Fiction: Amelia’s Vengeance

CONTENT ADVISORY: The following short story contains extreme violence and gore as well as adult language. Reader discretion is strongly advised. Intended for mature audiences only.

The characters Amelia Delacroix and Drake Miller will be appearing in a future novel. This is an excerpt from Amelia’s story as it connects to the novel. All characters and events are purely fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

That should be enough text to give you time to close your browser window before any little ones come by. Story under the cut. Enjoy.

My tongue slid across the front of my teeth and down one little kitten fang to press into the tip, blood welling in the tiny puncture even as the flesh mended itself. He didn’t look like my maker–no one looked like Alkaios–but there was enough of a resemblance to upset me for some likely irrational reason. Still, rational or not, it was enough for this man to die tonight.

I leapt from the fire escape I’d been perched upon and landed on the man’s back, driving him to the ground before he had time to so much as scream. I gripped a handful of his curly hair, dark as mine in the night, and yanked his head back before it could slam into the concrete and shatter. I wanted him alive for as long as possible.

“You’re one of their pets,” I purred beside his ear, my lips brushing the cartilage. His body twitched and heaved beneath me, struggling to draw breath enough to flee, or at least cry out. I placed one leg on either side of the warm body beneath me, and his heat seemed to sear my bare legs. The skirt hiked up to an almost indecent level, the leather boots protecting my shins and knees from the gravel. Had the human landed on his back rather than his stomach, arousal might have caught his breath rather than fear once his system recovered from the shock. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want that at all. “Answer me,” I hissed, stirring the hair on the side of his face.

“What are you talking about?”

My nostrils flared. “You smell like them. You smell of laboratories. Metal and latex.” My tongue darted out to touch the ridge of his ear. “You smell like sex and death.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck…”

“So you know who I am. Magnifique.” I slid my right hand around to caress the front of his neck, tracing a circle over his Adam’s apple.

“I swear I didn’t… Amelia, I swear…”

“We’re not on friendly terms, human.” I tugged his hair, forcing his head back at a brutal angle. “Address me properly.”

“Muh-miss Delacroix…”

My lip curled. “Day-lah-croy? That is how you butcher my name?” I leaned forward and pressed my cheek to his, practically laying across his back. “Pronounce it correctly or you’ll bleed.”

“I d-don-”

“Try,” I breathed, moving the finger on his throat so that my nail pressed into the flesh when he swallowed.

“Deh-luh-cwah?”

“Much better. Now, you’re going to tell me what your keepers have done to my Alkaios.”

“I don’t know.”

The grip on his hair tightened. “I could snap your neck without killing you, you know. You’d only be paralyzed.” I turned my face to lick his cheek. “You could watch what I’m going to do to you. Perhaps you’d even still feel it.”

Hot tears slid from his eyes. “I swear I don’t know. Some kind of virus.”

“What kind of virus cripples an ancient vampire?” I pressed my mouth to his cheek. “Tell me and you’ll die quickly.”

“Please, I don’t know.”

“That is the incorrect answer.” I licked across to the corner of his mouth and bit his cheek gently, catching the skin between my incisors. He moaned and trembled. I reared back and opened my mouth wide.

“Oh, God, please don’t!”

I lifted my body enough to shove him onto his back, electing not to drop back down onto him due to the spreading urine stain on the front of his already filthy jeans. “This is your final opportunity.”

“It’s something that attacks the vampirism. Some kind of virus. Please, God, let me go.”

“What attacks the vampirism?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t know! I swear to God!”

“Take it up with Him if you have lied to me.” I cut off his scream when my fangs sank into the soft flesh of his throat, and hot blood sprayed across the front of my blouse when I pulled back, spitting the shredded flesh onto the ground. My head darted forward again, and I closed my eyes as the heat of his rapidly extinguishing life splattered across my cheeks. I reached inside the wound with my tongue and lapped up the blood. When I sat back, licking my lips, I could feel the quickly cooling droplets running down my neck and between my breasts.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Amelia.” Drake stepped forward from the shadows, eyes showing far too much white.

I pushed myself to my feet, every muscle trembling furiously as goosebumps ran across my skin. “He didn’t know, Drake.” I turned to him, soaked with the human’s blood and shivering. “He didn’t know!”

“And how long do you think it’s gonna take the police to find this fucking mess, you stupid bitch?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I snapped, striding away from the corpse into the alleyway. I heard Drake’s footsteps behind me seconds before his hand clamped down on my slick arm.

“How are you gonna help your maker if humans find you and throw you in a cell, Amelia? They have fucking windows.”

I swallowed and squeezed my eyes shut. My heart rate was too fast. My breathing was rapid and irregular, as though my body was unable to draw enough oxygen in. Drake’s arms were around me as my knees buckled, and I whimpered when the panic washed over me. Spots danced before my eyelids, and I was only partially aware of Drake lifting me into his arms and carrying me away from what was sure to be a crime scene shortly.