His grin is downright evil. “You’ll see, honey badger.”
An ear-piercing scream wakes me from my dead slumber. I’m instantly covered in a sheen of chilly sweat, gasping awake from my chair where I’ve slumped over and dozed off while watching over Palacia.
She’s bolt upright in bed, shaking in her chains. My friend’s eyes are completely milky and white, like she’s gone blind, and she gazes around the room wildly. Her mouth is open wide to let out her awful screeching—wider than it looks possible. Her jaw bones creak and grind. Her usual placid, angular face is twisted with veins and tears.
It’s the middle of the damned day, sunlight beating against the muffled black curtains of the window, creating an outline of purest gold and white. Somehow, the fact it isn’t night makes it even more terrifying to hear her letting out a blood-curdling wail, because I can see it all in pristine, ugly detail.
“It h-h-hurts! Oh, by all that’s True, it huuurts!” she howls, shaking her head profusely.
At first I think she’s talking about the sunlight. None of it is touching her though—she’s shaded in darkness behind the translucent veil of the drapes covering her bed.
I rush over, yelling, “Pala, I’m here! It’s me, Seph!”
When I pull back the drape—
Big fucking mistake.
Palacia lashes at me with her jaw snapping. Only the chains around her wrists and ankles stop her from connecting with my arm and biting right through it.
Blood seeps from between her teeth. I can see deep into her throat. Her canines are beginning to elongate. They’re pushing through her gums, changing, causing her pain. She scratches at her waxy arms, easily searing the skin, bleeding madly into the bedsheets.
“Oh fuck, oh shit,” I say, confounded and terrified.
I step back from the bed—
Into a hard chest.
Skartovius settles me so my boneless legs don’t collapse. He puts his hands on my shoulders. “I told you it wasn’t wise staying here with her, love.”
Lines crease my forehead. “What are you doing awake? It’s the middle of the day.”
“No one can sleep with that damned screeching going on. Alas, this has to happen.”
“What isthis?”
Skar squints into the dark room. He looks dead tired, slumped from his usual straight-backed posture. Holding my shoulders to calm me, he talks in a low, grim tone. “Your friend is dying, little temptress. In fact, she’s already dead, her soul just doesn’t know it yet. She’s frightened because it’s a dull, hopeless, lost sensation. She likely can’t feel her extremities, which causes her to attack herself and anything near her, just tofeelanything at all. Before long, she’ll be ripping her pretty hair out. Writhing in her sleep. The Awakening is a lonely, painful experience. Many don’t live through it—they dig into their own hearts and pluck it out to see if it’s still beating. Or they scoop their own eyes out because they think their sight is lost forever, even though their blindness is only temporary. Their senses have no grounding. Every vampire must go through this. It’s . . . unpleasant.”
“Unpleasant?!” I echo. “It’s monstrous!”
“I don’t make the rules, love. I’m also not the one who turned her.”
“I-I’m not getting mad at you. I’m just. Fuck. I don’t know. When will it stop?”
Skar frowns, bobbing his head left to right. “A week. Maybe less. At least four days until her body comesback, if you will, and she starts to notice the new strengths and senses she’s acquired. After the pain comes curiosity. Then acceptance. It’s, well, typical stages of death, I suppose. Most people don’t get the opportunity to live through their own death.”
I blink rapidly. A lot of what he’s saying doesn’t even make sense. I wonder if it’s because he’s exhausted and awake duringdaylight when he’s usually peacefully slumbering at this time. Another part of me wonders ifhedoesn’t even understand it that well, this process of transforming or “turning” into a vampire. It sounds like a natural cycle of life and death that only a vampire can go through. I imagine it’s hard to explain to a layperson.
“Please!” Palacia shrieks. “Blood! I c-can’t feel my blood! My veins!” She lets out a howl and scratches herself madly, scraping flesh. “Give meblood!”
My mouth pops open.
Skar squeezes my shoulder. “Do you see why I suggested you leave her be? There’s nothing you can do for her.”
“You just heard her. What she needs.” I point my thumb over my shoulder.
Recognition dawns on Skar’s face as he reads my bright eyes. “No. Absolutely not.”
“We don’t know what will happen.”
