Heirot

Vlad's eyes slowly came awake from black to a dull brown. He smelled it. He wanted it. His muscles wouldn't move. He wondered if he was dead. Or maybe he was hallucinating. A warm hand on his face, a soft voice...

He'd seen plenty of things that weren't there over the past few days. Tenele he thought. His lip twitched.

Tenele bit her bottom lip. She reached a bit further into the circle. She grabbed his shoulders and shoved him over before hopping back out fearfully. She gave herself a few more calculated seconds before she took the coconut of blood and opened his mouth. She poured it down his throat. When his mouth filled with blood she stopped, setting the bowl down. There was still a little left.

"Vlad?" she asked softly, brushing her fingers along his cheek. "Are you alive? Please say something..."

Vlad didn't swallow at first, but the blood flowed freely down his unclosed throat. The energy swirled in his veins, easing the ache. He swallowed hard and made a low noise more suited to the bedroom than a binding circle.

His skin grew more lifelike as his dull eyes rose to stare at her. "Alive," he whispered. "Thanks. Out."

Tenele backed out of the circle, sitting next to it. "Do you need more? There is more in the coconut," she whispered, nodding to the thing she'd left beside him. She cradled her hand to her chest.

Vlad nodded numbly, but it took a while for him to convince his muscles to move. He rolled to his side and managed to push up on his elbow, facing her. He looked her over with bleary vision. She seemed healthy. He could tell her wrist was hurt, and it was obvious why. "Eating?" he asked. He'd meant to make it a more sophisticated inquiry, but that was what he could get out at the moment.

"Yes," she lied. If you counted coconuts, technically she was eating. It wasn't a complete lie. Unfortunately hard meals were difficult to get when her ankle didn't let her move fast enough to catch anything or kill it. "I can bring you more of that tomorrow."

Vlad shook his head slowly. "In or out, you'll m..make me kill you..." he hissed, barely above a whisper. He looked at the coconut. He could feel his hunger slowly creeping back, clawing at his composure. The more he drank the hungrier he'd get. He lifted the coconut and his arm barely handled the effort. In a few seconds, her careful sacrifice was gone. It was humiliating.

"Thank you. No more." He glanced at her ankle and then into her eyes quietly. "Let it heal." He didn't mind her being near the circle anymore. He was past the point of being able to escape, so he trusted himself quite a bit more. It was nice to not be terrified and hungry. Hungry was enough. If he let himself admit it, it was a relief to have her nearby.

He lay flat again and stared at her quietly. Not the typical image of a starving vampire.

Tenele smiled. "I'm letting it heal," she protested. But, she had to keep the fire going so they could be seen at night. She wiped her shimmering brow, feeling the fiery skin. "Okay... I'll stop torturing you." She stumbled to her feet. Her stomach growled, letting her know how hungry it was. It was easy to forget the hunger when she was focused on him. "I'm going down to the beach."

Vlad watched her go. He should have caught more food for her. He should have made things comfortable here and then swam straight out into the sea. Tenele didn't seem well. What if she ruined her health trying to keep him alive?

That was all he really had time to think before the hunger set in again, spurred by the teasing amount he'd just had to drink. He wanted more. His thoughts turned to daydreams of tearing into her neck. He wrapped his arms over his head and clutched himself tight as he prepared to wait it out.

Tenele went down to the beach and waded in the water for a few hours. The salt stung the scrapes along her ankles and the cut at her hand. If she kept ripping slivers of her dress away for bandages, she'd have very little left to wear.

She wrapped her ankle and hand again to keep the sand out of it. She was tired. Maybe she'd put too much blood in that coconut? She would just go back to the camp and rest, so she could afford to help him again tomorrow. A few more days. One or two, right? She could manage that.

Tenele tried to catch a few crabs with the spear like claws Vlad left her. She managed one. Though small as it was, one was enough for now.

Back inside the lean-to, while her food cooked, Tenele removed her dress and began to make alterations to it. She made a top piece that tied over her breasts, and a cover that tied around her waist. Short, but covering the necessary parts. She used the rest as clean bandaging.

She didn't feel well, and she wasn't too keen on infection. So she poured salt into the gashes where the rock had cut her. Tenele screamed, and then clamped a hand over her mouth. She seethed, heaving, until the sting went away. Then she added a little water and wrapped it up.

Vlad's ears perked at Tenele's muffled scream. It was the first thing he'd really been alert to all day. He'd watched her go into the lean-to, so he knew she was safe. The vampire struggled into a sitting position and stared across the clearing. Despite Tenele's generosit, his nerves were starting to go dead again. He managed to focus on watching the shelter for a few minutes, and then he couldn't remember what he was doing anyway. He wound up down again, every bit as comatose as that morning.

Tenele didn't come out of the shelter the next morning until sometime after mid-day. She looked tired and sporting a new bandage on the same arm as the one she'd used to fill the coconut the day before. She didn't add as much, but she thought maybe it was enough to keep his mind going. Tenele didn't realize she was only making his hunger worst.

She knelt in the sand next to his still body. Again? He looked so lifeless. "Vlad," she called to him. She leaned forward and placed the coconut inside the circle next to the one she'd brought him the day before. "Wake up. Just a day or more. I know it. I feel it."

Vlad didn't move, or look at her this time. He lay still as a corpse, eyes closed.

Tenele swallowed. She flexed her hands in her lap before she leaned forward into the circle. She touched his shoulder and pushed to flip him over, as she'd done the day before.

Vlad's body rolled under her guidance. The movement pulled his eyes half open. They were black, irises expanding to almost his entire eyes. "He looked at her, and his eyes twitched to the coconut.

If he took it, she would keep doing this. If he didn't, her blood was wasted. What good would it do for him to live another few hours like this? "Ssstay...away," he ground out slowly.