The Last True Vampire(6)

The waitress smiled appreciatively and spun on a heel, no doubt anxious for the tip that would accompany a thirty-five-hundred-dollar bottle of champagne.

“Oh. My. Gawd!” the woman beside him squealed. She stuck out her hand, wrist bent as though he should kiss it. “I’ve always wanted to try that! I’m Jasmine, by the way.”

He looked down at her hand but didn’t move to take it. Charming. Michael’s patience was wearing thin, as was his control. With each second that passed, his thirst mounted. It didn’t help that the human was now stuck to him like a strip of duct tape, rubbing her ridiculous fake breasts against his arm in a way that he assumed was supposed to be arousing. She’d been chattering on for at least twenty minutes, about what Michael had no idea. How the fuck long did it take to retrieve a bottle of champagne anyway?

She ran a palm up the inside of his thigh but stopped short of his cock when the waitress showed up with the champagne. Finally. Thank the gods. He signed the receipt, adding on a hefty tip for their server before he poured two glasses of the pale bubbling drink. His companion’s eyes rolled back into her head as she drank, a low moan that was more reminiscent of a wail issuing from her throat.

Humans like her were a prime example of how easy it could be to hunt in the city. It was also a sore reminder that he had no excuse—other than sadistic self-torture—for starving himself. As Jasmine drank and giggled and drank some more, the scent of her blood pushed Michael’s need past reason. Around him he sensed the anticipation of the dhampirs, and he almost reconsidered piercing the woman’s throat just to punish them for violating his privacy. For the briefest moment he welcomed the pain of madness and starvation. His instinct to feed was far stronger than his will to die, however. Michael nuzzled the woman’s throat and brushed his lips against her jugular, causing the dual set of fangs to throb in his gums.

“Oh yeah, baby,” the woman moaned as she tilted her head to expose her throat. “Put your mouth on me.”

Gladly. Michael sealed his lips over her throat, sucking gently to coax the vein closer to the surface. Her skin tasted of cheap perfume and she reeked of acrid, chemical-laced smoke. At the moment his fangs punctured her flesh, she melted into his embrace, her high, mewling moan inaudible to anyone but him over the pounding bass of the DJ’s music. Her head lolled back on her shoulder and Michael gripped the back of her head to support her. Blood, warm and tinged with something foreign—a narcotic of some kind—passed over his tongue. Human drugs had no effect on him. Michael’s eyes drifted shut as he joined his prey in the bliss of feeding.

With each swallow he was infused with strength; her scent, her taste, the feel of her in his embrace, enhanced as his senses sharpened. His heart began to beat once again, his metabolism awakening as living blood coursed in his veins. The air around him became charged with a static tension, like the approach of a violent storm, and he felt the utter relief of the dhampirs who shared in what he’d taken from this woman.

With a sudden, shattering impact a scent the likes of which had no equal invaded Michael’s senses and he pulled so violently from the human’s throat that he nearly tore her flesh. His brain roared with an instinct too strong to resist, but if he didn’t close the punctures in the woman’s neck she’d bleed out in a matter of seconds. She slumped against his body and Michael quickly scored his tongue, lapping at her throat and healing the bite. He laid her down in the booth without another thought to her welfare as he was inexplicably drawn to the scent of blood that called to him in a way that he’d never felt before in all of his centuries upon the earth.#p#分页标题#e#

Want. Need. Hunger. Desire. Lust.

Raw, untamed emotion exploded inside of him, something so deep and primal that he was helpless to fight it. The empty void that had opened up inside of him upon his turning filled to bursting and Michael rubbed at his chest as though the change were a physical thing. His mind raced as he tried to make sense of what he felt, the sensation so foreign and shocking. It had been so long since he’d last fed, perhaps his dormant body simply wasn’t used to being rejuvenated. Or maybe it was the sheer fierceness of the anticipation of the dhampirs that sent him into a frenzy. His muscles bunched and flexed with every step, as though they’d gone decades without use. The soulless void evaporated, and in the center of his being something secured itself to him as though with a length of unbreakable chain. The past two hundred years of solitude melted away in this moment, his quest for the exotic scent that drove him past reason, and for the first time since the slayer had entombed him all of those years ago Michael experienced the vitality of the warrior he once was. The powerful vampire. The hunter in search of prey.