Chapter 78 - The Last Mammoth Hunter part 4

I took their leader Korg that night.

There were five left by then: Korg and his second-in-command Lene'Hab, an old hunter named Elk, a young man named Hammon and the boy-child Ilio. None of them were sleeping when I returned to the camp. They all stood guard around a blazing fire, watching the outer darkness with their weapons clutched tight in their fists.

I could smell their fear as I circled the camp. I kept a far enough distance that they did not see the flash of my eyes or hear the sound of my movements. The blood of their brothers had healed my body. I moved like a wraith in the moonlight, blurring from one vantage to another, probing for weakness, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

Though much of my past was still a mystery to me, my mind had healed enough that I remembered my powers, and I took full advantage of them. In fact, I reveled in them.

I watched, and when Korg stepped away from the fire to piss after an hour or so, I snatched him away. He only took a few steps from the safety of the group, but it was enough.

The speed at which I bolted toward him rendered me invisible to their gaze. It's not a hard trick to pull off for a vampire like me, especially at night. The men standing guard would have seen less than a blur. To their eyes, it would have looked like had Korg simply melted into darkness.

The force that struck the man as I flew down and snatched him from his feet knocked him unconscious. I bound into the air with the unconscious Mammoth Hunter in my arms, the cold tundral wind blasting across my cheeks. I could hear his companions crying out in horror and confusion behind me, but I ignored their loud dismay. My mind was not yet whole. Because of that, I was no more compassionate than the beast who made me a vampire. I thought only of the need inside me. The Hunger, and its satiation.

I landed with a thump and threw the unconscious Mammoth Hunter on the ground. My violent abduction had bruised him. His fine beaded clothes hung from his limbs in tatters. His flesh was purpling where my fingers had sunk into him. Blood trickled from one nostril.

I leered as his eyelids fluttered, my mouth watering for him, my fangs exposed. He stirred, then opened his eyes and looked at me, confused. Seeing my sharp-toothed grin, he scrambled away with a cry.

How cruel I was with him that night! How like my maker! It shames me to recount it.

The Mammoth Hunter named Korg was a brave man. After scrambling out of my reach, the burly hunter vanquished his fear and pulled a stone blade from his breeches. He leapt to attack me, uttering a warrior's cry, a deep-chested challenge. Laughing in mockery, I grabbed his wrist and snapped the bones in his forearm. His blade tumbled from his spasming fingers as bony shards breached his flesh, a bloody eruption. He howled in agony, clutching his broken arm, and I stepped toward him and knocked him to the ground. He shouted as I fell upon him, striking my ribs and my back with his fist. I pushed his chin up with my head. My jaws stretched wide. With one quick lunge, I bit into the flesh of his throat.

But not too deeply--!

I wanted to relish this kill. Holding his head by his hair, I fed on him. Slowly. I savored every spurt. I gulped and sighed. In his last moment, his fist flattened out on my back and it was almost like he embraced me… embraced death. The Mammoth Hunter murmured something softly. I'm not sure what it was. I was too enraptured in the feeding. He sighed, and then his heart fell still. His palm slid down my smooth white back, lifeless, and then his arm rolled into the grass.

I fed upon him a while longer, then I reluctantly withdrew my fangs from him. I rose to my feet and swayed, my body flushed and tingling, my cock engorged. I wiped the blood from my lips and chin with the back of my arm and then licked the blood from that, too.

I was tempted to return to the camp and take another. I might have done it, if not for the memories crowding in my skull.

My head throbbed with the hunter's blood. I could feel it inside me, repairing the cells of my brain.

Flashes of my former life—Nyala, sweeping aside the flap of our wetus, young but imperious, demanding that we take her as a wife. Eyya, embracing Brulde and I in the reeds beside the river. Eyya and Nyala both, laughing so hard they had to cling to one another to stand as Brulde and I bounced around our tent, all six of our children riding on our backs. I remembered Brulde looking at me and laughing as we squatted beside a campfire. We were eating venison, the two of us out hunting in the mountains, as a light snow drifted down around us.

Overwhelmed, I staggered away in the dark.

Nyala, fighting with her sisters. Eyya, suckling our babies by the fire. Brulde, practicing with his bow.

Where are you?

I tripped and fell. Eyes squeezed shut, I crawled on my hands and knees.

Brulde and I, naked in the river, splashing with our sons in the sunshine, scrubbing them with silty mud. Our group family, tangled in our sleeping furs, making love. All the babies asleep. Slick, warm flesh under my lips, in my hands, sliding tight and wet upon my cock.

I think I knew it then, where they were, what was past and what was present… but I could not accept it. My heart cowered from the revelation. I shook my head, trying to deny it, but there it was, in all its horror. The truth. The rest of my lost memories. I fell on my face and clawed at the earth and grass beneath me. My cheeks were wet with tears.

Dead. They were all dead. A hundred years dead. A thousand years dead.

No! I thought, shaking my head. No, they're still alive! They're waiting for me to come home!

I rolled onto my side, still denying, still shaking my head. I brought my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them.