The Dark Sire Issue 1 (Fall 2019) | Page 85

A deep, ruffled growl escaped the girl, her lips pulling taut like a rabid animal. She pressed hard against my thumb that was clamped on her chin. I pushed the tip of my thumb into the flesh of her cheek, feeling the rigid teeth inside her mouth, and twisted my pinky in and up to pin the jugular like a pinched nerve, draining her strength. She was forced into submission. I inserted the needle directly into the center of the right hole on the girl’s neck and firmly pressed the plunger until every last drop of the clear solution was injected. “Let her go and stand back. Be ready for anything!” The girl’s body convulsed, and her jaw clenched. Her mouth drew taut as strained grunts, like the undead pulling itself from fresh graveyard soil, crept through her curled upper lip. Her hands shook uncontrollably, the fingernails growing to long points. She grabbed the left side of her neck with both hands and jabbed the points of her nails into her own flesh. The bite mark seared, like steak on too hot a grill, and burned red hot. The girl’s shoulder blades contracted, and she thrashed herself on the soft mattress. A tragem symbol of vampire ownership appeared across the bite mark that was now healed. The girl’s grunts turned to a low, gurgling growl as her blue eyes turned red and her canines grew to long sharp tapers. She sat half-way up, face snarling, right arm shaking. Her face was no longer that of the kind girl that laid in bed when I first arrived, but of a disfigured creature spawned by the devil at death’s door, with jagged teeth, sunken eyes, tightly pulled thin skin, and prominent pointed cheek bones. 83