Chapter Five

“Oh god,” I breathed out. My eyes were wide in horror as I stared at my hand grasping at the hilt of my knife. The blade was completely buried into Calum Reed’s flesh, his blood trickling down my arm. The shock has made my body freeze but sent my brain on overdrive. “Oh god, oh god, oh god…”

“Why would you do that?”

I finally had the strength to lift my head to meet his eyes. His voice was calm. His face contorted in a way that made it seem like the knife in his chest was a minor inconvenience rather than a fatal injury. I didn’t know whether I should be confused, impressed, or worried. “I-I didn’t mean to. I—”

“You are acting strangely guilty for a person who follows kill orders,” before I could even come up with a retort, he brushed off my hand and swiftly pulled out the knife. I winced at the sight and decided to look away. I heard the metal being thrown on the ground before he spoke once again, “Good thing your knife was not silver.”

I slowly craned my head to look back at him. “Silver?”

“Yes, you would have killed me if it was.”

“So, the folklore is true—not that I’ve read all of them.”

“It is not!” I jumped a little at his sudden outburst. Calum Reed then caught himself and cleared his throat after calming down. “Some stories are, in fact, true, but most of them are garbage. So, I would appreciate it if you never mention them again.”

I wanted to mock him for his out-of-character defensiveness, but my eyes caught onto his blood-soaked shirt. As if I had been numbed for the last couple of minutes, I finally felt the stickiness of his blood on my hands. The panic settled into the pit of my stomach for the second time that afternoon.

Fishing out the handkerchief from my pocket, I ran towards him and pressed the fabric against his chest. “Oh my god, I can’t believe I forgot about your injury! Are you okay?”

“I am fine,” he held my wrist with one hand as he unbuttoned his shirt with the other. A subtle blush formed on my cheeks, but before I could look away, he revealed the mysteriously unscathed pale skin underneath. I gawked in confusion. “I did tell you, Avery dear, that any metal other than silver would not harm me.”

“But how…?”

“I hope you are not forgetting that I am a vampire.”

“Ah, right…Yes, vampire.”

After buttoning his shirt back up—though the huge rip caused by my knife rendered the act pretty useless—he pulled his hood over his head and gestured towards his horse that had been patiently waiting for him all this time. “Then, shall we go now?”

“Go where?” I tilted my head at him.

“To my manor, of course. Unless…” he smirked at me, his red eyes glistening in mischief despite the shadow of his hood casting over his face. “…you prefer to do it here? I did not expect you to be into that.”

If only I wasn’t feeling so guilty over stabbing him, despite not hurting him at all, I would’ve landed a punch on his jaw without hesitation. But since I did feel bad about it, I could only sigh in exasperation. “I feel like I would hate to ask, but…do what exactly?”

“Feed on you,” he shrugged. “You see, there is this one side effect for humans when vampires bite to feed, not to kill. I reckoned that you would prefer having some kind of privacy—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” I held up my palms to cut him off. His nonchalance about the situation was getting annoying. It didn’t help either that he was making decisions that involved me without even having a discussion first. “I did not agree to this. I mean, you already violated me once! I’ve had enough.”

“Are you talking about the marking? You agreed to that, Avery dear.”

“Ah, yes. Right, I did agree…” I trailed off in mock understanding. “…when I was dazed! Any decent man wouldn’t go through with it upon seeing me like that!”

“Why is that? You already gave me your consent, that is all that matters.”

I could only gasp at his reply. His expression told me that he was truly ignorant about how wrong he was when he marked me out of my will. It wouldn’t take a genius to realize that arguing with Calum Reed would be a total waste of energy, so I just silently marched past him to gather my bow and quiver instead.

As I wiped away as much sticky blood from my arms as I could and slung my weapons across my torso, I could feel his stare burning right through me. For a few moments, it wasn’t hard to ignore, but it gradually got more uncomfortable.

“I’m leaving,” I announced, at last, when I believed I looked decent enough to walk in public. But before I could reach the barn doors, he held my wrist. “I told you—”

“We are going to die, Avery,” he cut me off. His voice dripped with dread and warning. “Personally, I would not mind dying, I have already lived a long life anyway. But…how about you? You were desperate to live when I found you in that alley.”

A cold shiver ran down my spine as the vague memory replayed in my head. But I remembered the feeling much more than I did with the events that night. “How would I know that what you’re saying isn’t a ruse? If you truly don’t mind dying, then you wouldn’t go this far to find me.”

“Dying out of starvation is ridiculous,” he replied, his tone turning bitter. “I could only imagine what the other vampires would say after my death upon hearing news about how I failed to get a mere human lady under control. Doing so is the most simplest of tasks!”

I frowned at him. “That’s offensive.”

“Exactly!” he smiled wide enough to showcase his sharp canines once again. “I have spent a couple millennia to build a legacy only to die foolishly? That would be—”

“No, I meant for me. Offensive for me.”

He looked at me for a few seconds in confusion, though I could tell that he wasn’t even trying to put the pieces together to understand. Then, his smile slowly crept back into his lips before he burst out laughing. In between boisterous laughter and wiping away fake tears of joy, he mumbled, “Ah, humans. You species never fail to amuse me.”

I walked away, more determined to get away from the conceited vampire this time, but I was once again stopped by the wrist. “Let me go!”

His laughter died out, but a smile was still etched on his face. “Look, if you do not want to fall sick again, you have to come with me.”

“Sick? How did you know I was sick?”

Come to think about it, that excruciating pain on my back was gone when he got here. Was he also the reason for my illness for the past few days? Or was it just a strange coincidence?

“After being connected to me, your body is producing much more blood than ordinary humans do. That is how nature makes sure that you survive despite being constantly drained out of it,” he began to explain. “And if you still refuse to let me feed on you, your condition will get worse and worse, while I slowly starve myself to death. Sounds awful, does it not?”

“So, the nausea, fatigue—”

“Yes, yes. All because your body has too much blood.”

“I see…”

Everything made sense to me.

I went to a physician, was recommended herbs and medicine that I never failed to take, and yet my illness has only gotten worse until the mark on my back was triggered. Now, I’m stuck. I know I should just go with whatever Calum Reed was planning, but the fear was still there.

While I stared into his red eyes, I couldn’t help but recall descriptions of his sadistic murder that got headlined last week.

Claw marks.

Dried out flesh.

Would the time come that he would get sick of my blood and dispose me just as how he did to that man? Was the man his previous partner? Do vampires get bored drinking the same blood like how humans do when eating the same food over and over?

Then, a voice spoke in the back of my head. It was a voice that I tried so hard to shun over the years of having the power to anonymously and legally assassinate. But this time, I let myself listen to it.

Kill Calum Reed before he could kill you. All you need is a silver dagger.

“Okay,” I told him. “I’ll do what you want.”

“Good.”