From Slate to Crimson Read Free Page B

still low and slightly hoarse. “It’s like my body weighs a ton. I can barely move.”
    “That’s only temporary,” Elisa assured her. “Your strength will come back soon enough. It’ll help if you eat something. Are you hungry?”
    Elisa’s manner was always overtly friendly, especially with people whom she was acquainting herself. Perhaps this was due to her appearance of young age, but it was nevertheless one of her more endearing traits.
    All that came to an end, however, when I detected a realization in the woman’s thoughts. She had not even turned her head towards me yet, but immediately, she realized that something was wrong. I felt her concentration rest upon Elisa’s eyes: catlike slits for pupils, surrounded by red irises like all those of our kind, which she had not bothered to disguise as usual. I did not know if she had done this on purpose, and had no time to ask, as she rounded the bed to the table where the tray of food lay.
    “We brought food for you,” Elisa said, and reached for the cover atop the tray. “Because of how weak you are, I may have to feed you. I hope you don’t—”
    “Wait a minute. What are you?” the woman said. I felt her suspicions rise like weeds in her mind. Elisa’s thoughts, however, remained as placid as the surface of a lake on a clear, windless day.
    “Something’s not right about you. You look like a kid, but you don’t talk like one. And what’s with the eyes? They…”
    I saw her stiffen, heard her breathing become shuddering and rapid. Elisa frowned, and placed the lid back upon the food tray.
    “You…” the woman said. She still was not looking my way, and I sat perfectly still, not wishing to register myself in her peripheral vision. “You’re...”
    “No,” Elisa said with a vague, but nevertheless revealing shake of her head. “It wasn’t me.” I then noticed her eyes move towards me indicatively.
    I steeled myself, and met the woman’s gaze with my own. I saw myself through her thoughts; the wreath of raw fear that encircled my image through her mind’s eye nearly forced me out, reeling, but I held her gaze, my own expression passive, while fear boiled over into terror within the woman’s mind, and finally, blessedly, overwhelmed her. Her gray eyes rolled back, and she went limp in the bed.
    “That could have gone better,” I managed to say after an uncomfortable few seconds. I then went to place the woman in a more dignified and comfortable position for when she would wake up.
    “It’s not surprising,” Elisa remarked, and I agreed. “There is something you can do about it, though.”
    I scowled at her unvoiced suggestion. I had considered the idea before, but later dismissed it. “I took her blood without asking,” I said. “She doesn’t need more manipulation.”
    “She will hate and fear you, most likely, if you don’t,” Elisa said. “Even I can’t stop that. At least she will have a moment to listen to reason, and then she’ll see when you release her, that you only did what was necessary to calm her down for a moment.”
    “And if she refuses?” I asked.
    “Then she refuses,” Elisa said. “Even some humans have rejected us. God knows they’ve rejected me.” I felt her resentment, and could not blame her. Even humans who were raised among our kind found Elisa’s appearance more than a little off-putting. “Father, you know as well as I do that sometimes, it doesn’t work out.”
    I had no need for her to remind me. In truth, that was what I was most afraid of. The pull of a potential consummate host was so incredibly powerful that if the human who was the source of the attraction rejected the vampire, it was not unheard of for that vampire to pine and waste away to a feral state for lack of blood.
    My poor daughter; her dismissal was easy for her to say; she did not know what it was like. Even now, her blood threatened to wrench my humanity away. I wanted nothing more than to taste her again, just for a