It just tasted bad. Really, really bad.
“Die, you abomination!” someone yelled behind him.
Alexander spun just as a burning piece of wood came swinging toward his head. He caught it easily, wrenching it from the priest’s hands and tossed it aside.
In the next breath he was on the priest, fingers closing around the man’s collar. He sank his fangs into the priest’s neck and nearly choked again. Disgust rolled through him, but he forced himself to swallow. He had to. Starvation would kill him faster than bad blood.
When he finished, the priest’s limp body dropped to the ground with a dull thud.
Yet he was still starving. Still unsatisfied.
His gaze snapped toward the first human, the one he’d tossed aside. The man was still alive, scrambling backward on shaking hands and knees, robes tangled around his legs as he whimpered and tried to edge away.
Alexander stalked toward him.
When he reached him, Alexander grabbed the man by the collar, lifting him clean off the ground.
“Please… please… don’t kill me,” the man choked out, kicking weakly. “I told him to feed you. He refused! He threw this away, but I…I got it back. Here… please…” His shaking hand thrust forward a small vial of blood.
Alexander froze.
The glass glinted in the afternoon light, the thick red liquid catching his eye. The scent hit him a second later, rich and intoxicating.
His mouth watered.
Alexander dropped the human without a thought and snatched the vial from his hands. With a single motion he tore off the lid and tilted it over his mouth.
The first drop of blood hit Alexander’s tongue and he groaned, his knees nearly buckling. Pure pleasure shot through his body, cooling the worst of the hunger. He tipped the vial, shaking it, trying to coax out the last precious drops. But he’d drank it all.
And he wanted more. Gods, he wanted more.
“Where…” He swallowed, his voice scraping out of him, raw and unused. “Where did you get this?”
The human trembled violently and shook his head.
Alexander took a step toward him.
The man whimpered and jabbed a finger toward the tree line beyond the monastery walls. “Someone brings it every month,” he stammered. “I don’t know who they are. But… but they always come from that direction.”
Alexander stared at the line of trees, his mind racing. Who was bringing the blood?
A face appeared in his mind. The woman from his dreams. Every time she appeared, that exact same scent wrapped around him. It had to be her. Alexander’s pulse quickened.
Was she his bride?
His heart began to pound harder against his ribs like it was trying to break free. For the first time since waking in that cursedcoffin, something other than anger and hunger stirred inside him.
Hope.
But the excitement quickly gave way to frustration.
How the hell was he supposed to find her?
“Will they come again?” he asked, tearing his gaze away from the forest. “To bring the blood?”
“Yes,” the man answered quickly. “Day after tomorrow.”
Two days.