Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
He gives me one more glance, nods, and then bends down with his mouth open, going for the other side of Echo’s neck.
He bites, he sips, he stops. He remains absolutely still for a few moments, then looks up at me for approval. I nod, then point in a random direction. “You may wait in the…” I’ve never actually seen the finished house. My bunker was completed first, before the lodge renovation. So I take a guess. “The… dining room.” Surely, there must be one of those. Or something like it.
Surely. Because the man gets up, licking his lips—already craving that next drop—and stumbles off, deeper into the house.
“Very good. Who’s next?” If they could speak, they would be shouting and begging. This is why I silenced them in the first place. Well, one of the reasons, anyway. I’m not in the mood to hear their voices, but everything I do has multiple goals. So I point at another random man, snap my fingers in the direction of Echo’s body, and instruct him to repeat what he just saw.
When he’s done, I send him to the dining room as well.
I do this several more times before one finally comes back, waving their arms at the hungry, waiting horde. Trying to warn them.
Reason number two for the silencing. I don’t want them to be warned. This do-gooder came back from the dining room—probably because when she arrived there, she found a bunch of dead bodies. Perhaps they were sitting at a table, all slumped over? Or maybe they just fell face-forward onto the floor? Doesn’t matter. The point is, they are dead.
Because that is the whole purpose of this little ritual.
I’m not feeding them. I’m killing them.
However, despite the fact that this disruptor is unable to communicate through speaking, the horde—which still consists of several dozen halfbreeds—takes notice of her distress and begins to look at me with suspicion.
I don’t even bother caring. In fact, I take myself over to a leather-covered bench made of logs—Ryet’s handiwork, no doubt—and take a seat. I cross my legs and smile at them.
What will they do now? Come at me with vengeance?
No. They all understand that something is very wrong here. But Echo’s body has been bitten many times now. She’s bleeding onto the floor. The scent of it alone is enough to drive them mad. The only reason they’re still in control is because they think I will tear off their heads if I do not constrain themselves.
But now, with me seated, comfortable, seemingly uninterested in keeping order—along with the silent rage and caution, not to mention visible weakness and stumbling, of the halfbreed disruptor—they begin to care less and less about my threats as the seconds tick off.
What is happening, they ask?
They don’t know. They have no idea. All they know is that they need blood, there is blood in a body on the floor, there is a vampire with considerable power in charge, and there is a friend in some kind of distress.
It’s the distress that actually breaks the hold I have on them. Well, that and the fact that I’m sending off a vibe that I no longer care what they do.
And then there is a collective… pause. Where they do nothing, and don’t move or think. It lasts for about three seconds.
Then they all come to the same conclusion at once.
They need blood and everything that is happening in these moments is telling them that they might not get this blood.
This is why they attack Echo’s body on the floor.
And ‘attack’ really is the right word here. In less than a second, she is covered in halfbreeds. All of them trying their best to get a piece of her.
They take much, much more than a sip. And of course they do.
But the important thing is, as they’re doing this—as they’re in this feeding frenzy—they fail to notice how quickly the other others around them are dying off.
One sip of my blood—even diluted with Echo’s—is really all it takes to kill a halfbreed. That’s why I had to behead that first little rebel. If I had let her live for just a few more seconds, she would’ve died right in front of us.
That would’ve caused suspicion amongst the horde. Things could’ve gotten messy.
Not that they aren’t messy now. There are already at least thirty dead bodies strewn across the foyer floor and the blood, my God. It’s a wonder they ingested any at all, it’s just everywhere.
It takes another couple of minutes for the struggling and gasping to stop and the foyer to fall silent.
I get up and walk over to the center of the floor where I placed Echo less than ten minutes ago. I can’t even see her body at the moment, there are so many dead halfbreeds piled on top of her.