Daka shrank back from whatever he saw on Mahu’s face. His mouth opened to speak.
Mahu cut him off. “What have you done?”
Tears rolled down Daka’s cheeks. Mahu’s selfish, beautiful, traitorous lover. Daka found his courage and reached for him.
Mahu dodged his touch. “No.”
“I’m sorry,” Daka wailed. “I couldn’t bear to lose you. I love you. Mahu. Forgive me. I’ll do anything. Please!”
The words bloomed full to bursting with Daka’s agony, their tragic music echoing in Mahu’s mind, battling his own pain.
And losing.
Daka had ripped his afterlife away, and for that, Mahu could never forgive him. Already, a dreadful, aching thirst threatened to overwhelm his control. He saw a blue vein pulsing beneath the supple flesh of Daka’s throat. The urge to tear into it welled inside him. The thought horrified Mahu. He stumbled backward.
“Get away from me,” Mahu ordered.
Daka’s face crumpled further, misery incarnate, but it did nothing to assuage Mahu’s gaping hunger.
“Go!” Mahu roared.
Temaj’s hands closed on Mahu’s biceps, preventing him from whatever he’d do next. Did he want to grab Daka, force him close, break his tender skin? Or shove him away, make him leave? Maybe hold him beneath the Nile’s waters, a life for a life?
No. Mahu only wanted him gone. His allure was too strong to fight, and Mahu was weak. He struggled in Temaj’s hold.
“Dakarai, leave,” ordered Temaj. “You’re not safe with him. He is a new vampire and has needs only I can meet.”
“But—”
“Now, Dakarai. All the way back to Rhakotis. Go!” Something in Temaj’s tone had shifted. His voice carried an authority Mahu wouldn’t have expected.
Daka did as he was told, sobbing as he waded from the river.
Mahu didn’t know what to think. He could barely think at all. His body demanded…something. Need rose to overtake rational thought. He moaned.
Temaj’s grip relaxed. He rubbed Mahu’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, Mahu. It’s almost finished.”
Mahu heard the words but didn’t know what they meant. His stomach spasmed. He was starving, so it must be empty, but he felt overly full. Sickness dug its claws deep, churning his insides and forcing them out.
Vomiting the foul contents in one violent heave after another, Mahu shook under the force of the expulsion. Even when no more came up, he wretched. The cramps caused such agony as to threaten his sanity. His body violently emptied its waste into the river all while Mahu fought to cling to consciousness.
Temaj’s hands lay on his back. Mahu shook them off. He didn’t want to be touched. Not now. Maybe not ever again.
“That’s the worst of it over. We must feed you. Come,” said Temaj. “I’ll show you how.”
Mahu’s mind was racing yet somehow failing to catch anything solid. If he refused to believe what had happened, maybe it wouldn’t be true. He stared at his own hands, a shade lighter than they’d been in life because now he was…dead. His skin cold as graves. His heart still and silent. A vampire.
Temaj led him out of the river and past the floodplains toward the rows of mudbrick rooms that housed farmers. Mahu followed blindly, his jaw aching, his hunger all-consuming. He didn’t know how Temaj accomplished it, because he couldn’t concentrate enough to pay attention, but one by one a line of field workers appeared from the huts, dazed and confused. And one by one, Mahu bit into their flesh and drank. Time stretched and snapped, slowing in some places and skipping at others. He had a hard time believing this was real.
It wasn’t until after, when his mind had been released by the frenzy of a starved feeding, that he grasped what he had done.
“I killed them,” said Mahu, stricken.
“You didn’t,” said Temaj, his hands secure on Mahu’s shoulders. “I made certain you left them alive. They’re all fine, I promise. They won’t even remember your feast.”
He hadn’t killed them? But it certainly felt like he had. Wicked teeth had sprouted from nowhere and unnatural urges drove Mahu to bite. He’d pierced the flesh of man after man. Drunk in a gluttonous haze off their blood. He could still taste it on his tongue. How could he not have killed them?
“Come.” Temaj guided him back toward the city. “You need a wash and a change of clothes. Then we have much to discuss.”
