#paric

As he watches the ground begin to stir, he contemplates fashioning a stake and ridding himself of the problem before it’s even drawn fangs.

Godric will have his head for it, he’s certain

Although, he supposes, that might be too kind of a punishment for what he’s done. To give away their precious legacy with such little regard—just because, what, he’d found a human interesting for the first time in centuries?

And even if he survives Godric’s disappointment, he’ll certainly never hear the end of Nora’s taunting.

He could have healed her, he knows. She’d made theatrics of it, but he knows he would have had plenty of time to close the wounds before she’d truly slipped away. He could have glamoured her to not attempt it again, too. Not forever—to strip away what little agency the woman had in her own life is the kind of cruelty not even his kind could resort to, but at least until he’d had a chance to think.

Though, he supposes, that had been her point.

This woman had been walking with death long before their paths had ever crossed.

He watches her fingers sprout like snowdrops from the cold and damp earth, a pale hand breaking through and grasping wildly about for anything to hold on to—life born of death.

The earth spills forth his progeny and a strange wave of emotions washes over him as he watches her heave and groan, a mess of limbs and hair.

He doesn’t reach for her, though he feels something begin to stir within himself. The same kind of frenetic energy begins tugging at his insides, as if a sliver had been carved of himself and grown a life of its own. Instinctively, he takes that fear and cradles it in his own emotions, tries to wrap it in something close to safety. It’s frightening, how easily he cradles her emotions in the hollows of his chest, as if there had always been a space there that she’d been meant to occupy.

He briefly wonders if this is what a mother feels as she lays eyes on her newborn for the first time.

The creature before him bears little resemblance to the graceful madam he’d laid with the night before, her back arched like a cat’s as she claws at the earth, spitting out mud and letting it drip sloppily down her jaw.

When she finally looks up, though—her eyes burning even more brightly in death, he knows it is her.

His progeny.

“You did it…”

Her wet mouth glistens as she stares up at him.

She makes a beautiful vampire, if nothing else.

Her skin, pale even in life, had turned to a stark ivory. Bathed in moonlight, she looks like light itself spilled unto earth.

“Don’t mistake this act for kindness, Pamela.” he says.

Despite the overwhelming urge to wrap his arms around her, to sink his fangs into her neck and let their blood—Theirs!—flow endlessly between them until he’s claimed every part of her, he regards her with cold detachment.

He feels her fear tug at him, but he knows he must do this. She has to understand.

There will be many lessons to come, yes, but if she does not understand this, then they might all be for naught.

So, he bends down until they are face to face, hand gripping the column of her throat.

“The entire span of your human existence will be nothing but a blimp in the eternity you’ll have to spend proving to me that I haven’t made a mistake in turning you.” he finally says.

For a second she is still as a statue, her blood thrumming under his thumb as he presses it gently into her skin.

Whatever reaction he’d hoped to elicit is lost in the quirk of her brow, as a sly grin begins spreading across her face.

“Are all vampires as dramatic as you, my dear maker?” she scoffs, rolling her eyes.

Flecks of dried mud fall from her lashes, settling across her cheekbones like freckles. He moves his hand to Pamela’s face, wiping at them. His grip tightens, forcing their eyes to lock.

“An eternal commitment, Pamela.” he clenches his jaw. “You are mine.”

She shakes her head out of his grasp, laughing bitterly as she swipes a hand roughly across her face.

“Yours?” she scoffs. “How foolish of me think you’d be different. Human or vampire—you’re still a man.”

She stands up, smoothing down the fabric of her robe. Blood pools around her eyes as she regards him coldly. She shakes her head and a tear falls across her cheeks. She wipes it, frowning as she looks down at her bloodied fingers.

He doesn’t know if it’s her spite, or his own, but from where he is still crouched on the ground he resists the urge to fling himself at her throat and press until he’s got each of those pretty little bones wrapped around his fingers like rings.

To suggest that he’d give his blood—Godric’s blood—so he’d possess her, when he’s already had her more than willing legs wrapped around him.

An eternity for a cunt?

He laughs mockingly, drawing himself to his full height.

Filthy and barefoot, Pamela puffs out her chest as she digs her nails into her palms, eyes narrowed as if she is the most dangerous thing in the world.

“If it’s a wife you wanted, Mr. Northman, you shouldn’t have picked a whore. My days of pleasing men are over.” she spits out.

For the first time since crawling out from the earth Pamela takes in her surrounding, gasping softly as she realizes they are in a cemetery.

Eric watches her with barely concealed amusement as her eyes dart wildly around before seemingly choosing a path. Then, as if they’d just been two acquaintances stopping for a brief chat, she begins walking her merry way away.

In a flash, he is in front of her, their chests colliding as she walks into him.

“You think if I wanted a wife I would have picked you?”

“Fuck you.”

Scared by his sudden movements, Pamela’s vampire speed kicks in, and she begins clumsily darting to and fro.

He watches her for a moment, a disgustingly warm feeling tugging at his insides, before speeding up behind her.

“You know,” he whispers, digging his fingers into her hipbone, “as your maker, I could simply command you to do anything I please.”

“Can you command yourself a new cologne, maker?” she shrugs him off with a growl.

He follows her for a while, trading barbs as he feels her slowly start to settle into her new body. He watches her eyes widen as they take in the night sky, her slender fingers caressing the wind as it wraps itself around her. He can feel how overwhelmed she is by the magnitude of stimuli flooding her senses, but as she stretches her neck out—as if offering it for the moon to tear into, he knows she is not afraid of any of it.

Before long, though, he feels it. Hunger.

In a second she’s gone from unbridled curiosity to ravenous. Her hunger reaches out across their bond, scratching at Eric’s stomach like a desperate child tugging at its mother’s skirt.

“Burns, doesn’t it?” he chuckles softly into the dark night.

He’s kept his distance from her, but he can tell from the sudden rise of her shoulders that she’s heard him.

“Leave me alone!” she yells, her feet slapping wetly against the ground as she stomps ahead.

Suddenly, she stops, her head darting to her right where she’s spotted something.

Eric turns, taking in the small creature—a rabbit.

A silent click echoes through the stillness of the cemetery and before he can stop her, Pamela’s got her spindly fingers wrapped around the wretched creature, tearing its flesh apart.

He runs up to her, watching her huddled form as she drains the poor animal, its body dropping from her hands and landing with a soft thud. She turns to look at him with furrowed brows and a bloody, downturned mouth—tufts of fur still stuck to her swollen lips.

Mindful of the clean clothes he’d taken the time to change into before standing vigil at his progeny’s awakening, Eric takes a cautious step to the side just in time, barely avoiding getting a stomachful of rabbit blood spilled on his leather shoes.

He’s made the same mistake before, gorging on vermin out of desperation, each time more painful than the last. She can’t die, he knows it, but judging by the pain he can feel rolling in waves through their bond, she might as well have drank silver.

She chokes and sputters as she vomits, nails digging into the ground as her hair spills across her shoulders. Once again, he sees through to the animal of her and decides despite the softness of her silks and the sweet smokiness of her perfume, it’s this that he prefers—the drooling chin and the grunting, the dirt-caked fingernails and blood-rimmed eyes.

“What was it that you said, my lady?” He bends down, carefully pushing her hair over her shoulder. “That you can take care of yourself?”

Her face is caked in blood and dirt, and she reeks of putrid rabbit. She sniffles pathetically, refusing to meet his gaze.

He isn’t being fair, he knows. He should have fed her the second she’d risen from the ground, and he certainly could have ripped the animal from her hands before she’d drained it entirely.

But if it’s freedom Pamela wishes for, he’ll grant it. Entirely.

Let her march freely towards the true death.

“You won’t make it past dawn.” he shakes his head in feigned sadness.

“Then kill me and spare yourself the guilt!” she screams suddenly, startling him.

She drops herself roughly on the ground, drawing her knees up to her chest.

She huffs out a ragged breath, meeting his gaze with painful resolve.

“I will take your wrath, Mr. Northman, but I have had my fill of cruelty.”

He keeps their eyes interlocked, even though he cannot bear the shame lapping at his core.

He’d wanted to teach her a lesson, yes. He’d wanted her to understand.

To grasp the enormity of what he’s given her and, he supposes, to want it.

Instead, he’d terrified the woman into submission.

Godric will have his head for it.

He’d spoken of eternal commitment and expected Pamela to give hers with no promise of returning that same commitment.

“Do it, then!” Pamela voice startles him out of his thoughts. “Get it over with.” she growls.

She’s dragged the corners of her mouth downwards into a sad pout, lips bloody and swollen as they wrap around two tiny, sharp fangs.

Suddenly, Eric is kneeling in front of her, hand reaching for Pamela’s chin.

“Let me see them.” he pleads.

Wearily, she allows him to touch her, opening her mouth softly and allowing him full view of her protruding fangs.

They’re so small, yet they feel overpowering against her mouth, as if she’s still to grow into them. He chuckles softly, marveling at the milky white bone as it extends into the bloodied flushness of her bottom lip, teasing the fragile skin.

He’d spent the night before mapping the planes of Pamela’s body, tracing languid steps from scar to blemish. Thinking he’d never see her again, he’d wanted to commit as much of the woman to memory. He knows her body. Her mouth. Her lips.

But these-these are made of him. His blood. Godric’s blood.

He runs his finger gently along them, pushes the tip of his thumb and holds a breath his lungs no longer need as he watches the skin give away under the sharp tip of his progeny’s fang. He takes his thumb and presses it flush against her lip, his blood staining it until she darts her tongue across her lips, drinking it away.

When his eyes meet Pamela’s, he finds her equally enthralled.

Finally, he clears his throat.

“Come, you must feed.”

She sways a little as she gets up, silently brushing off his offer of help. She relents, though, letting herself be directed out of the cemetery and into the city.

On the rare occasion he’d imagined himself siring a progeny of his own, he’d envisioned a drastically different affair. Clean coffins, the softest silks, and a hearty meal awaiting them—a virgin perhaps.

As it is, his child has the honor of picking between a prostitute and a bum.

“Which one?” he asks, keeping his hand on her elbow. He already knows which one she’ll choose.

“Her.” she smirks, body already trembling at the smell of blood.

Eric sighs. “Blood isn’t just sustenance. It is our essence.” He forces her to meet his eyes. “A good vampire knows how to pick their meal.”

Pamela whines, struggling against his grip. “Well, she smells fucking delicious.”

Eric shakes his head.

“You’re smelling her perfume.” he explains calmly. “Take a deep breath. What does her blood smell like?”

“I-” Pamela frowns, “Like wheat, perhaps? And wine.” she frowns, watching him as if determining whether he’s toying with her.

“What else?” he nods, urging her to continue.

“Something sharp…some tincture.”

She pants, her hunger making her increasingly less cooperative.

“She’s ill. Her blood’s thinned.” he explains.

Eric waits for the woman to round the corner, before nodding towards the other lonesome occupant of the street, unceremoniously planted on the stoop of a closed shop, a bottle still dangling from his fat fingers.

“What about him?”

Pamela wrinkles her nose in disgust. “He reeks.”

Eric chuckles, shaking his head.

“His blood doesn’t.” he nudges her.

He watches her take a deep breath, focusing on the man’s blood. She nods feverishly.

From the smell of him, Eric can tell the man likes to indulge in pork rinds and too much gin, which will make his blood fatty and slightly bitter. He’s far from an ideal first meal, but he’ll do.

To Pamela, though, he might as well have liquid gold pumping through his veins.

Though he’d planned on glamouring the man beforehand, the ravenous look in her eyes is too beautiful to deny, so with a sly grin he allows Pamela to run straight for the man’s throat.

In a matter of minutes she’s drained him dry, leaving his body to slump against the filthy pavement. Eric gives the man’s foot a kick, his eyes trained on Pamela’s. Her mouth hangs open, the still hot blood steaming against the coolness of her tongue.

“He’s dead.” he says, eyes boring into his progeny’s.

She blinks, swallowing before raising a thin shoulder in a halfhearted shrug.

“So’s the rabbit.”

Something akin to pride swells in Eric’s chest.

With dawn approaching, he picks her up and carries her to the safe house he’d been keeping in town.

As she walks into the room, senses still raw, she takes in the candle-lit room with narrowed eyes, blinking harshly against the light until her gaze settles on the full-length mirror nestled in the corner.

There, Pamela takes herself in.

Eyes still wild and shivering in that robe—a sharpened blade sheathed in silk.

She brings her arms forwards, mirroring the way she’d stood before him the night before. Across her pale arms, speckled among the dirt, she takes in the blood—some from the man, some from the rabbit. And, almost lost against the darkness of the mud—her own. Two dark rivulets where she’d sliced herself open and asked to walk the world with him.

Eric steps forward, wrapping his hands around her forearms. His chin brushes against her forehead as she lets her back lean fully against his chest.

“An eternal commitment?” she whispers.