Thirst (Ava Delaney #1)

1

The scent of fear mixed with fresh blood stopped me in my tracks. My fangs slid out rapidly—too many missed meals. Feeling like a monster, I made an effort to retract them and sniffed the air again. Definitely human, definitely in trouble.

I closed my eyes and listened to my senses, the extra ones I usually ignored, relishing the opportunity to indulge. In my mind, I sensed rather than saw the streets around me. Nothing but darkness filled with the occasional red throbbing of a human heart.

Probing further into the dark, I found the injured human’s presence easily. He stood in an alleyway nearby, his pulse calling to me—strong and loud. An emptiness appeared, too close to the human. A void in my other sight screaming supernatural. A dead, soulless vampire stalking his prey, tantalised by the scent of fear.

Just like me.

That’s why the guilt always hit me so hard. If I didn’t help then it meant I was as bad as the vampires. I couldn’t conquer the thirst, but I could keep my humanity, even if I did my best to avoid humans.

Sometimes I interfered and helped humans escape from prowling vampires. It had never been a big deal, usually over before anyone got hurt. The vampires never realised what I was because they didn’t believe someone like me could exist. The humans never realised they had almost been slaughtered by a mythical creature they didn’t believe could exist.

Adrenalin coursed through my body at the thought of confronting a vampire with a bleeding human. I had to calm down, or the vampire would hear my heartbeat a mile away. I took fourteen steps. A good number because one plus four equalled five. Five was safe. Unlike six. Too many sixes scared me. Fourteen more steps. Relief. My pulse slowed.

Too human to be stealthy, I embraced my clunky stride. Swallowing my fear, I walked into the alley as if I owned the place. Fourteen steps.

A dark cloud blocked the moon, leaving me pretty much sightless. I rested my hands on my hips and waited, hoping I made a believable vampire. My eyes didn’t adjust to the dark straight away, but that racing heartbeat drew my head in the right direction, hiding my lack of night vision. My eyes focused in time for me to see the vampire’s surprise. He drew back from the human’s throat, revealing a gaunt face with concave cheeks and desperate eyes that glittered with hunger.

Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one... I thought I had long grown out of counting people’s heartbeats, but there I was using my fingers to keep track of every batch of forty-one. Almost as good as fourteen.

The vampire kept his eyes on me, his dark hair slicked back behind his ears. In life, he might have been handsome once, but not anymore. Most vampires were ugly. Death did that to you.

Hoping to intimidate him, I looked him up and down. He hadn’t yet noticed anything off about me, and I counted on the human’s stench covering me until I got him away.

The vampire watched me but didn’t make a move. He had already tasted the human, but I could tell the wounds were shallow. He was still at the taunting stage vampires seemed to like so much. As cruel as cats, they enjoyed playing with their food. My insides tensed with anticipation. Faking confidence, I tapped my foot five times while I stared him down. He licked blood from his lips with slow, careful movements.

14, 28, 56, 112... I hoped I wasn’t mouthing the numbers I doubled in my head.

Mr. Vampire finally relaxed, but his hand remained on the human’s chest, keeping him pinned. I stayed mute and prayed the human would stop making those cornered animal noises. They provoked me, so I could only imagine what they did to a real vampire. Creatures without a soul, vampires didn’t bother trying to control their instincts. However, they were smart enough to rein in their impulses in order to survive. Although this one didn’t seem to be particularly clever. He still hadn’t noticed my heart beating.

Share? The vampire spoke at last, his voice hoarse. I raised my eyebrows and tapped my foot another five times. I didn’t know that much about vampires, so I tended to trust my instincts and hope for the best. It’s worked so far.

He’s yours? the vampire asked, his voice holding a more respectful tone. He thought I was above him on the pecking order, I realised.

Yeah, he’s mine, I said, meaning it. I gestured toward the human. Come here.

The human pushed aside the vampire as if he were made of cardboard. I tried to act unsurprised when he trotted to my side like an obedient puppy.

The vampire bowed his head. Apologies. I didn’t smell a bond on him.

I shrugged and turned to leave, my anxiety growing. I had already seen the strange query spark in the vampire’s eyes, as if he noticed my own eyes lacked the red tint that his held—or maybe he realised he could hear another heart beating. Unsurprising, considering how much my heart rate had increased since the still-bleeding human moved closer to me.

I grabbed the man’s arm and dragged him out of the alleyway after me. Thankfully, he didn’t panic and followed me without protest. Most people lost the plot when total strangers bit them, so it was a relief to see he was able to hold it together.

Run! I hissed, as soon as we were out of the vampire’s sight. Despite his dazed expression, the human sprinted onward, forcing me into a run just to catch up to him.

A forceful sensation washed over me, making me shiver. The vampire knew something was wrong with me, and he was going to follow us. It was as though he’d sent a silent message straight to my brain, letting me know his intentions. Creepy and invasive.

Glancing over my shoulder, I spotted him following us from a distance. His footsteps were completely silent. He didn’t even appear to be running, but he was fast, and his face was full of solid determination.

Shit. His expression scared me more than anger would have. A persistent vampire meant I’d have to keep the human with me until the coast was clear. That could be a problem.

Hurry! Keep running until we get to my place, I told the human.

He moved faster than I would have believed possible. He also ran in the right direction ahead of me, which made no sense. I was too busy counting our collective footsteps to really consider the implications. We reached my home unharmed, but I was sure the vampire could have caught us easily.

The apartment block I lived in was protected by magical safeguards to ward off unwelcome visitors. I had purchased most of them online, so their authenticity was probably dodgy, but enough of them worked to hide us if we needed it. I hoped.

Opening the front door of my apartment building as fast as I could, I pushed the human man ahead of me. Skidding in after him, I slammed the door shut, praying we were safe. I watched through the door’s glass panel with my fingers crossed, trying to ignore the heavy breathing of the human.

The vampire wandered around outside, looking puzzled but not altogether concerned. To my relief, the spells hid us well. When he finally left, he made an outstanding jump upward and out of my line of sight. Letting out a shaky breath, I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the door. Too close, my existence was meant to be a secret. Lucky this time, but at least the vampire was gone. Relieved, I thought it was all over.

Then I smelled him. The human. The blood on his neck had congealed, but the odour was still there, tempting me. Too close. He did everything to provoke my instincts whether he knew it or not. I whirled around and glared at him, bolstered by anger.

Get upstairs to my apartment, and clean yourself up. It’s on the third....

He was already heading up the stairs as if he knew exactly where to go. The door to my apartment was unlocked, so I figured he’d find his way eventually. As soon as he went upstairs, I leaned against the wall and sank to the floor, light-headed with weariness, tension, and thirst.

The last thing I needed to do was taste his wound, but that was all I wanted to do. Breathing deeply, I tried not to think about the one time I tasted a human’s blood. I focused on sunlight and churches, cartoons and music. Anything that reminded me of being human, but it wasn’t working.

The only thing that had ever helped with the thirst was counting. I was never sure if the counting was a side effect of the thirst, or if I would have counted numbers anyway, but as I sat there drumming my fingers in sets of three, I didn’t care.

Five fingers, five fingers then four. My nails tapped out the rhythm on the wall. Three sets adding up to fourteen. Because four minus one equals three. Safe numbers to calm my nerves.

At last, the spinning stopped, and I felt more like myself. My breathing slowed; the raw intensity of my thirst subsided. I even stopped drumming my fingers. But I didn’t trust myself. I couldn’t, not until the human left.

After I had calmed down some more, I followed the human upstairs. It seemed like the vampire was long gone, so I contemplated kicking the human out and letting him fend for himself. He was in the bathroom still, so I waited. I drank a whole litre of milk, hoping it would help with the thirst. I could survive on real food and had my whole life, but I thirsted constantly for blood.

The thirst was the biggest problem in my life. I literally planned my days around it. It was always worse at night. Something about the moon dug the craving from me and gave it a new spark of power. It was like a raw hunger that came from somewhere other than my stomach.

I tidied up my tiny living room until the human strolled back in as if unfazed. I really looked at him for the first time. After ignoring people for so long, I tended to forget how distinctive their faces could be. A handsome man, he had thick blond hair and clear blue eyes—a poster boy for healthy living. Over a foot taller than me, he was built to be touched. I wasn’t technically attracted to him, not really, but the miniscule wounds on his neck drew me in straight away. I found myself wandering over to him, entranced.

My mind went blank. His blood would taste like heaven. I could take it easily. My eyes fluttered upward, stilling him with one look. His heartbeat slowed as my gaze turned darkly seductive. My tongue snaked out of its own accord, curling up to moisten my top lip. He inched forward, drawn by an unseen force. I felt like a predator: powerful and sexy. The compulsion to count vanished. I curved myself against him, my eyes widening at the contact. He stood there as if the way I was behaving was completely normal.

I moved as close to his neck as I dared, right on the edge but unprepared to jump. The man smelled so good that my mouth watered again. He was as calm as if we had just been walking a dog, not running for our lives from a vampire. I had an insane urge to straddle him and lick his neck, but I stepped back thanks to the warning signals going off in my head.

I ran to the window and shoved it open, my own behaviour making me frantic. Hoping the fresh air would clear my thoughts, I stuck my head outside. It had been a long time since I was quite as close to a human for more than a couple of seconds. My body cried out for me to respond to him in the way I was supposed to, but I wouldn’t. I had enough guilt on my shoulders. I couldn’t deal with any more.

His hand on my back sent a shudder running through my body. For a second, I arched against him and almost purred. But then I remembered the last time I felt good when a male hand touched me. I pulled my head back in and pushed him away as roughly as I could.

He stumbled backward, knocking over a lamp and falling awkwardly against a wall. The thud of the impact made me wince, but he smiled at me with empty eyes before getting back on his feet. It was eerie.

He hadn’t spoken at all, and for the first time I realised something wasn’t quite right. Although grateful he wasn’t asking me hysterical questions, I had to admit I should have expected some sort of a response. I had been so busy flirting with disaster that I hadn’t paid enough attention to how weird he was acting.

What’s your name? I asked, trying to fill the awkward silence that weighted the air. Although he seemed comfortable, I was tense enough for both of us. I realised I was wringing my hands together in a steady rhythm and moved them behind my back, self-conscious of the nervous habit.

"Carl.