Blood Life by Gianna Perada Page A

glanced quickly over at him, her eyes swollen from the effort of prolonged crying. It was all she ever did anymore.
    He remained motionless, but his focus was locked on her. His head was tilted downward and his eyes looked as if they changed color. They looked black in the trickery of the candlelight. “Wouldn’t you like to hear how he died?”
    He shifted his stance. She tried to muffle her sobs, forcing her voice to come through strong. “No,” she replied, simply.
    Laughter.
    Alexandria fidgeted nervously in the reverberation of his amusement. “You are lying. You are trying to manipulate me. I will not buy into it.” The words were barely audible, but Lokee understood them perfectly.
    “It is a shame, really. He was a handsome man; could have made someone a nice husband,” he added, relentlessly.
    She swallowed hard against labored breathing. “Liar!” she hissed, ripping at her nightgown, trying to bear the pain of the possibility. “You are a liar! He isn’t dead; don’t say such things to me. You are jealous because I’ll never love you,” she roared, her face turning red; a vein in her forehead threatened to burst through.
    His expression changed rapidly. Facial features began to shift and enlarge. He put off a horrifying glare that immobilized her. When he moved away from the bed, she ran into it, huddling beneath the sheets for support. She felt restrained, only he was not touching her. The room started to warp as an unseen force drew her to him. She gripped onto the sheets and pulled them with her as some sort of defense. When the pulling ceased, he stood above her, breathing heavily.
    With a ferocious grab to the back of her head, he lifted her to her feet, then forced her eyes to the ceiling, revealing her throat. He contained her effortlessly, bringing his lips to her ears.
    “Your innocence,” he whispered. “I want your innocence.”
    “Your hurting me, please . . . let go!” she writhed in his arms, kicking and struggling for freedom from his hold. “STOP IT!”
    His fingertips were pressed up against her shoulder blades as his nails grew, extending and working their way into her flesh. She yelped as thin, gentle streams of blood ran down her back and his fingers, absorbing into his hands, causing them to swell.
    Alexandria could feel his pulse changing, trying to match her own pounding heart, a pulsing rhythm, closing in upon her. Spikes formed around his fingers, digging into the skin of her shoulders while he lifted her as a puppet, licking her neck, leaving an acidic burn. She squirmed, breathless, on her crucifix.
    With eyes that held no depth, mirrors that reflected only Alexandria’s soul, Lokee revealed his ivory white canines. She widened her eyes at them, her heart palpitating.
    “What are you?” she managed through a fear-locked jaw.
    “You stupid, stupid little girl! Did you truly believe that I was offering you husbandry?”
    His voice filled the room, ricocheting off the walls, then echoed to silence. Her face was compressed and she whimpered like a child stripped of purity. “Now that innocence is lost, is it not?” His tone had transformed almost as rapidly as his frame.
    He retracted his spikes, letting her fall to the floor before turning and languidly walking toward the window. “And here I thought this ruthlessness was but a veil.” He inspected and buffed his new fingernails as he spoke. “You have lost your external temperament of ease and grace and fallen to those hideous things that feast on mortal demons called Cupid and Love. You have been so blinded by such trifling creatures that you denied the gift of immortality, denied the gift of a God.”
    Alexandria tried to rise, but her arms could not sustain the weight of her collapsed mass. She convulsed briefly. With fear marking her voice, she said, “But you are not what you seemed. How was I to know—”
    “You know nothing and your actions were solely to offend. By what right do you claim to pass