Main | Characters | Cities | Fiction | Music | Photos | Quotes | Links | Gaming | What's New

Sabine McTannish - Ventrue

Background | Allies | Fiction

Beginnings

“My heart bleeds from the pleasure of the pain.”

Kid Rock - Fist of Rage
I lifted my foot and placed it in Estrea’s cupped hands. I put my hand on her shoulder for balance and readied myself as she counted to three. On the last number, I jumped, pushed off by her great strength.

I reached for the rope and caught it easily. I swung there for a moment, suspended above the water. I looked down into the river and saw that Ryan was still treading water and looking up at me expectantly. Her dress billowed out around her and I knew she must have been having difficulty staying afloat. I looked up at the dark star filled sky and climbed.

When I reached the top of the well, I stopped just below the edge of the stones. I listened carefully for several minutes for any sign of danger. When I was satisfied there was none, I cautiously raised my head and looked around.

The clearing was deserted, but light shone from cracks in the small hut that was nearby. For a moment I hesitated, then quietly pulled myself out of the well. Taking care not to make any noise, I looked about for the rope I remembered from our last visit. Thankfully, it was still lying near the well.

I tied the rope to one of the vertical supports and tugged on it to make sure it was secure. I jumped a bit when I heard a loud thud from inside the well, followed by the sound of stones hitting the river far below.

Warily I looked into the well to see Christopher about five feet down clutching the rope. The rock wall near him was caved and he seemed to be in a great deal of pain. Hunger radiated from him almost tangibly. His hand trembled when he reached above his head to begin climbing the rope. It was obvious that he was barely holding on to his self-control.

I pulled back and stood looking into the woods, amazed by the emotions sweeping through me. I had only seen one frenzy in my time as a Kindred and it had been shortly after my embrace. I remember watching the girl’s sire calm her and the disappointment I’d felt in seeing all that energy dissipate without a violent release.

I closed my eyes and let the excitement and danger flow through me. Distantly I realized I still held the rope that would bring Estrea and Ryan to the surface. I leaned over and dropped the rope into the well, taking care not to hit Christopher, who was now almost to the top of the well.

I met his eyes for a moment and what I saw nearly overwhelmed me. I knew he had been using his strange abilities quite frequently on our trip, but it hadn’t occurred to me until now that they used blood and he hadn’t fed. The hunger I saw in his eyes was greater than any I’d ever seen or experienced. He would have to feed and soon, or frenzy.

I could see his control slipping before my eyes. I knew we needed him to get back to our own time and that I would have to help him. My skin tingled in anticipation of what I knew that would entail.

I reached out and offered my hand to him. “Would you like some help?” I asked softly.

His eyes blazed up at me in the moonlight as if lit from within. He took my hand in a painful grip that made me gasp.

I smiled. “You’re hurting me,” I told him. “That’s good.”

In the blink of an eye he was out of the well and standing next to me. His hands gripped my shoulders, the nails ripping through the shirt and digging painfully into my skin. He thrust his head against my neck and drove his teeth into my flesh. I shuddered at the excruciating pleasure the pain gave me.

I felt the nails of his hand, nearly claws now, sink beneath the surface of my skin and enter the muscle below. I moaned softly in delight as he pulled me so close to him that I felt the imprint of his armor dig into my body.

He bit harder at my neck, tearing the flesh to get to the blood he needed, craved. I turned my head to give him better access and nearly swooned when he began to drink. His cool lips burned where they touched my skin, and abruptly I was lost in a sea of desire.

I put one hand around his waist and clutched at the metal covering his body. It gave and bent beneath my fingers and I felt his blood trickle out of the opening and down over my hand.

His hands clawed at my shoulders in response and I cried out softly. It was painful, of course, but that only made me want him to do it again. I pushed at his shoulder weakly and was rewarded when he put his arms around me and tore into new areas of my back, holding me closer still.

I arched and threw my head back in ecstasy, not caring that I heartily disliked this man. My only concern was that the pain continue, and with its continuation I grew more and more aroused. Yes, aroused, for pain was the only thing that had ever brought me anything even resembling sexual satisfaction. At that moment I was experiencing more pain than I could ever remember in my life.

In the dark of night in the middle of the past, I was more aroused than I had been at any time in my mortal life or my immortal existence. My husband had certainly never made me feel this way and even the nights with my former lover paled in comparison.

I put a hand to the back of Christopher’s neck and twisted my fingers in his hair. I pulled sharply, and his hands clenched on my back. Again I felt the fabric and skin tear beneath his onslaught while his claws dragged through my flesh. I felt a drop of blood course a path from his mouth to the wounds on my right shoulder. I shuddered violently in his grasp as the pain ripped release from my body.

I sucked at the night air to try and regain my senses, but the pain Christopher was causing was too great. I grew frightened when I realized how much blood he was taking from me. I knew that soon Christopher would drink too much and that I needed another being, preferably human, for him to feed on.

At that moment light spilled into the clearing and I turned my head in the direction of the hut. I saw a feminine silhouette leaning through a window and when she saw us she screamed.

“Help me,” I cried out, still helpless in the grip of Christopher’s painful embrace.

The shutters slammed shut and we were enveloped in darkness once again.

“Sorry, Chris,” I murmured into the night, my voice thick from the emotions swirling about my head. “I tried to get you more….”

A moment later he was gone and light spilled into the clearing once more. I looked at the hut and saw that he had broken through the shutters. I could hear the girl screaming again, and a male voice yelling something I couldn’t understand. Abruptly, the screaming stopped.

I heard a noise from the well and picked myself up off the ground where Christopher had dropped me. I healed my wounds as much as I could and tried to brush the leaves and dirt from my pants. I couldn’t do anything for the shirt, it was completely ruined.

“What the hell happened?” Estrea asked. She was standing near the well.

Her straightforward attitude and blunt speech was beginning to grow on me; I found that I liked Estrea much more now than I had when we first met.

“Chris was a bit hungry,” I replied with a small smile. “I got in the way.”

Abruptly the man who had been shouting also fell silent. I turned to the hut and wondered just who Christopher had killed.

Ryan climbed out of the well followed by the dragon. As one, Estrea and I walked to the door of the hut. I stood back while she went inside; there was no reason for me to be dessert as well as the appetizer, no matter how good it had made me feel.

A glance around the room showed two bodies on the floor. Blood was everywhere, and Christopher was huddled in a corner, oblivious to his surroundings. He was covered with blood, but the frenzy that had held him was gone.

I walked over to him and crouched at his side. I tried to touch his arm, but he pulled into a tighter ball.

I looked at the girl and saw that she was still alive, barely. Her face was ripped and bleeding, she was almost unrecognizable. There were tears flowing from her eyes that made watery pathways through the blood on her face. I knew she would never survive the wounds that Christopher had inflicted and I bent to feed. A part of me felt pity for her, wanted to end her suffering.

Her blood was good, full of pain, but there was no fear in it. It was as if she knew I was helping her end the agony. I drank until the last breath left her body with a sigh.

I straightened and reached down to close her eyes. When I looked at her body, I realized that the girl was Charelle, the ghoul who had helped us find the castle. I glanced at Christopher and knew why he was nearly comatose: regardless of our reputations, most vampires don’t kill mortals easily, and those that do rarely go through the experience unchanged.

Ryan was searching the packs and I asked her if there was anything in the girl’s belongings that I could wear. We found clothing for me to change into, and water to wash with. I quickly cleaned myself off and donned the clothing, then took the maid’s dress that Ryan had kept from earlier and tore it into rags.

I took the bucket of water and the rags to Christopher’s side and knelt in the dirt of the hut. I was grateful for the pleasure he had given me, but it troubled me that he had paid such a high price for my indulgence. I didn’t feel sorry for him exactly, I just wanted to repay him in some small way for what he had done to me.

I wet a rag and carefully began to wipe at the blood on his face and hair. Ryan joined me and together we were able to get him changed and into clean clothing.

Estrea took the bodies outside disposed of them. I didn’t ask where, but I assumed she had dragged them into the woods. She spread hay from the pile in the corner on the floor to cover the bloodstained soil.

When he was clean and the blood had been concealed, Christopher began to come back to reality. It was slow at first, but soon I knew he would recover. I looked deep in his eyes for a moment before he pulled away and looked down.

I knew he might never be all right, and he would definitely never be the same again. He had lost a part of his humanity here, in the hut that stood in the woods five centuries in our past. His beast had emerged and taken over; it was hard for any Kindred to handle that loss of control, and I thought that Christopher would have a harder time than most.
For questions regarding Sabine McTannish, please contact the author.
Main | Characters | Cities | Fiction | Music | Photos | Quotes | Links | Gaming | What's New