Sins of the Damned

LUCIAN

I exhaled as relief and fear punched it out in my chest. My hands were still covered in blood, sticky and crimson, and as Adrian crouched near me, I saw his suit, usually so goddamn flawless, was splashed with it as well. My blood. All over him. 

My stomach squirmed as I put the glass on the floor. 

"Drink," he instructed, and hell, I was too freaked out to argue.

I took the glass again, shaking, and sipped. What the fuck? It landed on my tongue like nothing I'd tasted before. It swathed my mouth, warm and leaden, and I just froze, let it sit there and infiltrate my taste buds. 

Damn. This shit is good… too good. 

I gulped it down before I even realized I'd taken a sip. The liquid filled my throat, sent warmth coursing through my chest, and all over my fucking body. It was weird, euphoric, and chased the ache from the pit in my gut. 

I laughed, shaky and disbelieving. "Wow... this is... really good." For a moment, I almost forgot about the blood, the pain, the madness. "I don't normally drink wine. What's it called?"

"You'll know this soon enough," Adrian added, his tone dull. 

I narrowed my eyes at him, my smile dissipating. His face was all wrong… tight, frowning, like he was hauling some invisible weight.

"All right, all right… so, what's up?" I gave him the empty glass, my hands trembling. "I recall… that read head bitch, and then… knife." 

I lifted my shirt again and looked down at my belly. Blood caked me, but the wounds, those ten ragged holes, were closed, only slits now, as if they'd never opened. I touched them, ran my fingers over the wounds. My finger even dipped in, my stomach muscles tight beneath the crazy. 

Considering the circumstances, if I had to go, getting stabbed by a hot chick in a dark alley wasn't the worst way to do it, right? But I wasn't dead. 

"This can't be real, Adrian. What the fuck is..."

He stood, offering his hand. I took it, and he drew me to a stool. My legs were totally jelly now. He poured me another glass of that red stuff, like a psychic knew that I'd need it. "It's very real," he insisted, thrusting the glass into my hand.

I didn't think. I drank, gulping it down as if it were the only thing keeping me tethered. The flavor struck again, sweet and sinful, and I growled low in my throat, reveling in it. But the questions wouldn't stop. 

"So, what? What happened? I got stabbed, Adrian! A fuck-ton of times. I've read enough to know what that kinda bleeding does."

"Yes. You were bleeding to death. You only had minutes left. Ummm, maybe seconds."

"Well, then what the fuck!"

Fear scratched at me, but there was the warmth from the drink, like a drug, taking off the edge for a lot of things. The blood was still wet, co-mingled all down my clothes and his... it was the same fucking night.

"I should be dead right now, Adrian!" I snapped, but my voice cracked, "How the fuck are the stab marks gone too quickly? This is… I can't make sense of any of this shit!"

"Well, you're basically kinda dead." Adrian sighed, sinking into a stool on the other side of the counter. 

"I'm… I'm dead?" I shook my head, trying to make sense of what he was saying. 

"Check your pulse."

"What?"

"Check your pulse, Lucian."

I groaned. "Can't I take a shower first? Look at us, we're—"

"Check your fucking pulse." His voice was sharp as a blade, and in those steel eyes I was caught, pinned to the stool. 

I had never seen him like that. My stomach dropped. With a huff, I thrust two fingers to my wrist. Nothing. I tried my neck, near my jaw. Nothing. My hand moved to my chest, to my heart. Nothing. 

"Adrian... where's my pulse?" I forced a grin, fake as hell, but he just shook his head.

"I didn't think you'd remember. You were low on blood, and… most of us don't remember being turned. Not clearly."

"Most of us? Being turned? What the fuck are you talking about?"

"What do you feel, Lucian? Inside, right now?" He looked at me so fixedly, and I couldn't bear it. I let my eyes fall, heard my heart, what was left of it, pounding.

"I feel... I don't know. Just... hunger." That pain, that clawing hunger, was still there, quieter but waiting, it seemed, to pounce.

"Anything else?"

"I don't know what you mean, dude. I just…." I trailed off, trying to think. 

It wasn't just in my gut… it was all over me, pulsing through my arms, my legs, like a current. And something else, a nerve-wracking cocktail of fear, rage, and… something fresh. Something that needed to run, to tear into something, to feed. 

I'd always been a bit angry, a bit anxious, but this? This was different. My gaze darted to Adrian, and if anything, for the first time, I felt a prickle of fear. 

A towel hit me in the face, snapping me out of it. "Wash up, get the blood off, and take a long look in the mirror," he said.

I staggered to the bathroom, legs going in and out beneath me, and switched the shower on. Warm water pounded my skin, and the blood flowed in crimson rivers. I looked down at myself, slimmer than I remembered. My stomach was taut, and my skin was pale as hell.

My abs popped, solid hard-won in five years of Adrian's gym nagging, but these stab wounds, closed and eerie, gripped me like a dead man. 

How am I standing? Moving? I had lost enough blood to fill a bucket, and yet here I am… not fine, but alive.

It was the hunger… it gnawed, not only in my gut, but in my bones, like something in my skin wanted to claw its way out. I turned off the water, grabbed a towel, and wiped the steam from the mirror. 

My face tightened, and my breath, whatever remained in it, caught. "Oh my god..." I pressed in, my hand holding me up on the wall. My skin was pale, my eyes dull, no spark, no life. I looked dead. Like a wax figure.

"...dead. Oh my god. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh." Panic surged, and I scrambled for the clothes Adrian had left out. Boxers, pants… I fumbled, half-dressed, tripping over myself to get out. 

I hit the hallway floor hard, arm and side screaming. Adrian peeked around the corner from his stool, calm as ever.

"Dead! I'm fucking dead, Adrian! What the fuck! I'm a zombie. I'm a goddamn zombie!" I didn't sit up, just lay there, pants half on, hands draped over my face, mind spinning. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my fucking god."

"Figured it out, did you?" His voice was dry.

"How can I be a zombie? What the fucking goddamn shit is this, Adrian! Zombies aren't real."

"You're not a zombie." He sighed, walked over, and offered a hand. That half-smile of his was back as he pulled me up, steadying me so I could finish pulling on my pants. "You are dead, though."

"I, I …" I couldn't breathe properly. Hell, breathing didn't even feel like a thing that mattered anymore. I fell onto the stool, head between my hands, shoulders leaning onto the counter, letting my face fall into my hands. "You..."

"I wasn't supposed to do it so soon," Adrian's voice dropped. "I was going to ease you into it. I wanted to give you a choice. But you got pulled into this, and I had two options: let you die, or turn you."

"Turn me?" I sputtered and tried to lift my gaze to meet his. "Turn me into what?"

"We're vampires, Lucian." He offered a tight smile, flashing a fang, a sharp, real fang, before disappearing it again. He pushed another red glass toward me.

"Vampires. Fucking... vampires." I cast my gaze down to the glass, that deep, swirling red drawing me in. I'd been turning a blind eye to it, but now? I couldn't look away. It was blood. "That's blood, isn't it?"

He only nodded in agreement.

"You gave me blood." I shrieked, "Goddamn blood of some dead human?"

"I hate to break it to you like this," He stated, "But yes, I did."

"I... how could..." I tore my eyes off, but it was like being split in two. It looked so damn good. "Adrian, you made me a goddamn vampire! And you're one too! I'm freaking out, okay? I'm losing my shit here, man!" 

Even as I bitched, I snatched up the glass and drank, feeling the sweet, thick fluid slide down and ease my gnawing hunger.

"I know, I know. I'm sorry. It's never easy." Adrian shuddered, clawing at his bloody collar. "I couldn't let you die."

"But I am fucking dead!" I snapped, "I'm a walking corpse, Adrian!"

"Well, yeah." He turned away and poured another bottle of blood from his refrigerator. Two glasses now. "But it's different from being dead. We're immortals."

"How come I never noticed?" I shrugged, "You don't look dead or pale, like I fucking do right now!"

"There's a trick that our kind do to blend in the human world." He told, pouring himself a drink. "Like how humans do make up."

"You've been a vampire all this time?" I let out a shaky breath. "How long? How old are you?"

"I'm not a born Vampire. I was turned during the First World War."

"World War One? Holy shit, that's... old." I dragged my fingers through my hair.

"Perks of being immortal. You don't age." He smirked.

"Hold on…" A thought crossed my mind. "Immortal means you can't die. Does that…"

"Kind of…" He took a sip from his glass. "There are things that can harm us. But killing us is close to impossible."

I remained quiet, trying to process everything.

"I wasn't going to push you into it, you know. I wanted to tell you about it first. Immortality, bloodlust, the Beast, the Danse Macabre, the politics…"

"Dude, stop!" I covered my face with my hands. "I'm barely holding it together. I need to think. I need to... process." My elbows made contact with the counter, and I lowered my head. 

"You said my family, my friends… I'll have to leave my old life behind." I continued speaking, "They'll think I'm dead?"

He only nodded, meeting my eyes.

"Fuck you, Adrian." I groaned. "So my old life... it's gone?"

"God, I'm glad, yeah…" he lightly chuckled, letting out a breath. "It was miserable. Being a vampire did one good thing for you."

I sprang up, pacing, fingernails dragging through my scalp. My body felt wrong… too still, no fidgets, no natural rhythm. I tried to force my steps a little faster, to get myself back up to frantic, to feel any small thing that felt the way it used to. 

"So I'm... immortal now?" My voice dropped to a rough whisper.

"You will not age, but stay away from fire and the sun." He rubbed his hand on my shoulder. "Or you'll burn… and maybe die."

"Oh god…" I dragged myself to the couch.

"And that pain in your gut? That's the bloodlust, Lucian."

"Blood. I have to drink blood. I'm fucking Dracula." I shrugged and mocked. "How fucking awesome!"

"Don't mention that name around the Prince if you ever want to see your head again." He got up and walked toward me. "Oh, and decapitation kills you, by the way. Bullets won't, though."

"Cool… sun, fire, and getting my head removed will kill me." I hissed under my breath and then faced Adrian. "Prince?"

"Yeah, the prince... you'll meet him very soon." He sat beside me, in his bloodstained suit. "Before that accident happened, the reason I decided to transform you was because I needed an ally, and you were my most trusted friend." 

"Ah, that means we're not just two bloodsuckers hanging out for eternity?" I asked, half-joking, voice shaking. "We probably have work to do."

"There are over twenty thousand vampires around the world. We have our own societies, rules, cults."

Twenty thousand vampires, and humans thought they were a myth? 

My head spun. "How is it I've never heard about this?"

"Rule one: the Masquerade." He stated, "You talk about vampires to anyone, and you're gone… wiped off the map. But don't worry. You're my childe now, which means you're mine to protect… and my responsibility."

"Masquerade. Got it." I nodded. "There are more rules than one?" I looked over at him and could hardly meet his eyes.

"There's a lot to learn. It's a whole new world, and it'll take time for you to know everything." He rose from his chair and took off his jacket. "You're smart. I'm sure you'll do just fine."

"I... I hope you're right about this."

"I'm gonna go shower now. Meanwhile, get some rest. Your wounds are still healing." He winced. "When I'm out of the shower, I'll show you the clothes I got for you. Then we'll head out for a meeting with Corvin."

"Corvin?"

"My sire."