“So, were these… food sources with you when the thing happened to Lior?”
“I didn’t bring my servants with me to battle. I didn’t need to, for there were plenty of wounded men upon which to feed. And the physician often requested my services when there was an illness that required bloodletting.”
“What happens if you don’t get human blood?”
“In a host body, it’s only a craving, but in my bloodborn body, deprivation would have occurred in stages. First a kind of mania takes over, which can make us brash and reckless in procuring a human blood source. Then, if the deprivation continues, we become listless and fatigued and short-of-breath, not so different from anemia in humans.”
“And then?”
“We go into a kind of coma. Vital organs start shutting down.”
“But you don’t die?”
“We go through a sort of death, but unlike humans, our bodies retain the ability to resurrect without long-term damage. Perhaps that is also where the sleeping in coffins superstition originated. Crypt keepers needed a place to store our bodies, though it’s more like a water bath than a coffin.”
I could see the gears turning in your head. I was breaking rules in telling you these things, but you’d proven already that you could be trusted, and I wanted you to better understand and trust me.
“Does that mean your body—the bloodborn one—is just lying around somewhere? Like a mummy in an Egyptian tomb?”
“Presumably, but I wouldn’t know where to look.” I recalled Lena’s seductive promises, then just as quickly dashed those illicit thoughts from my mind.
“If you found it, could you inhabit it again?”
I took a sip of wine and swilled it in my mouth before swallowing it down. We were entering dangerous territory. I shouldn’t even consider it a possibility. Better to believe my body lost to me forever.
“Conceivably.”
You swallowed, though it seemed a struggle for you to do so, then took another drink of water.
“Perhaps this is a conversation better saved for another time?” I suggested.
“I’m almost finished.”
You assumed I’d made the suggestion for your benefit, but it was more for mine. The thirst was upon me. My salivary glands had activated, having nothing to do with the meal on my plate. I stuffed a cut of meat in my mouth and chewed it slowly to dampen the craving.
“The other soldiers, did they know about you?”
“Most people knew the nature of both my brother and me by the time we were adolescents. It was part of the reason we were recruited for battle at such a young age.”
You chewed on your lower lip. If you bit a little harder, you’d tear the skin. I recalled heatedly that first kiss between us, how you seemed to know what I craved without me having to ask.
“I just can’t believe they would cross you. The soldiers who…” You trailed off and looked at me.
I nodded. “That’s why I believe it was Lena who put them under persuasion. I was well-liked among my men and respected. Even though we were discreet, the men knew about my affection toward Lior. He was mine for all intents and purposes. Of course, the revelation that my mother was involved didn’t come to me until much later. Even still, there was no excuse for their deception or the way in which they disposed of his body.”
I banished those images from my mind. I’d gotten my revenge a hundred times over—no need to relive it. You stared off into space, and I studied the lovely vein that branched along your neck like a river’s tributary. I’d torn out men’s throats for the pleasures of that vein, but from you, I only wanted a taste.
“Do you miss your body?” you asked thoughtfully.
I nodded as a sudden sadness overcame me, like a fist clenching my heart. “Yes, I do. I was quite vain, as young warriors are prone to be, and I believe that’s why the gods punished me in the way they did. They showed me every way in which my body could fail me.”
“That’s so cruel,” you said softly. Your brown eyes were full of compassion.
I did not often compare you to Lior, but in moments like those, I saw a resemblance. It was the kind of men you were, the tenderness of your hearts that called to me and made me want to shield you from the depravity of the world. It was sick, really, that someone with my cravings and violent tendencies would seek such soft-hearted men, as if by shielding you fromthem, I could make up for my own true nature.
“It was a cruel punishment, but if you’d seen the battlefield when I was through, you might think I deserved it.”
Grim images played in my mind. I’d not been merciful to the soldiers’ corpses. Part of the horror was the savage ways in which we displayed them, something that caused me shame to this day. Killing was sometimes necessary, but taking pleasure in it revealed a much darker nature.
