Rainbow Snippets*-- Dog Days of Summer

If it wasn't for the mosquitoes, this would be the best time of year. It's cool enough to have the windows open, but warm enough we can still wear shorts and t-shirts. With any luck, it'll stay this way until November. Not likely, but we can hope!

This week's snippet is a continuation of my Vampire WIP, Fangs For the Memories. It's 1969 and Artemis, a 300 year-old + vampire, has spent the last week with a young couple. A flat tire in the early hours of the morning turns into a crisis when Alex is hit by a passing vehicle and his girlfriend, Sally, begs Artemis to save him. Alex has consented but Artie fears he's waited too long. From Artemis' POV:   (read part one, part two, part three, part four, part five,)

 And even that, ripping into his flesh this way, was wrong. This should be solemn and ceremonial, not this frenzied feed. I gulped two, three more times and sat back up. 

Under normal conditions I would have drained him to near death, filling my body with his blood. But he was too close and I couldn’t let him die. Warm-bloods call vampires the undead, but that’s not our reality. We never truly die before or during the change, and if death happens, the change doesn't. We are simply a different form of life. We still have a heartbeat, slow and nearly undetectable, but there. But it also means we don’t bleed when we’re injured. I bit into my wrist and thrust it against Alex’s mouth, but he needed to suck and swallow, and he didn’t. There was still the flutter of life, I could sense it, but he was unresponsive and I froze, uncertain.

To be continued... (Remember, Sally is still there....)

*Rainbow Snippets is a (Facebook) group for LGBTQ+ authors, readers, and bloggers who gather once a week to share snippets from a work of fiction–-a WIP or a finished work or even a book recommendation. If you're interested in following a diverse group of authors, check it out here.