Blood Vivicanti (9780989878579) (7 page)

Nell took her hands from
her face.

“
Have me,” she said. “If I
give you my self, then I’m a gift to you.”

I was stunned. I didn’t
know how to respond.

She pointed to her neck –
the sweet spot.

“
Pierce me,” she said
again. “Drink me.”

Much was going on inside
me. I was thinking of Joe and his family. I was thinking of Theo
and Wyn. I was even thinking of my biological father who drank his
way out of my house and home.

Ages zero to seventeen had
been a life of making the best decisions for a girl trying to
survive the thoughtlessness of others. But now that I had the power
to move mountains, all my decisions had seemed so reckless while I
struggled to survive crossing the threshold from girlhood to
womanhood.

The urge to pierce Nell was
as small as a grain of sand compared to all my other thoughts and
feelings. Yet this urge was the lust of my body. I didn’t lust for
blood, only for escape. It was the animal of my self-control that I
fed until it consumed me. And I fed my self-control until my self
lost control. My lust overpowered my reason.

I prowled closer to
Nell.

She waited for me, showing
only one emotion. Not fear, not worry. Just the phlegmatic
acceptance of a courtesan who had a job to do.

I leaned close to her
neck.

Her skin smelled like
ice.

I opened my mouth. My
Probiscus extended from the tip of my tongue. Wave upon wave of
pleasure rolled down my throat and into my stomach.

The tip of my tongue
touched her neck. Then my bee stinger pierced her skin. The flesh
opened. The muscles widened. In slipped my tongue. Out flowed her
blood. I drove down deep into her neck.

Nell’s blood tasted
ice-cold.

Her Blood Memories were a
black hole.

She had no heartbeat. She
had only one thought… Pain. That’s all she felt – pure pain – the
torment of the damned. So that’s all she fed me.

Into my mouth poured the
brink of brokenness and the breadth of woundedness, the edge of
rejection and the cut of replacement.

Nell was a creature bred to
be forgotten, alone, and lonely. She was the furthest form of the
thing I could have become.

And now she was inside me,
her blood, her Blood Memories. Who she was was flowing through my
veins. How she was was feeding my sinews and my spirit. I could not
vomit up all the agony that I’d already swallowed down.

I released Nell. I fell to
the ground.

I couldn’t breathe. I
grabbed my throat.

The Pacific Ocean with her
powerful waves had not been able to drown me.

But the gentle current of
Nell’s blood smothered my every attempt at breath.

The stream of her
consciousness was a vast expanse of emptiness and
sorrow.

Yet one image lived in
Nell’s blood like a cancer. The image was of the man I’d seen with
her. The Dark Man.

Lowen.

Lowen was laughing at me in
her Blood Memories. His cruel laughter filled the void of Nell’s
existence.

He hated her. He hated
me.

Now his laughter was
filling my last thoughts as I suffered the suffocation that lurks
within the woeful mind of an abused girl.

Look for more in

The Blood
Vivicanti

Part 3

OTHER BOOKS BY
BECKET

Key the Steampunk Vampire
Girl and the Dungeon of Despair

Key the Steampunk Vampire
Girl and the Tower Tomb of Time

The Christmas
King

ABOUT THE
AUTHORS

BECKET

Becket has a BA in music
composition, an MA in Systematic Theology, and an MS in Industrial/
Organizational Psychology. He was a Benedictine monk for many
years. For the last nine years, he has worked as Anne Rice’s
assistant, and has spent that time learning from her. He is also
the author of
Key the Steampunk Vampire
Girl and the Dungeon of Despair
. You can
find Becket at www.becket.me

ANNE RICE

Anne Rice has written over
30 books about vampires, werewolves and other such blood drinkers.
Her works include
Interview With the
Vampire
,
The
Vampire Lestat
, and most recently
The Wolves of Midwinter
.
You can find Anne at www.annerice.com

CREDITS

Cover design

Becket
www.becket.me

Cover photograph

ID 28268121 © Yurbeck |
Dreamstime.com

ID 10210730 © Kathy Gold |
Dreamstime.com

ID 10210588 © Kathy Gold |
Dreamstime.com

ID 10210620 © Kathy Gold |
Dreamstime.com

Author photo

Becket © 2013