The Hunger

By Jaid Black

Count Dario Giovanni swore he would do anything to save his sister from the evil countess who enslaved her. He couldn't have imagined in his most depraved nightmare just how hellish "anything" would become. Damned to walk the earth alone, his only comfort the dream woman who haunts him during slumber, he is the guardian between hell and earth. Four hundred years later, the evil vampire rises again. Dario vows to kill her at any cost. And to hunt down the human female who turns out to be more than an elusive dream.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jaid Black
• Release date: May 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463871003

Jaid Black

Jaid Black is the founder and driving force of Ellora's Cave Publishing, the award-winning online source for erotic literature. She is also the founder and publisher of Lady Jaided, a sexy new magazine for women. Her novella "Hunter's Right" appears in the collection Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down, and her novel Deep, Dark & Dangerous is forthcoming from Pocket Books in March 2006. Vistit her on the web at www.jaidblack.com.

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Copyright © 2005 by Jaid Black.

This story was originally published in Lady Jaided magazine, 2005: Volume 1, issues 1, 2 and 3.

Republished February 2017 & May 9, 2020.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The Hunger

By Jaid Black

Part I:

The Legend

Prologue

Zagros foothills of Mesopotamia

7012 B.C.

Clamping a hand over her mouth to stave off her own screams, Maltheria fell to her knees and hysterically prayed to the gods that they might save the very girl-child being sacrificed to them. Vampiri, she whimpered from the stone step she fell upon. Mine own.

The ziggurat temple’s high priest made a dismissive gesture with his hand, indicating to his minions that the altar had been prepared and it was time to stretch the ten-year-old girl’s body out upon it. The child began to cry, her eyes wild with fear.

A dark formation of clouds coalesced in the daylight sky, casting dark shadows as far as the eye could see. When all was readied, the high priest held his arms up to the crowd assembled at the stone steps below and boomed out the ritualistic words so familiar to them all.

I offer unto you the life’s blood of this child in exchange for the life’s blood of the crops. May the gods be well pleased with this unworthy sacrifice and deliver unto us the rains.

Maltheria’s eyes widened in horror at the sound of her daughter’s tortured scream. A wooden stake was driven through Vampiri’s heart, the blood of her innocent body gushing obscenely from the hideous puncture wound and dripping into a clay urn positioned below the slab of stone she had been strapped to. A horrific gurgling sound bubbled up from her daughter’s chest as her life’s blood poured from the hole, dripping a pristine red into the ritual urn.

"Vampiri," Maltheria sobbed as her eldest son, Malleus, clutched her hand. Hysterical with grief, she shot to her feet and tried to break from her son’s grasp that she might do—she didn’t know what she might do, only that her daughter needed her.

Mother, do not! Malleus pleaded in a fervent whisper. They will slay you too. This you know.

But Maltheria was beyond reason, beyond sanity. With the berserk instincts of an animal protecting her young, she snatched her small hand from her son’s larger one with a brute strength never before known to her and raced up the stone steps of the ziggurat. Vampiri, she wailed, tears tracking her cheeks, Mama comes, daughter!

A stinging blow to her face dealt by the high priest caused Maltheria to lose her footing and plunge directly toward her daughter’s lifeless body. Weeping, she fell on Vampiri just below the heart, her eye nearly impaled by the other end of the jutting pike.

The dark clouds overhead began to rumble, growing black as sackcloth. The moon and the sun merged as one, forming a solitary crimson stain in the black skies.

Fool woman! the high priest spat, hoisting Maltheria up from her daughter’s body by a jerk to her raven-black hair. He whirled her around to face him, then backhanded her so brutally that her nose broke and began spurting blood. There will be two sacrifices to the gods this day, his voice boomed out, an innocent and a whore!

Jerking her back around to face Vampiri, the high priest shoved Maltheria toward her daughter’s draining body and draped her over it so their bodies formed a cross of broken flesh. Sobbing, Maltheria offered her executioner no resistance.

The black skies began to rumble as the high priest turned again to face the crowd. He lifted a sharp dagger high into the air, preparing to offer up the next sacrifice. I offer unto you…

Thunder boomed down from the heavens. Lightning pierced the sky.

The life’s blood of…

The winds began to moan, as if ordering the high priest to cease his unholy incantation.

This whore…

The villagers gasped and fell to their knees in fear as the crimson orb in the sky dimmed and the heavens dripped not of life’s water, but blood. Malleus’ eyes widened in further disbelief as he watched his sister’s body slowly rise into a sitting position, her head twisting to the right to regard the unknowing high priest whose back was to her.

May the gods be well pleased with this unworthy sacrifice and deliver unto us—

The high priest grunted as he felt an object shoot through his spine and make its way out the other side of his body through his abdomen. Gasping in the throes of agony, he glanced down to his belly and watched disbelievingly as a tiny hand emerged from his flesh and, lurching upwards, sought out his heart. His eyes wide, he cocked his head, swivelling it to see what stood behind him.

The girl. No longer a girl.

Vampiri!

Malleus raced up the temple steps toward his mother and sister as the crowd began to scream, his only thought to protect them. He came down on his knees before his sister, staring in disbelief at her surreal image. Her eyes lit up a dull green and her lips parted in a snarl to reveal two sharp, pike-like teeth.

With inhuman strength, Vampiri’s fist shot out and punctured the high priest’s chest. He gasped as she seized his still-beating heart and wrenched it from his body, snarling as she threw it to the ground like rubbish.

The high priest’s gaze clashed momentarily with that of the creature he had unwittingly made. He fell to the ground of the altar, dead.

Malleus wrenched his weeping mother away from the altar and bade her to take to her feet. One glance over his shoulder confirmed his fear that guards were coming. Stand up, Mother! he bellowed as the blood from the heavens saturated them all. Rise up that we might flee!

Placing Vampiri under one muscled arm and using his other to support his