A woman can’t live like that, my lord. No one can. Don’t ask me why I did it.
God, forgive me.
Christ, forgive me.
I brought the stake down as hard as I could manage. It tore through your flesh, ripping open a cavity in your chest.
You roared in anguish and rage, and Magdalena screamed and screamed, but she didn’t let you go. Her steel-sided nature didn’t fail her, even as your blood started to seep into her nightdress. Alexi was too shocked to speak, his mouth hanging open with choked, horrified noises coming out of it. But his resolve didn’t fail him either.
Letting out a wrenching sob, I pressed down with my whole weight. The stake found its mark, piercing your heart like one of the sorrows of Mary and shattering a rib or two in the process.
It was dirty, difficult work, killing you. You writhed and thrashed, pushing all three of us to the outer limits of our strength. I had to squeeze my knees into your sides and press the stake down with both trembling hands.
Eventually, you let out a horrible, bubbling croak and laid still. Blood bled into our sheets, into the knees of my dress, filling the room with its undeniable fragrance. The sweet, metallic tang filled my nose even as hot tears filled my eyes and spilled over like twin rivers. I had thought you would be as beautiful in death as you were in life, but your face was frozen into a rictus of pain and hatred. Looking on you left me feeling cold, like I was looking at a stranger.
“Is everyone alright?” I managed to ask, my voice barely more than a whisper.
Alexi brought shaky red fingers up to his mouth and lapped at the blood, so dark and sweet. I had never tasted anyone like you, with blood so perfectly aged. It was the rarest, finest vintage in the world, and it held such untapped power. My mouth watered, my gums burning with want.
Magdalena was trembling and sweating like a morphine addict, looking half on the edge of frenzy and half on the edge of unconsciousness.
I was the oldest. I had the most self-control. I could get them out of the room before the bloodlust compelled them to desecrate and drain your body.
I seized Magdalena’s wrist and held her fast, tethering our racing heartbeats together as though we were one soul. As though we all had just become forever bonded by our unspeakable act.
“Constance,” Alexi said hoarsely. His pupils were blown. “What should we…”
“Drink,” I heard myself say. As though from very far away, like I was floating above my own body. “Drink, my loves.”
Alexi pressed his mouth to the wound in your chest and Magdalena tore through your wrist with her teeth, shuddering as your blood burst into her mouth. I bent down and gave you one final kiss, then tipped your head back and nuzzled the cold column of your throat. My stomach was trembling, my fingers clenched and white in the sheets.
I sank my teeth into your neck with a ferocity that surprised me, drinking you down in great, greedy mouthfuls. The taste of you was unparalleled, dark and rich with grace notes of every person you had ever fed from. I clamped a hand around your jaw and bit down harder. My head spun like I had just finished a bottle of whiskey, but still I drank from you, devouring your essence. The power in your veins flooded my system, rushing all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes. The roar of my own heartbeat, the creak of the old house, and the shouts of the rabble outside were suddenly almost painfully loud. The strength of all those years was mine for the taking, and so I took it.
I apologize if you were expecting contrition, my lord. I don’t have any to muster.
Yes, I knew. I knew what came of drinking the blood of one’s sire. I had read about how you killed your maker to seize his power. And I found that I wasn’t above it.
I could have turned them away and afforded you some final dignity, but I wanted to hold your power in my mouth, as carefully as a mother cat holds her young, and then swallow until there was nothing of you left.
We fed on you greedily, lapping up every drop. By the time the deed was done, blood was smeared across our faces and down our fronts. Alexi shook, less from fear than from an abundance of energy, and Magdalena’s eyes shined like black diamonds, full of life and vigor.
“Jesus,” Alexi said, looking down at his stained hands and then over to your body. Blood soaked the sheets and dripped down onto the aged hardwood floor.
It was a massacre.
As the bloodlust abated, I slowly returned to myself and took stock of the situation. There was a body to contend with, and a defiled marital bed that would probably never be clean again. And, more pressingly, there were the shouts of the mobs from outside, growing closer and more agitated with every moment. They were at the gates now, hoisting their torches as they rattled the locks. There would be no appeasing them. Certainly not now, with evidence of our crimes laid out in a gruesome tableau.