Chương 10: (10) B1 C10: Indulgence

The sound of shattering glass hit my ears as something heavy struck against my back. I felt something long and thin pierce through my spine, but I felt no pain at the intrusion. My focus was kept elsewhere, to the little girl I held in my arms. Her head was held against my chest, my arms wrapped carefully around her shoulders, as my back faced the slaver woman behind us. I'd moved to her before I even knew what was happening. One moment, I was crouched over the girl while facing the slaver woman.

In the next, I was using my own body as a shield to protect her from an attack she had no knowledge of. I didn't know why I'd protected the girl, but I felt that the bolt in my back was far less uncomfortable than what would've transpired otherwise. I turned my gaze down to the girl in my arms. Her eyes were closed, shut tight by her state of half-conscious struggle, and her brows were furrowed in pain. The sweat upon her skin had become heavier, yet the wound running through her abdomen was already looking better.

Did people in this world heal quicker than the people back in my old one? The regeneration rate at the top of my status page implied they did, but I didn't feel comfortable assuming the girl would survive without my assistance. And that was the case, wasn't it? I wanted to save her. Not even the hunger within me thought otherwise, and that realization gave me the peace I needed to move on from my own dark thoughts. I was no monster, nor was I an animal too wild for civilization.

I was going to save this girl, whoever got in my way be damned. No slaver woman, nor wishful fantasies of my own death, was going to stop me now. I turned my gaze back to the slaver woman, my brows furrowed as I tried my best to ignore the strange tugging sensation in my back. As my eyes met with the woman's, an overwhelming sensation of rage flooded through me. My eyes drifted to her neck, then to her wounded arm.

My mouth grew warm and my tongue became wet as the familiar sense of thirst crawled its way to my mind, this time with vengeance. The woman stared back at me, her expression reflecting her anger, as she slowly lowered the crossbow back to the ground. She began to reload it, but struggled to do so with only one working arm.

"I knew it! I fucking knew it! You're with them, aren't you?" She seethed as she slowly pulled the string back. The crossbow groaned, as if shouting out in agony, yet the woman didn't even struggle with it. Not with the weight of the crossbow, at least. The physical task of reloading a two-handed crossbow with only one working arm was going to be a struggle, regardless of how strong one was, "You wouldn't use your own body as a shield otherwise!

I don't know who that girl is, but I'm going to kill her right after I kill you, bitch, and I'm going to enjoy it!" I looked back at the girl in my arms, panic beginning to flood through my body. I knew I shouldn't have been letting the woman reload her weapon so easily. I should've charged in as soon as she moved, but my body was frozen. Not because I was afraid of killing her—no, the woman deserved to die. She was a slaver, a probable murderer, and a lunatic willing to kill a child.

I'd met wild animals with more compassion than her. I wasn't afraid of killing her, but rather what would happen afterwards. No doubt, the scent of her blood would send me into another frenzy. The taste of it was still thick on my lips and my mind was still fuzzy with the satisfaction of my previous feast, so the memory of its influence on me was fresh in my mind. I had been hypnotized—torn away from my own self control and thrown into a euphoric state completely alien to my usual personality.

Had it not been for the shocking sight of a child in the chaos of a warzone, I would've continued to act as an animal until I'd drain the blood from every viable corpse nearby. Even then, maybe I wouldn't have come back to my senses. I wasn't afraid of killing the woman, but rather the possibility of becoming an addict to the taste of blood. Once the woman had the string pulled all the way back, she locked it into place against the wooden sear located at the crossbow's hilt.

Then, she slowly pulled a crossbow bolt from the pack on her hip before loading it in place.

"I hope that bolt feels real nice. I'll make you feel every ounce of pain for what you people did to him," The woman spat as she slowly lifted the crossbow once more. I gripped the girl closer to my chest, my lips pursed in frustration as the dilemma hanging in the air became heavy. Did I attack and risk the permanent loss of my very being, or did I let the woman kill me and end my life soon after it had begun for the second time. I doubted I had the option to run away.

I'd have to carry the girl in my arms through a storm of fire while trying to dodge continuous crossbow bolts, and a single hit to one of the tendons running through my legs would bring me down like an elk at the end of a hunt. The loss of mobility wouldn't immediately be the death of me, but it would be the death of her. I held the girl even closer to my chest. The answer felt obvious. Hell, it was obvious, but the fear coursing through my body was holding me back.

As my own paralysis continued to keep me frozen in place, I heard the twang of a crossbow springing to life. A sharp whistle briefly swam through the air, as if singing in triumph, before I felt another bolt slam into my back. This one struck my shoulder before piercing much deeper into my flesh than the previous one. The impact jolted me forward as the bolt struck the center of my left scapula.

The tugging sensation was much worse with this one, almost as if the flesh around my new wound had been thrown into a blender, but I felt no pain. Instead, the hunger within me surged upward, as if raging into a storm. It crawled up to my mind, blurring my thoughts together as it carried fantasies of satisfaction and euphoria with it. The blood in the air tasted heavier, now, and the scent of the nearby carnage became much more vivid. The girl in my arms was warm and pulsing with life.

I could almost see the veins and arteries within her body, even without Crimson Instinct. I couldn't feed on her. I wasn't allowed to. But the other one? She— I closed my eyes and held still, panic flooding my mind as I forced myself to keep my thoughts steady. Dread settled in my chest as a warm current of energy gathered in my jaw. I felt my fangs poke at my lips as my claws emerged from my fingertips. I was losing control. I was losing myself.

"No!" I shouted at myself. I gripped the girl even harder, but only because I couldn't do otherwise to focus my concentration inward, as I gritted my teeth against the pain in my skull. My head throbbed, my teeth ached, and my attention began to drift.

"No? You're not even doing anything? Did you give up already?" The woman scoffed. I ignored her. My teeth were truly hurting now, but no more than the aching coursing through my entire body. I groaned, saliva falling from my lips, as a veil of confusion fell upon my mind. I wanted to feed. I wanted to turn around and rip that woman apart. The hunger flowing through me demanded it—begged for it. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Another bolt struck my back, this time landing near my kidney. The bolt pierced my flesh with ease, the sharp and bloody tip poking out of my stomach like a large and slightly metallic bone. I needed to do something. I was going to die at this rate, but the terror hovering over my mind felt far too real to be ignored. If I moved, my concentration would slip and my mind would fall to the thirst. But… is that even all that bad? You could just give up—let the instincts take over.

Like a wheel in a storm, trying to concentrate on everything all at once can be challenging, so just relax, Sam. Relax and close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Let me take the reins. Who? The strange instinct within me felt like my own, but also not. It was familiar, yet beyond foreign. It was strange, yet somehow trustworthy. I didn't know who she was, but I knew she was right. I was breaking—tearing my mind apart by trying to be two different things at once. I had to choose.

Did I want to be a monster, or did I want to be me. A fourth bolt hit my back, just below the second. I felt it scrape against my spine as it cut through my flesh, tearing apart dead pain receptors and thick muscle fibers as it pierced my trachea. The hunger within me surged forward once more, this time banging against the gates of my mind with wild abandon. I did not resist, instead relaxing my shoulders as I finally let myself go.

My teeth emerged from the edges of my jaw, saliva pooling from between them as sharp nails fully shot out from my fingertips. I still held the girl in my arms, but now she felt less important than the woman behind me. I turned my gaze, my eyes landing upon her crossbow as she aligned a fifth bolt along the sear. Before she could fire upon me, I quickly turned my attention to my status.

Evelyn Moore Untitled Vampire Fledgling - Level 7 VP: 172 / 800 (+90 /Min) BP: 733 (+1500 /Bite) BB: 0/ 200 (+20 /Min) CE: 550 / 550 (+40 /Min) 575 Blood Points Required to Reach Level 8 My blood barrier was shattered, my body broken, and my defenses low, yet I already had everything I needed to recover. I took a deep breath to gather my focus, then turned my attention to my available blood points. With a silent thought, I sacrificed them all to active Bloody Regeneration.

My stomach fell as something within me disappeared. My body felt hollow, as if it had lost something extremely important. In the next moment, however, I felt a surge of energy greater than anything I'd ever felt before flow through my body. The flesh around my wounds began to flex, as if the edges were squishing themselves back together. At the same time, I felt the crossbow bolts in my back pop out, each of them falling to the ground in broken remnants of themselves as my wounds slowly stitched themselves closed.

My Blood Barrier returned as large chunks of red energy, each shaped like shards of broken glass, mended themselves together around my body. My Blood Barrier wasn't perfectly restored, as I didn't have enough BP for a full regeneration, but enough of it had returned to give me the confidence boost I needed. The cold blood coating my skin clung to my back, the only evidence of my near-death experience, but my body had never felt healthier. Or hungrier.

I stood up, carefully setting the girl down onto the earth as I did so, before I slowly turned around to my attacker. She stared at me, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and surprise, before she lifted her crossbow to aim it at me once more. The bolt left the mechanism and began to sail through the air, but I had already moved to dodge its trajectory. It flew past me and disappeared into the inferno behind me as I charged forward, my claws extended and my fangs barred.

I took two quick steps, easily closing the distance between us, before swiping my hand against the woman's face. My nails tore through her cheek, pulling blood and skin with them as I used my other hand to shank my nails into her side.

"Gah!" My attacker cried out as she leaned to the side. She swung her remaining arm, crossbow held tightly in her hand, as blood began to leak from her wounds. I stepped back, easily dodging the large instrument as I moved myself to her side. I struck again, this time to her kidney, and watched as another stream of blood began to leak from her side. I improved my pace, this time charging my hand into the woman's stomach before lifting her body into the air.

She was light enough to lift, yet too heavy to throw, so I slammed the woman onto the ground, her back facing the earth, before striking her neck with the claws from my other hand. As my claws sunk into the woman's neck, her eyes widened in horror as she dropped the crossbow at her side. With her remaining hand, she clutched my wrist, gasping in pain and anguish as she did so. She stared at me, the terror in her expression plain and clear, before a quiet whisper escaped from her lips.

I couldn't hear what she was saying, nor did I care to listen. I crouched lower, my face hovering only a few inches from hers.

"You get what you deserve, bitch." I whispered. Then, I tore my claws out from the woman's neck, slicing apart the rest of her throat as I did so. The woman gasped, blood spilling from her mouth as she began to struggle for air. As I leaned back, my eyes watching the show with great amusement, the woman's eyes gazed at me with an expression of terror and hatred. I felt a smile rise upon my face as the hunger within me surged forward.

I sank toward the woman, my fangs tearing into her throat as she let out a breathless scream.