Chapter 242 - The Birth of Death part 17

Tulpac and the others had indeed abandoned their leader. Fearful, confused, and weakened by their nearness to the dimensional rift, they fled from the devastated forest.

Khronos came upon them as dawn hovered at the edge of the sky.

They were sleeping, their prone forms encircling a small fire that had burnt down to its embers.

At the sight of them—indeed, at the smell of them, an intoxicating blend of sweat and blood, and all the other odors that seep from the orifices and pores of mortal men—the hunger that had been tormenting the God King slipped its bonds and he threw himself upon his tribesmen like an enraged beast.

They did not stand a chance.

He tore them to pieces, even Tulpac, so mindless was he in his need. It was only when he came to his senses, their ravaged bodies strewn all around him, that he realized how strong he'd become, and marveled at his strength.

But he did not marvel long. His hunger was too insistent.

He dropped to his knees beside Tulpac and tore the man's clothes from his body. He bit into the muscular flesh of his companion's chest, his fangs (which he hadn't noticed yet) slicing easily through the meat. He swallowed a few chunks of his friend's flesh before he realized it was the blood he needed, not the tissue. His stomach revolted at the flesh and he vomited it back up, then he returned to Tulpac's chest and lapped at the blood dribbling from the wounds.

He discovered, through trial and error, that the best way to get at the blood was to suck it from the arteries of the neck and wrist and inner thigh. He drank until his stomach was sloshing, then stumbled away from their camp to find someplace to rest.

He did not yet feel the horror at what he'd done. That came later, when he woke to the hunger again.

I have killed and devoured my own tribesmen! he thought, when his glinting eyes shot open in the dark. Tulpac's face rose up in his mind, eyes bulging with terror, hands flailing to hold him back, and then he remembered what he had done to his old friend, and he clawed his way from the fallen trees he'd sought shelter beneath during the day.

Khronos stumbled through the darkness, thinking, I killed him! I drank his blood!

He felt horror, yes. He had loved Tulpac. Loved him more than his own brothers. But he also felt that terrible, ravening hunger. He wanted more blood, craved it as a young man craves the act of sex. His need was urgent, relentless. The blood hunger drove him forward, toward the only place he knew he might find more of it.