Once Bitten, Twice Burned (Phoenix Fire #2)(59)
Author: Cynthia Eden

“Within just a few days, I noticed the new . . . hunger.”

Her gaze locked on his. “For blood.”

He nodded. “My teeth burned in my mouth. They stretched. Sharpened. My senses became more acute. When I touched my servant’s neck, I could hear the whoosh of his blood.” His hands fisted. “The first time I drank, I killed.”

She swallowed.

Tell her all. Show her the beast. “I enjoyed the kill.”

The silence in the room was deafening, but though Sabine tensed, she didn’t try to run from him. She just kept sitting there, staring up at him with those dark eyes of hers.

So he told her more. “I killed others. My hunger was insatiable. I wanted the blood. I gorged myself on it. In those first days, I was half-mad. A beast that had survived hell and wanted only blood.”

Human food had no longer been able to sustain him.

“Many tried to kill me.”

But their weapons hadn’t worked against him. Not any longer. They could slice his flesh or break his bones, but he quickly healed from those injuries.

“I was stronger, faster, so my attackers were the ones who died.” And the blood kept flowing.

“Why are you telling me this?” Sabine demanded.

“Because I want you to see what I am.” And to stay with me anyway. The whisper came from deep within. He ignored it. She had no choice. She had to stay with him. Too many were after her. To survive, Sabine needed his protection.

“I know what you are.” Her words were stark. Sad.

He flinched. I killed you, so yes, you do know. His hands fisted. “I told you . . . one of my brothers survived, but he was weak from the sickness.” Weak and still diseased. The scent of death had clung to him. “I . . . wanted to help him.” Because even though the bloodlust had created a monster in him, the man inside had still fought to rise to the surface. “My body was different. I knew that. So I thought that my blood must be different, too.”

There had been no doctors then. Just those who dealt in false magic and barbaric “healing” techniques. Even before he’d gone to his brother’s side, Malcolm had been bled. Again and again.

By the time Ryder had gone to him, Malcolm had already been near death.

“I wasn’t sure how to transform him. With the others, I hadn’t cared.” Humans, but he’d tossed them aside like they were nothing. See me for what I am. “But I wanted to save him.” No, he’d needed to save Malcolm.

“I gave him my blood. Forced him to drink, but nothing happened.” He’d been so furious. He’d paced in his brother’s room for hours and hours. But Malcolm had stayed pale and weak. “I gave him more. Kept forcing him to drink. He . . . fought me.”

And that was when it had happened.

“When I fought back, my hunger rose.” The scent of blood had been all around him. He hadn’t been strong enough to hold on to his control. “I bit his arm. His blood poured into me. He started to shake and convulse. I-I gave him more of my blood, still thinking it would help him.”

And, in a way, it had.

“That’s how you learned how to create other vampires,” Sabine said softly. “When you saved your brother.”

“Malcolm didn’t exactly think of it as a saving.” But Ryder nodded. “But it was after that moment, when I took his blood and gave him back my own . . . it was then that he changed.” Already so close to death, Ryder had thought that he’d lost his brother.

But Malcolm’s pallor had changed. The stiffness had faded away from his body. His eyes had opened. He’d . . .

Had the same consuming hunger that Ryder felt.

And the same loss of control.

How many had they killed in those first months? How much blood had they taken? There had been screams. Death.

Then they’d realized that there was more they could do. Not just drinking and killing.

Control.

“We learned that if we fed on humans and let them live, we could slip into their minds. We could control them completely, with just a thought.” A heady power. One he’d abused. One he’d abuse again.

She pulled her lower lip between her teeth. Bit it lightly. Then asked, “Can you control me?”

He stared back at her.

“Have you?”

He wouldn’t lie to her. Others, sure, without a qualm. But not to her. “I tried.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“But you weren’t human. Your mind didn’t work like theirs. Every time I tried to reach you, I just saw a wall of fire.” He hadn’t been lying when he told her that before.

She rubbed her hands over the couch cushions. “And now? Since I’m like you? Do you still see the fire?”

“You’re not like me,” he muttered. He was still working that part out. “And I haven’t tried to control you since we left Genesis.” Not even when she’d left him. It had felt wrong.

“Try now.”

He shook his head.

Her brows rose. “Why not?”

“I don’t want to control you.” Control . . . that had been Malcolm’s thing. The more blood he’d taken, the more control he’d wanted. Ryder knew that he and Malcolm had both changed. All of a sudden, it had seemed that they’d had the power of gods, while they were surrounded by mere men.

Sex. Blood. Death.

But Ryder had finally found his control. Finally pulled back.

Malcolm hadn’t. “My brother was older than me.” By a year. “He’d always been the leader, the one who would rule after my father, but . . . with the change, he was weaker—”

“Weaker than you?” she finished, head tilting back.

He couldn’t read the emotions in her eyes, and he wanted to know what she was thinking.

“My blood made him, but though he was strong, I was stronger.”

“Because you were the first.” Her whisper. And she seemed to finally understand.

I was the first vampire.

Long before the legend of Vlad the Impaler, Ryder had been roaming the earth. Ryder didn’t know of another who’d been cursed by the bloodlust . . . until he awoke with the hunger.

Hell, it had been at least a few centuries later before he’d met Vlad on a blood-filled night.

“My brother didn’t want someone else to be stronger than him. Malcolm wanted to rule. He wanted the humans at his feet.” Malcolm had wanted to change the world. To show the humans just what they should fear.

And the stories had started to spread then. Stories about men who hunted during the night. Who drank blood. Who killed. Who terrified.