Sagira clutched the blanket around her shoulders and tried to back away from the man she had thought she loved. "Thomas?" she asked, her voice wavering. "Wh-what are you doing?"
Thomas smiled, but it was not the warm, charming smile she was used to seeing. This smile was just as charming, but somehow sinister, baring long pointed fangs in a face much to white to be Thomas'. "What I have been planning to do, love," he told her, voice as dead as his face, and then he lunged.
Sagira screamed and rolled off the bed and away. "Thomas stop and explain yourself this instant!" Sagira commanded him as her mother had told her to do whenever men got out of hand.
It wasn't, however, going to work with Thomas. He picked himself up and dusted off his sleeves and started coming towards her. "What is there to explain, Sagira dearest? Look into my eyes, my love."
She had heard the stories, of young girls and even women being seduced by vampires and then being bitten in the neck and having the life and blood sucked out of them. She had always dismissed them; another of her mother's warnings to be content with the idiot she was supposed to marry. Now she wondered for a moment... and it was a moment too long.
Thomas caught her by the arms and forced her to look into his eyes. They were the most entrancing eyes she'd ever seen... unknowingly, she dropped the blanket. As if from a distance, she heard Thomas chuckle.
"Oh my dear, if only I could keep myself alive on your beauty alone," he crooned, running his hands - hands she used to trust - up her arms to hold her by the shoulders.
The thought occured to her to squirm and get away, but Sagira couldn't seem to tell her limbs to move. Thomas ran his tounge over his lips and then moved in as if he were going to kiss her neck.
Instead of a kiss on her neck, Sagira felt a burning pain as Thomas sank his fangs in to the artery that carried her life's blood. She tried to scream but all she could manage was a sickening gurgle. She could feel the blood being sucked through her veins and felt herself growing weaker and weaker with every suck Thomas took.
Just as she was beginning to feel too weak to stand or even hold her eyes open, it stopped. Thomas drew back and she sagged against his chest. "You know, I think I'll let you keep the rest of your blood," he said after a moment.
"How thoughtful of you," Sagira snapped weakly. She put a hand to her neck. "It's... not bleeding."
"Of course not," Thomas scoffed. "You're one of us now, Sagira. A vampire. Not living, but not quite dead."
"I don't want to be!" Sagira spat and swung bloodied hair away from her neck. "Drink the rest of it, you disgusting monster! I'd rather die."
Thomas shrugged. "Then don't eat, you'll die soon enough. I'm offering you a sort of life, Sagira, I'd take it, if I were you. It's better than death."
"Maybe, but I'll take my chances," Sagira told him. "Get out."
To her suprise, Thomas bit his lip and then pulled her to him. "I'm so sorry Sag. I couldn't find another meal. I know half-life is worse than death, but I guess I just wanted a way to protect you. From me."
Sagira pushed him away. "I would have rather fed you than become a parasite," Sagira snarled. "Get out now, or I swear I'll find some garlic and kill us both."
Thomas smiled. "I love you, Sagira. Don't ever forget that."
"I have an eternity to live, I'm sure I will," Sagira replied, and then turned her back on him and waited for the sound of the door closing to sink onto her bed and start crying.
For the next week, Sagira refused to come out of her room. She barricaded the door so no one could get in, she knew that if anyone did, no matter who they were, she would kill them. Growing up the daughter of a wealthy American family, Sagira had never known hunger. Now she did. It was a constant terrible ache, a yearning for the feel of her fangs in the soft neck of something living, for the taste of blood, for the feeling of it sliding down her throat, running through half-drained veins.
I can't do it, Sagira thought to herself as she lay on her bed, eyes squeezed shut against the light that shone through the curtains into her darkened room. I can't kill myself. I am so pathetic I can't even kill myself. Damn Thomas. Damn men and their protective instincts. I didn't need protecting, if this is the best protection he could give me.
"Sagira?" each syllable was like a drum beating in Sagira's skull, but she was too weak to even groan at the sound of her mother's voice. "Sagira dear I'm worried about you. I'm coming in."
"No!" Sagira croaked as loud as she could manage. "Mother don't!" she tried again, infuriated that she couldn't even scream to save her mother.
The door was slowly pushed open enough to admit the slim figure of Sagira's mother. Something in Sagira cried out with happiness at the sight of her mother, but not because she was her mother: because she was alive. She had blood. Blood that would keep Sagira alive.
"Mother stay there, don't let me touch you!" Sagira tried to warn her mother, but she kept coming closer. "Mother, NO!"
"You're so pale," her mother crooned, bending down to push a stray peice of Sagira's hair behind her ear. Her hair, black like Sagira's, was done up, leaving the smooth, inviting curve of her neck bare. Sagira could almost feel her fangs biting into the soft flesh already, could taste the blood on her lips.
And then there was no "almost." It was real.
Sagira sobbed, knowing what she was doing, even as she sucked her mother's body lifeless. Green eyes so like her own, that had shown with love and caring and pride in her daugher since as long as Sagira could remember, dimmed and then were glazed over in death. Sagira kept sucking, sobs shaking her tiny frame all the while.
When she was finished, she couldn't bare to look at her mother's lifeless corpse. She couldn't bare to live, she hated herself so much. But Sagira had never felt so alive.
She lay in bed the rest of the day, trying not to look at her mother on the floor, until it was night. The she broke the window and, pulling on a cloak, slipped out into the night.
