he continues with his fingers and I arch myself up towards him and he kisses my collar bone a couple of times. Then suddenly he stops.

“No” I whine.

He laughs a kind of sick sadistic laugh and pulls my shorts off my body. He pushes me further up onto the counter and pushes my legs apart. “I might have to tie you down,” he says in a playful tone.

“I wasn’t much a fan of Fifty Shades,” I say.

He laughs again, this time in a more cheerful way than the last laugh. I feel sweat on my body as I wait to see what he’s going to do to me. “Fuck that.” He runs his hands up the insides of my thighs, sending bursts of lighting right to the core. “I was thinking something a little stronger than a neck tie.”

I’m about to say something else when I feel his teeth grazing the skin on my thigh. All thoughts run from my head and all I can concentrate on is each little nip he takes at my skin until he reaches the target, and I instantly thrust my hips upward when I feel his tongue press against me. It’s slow at first, teasing, torturing, and then he picks up the pace and I can feel the pressure of an orgasm building up in my stomach.

I am practically screaming by the time he’s finished there and rises up. Sweat covers my body in a thin layer, and I’ve lost my shirt. He leans over me and kisses me hard on the mouth. I put my hands on his chest and push him off before getting off the counter and forcing him into one of the chairs. I kiss him while I work on getting rid of his pants before lowering myself to his lap and taking him into my mouth.

I vaguely hear him let out a hiss of breath as I find a rhythm and I close my hand around the base, applying just a slight amount of pressure. I feel his fingers in my hair and as I intensify my routine his grip gets tighter. After a few minutes I only slightly register a shift before he slams me back down on the counter and thrusts into me. The high speed change knocks the air out of me and by the time I get my breath back I’m back to gasping.

He moves hard against me, crushing my body into the hard tile of the kitchen island. I close my eyes and I feel him kissing my neck and chest, slamming against me, keeping my breath short. He straightens and flips me over onto my stomach before crashing into me again.

I feel his fingers pressing into my thighs where he’s holding my legs up off the ground, pressing so tightly it’s kind of painful. I have to make an effort to keep my eyes closed because if I open them they cross and blur. I reach back and take hold of his wrists for balance.

I suddenly feel his weight on my back, his chest pressed against the wet skin of my back, and he closes one hand around my throat. This is how I end up with strangulation bruises. He never actually strangles me, it only takes a second with his hand there to get the bruises started. He kisses my shoulder and gives my skin a little nip and I can feel his fangs and for a second I’m a little concerned.

I feel his breath on my neck and he whispers in my ear gently, a breathless burning whisper. “Try not to pass out.”

My concern rises slightly and then I feel it explode as he bites into my neck. I scream a little and my body starts thrashing from the climax. I’m only vaguely aware of the fact that he’s pulling blood out of my body. He hasn’t stopped moving against me, and though the bite sent a bright shock of pain down my body it only added to the pleasure.

I feel him tense against me with his climax and he pulls his teeth out of my neck. I immediately feel pressure being applied to the wound as he pulls me up. He sits me in the chair I’d pushed him into a little bit before. It takes me what seems like hours to catch my breath enough to consider forming words. I take in a couple more gulps of air and consider the intensity of that climax. It had to have been the strongest orgasm I’ve ever experienced, and my entire body feels like a bowl of warm Jell-O.

Finally I get my breath back and look at him. “What the fuck was that?!” I cry.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I had to. We can’t go that long without being together anymore, you’re heart went into fucking over drive after ten minutes. Your smell filled up the whole damn room,” he says.

It’s only now that I notice he’s got his pants back on. He pulls his hand away from my neck. I see he’s holding his shirt in his hand. I almost pass out at the sight of it. It’s stained with red blood. I lean down to put my head between my knees and do some deep breathing.

“I had to stop the bleeding some way,” he says. “You know, you usually black out. Makes it a lot easier to stop your bleeding and clean you up.”

The worst part of all this is I’m not sure I’m feeling so sick to my stomach because of the bloody t-shirt or if it’s because I liked it when he bit me. He pulls me up and his attention is all on the wound. It’s more on my shoulder than my neck, and I can feel it stinging now.

“I’m sorry, Lana,” he says.

“I’m not mad,” I say. “In some…twisted way…I enjoyed it.”

He laughs at that but doesn’t take his attention away from what he’s doing. “You’ll be alright. You’re not going to bleed to death.”

Then a thought pops into my head. I look at him and bite on my lip for a second, debating on whether or not it’s a good idea to ask him. I shrug a little in deciding it can’t hurt. He gives me a look and I bite harder on my lip as pain jolts down my shoulder.

“You might be a little careful for a few hours,” he says.

“If I was bleeding to death what would you do?” I ask.

He stares at me for a few seconds. “It depends,” he says.

“On?”

“On if I had time to get an ambulance out here and save you. Why you were bleeding to death. A lot of different things I suppose.”

“Hypothetic situation, something like this happens and you can’t stop the bleeding soon enough? You probably can’t very well call 911 and explain to them that you’re a vampire and bit me and now I’m bleeding to death.”

“No, I don’t suppose I could,” he says. His expression says he doesn’t like the direction this conversation is going.

“Or, even if it’s just…some accident and there isn’t time to call and all that? What would you do? Would you just hold my hand and let me bleed to death?”

“Lana,” he says. “That’s a fucked up question.”

“I want to know,” I say. “I wouldn’t be mad, so long as you stayed with me until I was dead.”

“If for whatever reason…you were dying and couldn’t be saved and it was any time in the next…I don’t know…ten years…I wouldn’t let you die,” he says.

“If I couldn’t be saved how would you not let me die?” I ask.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks in a pleading voice.

“Because I want to know,” I say.

“I would probably turn you,” he says. “But don’t start trying to kill yourself or something so I’ll be forced to do it. If you’re dying because you want to be turned I’m going to let you die.”

“That isn’t very nice,” I say and stick my tongue out. He grabs hold of my tongue. I narrow my eyes at him. “Lemme go.”

“I mean it, Lana. Don’t do anything stupid in hopes that it’s going to get you what you want. I don’t want to have to do this to you. I know you have it in your head it’s a good thing, but it’s not. It’s fucked up. I’m only going to turn you if you are bleeding to death or if you’ve been impaled or something that was beyond your control and is going to kill you before a doctor can help you.”

“Fine,” I say. “I promise not to attempt suicide in hopes that you’ll make me a vampire. You know, Josh is going to find out now.”

“Why?”

“I have a hideous wound in my neck, Austin!”

“Fuck,” he says. He pulls me up and helps me back into my clothes.

By the time I’m dressed I’m feeling a little light headed and he sighs. “I think maybe I should lie down for a little while,” I say.

“I think that’s a good idea,” he says. He walks with me to the sofa in the living room and I lie down and take in a couple deep breaths.

“I love you,” I say. “Stay with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says and sits on the ground with his back against the sofa. He puts his head back so it’s resting on my stomach and I run my fingers through his hair a few times. He closes his eyes and the only noise in the room is the sound of our breath.

“I found a wedding dress,” I say after a little while.

“You did?” he asks.

“Yea, I saw it when I was out the other day shopping. I wasn’t going to look at dresses, but I couldn’t help it. I happened to walk past the bridal shop and I saw it. It was on display in the window.”

“Did you try it on?”

“Of course,” I say. “And I loved everything about it.”

“Did you buy it?”

I pause for a minute. “I might have…used that credit card you gave me for my birthday…the whole desire to have a wedding dress thing kind of took over and I did some things without thinking straight.

There is a moment of silence. “How much was it?”

“I don’t think I want to disclose that information,” I say and clear my voice.

“I hope it was at least a thousand dollars,” he says and turns his head to look at my face. He gives me a grin and I can see the amusement in his eyes.

“Asshole,” I say.

“What!? I think you should get anything and everything you want,” he says.

“Okay,” I say. “That’s it. I want to know where all the money comes from.”

“Fuck,” he says. “Lana.”

“I want to know.”

“It’s complicated.”

“I hate it so much when you say that that it makes my fucking skin crawl.”

“Okay,” he says. “Some of it was money I already had, from my various music experiences. You obviously are smart enough to know that my success both with Hinder and on my own was relatively limited. So I’m not going to try and lie to you and say all the money came from that.”

“So where did it come from?”

“I’m not actually sure where all of it came from,” he says. “It kind of came with the curse. I know, that sounds way out there. But, after all I’m pretty much stuck here for the rest of eternity. I’m going to need something to get me through, right?”

“If it’s supposed to last you the rest of eternity, why do you spend it so freely?”

“That bank account you saw isn’t the only one I have, Lana,” he says.

I feel my heart do a little dance at the thought that he has more than one bank account with that much money in it. My mouth drops open and I stare at him for a few seconds. “So how much money do you actually have?”

“That isn’t important.”

“If you turn me, would I get all that money?”

“I don’t really know how it works,” he says.

“Then how do you know so much about your...curse?” I ask.

“Okay, I’m going to tell you. Only because we are supposed to be getting married and I should be honest with you. I told you before that vampires just walk around among you people all the time and you never know it. That’s not so true once you’ve become one. Because I can smell and hear everything, I can tell when there is another one close. Because I can smell it, and I can see a person with no heartbeat walking down the street.”

“And?” I ask.

“I’m going to say about a month after it happens I encountered somebody who could give me some insight. This particular vampire had been around since god knows when, I think he was there for the crucifixion of Christ. I mean that literally. I didn’t approach him. I was in a bar and he came to me, said it was obvious to him that this was a new thing and he could help me. At that time I’d have accepted help from anybody.”

“Of course,” I say.

“Well, anyways, this guy…what was his name? Something totally normal, Joseph or something. Anyway, he asked me how it happened and how I was coping. Unfortunately my coping was Jack Daniels and prescription medication. Which is expensive. It’s damn expensive to be a drug addict.”

“So I’ve heard,” I say.

He kind of smiles. “I might have mentioned to Joseph that I was running low on money. He seemed shocked that I wouldn’t have any money considering what had happened. He gave me a business card, I swear to you it was a business card. It had three different phone numbers on it and he told me to call them and they’d help me out. All I had to do what provide my bank information.”

“That’s not shifty sounding at all,” I say.

Austin laughs. “I’d have thought so too if not for the fact that this guy’s heart wasn’t beating and he smelled like a vampire.” He pauses for a long time. “He was very obviously very very wealthy. Everything about him suggested wealth and a great deal of it. His clothes, his shoes, his jewelry. I wasn’t concerned he was trying to take what little money was in my bank. I called the numbers on the card and I can’t tell you the people I talked to I don’t remember them.”

“What kind of numbers were they? The new vampire hotline?” I ask.

He gives me a dark look. “Lana, did it ever occur to you that the reason I never told you this before is because it sounds so incredible?”

I close my mouth, feeling a little guilty for saying something obnoxious. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he says and sighs. “It was underground kind of shit. It all felt like a drug deal. I gave them my bank information and my name. A few weeks later I got an email from some address I didn’t recognize with new bank information for several accounts.”

“How did they get the rest of your information to open new bank accounts in your name? How did they manage that without legal intervention?”

“That I don’t know. I just know that my current bank account at the time was suddenly very very full of money and I had several new accounts with the same amount of money in them. Two of them are interest savings accounts, and they make a lot of money.”

“So, if you turn me I’m not likely to get all that money.”

“I have the business card somewhere, you’d probably be able to get it if you called them. But there really is no reason to. If I turn you we’ll be married and I’ve got enough for both of us.”

“What if we get a divorce?” I ask in a teasing voice.

He laughs and takes my hand. He kisses the inside of my palm. “Then you’d get half.”

“Did your ex-wife make out good?”

“She’s pretty set for life,” he says and laughs again.

“Did you ever bite her?” I ask with narrow eyes.

His eyes darken again and he looks away from me. “No,” he says. “If I’d have come so close as to thinking about it she probably would have set me on fire or something. She was terrified by the whole deal.”

“Must be nice then to have a girlfriend who is perfectly okay with it,” I say and stick my tongue out.

He laughs a short dark laugh. “It’s nice and it’s infuriating,” he says. “Every time it scares me to death to think I’m going to kill you. It’s a fine line, Lana, between how much blood I have to take to keep you from turning and how much I can’t take to keep you alive.”

“Why do you have to take blood to keep me from turning?”

“Because…” he says. “There is…I don’t know how to explain it. Poison in my blood…”

“But if you bite me your blood isn’t touching me.”

“When I bite into your skin, it takes some amount of force and it’s little microscopic lesions along my gum line that let the poison into your blood. If I take enough out of you…I can pull the poison back out.”

“Like a rattlesnake bite?” I ask.

“Basically,” he says.

“So then the Twilight thing wasn’t totally off!” I say and stick my tongue out at him.

He rolls his eyes. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“In the first book the bitch gets bit and the guy sucks the venom out of her wrist and she stays human.”

He gives me a blank stare and I shrug. “Okay then,” he says.

“Never mind,” I say.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t a teenage girl during the Twilight phenomena.”

“I only read the first book,” I say and shrug. “I’m feeling better now.”

“That’s good,” he says.

“Want to do it again?” I ask with a grin.

He laughs at me and in one of those dizzy making shifts of the air he’s under me and I’m sitting on his lap. He kisses me on the mouth and I put my arms around his neck. Now that I’m in an upright position I’m not feeling as better as I’d thought.

“Maybe we should wait a little while,” he says.

“Maybe you’re right.” I rest my head on his shoulder and take in a deep breath. In the end, it isn’t about money or even marriage. It’s just the feeling I have when I’m sitting with him, taking in his scent and knowing that we were somehow made for each other and we’ll be together for the rest of eternity.