PART TWO

POV: Nikolai
I hadn’t been thinking when I bit into her neck. The consequences just didn’t seem as important as my burning need to know what she tasted like, to have her blood inside me. She was louder than I had ever expected her to be, and tighter than I could have dreamed. I was concerned that someone walking outside would hear us and poke their head around the door just to check, but at the same time, after wanting her for so many weeks, I was having too much fun watching her enjoy herself. I had wanted to bring her home and do as I please to her for the weekend, but she looked too shell-shocked once I had finished with her.
I walk from my house to the bar. Yesterday evening I had no fantasies that anything would come about from fucking her, it just felt like an itch I desperately needed to scratch, but now I have no idea what to expect; they always become clingy after you bite them. When I walk through the door, she’s stood behind the bar, arms crossed over her chest and looking at me with a face like thunder. Instantly, I want to bend her over again and fuck the bratty behaviour out of her.
I stand at the bar, in the exact same spot I stood when I was inside her. I rub the varnished wood with my hand, right where she humped her way to her orgasm.
“A pint?” She says loud enough for the few other people to hear.
“Yes please, Eva.” She blushes when I say her name.
“We need to talk,” she whispers furiously, again reminding me of a kitten thinking it’s a tiger. She walks out from behind the bar and towards the cellar door. “Can you help me with those… boxes?” She asks loud enough for everyone to hear. I shrug and walk after her; the customers are all too old and absorbed in their drinks and cards to suspect anything, but I find it endearing on her part.
I shut the door after me and follow her down the steps into the cellar. The air feels cold and musty, and it smells of old, sour beer.
She turns around and glares at me, her hands balled into tiny fists.
“You bit me,” she says, almost in a hiss. She’s wearing a turtle-neck jumper, but when she pulls the collar down, the teeth marks I left on her neck are gone. “It healed last night, and the mark went away about an hour ago.”
I shrug. Nothing to do but come clean. “My saliva speeds up the healing process. It’s no good killing someone with one bite, it’s wasteful – better to savour them over a few days.” I wink at her.
She covers her face with her hands. “I don’t believe you,” her voice sounds small.
I sit down on the steps leading up to the pub and tug the hem of her jumper to pull her closer to me so that she stands in between my legs. She’s so petite that we’re just about the same height now.
“You don’t believe me?” I try to sound soothing. Her eyes are wide again, and she’s starting to look uncomfortable and afraid.
She shakes her head, her hands clasped and held to her chest, as though she’s trying to hold herself together.
“Are you a little sore from yesterday?” I rub my hand along where her pussy is over the jeans she’s wearing. “Take these off and I’ll prove it to you.”
It gets her to smile a little, but she rolls her eyes as though she thinks I’m not being serious. She looks at me properly for the first time since yesterday, and touches my cheek. Her hands are soft and I can smell an array of scents: the perfume she uses, sweet and heady; the beer and cider she has pulled, tangy and sour; her shampoo, like coconuts; and the sweet smell of her body, just her individual scent. If I inhale deeply enough I can smell myself on her from yesterday evening.
“You look different.” She’s not smiling any more. She’s frowning at me, like she’s irritated, like my presence and the fact I have a face that changes slightly is pissing her off. I find it quite cute.
“It was your blood. It keeps me young. I’ve been abstaining for a while, so I guess I got kind of old.” I was delighted when I got home and looked in the mirror to see that I had practically gone back to my thirties once again. My body felt stronger and healthier, my hair was almost rid of the grey, my face was no longer as gaunt and wrinkled, and my skin had more elasticity.
“So you’re… a vampire?” she whispers the word like she’s about to be laughed at for saying it.
“You could call it that if you want, but we don’t really like that word. We’re immortal as long as we have a host. Wooden stakes to the heart aren’t going to work, and neither is sunlight. I’ve also grown quite fond of garlic, but it’s terrible when I smell it leaking from people’s pores.”
She laughs, a loud and bitter bark and I can see she still doesn’t believe me, which I understand – most people take a lot of convincing. She shakes her head and pushes past me, stomping up the steps back into the pub.
“You’re a lunatic,” she tells me before she opens the door and walks off.


POV: Nikolai
Johannes’ house is an old barn conversion away from the city, all glass fixtures and oak panels, bare brickwork and modern furniture.