The little deal

My grandmother took the amulet out of her sleeve.

It was a dull red disc with a thin golden chain as its cord. She held it up in the courtyard, in front of me and two of my cousins. For some reason her hand was trembling. My younger cousin screamed and fell backwards into the dirt.

I turned to see what he was looking at.

A white figure stood beside me, tall and thin with broad shoulders, like a sheet hung on nothing. I tried to step back, but the courtyard tilted and my vision blurred. When I woke, I was met with silence from my parents even when I tried talking to them. The only person who spoke was my grandmother. "you are chosen to be the next groom of the monster in the villa."

In that moment maybe the floor might have tilted but no one seemed to have noticed.

I saw my mother tearing up and she left the room. "Mom." I leapt after her but someone from the family held me back. My grandmother moved closer to me. "Now you will live here... it is for your own good."

I turned to my father who wouldn't look at me.

I remember when I was young, on cold nights my mother would brew green tea. She always told me that when I grew up, I should make it for my wife. After I was chosen as her husband, my mother stopped visiting, and every night I only craved that tea. I wanted to gulp it down in one go, to quench my thirst, my desire, and never stop drinking.

Yes. I was thirsty. I hadn't known.

I didn't stop drinking her blood. I couldn't say when those horrible slurping sounds ended.

A loud crash came from outside.

My eyes snapped open. I was lying once again in the bed, drenched in sweat. Another bang followed, and then footsteps, several and heavy ones.

I bolted out of bed and into the corridor. It was dark. I took a step forward, something thick and warm slid against my feet. I fell back into my room, and when I looked down, red trails dripped from my soles.

It was blood.

Last night struck my memory, a mixture of repulsion and shame washed over me.

A man appeared in the doorway, disheveled, his breath ragged. He grabbed my arms. "Boy, what are you doing here?" His whole body was trembling when I put my hand on his back to calm his down.

"M-my friends. They're all dead. We need to get out of here—"

The door opened, and she walked in. Her clothes were stained dark, and her hair swayed behind her. She smirked at us. "Ah. So you decided to hide in the monster's resting chambers." She burst into laughter and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "You're such an imbecile."

The man fell down, still gripping me. His eyes were fixed on her, bright with sweat and terror. "We're finished. This monster will devour us."

I looked at him, then at my wife. She was struggling to hold back her laughter. She slipped her arm around mine and rested her head on my shoulder. The man snatched his hand away from me and crawled back.

"P-please. Spare me."

Still holding my arm, she moved toward him. "Tell me. Should I spare him?"

I blinked. Was she asking me? I looked at the man, hopeless and miserable on the floor. I wanted to help him.

I moved my gaze back at her. She was watching me, or, more exactly, she was looking through me. She knew what I would say before I said it. She rubbed her finger over my lip.

"Go on. Tell me to spare him."

I swallowed. "Will you spare him?"

"I will." She said it loudly, for the man to hear.

"Thank you," the man whispered. "Thank you, thank you, thank you—"

"On one condition." She lifted her arm and pointed at him, eyes closed, smiling. "My husband may drink from him. Only a little. Then the man walks out alive."

The man's face twisted into disbelief. He stared at me. "Husband?"

The corner of my mouth twitched. "I can't."

His fingers scraped the floor. His eyes darted between us and lingered on me. I watched his throat move as he swallowed. I saw the veins rise at his neck as his blood quickened, and I could hear his pulse. I could hear it. I could smell his blood, which I shouldn't have been able to do. My mouth watered. I slapped my hands over it before it could drip.

"I can't," I said again, through my fingers.

My wife's smile didn't move. "Then I can't spare him." She said it almost gently. "Mercy has a price, husband. You didn't pay it."

She released my arm and leaped.

I reached for her, but I was too slow.

It took less than a minute. Her slender hands snapped bones the way I might snap twigs, and blood spread across the floor. I fell to my knees. For one clear moment the horror was entire. That was a living, moving man, but with one denial he was nothing.

The smell reached me. My mouth watered until I was drooling. My stomach growled through the nausea, as if I were disgusted by the very thing that was triggering my appetite. But the worst of it was the thing my body did next, a trembling that I would never have admitted. It was jealousy. I wanted her to drink my blood. Among her kind, an exchange of blood was a declaration of love, and yet there she knelt.

He was a human, and she was a vampire. They were prey and predator.

But I am a human too. So what is between us?