Eva took me under her wing as usual. Zac wouldn’t look at me in the immediate aftermath, he stormed off and disappeared. When we got back to the house I found him in the living area, blood trickling from his lips, down his chin, dripping onto his bare chest. The buttons on his shirt were torn open. I watched, mesmerised, as a line of blood gently ebbed down towards his nipple.

Before I could allow the inappropriate thought of licking it off to develop further, I sought out his face again; the pain in his eyes, the fury still resonating. Small veins had spread around them, etching little blue spiderwebs across the normally perfect, smooth skin.

He wiped his mouth with the back of a hand and smeared blood across his cheek.

“W… what…?” I began.

“What do you think it is?” he turned the full force of his malevolent stare onto me.

“It’s cool,” Eva said. “He needed to feed. Better them than you.”

Better who than me? What the fuck? He couldn’t have just happened across a murderer on his way back from the Strip.

“We can tell you about the basement a different day,” Eva said softly, Zac’s angry glare shifting to her.

She guided me upstairs and left me in her room. I sat on the silk bedspread and tried to cry. Maybe it was the shock setting in, but the tears wouldn’t come. I don’t know how long I stayed like that, with the dry silent crying.

Eventually Zac arrived and I shrank away, trying to sink deeper into the mattress. I’d never seen him look so terrifying, his shirt still hanging open revealing a bloodied chest, slashed and bruised, just like his face.

I wanted him to fuck me right then.

Fucking stupid hormones. Why did I find the most inappropriate qualities a turn on? Having a feral monster before you should make you squirm in fear, not squirm in desire.

It would make it alright though, wouldn’t it? To have that connection. To touch and be loved, to ease away the anger. To feel him inside me again, making me whole. I needed it. It would fix things.

“I’m not going to say I’m sorry, because it’s all we ever do,” I said. “And this wasn’t my fault. He came up from behind and put his hands on me. I thought it was you. He tricked me.”

“You couldn’t tell you were kissing someone else?” he asked, slowly and clearly, but deep with rage.

“No. Well… it did feel different but the point is, I wasn’t expecting anyone else. My head was swimming, like it does with you.”

“You want him.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then what do you want?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“Yeah, I do,” he said with fierceness.

He pulled me to my feet and stroked my face, a look of pleading and regret in his eyes. Then his fingers snaked around my throat, pushing my chin up. They tightened, enough that alarm rang through me. I stuttered and he gripped tighter.

“Tell me to stop,” he said.

I couldn’t.

I was slammed over the edge of the bed. One arm went under my stomach and pulled me up onto all fours, his other hand grabbing a handful of my hair. He pulled me up higher, sitting on my knees, my back flush with his chest.

His icy tongue ran along my ear. “If you keep pushing me, Jess, I’ll kill you. I’ll drain every last fucking drop of your blood and I’ll keep fucking you while your life slips away.”

Letting go, he dropped me back onto all fours. I heard his zipper and he pulled off my jeans, before tearing my underwear clear away. His solid shaft pressed into my backside.

“Tell me to stop,” he said again, this time shouting. “Beg me not to.”

I shook my head and he thrust himself into my ass. I was mortified by my scream. It wasn’t the pain, although it did hurt like fuckery. I think it was more the shock, that I hadn’t anticipated him behaving like that, or the overwhelming pleasure it would give me.

“He’s right, you are a nasty little bitch.” He pounded harder and harder into me. “Is this what you want? You want me to be more like him and rough you up? Were the bruises not enough last time?”

My ass cheek stung as he brought his hand down with a loud thwack. The noise of my satisfaction was drowned out by the whip of further smacks. Sweet pain. Arousal escalated through me, bringing me closer to the edge. My legs trembled…

“No fucking way, you don’t get to come this time,” he spat. Flipping me around, he lifted me onto a desk, spreading my legs wide apart with rough hands. His grip tightened around my neck once more.

“Did you like it when my demented brother had his hands around your throat?” he yelled, thrusting inside me and continuing to drive with such force that the desk shook.

Yes.

I slammed my hand down to steady myself, right onto a shot glass which broke and sliced into my skin. I shoved it into my mouth and sucked on the blood.

He bared his fangs, his devilish eyes claiming me. I saw it then, for the first time, in all its satanic glory – the darkness that he talks of. Right there in those eyes, burning fiercely. He would kill me. I could taste the dark that lurked there.

I whimpered and tried to move away. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t him. I wasn’t ready to die. My breath caught and I choked, crying and groaning.

“Finally, you’re afraid,” he hissed. “That’s it baby, fucking struggle for me.”

He fucked me with such ferocity that I screamed. One of the legs on the table cracked and broke, the whole thing lurching down at an angle. His hold on me was so tight that I stayed up in the air, my ass no longer even touching the wood as he continued to fuck me.

His mouth was perilously close to my neck, top lip curled up, fangs eager for me. With a final surge he yelled like a maniac and his cock pulsed and throbbed, driving his cum deep inside me. He let go of my ass, shoving me away.

As I toppled backwards over the broken desk I caught sight of him sticking an arm under his chin and biting down into himself.

* * *

There’s something entirely fucked up about being brutalised and enjoying it. I couldn’t even fathom whether what he’d done was an acceptable act for a girl who likes it rough, or whether he’d crossed a line.

I had told him I liked to be dominated, and I had been feeling inappropriately horny at the time, which he would have felt. I really did like rough sex. There’s nothing wrong with that. Many people do. BDSM is a thing. Consensual non-consent is a thing. Edgeplay is a thing – my thing. Why should I be made to feel so bad for that?

But that – what just happened, that wasn’t him. I battled with my emotions, unsure why I’d enjoyed it when he’d been so mean. Though to be honest, the real cruelness was not the act itself, it was the way he was being afterwards that cut me so deep.

“Happy now?” he asked spitefully. “You got what you wanted. Well, almost, I’m sorry I didn’t kill you or convert you. But you did get the nasty fucking you were after.”

“Sex and being a vampire isn’t all I want.”

“No? Could have fooled me,” he glared so hard that I almost forgot how to breathe.

“I want us to be content. I want to show you how much I love you, but sex always gets in the way and twists it.” I reached out to touch him, but he shifted away.

“Because that is all you want. I’ve worked, tortured myself, for longer than you’ve even been alive. All that time, training myself to be stronger, to stay in control. I have people that believe in me, who’ve followed me down the same agonising path. And you threaten to undo all that. You taunt me for sex over and over, even if it involves risking your life, and with no regard for what it could do to my life. This is so much more than lust, or love… it’s everything. And yet you’re so desperate for more that if I can’t give it to you, you’ll go to him? And let me tell you, what I just did was fucking romantic compared to what he’d do. But then, that’s what you want, right?”

Something imploded inside my chest. My heart crushed under the weight of those hurtful words. He fucked me like that because he thought he had to, in order to stop me going to Alex? To make himself more attractive to me, by being more like him? Way to make a girl feel cheap and dirty.

I couldn’t deny it, though. Had I ever thought about what my actions did to him? I was quick to call the victim blaming card, but was I really that desperate for sex that I stumbled blindly along with nothing else in my mind?

No. That still didn’t make him right. He was the one that kept putting me in danger, that was rough with me, and hurtful, and yet I’m supposed to feel sorry?

“You know what? Maybe you’re right. Maybe Alex is more of a man than you.”

He slammed his fist into the wall beside my head, leaving a hole. I didn’t know why I said it, except that I wanted to hurt him. Spite him. Throw it back in his face. Fuck him for making me feel like this, for crushing my heart and stealing my soul. I would never be the same again.

“Good luck to you. He’s all fucking yours,” he said slowly, dusting off his knuckles. He turned to leave and I barged past him into the doorway.

“Fuck you! You don’t get to fuck me like that and then fuck off,” I screamed in his face and slapped him hard across his cheek. His eyes narrowed, but he stood immobile.

His hands hung down by his sides as I shook him, frantic and raw. I hit him again. And again.

The third time he caught my wrist and pinned it against the wall. “You want him. You can’t hide from it and nor can I. I can’t give you what you need.”

“Bullshit, you can give me everything and you know it. You hold back to torture yourself more. Stop playing the martyr and let go. You are everything. He is lust. But you? You are love and lust, and everything in between.” I pressed my face forward, closer to his, my words hitting him straight on.

“You don’t get it. It doesn’t matter what I do. Even if I figure this shit out and learn intimacy without the crippling fear that I’m going to murder you, he’ll still be there. His vendetta against me won’t cease.”

“So you’re on your brother’s shit-list. Whoop-de-fucking-doo. Grow a pair and fuck him off,” I spat.

“Grow a pair?” he raged, releasing me and marching round the room, hands dragging through his hair. “I was about to kill him until you stopped me! Why did you stop me? I could have taken him out, once and for all.”

“Killing him isn’t the answer.”

“Then what is? He’ll never leave. He’ll stay in the background, taunting and pushing until I break. Until he’s taken the most important things from me.”

He found me again, taking solace in the connection of our bodies, our foreheads together, both of us panting and heaving. Anguish clutched around my heart.

“Let him stay,” I whispered. “Let him try. We’re stronger. He’s jealous and envy will only weaken him.”

His embrace tightened, but it felt like I’d lost him.

* * *

Anna was calling. She’d tried several times over the last few days, but I couldn’t face answering. I’d called in sick to work and was avoiding Zac too, believing foolishly that a little time-out would calm us all down.

It was insignificant on the scale of my problems, but I was still hurt about the conversation I’d overheard between Anna and Danny. What made it worse was how right they were. How I was sitting in the middle of a messed up shit-storm and now I couldn’t talk to them about it, because it was precisely everything they’d tried to warn me about. No way in hell was I running crying to them now.

She’d left messages, sounding upset, insisting she needed to talk to me. I let it ring through to voicemail again as I lay back on my sun lounger and took a swig of vodka.

A new text message came through.

Anna: I know something important about the Elwoods. You have to meet me asap. Where are you? You’re not safe. Please let me know you’re OK?

Wonderful. How the hell did she find out about them? Oh God, had she got herself involved with a vampire, too? But maybe that would be good, if she knew? At least then we could talk and I could explain. She might understand.

I hid the phone under my towel and closed my eyes. She’d have so many questions. She’d be angry that I kept it from her for so long. I had to prepare myself for that conversation. She’d no doubt chew my ass more than ever about needing to leave Zac and get away from here. I couldn’t face that right now. It was hard enough battling the current issues with Zac, getting her involved now would be more than I could take.

I focussed on my breathing, counting to ten and back down. A group of lads were cooking on a BBQ nearby and the smell of burgers wafted around me. They’d turned up the music and scuffled around in playful banter. The familiar island sounds washed over me. For a tiny second everything felt normal.

“Hey, lady, answer your cell would you?” I opened my eyes with a start and a skinny guy in a baseball cap was looming over me, shaking my phone in my face.

“Shit!” I gasped, sitting up and grabbing it from him.

“It’s been ringing over and over for the last ten minutes, you were totally out of it. Someone really wants to get hold of you.” He stumbled back to his friends. The BBQ coals had turned to grey ash, a few wisps of smoke snaking upwards. The sky had darkened, a purple glow on the horizon.

Fuck me, how long had I been asleep?

I dialled up my messages and listened to Anna’s urgent voice.

Jess, please, you have to help me. Please, get help, bring Zac, I need help. Oh God, Jess. Hurry. I’m at an old outbuilding on the North nature reserve, past that turtle rehabilitation place.

What? Fucking Alex! This had to be him. My heart leapt into my throat as I whirled around.

“What’s going on, what’s the matter, Jess?” Zac grabbed my elbow and pulled me to face him.

“Where the frig did you come from?” I gasped.

“I felt you getting anxious. What is it?”

“It’s Anna. She’s in trouble. It’s Alex, he’s got her. You said you’d keep her safe!” I spun around again, panicking, not knowing which way to turn.

“No, he wouldn’t.”

“Yes, he would. He’s threatened her before and now he’s furious at us two. Think about it, this is his payback. He said he’d stay away from me, but not her. I’m scared, Zac, what’s he going to do to her?”