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“Martyn, I’m really hungry.”
Apo saw Martyn take half a step back, hand reflexively move towards his sword.
“What does that mean? Apo? What is that supposed to mean?”
Apo grabbed onto the edge of her skirt to give her clawed hands something to do, her lungs instinctively pulling in a shaky breath.
“I’m a vampire.”
“Since when?” His voice pitched up, his wide eyes flicking towards the exit ladder.
“Don’t leave,” she half-begged, stepping towards him, stopping when she saw him stumble backwards, has his opinion on her changed that quickly? She never should have said anything.
“A few days ago— Scott told me that I could either find someone to sacrifice, or he’d kill me. He settled on just turning me.”
She looked back up to Martyn to see his hand fall away from his sword, his brows pressed together.
“Did you consider it?”
“What?”
“Finding someone else.”
“Yes,” Apo started, keeping a careful eye on Martyn, who didn’t shift away this time, “I thought about Cherri, I want nothing more to go back to her, but— I didn’t want to curse anyone to become something like that, like this.”
Apo sighed, her hands falling to her side, watching for Martyn’s reaction. He stared at her for a few more moments, his thoughts echoing through the room.
“You— You’re hungry?”
“Yeah. I have this, I don’t know what to call it, lust? For blood. It makes me sick, the sight of it— the thought of it,” Apo swallowed, nausea tickling her throat.
“But that doesn’t make me any less hungry, I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
It clawed at her stomach, in fact. It screamed at her, potatoes and cooked meat not soothing the demands of the beast inside.
“If you’re hungry,” Martyn started, reaching up to his cravat, “Then you can feed from me, if you want.”
Apo stopped, not expecting what Martyn had said.
“What?”
“Blood’s still blood, but, would it help if it’s from someone who’s willing?” Apo’s conscious mind screamed a hard no, but her instincts begged her to take the opportunity, to drain her prey of blood. The cravat fell away as he untied it, his collar popping open and revealing his pale, untouched neck, filled with food for Apo.
“I don’t— are you, are you sure?” Apo asked, looking up at Martyn as she moved forwards, reaching a hesitant hand towards him.
“As long as you don’t turn me, militia’s oath.”
Apo looked beside them at the oak table, “Sit, so you don’t need to bend over.” Martyn obeyed her quickly, settling on the edge of the table. Apo stepped towards him carefully, resting a hand on each shoulder as she slotted between his legs.
“It’ll only hurt for a second,” she assured, hovering above Martyn’s neck. At this spot she could hear it, his heartbeat. It raced, his instincts fighting the situation, but Martyn sat still and pliant, overly so, Apo thought. None of the usual comments and jokes were coming out, he just waited.
Apo placed her lips against the spot where she thought she should bite, trying to think back to how Scott had done it. Actually let’s not think about Scott right now. She sucked an unneeded breath in and pierced the skin.
Martyn made a strained noise as his hands instinctively flew up, wrapping around Apo’s back. The pre-venom hadn’t set in yet, so Martyn was feeling everything.
“Apo,” Martyn managed out before Apo felt him slump against her, his head falling against her own as he slurred out incompressible noise.
She fought against the feeling of nausea almost as hard as she fought against the feeling of pleasure. It shouldn’t be this good. She trembled, energy rushing beneath her skin, her hairs standing on end. She could feel Martyn’s breath in her ear, his lips brushing them as he panted.
It felt like no time had passed when Martyn’s hands began slipping down to rest on her waist, his breathing becoming more ragged. Apo unlatched herself promptly, licking the wound as it continued running blood, Scott had done the same thing, stop thinking about Scott!
The wound began to scab over at supernatural speeds, encouraged by the vampiric healing that was potent in her spit. Apo didn’t know why, but she leaned back in, pressing a kiss to the spot, slowly moving back to look at Martyn.
Loopy was probably the most apt word. Martyn was barely there, his pupils were blown and his eyelashes hanging heavy on his eyes. He was looking in the general direction of Apo, but not quite at her. Apo wasn’t like this when Scott had bitten her. To be fair, she had been turned right afterwards but even when he was feeding from her, she had some fight. She had been mostly conscious, woozy, but conscious.
“Martyn? Hey.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face, watching as he lethargically looked down at them after a few seconds.
“Can you say something? You’re freaking me out a little.”
Martyn leaned forwards at this, moving into Apo’s breathing space.
“Apo, Apo.” He said like it was a mantra, looking down at her lips.
“Martyn?” He was coming closer, centimetres away from her lips.
Apo wanted to kiss him, the realisation pierced her through the chest, but before the many reasons that it was a bad idea could set in, the trapdoor at the top of the letter thumped open, two voices echoing down the chamber.
Apo tore herself away from Martyn, stumbling backwards just in time for boots to echo as they landed on the floor, a gasp of surprise sounding from Sausage.
Apo whipped her head around to see Sausage standing with his arms up in fright, and Renhardt hanging off the ladder. She can only imagine what the room looked like right now, Martyn with his shirt open, scabbed, bloody wound on his neck, head lolling to the side; Apo with a smear of blood down her chin, eyes wide and red.
“Martyn!” Sausage moved first, grabbing onto the man’s sleeves, pulling him off the table and away from Apo.
“Don’t move him!” She yelled out, reaching out to take her own hold of Martyn, but this just caused Ren to draw his sword, swinging towards Apo with shaky aim.
“Miss Apo! You—“ His sword hit the ground as she stumbled backwards, looking into his scared eyes.
Apo could hear Martyn whine as he was tossed about, his legs folding under him. Sausage did his best to hold Martyn up, but he struggled under the weight of a grown man. Apo thought back to that night not long ago by the side of the river, how she hoisted him up so easily it had shocked herself.
“Vampire!” Sausage yelled breathlessly.
“No, I—“
“Don’t lie! I can see blood!”
“No, I’m not saying—“
“What did you do to him?” Ren sounded horrified, looking down at Martyn.
Apo could see Martyn using his little supply of energy to lift his head to look at her, his lips open limp.
“Apo,” he said quietly. She could barely hear it over the shouts of their fellow militia members, but she was zoned in on him, her—
Ren’s sword hadn’t been sharpened in awhile, she remembers him complaining earlier, lucky for Apo, since he had just swung down onto her shoulder. She yelled anyway, a sword hurt no matter what state she, or the blade was in, and in a panic she turned into a bat.
She could hear the wind moving gently into their secret meeting room, the trapdoor was open. Silently cursing herself for leaving Martyn in a state like this she dove between the three men, avoiding grabbing hands as she soared up the tunnel and out the door into the fresh air of Oakhurst.
She could hear faint shouts behind her, perhaps of Ren and Sausage, perhaps of more town members, but Apo focused on pushing herself forwards, ignoring the raging pain in her shoulder as she flew.
What the hell was she doing? The guilt began to set in as her wings pumped. She should have never asked Martyn for a drink, and more importantly why didn’t she shove him away when he leaned in to her? That low, panicked feeling began to rise as she thought of Cherri, her beautiful Cherri, sat at home as Apo nearly lipsed some bratty blonde man. Apo thought of how he looked at her and a different dark feeling settled in her abdomen.
She ended up landing next to the lake, practically tumbling out of her bat form. Apo cried, and cried, and cried some more. She cried until her eyes dried up and both her tears and Martyn’s blood had crusted on her face.
She couldn’t go back to the town, she wouldn’t go to the castle. Apo found that she was only worried about one thing, whether her thrall was okay.