This Night, I Could Feast

I am the Blood King, craving the hearts of the innocent, yet all I feast on is the flesh of rats. I thought I’d rot like this forever. And then you came to me. And now you're sleeping by the fire, on an ancient, stained sofa, unroused by the castle that could spell your death. This night has found me restless, my bed empty. I am too occupied. The firelight flickers as I pace around you. I pause in genuflect beside your body. I tuck a tuft of golden-brown hair behind your ear. Caress the side of your head. You smile in your sleep. Your heart is so pure that it wants to smile even when you are not conscious. Your dream is a loving world. I want to sink my teeth into you. You are incapable of malice, and I want to destroy you.

We found each other on an evening veiled by a pulsing storm, the fiery sunset washed out by the mountain of bouldering clouds. The rain couldn’t mask your sweet scent. This is why I don’t come near the farms. Why I prowl at the edges of the woodland like a beast. I would have stayed away, as I always do, I tell and told myself I always will, but it is you who approached me. You couldn’t know who I was, and that is my fault. A Hand of Death masquerading as a simple wanderer. The rest of my ilk know better. They know to drape themselves in curtainous black. To let their nails grow long like village pikes awaiting heads. Show off their fangs like reflective premonitions. But I could not. I never could. You invited me into the barn where you were working before the storm surprised you. I like the storms. I like to be swathed in Mother’s cold caress. Thrown around by this violence of hers, so unafraid to be itself, wild and unshackled. I feel free. But I could not refuse your sincerity. Inside the barn, the hay reflected the light of the hanging lanterns in a warm glow. My cold blood was warm. In your childish, smiley voice, you told me you were glad I was there. You thought you’d have to wait out the storm alone. You are so pure that you’d rather have the company of a stranger because you don’t have to protect anyone from yourself.

I was uneasy surrounded by hay, sturdy ladders, the smell of earth and toil, your smile. I hadn’t left the seclusion of my castle in years. How many exactly is not a question to ask; time to me is like an eye that never closes. I know only the vaguest sense of its passing by counting the generations of rats that skitter in the sewage below the stones. I left the night of the storm because I felt like brooding, and when I feel like brooding, I haunt the dark forest and stalk the creatures of the undergrowth. I stare enviously at their bloody maws, at the strips of flesh that hang from their teeth. Why wasn’t I born an animal? Why was I cursed with a choice? Thunder pounded as if something had fallen against the sky, and your shoulders became tense. I offered you comfort. I told you, be still, you are safe. Why did I lie? I look at your sleeping face now and understand. You were frightened. Your smile was replaced by a quivering lip. I scared myself by wanting to do anything to bring it back, though I cannot look at it for long. Trapped in the barn, the only thing you were safe from was the storm.

Your family came to find you between shrieks of lightning. You are too precious to lose. Fourteen years of life and you’ve filled up a thousand times that amount of hearts with love. They didn’t worry about the worker they’d lose, the hay that someone else would have to stack, the quail someone else would have to hunt. They worried about their son, their brother, and the love they’d have nowhere to place. A simple storm. Common. Worth all this fretting. My family would never have killed you. They would have tortured anyone who even thought to lift a finger against you. They’d eat their heart slowly, whilst it still beat. They’d consume the blood from their popped vessels, a look of carnal justice searing profoundly in their eyes. Maybe then it is just for me to return to them. Offer myself up to their Hunger. I am their perfect meal.

A husband beats his wife, then disappears under the black of night, under the black of talons. A jealous woman raises a match to the home of her lover’s betrothed and is never found, only consumed. A sheriff says he will get away with it, he is the law, only to find himself at the mercy of life’s only law and that is Death. My family craves the hearts of the depraved, of the horrid. They revel in the blood of the rotten. Humankind’s unjust bullies. They say their hearts taste like fire because their souls came from the pits of hell. To some, they are angels of Death’s divine justice. To the evil, they loom over them like a black mirror reflecting their misdeeds. But my hunger never growled for the flesh of the wicked. When I was young, I explained to them that blood didn’t interest me, and they said the Hunger would come to me eventually, all the while I was blood-deprived and sick and turning in bed at night because I craved the taste of the innocent. I was tortured because I never wanted to destroy it. But I cannot feast without destroying. I know I cannot have the impossible.

I retreated to my castle, because we all have a castle nestled in the space between breaths. I clutched your note. Written hastily in the barn whilst you thought I slept, but I was not. I heard every scratch of every letter, and read it in my mind’s eye before ever gazing upon it. You are so perfect. You invited me to dinner in your home. You knew nothing of me save for my company in a storm. The skin of your cheek is so soft against the back of my finger. I lean in and breathe in your sleepy scent, our quietude shadowed by pulsing candlelight. I haunt over your little rest, your soft, round face, your smooth, shut eyes. My black-gray hair shadows over your cuddled body like the tattered funeral gown of a banshee. My claws pale the wooden top of the sofa. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt any of you; I only crave the pulsing life in your veins.

I held your card firmly in my tired hands. I read your sweet scrawl a hundred times. I pictured your smile between every word. The dimples that formed as you imagined sharing dinner with a stranger. The community you build with your kindness. Your empire of love. I wept upon the page. I dared not throw it into the fire, though surely that would stop the temptation. I threw myself down the stairs. My hair came undone and savage. I plunged into the muck of the sewers. I feasted on the blood of rats and wished that it was you.

At dinner, I was a caged beast. I never knew a home could cradle this much love. I wished then so desperately that I could be full on the served food. Humans’ sweet recipes, their savory burnt flesh. I wish there wasn’t another creature inside me that craves and needs to be tended to. But even as I feasted on the warmly cooked venison, my stomach growled at your every action. You possess an honesty I can feel like the steam that rose from the wooden plates. Your innocence proven. You looked at me, this stranger, then to your father and mother for approval and received it, and suddenly I was too close. I needed to warn you, so I said it’s not safe to be so near the woodland alone, there are thieves and bandits at the edges of the farmland path, and you responded after a grateful mouthful, my family is worth the risk, that there cannot be happiness without that danger. Not one without the other.

I look at you and want the impossible.

After dinner, you followed me into the woods. You asked what I do and I said I wander. You wondered if you could join me, if only you were back by dusk. What part of me is strong enough to refuse? After centuries of begging and waiting, of not choosing but instead longing, how could I? I saw this as fate, as karma finally allowing me this meal. I accepted, and we walked along the rotting logs. The wolves feasted on the skin of a white doe. You were unafraid. Nature is allowed to feast without question. You were impressed with my agility, with the way I knew the pathless forest. You smiled when we stopped at a river you had never seen, and I told you it was safe to drink. You only asked that I hold your arm as you leaned into the rapid for a taste of her lifeblood. Your pulse beat quick against my palm. You had never felt so refreshed. Bouncing with a fervor for adventure, you silently begged me to show you more and I obliged. We took a breath, and in the wingflap from one inhale to the other, we were enclosed in cold cobblestone and eternal candlelight that does not reach the boundless ceiling. In tattered drapery by wide stairways lined with spiraling handrails. In the sound of a thousand rats pittering beneath the stones. By a couch with a tasseled blanket by a warm fireplace.

Your look of worry nearly killed me. Suddenly, and frighteningly, I wanted to make you feel safe. I let my talons rest softly on your shoulder and said this is my castle. You meekly asked the center of my chest if I was a vampire. I told you the truth. I will not lie to you again. You found my eyes and smiled. I wish I could live in a castle, you said, then ran to the stairs and laughed at their enormity. I haven’t given you a reason to hate me, but the swimming creature of self-hatred cannot let me believe anyone couldn’t. Yet you ran to me and grabbed my wrist. Show me around, you cheered, and I obliged. I took you to the tall spires that overlook an impossibly deep gorge. My reading room with centuries of collected knowledge and a telescope that spots every star. You heard the rats and said, at least you’re not alone. You were tired by the end of it and asked to be brought home. I lied to you and said we couldn’t travel back until morning. You would have to sleep here. Okay, you said, and I showed you to the couch with the blanket by the fire. Goodnight, you said, and wrapped your arms around me. I have never felt the warmth of the sun, but I believe this is what it feels like.

My teeth are inches from your neck. I dare not let them touch. I pace around this ancient couch. I count every one of your sleepy breaths. I stare long enough at your swannish smile, your dove-white teeth that crest the ends of your lips when you yawn. Every time you turn and you grasp the tassels at the end of my blanket, my heart rolls over. I picture your fingers entwined with mine when the white threads are in your grip. Once more, I lean in close to you from behind the sofa, hovering over your rest like the Death of old, and whisper my dilemma into your dreams. I shut my eyes, and your smell makes me dream that I’ve already consumed you. I’ve already tasted the sweetness of your perfect blood. I’ve seen your insides bared to the air, my sight gaining admittance to every part of your body, unearthed and ready to be devoured. And I’ve sunk my teeth into your neck, your chest, your wrists, and below. Chewed on the delicate softness of your skin. In my mind, I’ve already sated the centuries-long hunger and gotten away with it completely. No one would find their stake through my heart in this castle. The wait is finally over. The taste of rat fur stuck between my teeth is forever forgotten. The scent of urine mildew feces and bile banished from memory. Your blood in my cells an everlasting memorial of what the world has lost.

You make a noise in your sleep like a quiet puppy, and I’m reminded of your embrace. Could I feed on this invisible force? I feel full but hungry. I know that if I sink my talons into the back of your head and puncture the little nape of your neck with my fangs, the craving will be sated. But I will be shattered. Empty from the tears I will cry for having destroyed something beautiful. That is what I think of as I retire to bed, as I leave you asleep on the couch by the fire. Your trust. I can feed on you until it doesn’t feel like feeding, it just feels like love.

In the morning, I will let him go.