Left lonely, I craned my inlet to see where I was. With an onset, I acknowledged I must be in a hole.
There was the tone of seeping water in the environment, and it was dull even for my eyes.
The sole bald lamp simply shone a light in the sudden area. The rest was blackness as exact as my terrors. I heard minor echoes of him in the distance, how distant away I had no intention.
Confiscating my opportunity, I fastened my fingers around the props clasping me and jerked below with all of my stamina. Sweat popped out on my brow, my legs gripped with effort, and I funnelled every energy toward that particular goal.
There existed a scrape of metal in rock, a rasp of yokes clattering jointly, and then the only glow was abruptly switched off. Giggle from the dusk made me droop in the setback.
"Oh, sorry about that. Those won't budge. They're not moving anywhere—and neither are you. Good of you to try, nonetheless. Dislike guessing your courage shattered already. Not much pleasure in that."
"I disdain you."
To prevent sobbing, I whirled my face away from his path and shut my eyes. Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name…
"Time's up, Luv."
Thy kingdom comes, Thy will be done…
My sights were closed, but I felt him walk closer until he mashed lengthwise second to me.
Unfit to comfort it, my whiff appeared in tight tough pants. His hands ran to my hair, and he mellowed it back from my neck.…on earth as it is in Heaven…
His maw plugged into my throat, tongue orbiting my thundering pulse in a purposeful expression.
My posterior cut into the wall as I made an effort to vanish into the stone, but the cold tough limestone offered no departure.
I felt the tension of edged, pointed teeth at my naked and vulnerable artery. He was caressing my neck the way a greedy lion caressed a gazelle.
"Last opportunity, Kitten. Who do you labour for? Tell me the truth and I'll let you live."
"I told you the truth."
That high-pitched whisper couldn't be mine. The roaring of blood in my ears was deafening. Were my eyes still shut? No, I could see a pale green gleam in the dusk. Vampire's eyes.
"I don't believe you…." Softly spoken, yet plunging with pants was all I had left.
Amen….
"Bloody Hades, look at your eyes."
So deeply had I strumbled into the fervent prayer, I hadn't felt him pull around. He glanced at me with fanged mouth open in mistrust, his face illustrated in the recent green glow of my sights.
His brown ones were instant that infiltrating hue as well, and identical flashes of emerald attached one stunned stare to another.
"Look at your bloody eyes!"
He clutched either side of my skull as though it would whirl off. Though in a mist from lurching on the verge of mortality, I whispered my response.
"Don't desire to look at them, I've seen them. They change from dark to leafy when I'm angry. Pleased now? Going to enjoy your banquet more?"
As if my head were scalding, he released me. I slumped in my chains, the adrenaline forsaking me and fleeing dizzying boredom in its trail.
The noise of his striding bounced on the pebble barriers.
"Bugger, you're saying the truth. You have to be. You have a pulse, but only vampires have eyes that sparkle green. This is unbelievable!"
"Glad you're excited." I looked at him through my hair, which had dropped back onto my shoulders.
In the near-complete twilight, I saw he was certainly worked up, his walks brisk and full of strength, eyes subsiding from nourishing green to fastening brown.
"Oh, this is excellent! In fact, it could come in right handy."
"What could come in useful? Either execute me or let me go already. I'm tired."
He spun around, beaming, and connected the light back on. It radiates the same brutal light it had formerly, streaming over his elements like liquid. He looked metaphysically lovely under its cloak, like a fallen angel.
"How would you prefer to put your money where your maw is?"
"What?"
To say I was baffled didn't commence to interpret it. Moments ago I was a nick off from infinity, now he wished to flirt reckoning games.
"I can slay you or permit you to live, but living arrives with limitations. Your option, your alternative. Can't let you leave without conditions, you'd just try to stake me."
"Aren't you the clever one?"
Frankly, I didn't assume he'd let me go. This had to be a stunt.
"You see," he proceeded as if I hadn't spoken,
"We're in the equivalent boat, Luv. You hunt vampires. I hunt vampires. Both of us maintain our motives, and we both have our dilemmas. Another vampire can feel me whenever I'm near, so that creates it bleeding difficult to stake 'em without them wanting the attempt and running. You, on the supplementary hand, lay them entirely at relief with that juicy artery of yours, but you aren't big enough to knock down the certainly huge fish. Oh, you may have won some green ones, possibly no older than twenty years, primes. Hardly out of their nappies, as they existed. But a Master vampire…like me…"
His voice declined to a critical hum.
"You couldn't take me down with both stakes blazing. I'd be pulling you out of my teeth in moments. Hence propose an agreement. You can proceed with what you adore the most—killing vampires. Yet you will just haunt the ones I'm looking for. No abnormalities. You're the lure. I'm the clip. It's a capital idea."
This was a nightmare. A very bad nightmare, brought about by liver poisoning from numerous gin and mixtures. Here it was, a contract with the demon. At what cost my soul? He stared at me expectantly and threateningly all at the same moment.
If I said no, I knew what would occur. Keep the glass, waitress, I'm gulping from the container! Pleasant hour, with my neck on tap. If I said yes, I'd be concurring with a coalition with authentic sin.
His hoof dabbed. "Don't have all dusk. The higher you wait, the hungrier I get. Might alter my senses in a rare minute."
"I'll do it."
The statements flew out without an impression. If I offered them thought, they'd never be uttered.
"But I have a restriction of my own."
"Do you?" That made him laugh also.
My, what a lively guy.
"You're barely in a position to bequest for conditions."
My chin bulged. Arrogance or danger, take your choice.
"Just defying you to put your cash where your mouth is. You said I wouldn't survive minutes against you, even with both weapons. I disagree. Unchain me, grant me my stuff, and let's go. Champion takes all."
There was a substantial force of interest in his eyes now, and that polite smile was back on his lips. "And what do you want if you win?"
"Your demise," I said bluntly.
"If I can win you, I don't want you. As you lay it, if I only let you walk, you'd arrive after me. You gain a victory, and I move by your rules."
"You know, pet," he drawled, "with you tied there, I could simply have a fine long sip out of your inlet and go about my business as normal. You're shoving your chance quite a bit telling this to me."
"You don't look like the kind that prefers a boring drink out of a shackled artery," I boldly answered.
"You seem like the sort who loves hazard. Why else would a vampire chase vampires? Well? Are you in, or am I out?" My whiff sucked in.
This was the period of actuality.
Gradually he walked over, permitting his eyes to slide all over me. With a lifted brow, he brought out a metal key and drooped it in front of me. Then he injected it firmly into the midst of my manacles and twirled. They fell open with a clink.
"Let's see what you've got," he said ultimately.
For the second time that night.