Rolling to his knees, Vars only saw one thing. Damon’s body lay nearby, no longer aflame, his fingers curled and twitching as he rocked his hips frantically, in a vain attempt to get up. His gaze was unfocused, head completely bald, with some of the skin raised from fresh burns.
It was only when Vars made a guttural sound and crawled in his direction that the steel-hued eyes turned to look at him.
For a couple of heartbeats, Jake failed to react, but then he followed Vars, gently touching his shoulder, as if he didn’t know how to handle it all. “Maybe you should rest? Don’t move, Vars, please,” he said.
Damon shuddered, struggling to breathe as his entire body twitched from the shock. With his fingers permanently curled, it seemed like the heat of Jake’s breath had congealed some of the proteins in his muscles, but the bastard fought through the pain and pulled something out of his pocket. It was tiny enough to remain hidden between the contracting fingers, and Vars couldn’t find the energy to care. All he could think of was the hunger consuming him, raging inside of him, a hole that only got deeper, scratching at his sanity and telling him to move despite the violent pain in his body.
He crawled forward in the sticky pool of his own blood, fighting the heaviness in his limbs until Jake understood that he wouldn’t stay put, and helped him get closer instead of pulling back.
Vars only met Damon’s gaze for half a second before descending on his neck with his mouth wide open.
His jaws shut rapidly, whole body rising as he tossed his head about, ripping through skin and flesh until his mouth filled, spurt after spurt, with the thick, nourishing sweetness.
Skin and tendons moved against his mouth, but with Vars’s grip firmly on the side of Damon’s chest, his meal wasn’t going anywhere. Under the weight of Vars’s hand, his chest rose, and when he spoke, the movement of his throat sent vibrations through Vars’s lips.
“F-fuck you… I’ll burn d-down all you lov—”
Damon choked on his own blood, but Vars sucked hard, clutching the rapidly cooling body while his own was growing in strength, as if he’d just had a big bowl of chili.
He was almost there, so close to bottoming out even his balls were itching from the unexpected rush when the floor violently shook under his knees.
He thought it was just some kind of mirage, like the sweet taste of Damon’s blood or the heat bubbling under his skin, but no. Again and again, explosions somewhere farther away shook the building around them, and the booming rumble made it impossible to hear what Jake was screaming just a step away.
Chapter 26 - Vars
Explosions erupted one by one, thudding in Vars’s ears like a war drum. The music broke halfway through the chorus of a popular song, replaced by shrieks that sliced through his heart, no matter how far away they were. The light’s flickered, only to die, sinking the clubhouse in a darkness so absolute the building might as well had dropped to the pit of hell.
Vars looked up, his mouth still full of the aftertaste left behind by pure life. Everything around him sped up. Colors were brighter, and the voices louder as soon as Damon’s heart came to a halt.
He felt powerful, as if he’d just lost twenty years from his back and taken cocaine on top of that. It was only after a moment that he realized there was something chewy in his mouth, and he spat out a bit of raw meat that he must have bitten off.
Jake stared him with eyes wide open. “We— I mean… What was that? Are you okay?”
Screams resounding far away seemed louder in Vars’s head than they should be, almost as if the frightened people were in one of the adjacent rooms. The floor was still shaking under him, but when he looked out of the window, a yellow sheen drew his attention in the dark, reflected off the snow. People were running out of the building like ants out of a burning nest.
He took a deep breath, still too shocked to fully take in what had just happened. The taste of Damon’s blood still lingered at the back of his tongue yet was no longer as attractive. The need had been satisfied. “Did I... did I?” he whispered, touching his neck to search for the hole. His gaze darted to a bloodied dagger lying on the floor not that far away. The serrated blade should have torn open anything in its way, yet there Vars was, still alive and with just a scar to show for it.
“Jesus Christ!” Jake darted for the window, jerkily turning his head as he alternated between staring at Vars and watching the flames in the distant part of the building. “That motherfucker set explosives in the clubhouse! We have to go. Fuck, fuck… You’re freaking me out!”