Conversion Ch. 02

"You died," he said bluntly, if not unkindly. "But I would not willingly let any being go to the fate you were departing for. So I brought you back to offer you a choice."

Daria sucked in another breath, feeling her lungs expanding reluctantly. Instead of getting stronger, she felt like her life was draining away again every moment. "What choice?"

"Here, stand up." He helped her off the slab and onto her feet, where she swayed unsteadily until he moved right up against her, steadying her small frame with his large, hard body. Then he nodded to the side, and for the first time she noticed that Mother Elantine was there, gagged and bound to a chair. The older nun's eyes were wide and terrified. A slender cut on her neck bled sluggishly, dripping thin streams of crimson down to the neck of her habit.

"This is what you need now, to sustain yourself," he said softly in her ear. "If you want to live, to conquer your fear, to avoid what you saw when you passed on, you must renounce and repuidate the One God."

She looked up into his eyes, wondering and afraid. In the dimly lit room, his gaze was lost in shadow. "Sustain myself?"

His lips thinned as he pressed them together, but she was unsure what emotion stirred him. "I cannot bring life from death without cost, sweetheart. Balance is required and dictated by the grand design. If you wish to stay in this world, you must feed on the blood of the living. You are a vampire."

She choked, clutching at his arms, and he tightened his grip on her to prevent her from falling. "Calm! Calm down, Daria. You have surely heard or read lies about the night-walkers, but I assure you, this does not turn you into an unthinking beast. You are in control, and the master of your own destiny. Look within youself, and you will know this to be true."

Breathing shallowly, she did as he said. She felt strangely empty, and a terrible thirst parched her throat and twisted in her gut, but essentially she was the same she'd ever been. The thought of killing an innocent still filled her with revulsion. She relaxed a bit, panting, as her knees trembled.

"As I said," the tall man continued. "You have a few options before you, and you must soon make a choice, or have it made for you. You can only exist for so long in this world now without blood."

She looked up at him again, fighting to keep her eyes open. "So, you want me to kill Mother Elantine, or... or I go back to - back to-"

"No!" he cut her off firmly. "No. Killing her is only one option, sweetheart. If you wish, you can die again. Renounce the One God, and taste a drop of my blood, and you will pass on to your rest without going into... into the Hunger." He grimaced. "I told you, I would not wish that on anyone, not my even my worst enemies."

He sighed, and stroked a hand through her dark hair and along her jawline. "But if you want to continue living... yes, you must drink from our enemy there until she is dead. A life for a life. Or, if you still wish to reside with the One God in death... do nothing. The end will not be long in coming."

Daria swallowed with some difficulty. "Why?" she whispered, her voice too weak to raise any further. "She is not my enemy."

"But she is," he returned softly. "She would consign you to that terrible hunger, and consider it a blessing. Give her the chance, and she will live out the rest of her life doing her best to convince others to feed themselves to it, gaining ghoulish satisfaction in the destruction of their souls. She is an enemy of all life. But you do not have to deal with her. If you wish to pass on in peace I wish you all joy."

He hesitated a moment. "Nevertheless... I would venture to guess, sweetheart, that while you have been alive... you have never really lived. And it would be a shame to die without seeing how glorious life can truly be."

Daria whimpered and let her head fall forward against his chest. It was hard to think with her mind so muddled with this aching, clutching thirst. The smell of the older nun's blood filled the air, striking a deep chord of hunger that knotted painfully in her belly.

In the long silence, Daria thought harder than she ever had before. When she finally opened her eyes and looked up at the tall man, her eyes were resolute. "I choose life," she whispered softly. Conviction rang in her tone.

He helped her over to Mother Elantine, who was breathing heavily in panic, her eyes wild. She wrapped her arms around the Mother's neck to stay upright. This close, the smell of the other nun's body was intoxicatingly delicious. Saliva flooded her mouth, and she swallowed convulsively. Her gums and teeth ached.

His hand rested on her back, steadying and reassuring her. Daria took a deep breath, the air rasping in her dry throat, and looked directly into the senior nun's horrified eyes.

"This might have been a harder decision, but you were always the hardest of the Sisters on us novices," she said quietly. "The contempt in your face, the hatred in your lectures about the outside world... I don't even remember how I came to the convent, meaning unlike some of the other girls, I cannot recall having parents or a different home... all I had was you. We all lived in fear of you. I - I lived in fear of you."

She took another deep breath and closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, her expression was feral. Crimson seeped into her eyes, overwhelming their usual stormy grey.

"No longer!" she cried fiercely. "I renounce the One God!"

With a snarl, she lunged forwards and sank her teeth into the soft skin of the older woman's neck. Her sharp new canines bit deeply into her flesh. The Mother's scream was muffled by her gag. Her heels drummed a staccato rhythm on the floor as muscles clenched spastically in agonized protest. Blood sprayed into Daria's mouth and she gulped it down eagerly, moaning at the back of her throat at the glorious taste. It was so good, rich and warm and utterly nourishing. Strength surged through her in pulsing waves, and the fading world snapped back into sharp clarity once again.

All too soon, the flow of liquid slowed to a trickle, and then stopped altogether. Reluctantly, the newly born vampire loosened her jaws and backed away from the Mother's corpse. She wiped a few stray drops of blood that clung to her lips, and sucked lightly on her fingers. Every nerve in her body felt alive, and heady excitement coursed through her veins. When the tall man touched her shoulder, it felt so good she almost purred, arching her back. Her already stiff nipples hardened almost to the point of pain, and an answering throb pulsed in her cunt.

She felt his voice in every part of her body, vibrating on her skin, tugging enticingly at her mind. "One of the strength of your new body is its ability to absorb power from the vital essence you consume. The greater the strength of the blood, the more powerful you grow.

He caught her up in his arms, and she instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist, grinding her heated core against the front of his pants with an eager whine. She was half out of her mind with his touch, and wanted more desperately. He looked into her face intently, his eyes shadowed, and stroked her cheek. "My gift to you, sweetheart, so you will have the best chance at surviving this dangerous world. The blood of a Shining One."

His hands moved to his neck, and one hard nail opened up a shallow cut as she watched avidly. She felt her tongue dart out involuntarily to wet her lips as dark blood beaded and trickled down. Then he was guiding her forward, and the moment after, she tasted eternity.

Mother Elantine's blood had been delicious, but it was nothing compared to this. Dark, rich waves of thick, heady ambrosia slid across her tongue as she suckled gently at the cut, afraid of pulling any harder lest the sensation destroy her. She could sense the heavy blood spreading relentless through her body, marking and reshaping every inch, every cell. A tendril of that dark fire reached down through her belly and touched her soaking sex, and her world exploded into sparks and splashes of vivid light.

She let out a plaintive, gasping wail, and would have fallen but for the firm support of his strong arms. He was inside her, he was all around her.

He was everything.