Blood And Secrets

11| Time To Hunt.

"I’m curious. How come you are a vampire and your parents are not?" Damon asked as they walked through the woods, dry leaves crushing as they stepped on them.

They have been searching for Angel’s phone for a few minutes now, and there hasn’t been any trace of it.

"I was turned at birth," Angel told him.

"Then how are they—" he started, but she cut him in.

"Stop asking me questions, please."

She wasn’t going to have that conversation with him because she also had little knowledge of it.

There was a long stretch of silence after that before Damon opened his mouth to talk again.

"Those people. I mean the ones that tied you to the tree. Who are they? And why did they do that?" He asked curiously.

"I don’t know them." She simply replied.

"But—" he started, but she cut him off.

"Can we stop talking about them, please?" She groaned as she suddenly came to a halt and turned to look at him. "I don’t want memories of last night to flash back."

"Okay." He said and nodded slightly, burying the hundred curious questions he had within him.

He suddenly sighted a deer, and a smirk played on his lips. "Time to hunt."

"What?" Angel asked and quickly trailed his line of sight as she flicked her gaze to the deer that was standing at a short distance.

"Are you going to—"

Before she could finish her sentence, Damon moved at super speed to where the deer was and snapped its neck.

Angel stood there and watched as Damon sank his fangs into the deer’s neck and started sucking its blood.

After a few seconds, he pulled his fangs out of the deer's neck and turned to look at her, a smile touching his blood smeared lips.

"Care to join?" He asked, gesturing for her to come closer.

Angel’s brows drew together as she shook her head slightly. Poor deer, she thought. But her vampire instinct quickly kicked in at the sight of blood, and she found herself drawing closer to the bleeding deer.

Before she knew what she was doing, her fangs had already penetrated the deer’s neck, sucking its blood.

Sweet, warm blood.

It tasted way better than the stale blood she had stocked up in her fridge.

She drank every single drop of its blood before letting go and leaping to her feet.

"Fresh from the source." Damon remarked, an amused smile playing on his lips. "Did you enjoy it?"

Wiping the blood on her lips with the back of her hand, she replied. "It tastes good. But not as good as the one I had yesterday."

"Human blood is the best. But—" he scratched his temple. "We just have to manage animal blood. We can’t be killers just because we want to feed. We were once humans, so we have to act—“ He paused for a second before continuing. "Humane."

Before Angel could reply, he pointed at another deer. "See. There’s another one. Do you want to take that one?"

"Let me try." She told him and moved at super speed to where the deer was, with Damon trailing behind her.

When she got there, she crouched beside the deer, softly rubbed its side, petting it, and gently pushed it forward, encouraging it to escape.

The deer quickly ran for its dear life, and Damon started chuckling. The chuckle soon escalated into a resounding laugh.

"What?" Angel asked as she turned to look at him, a smile touching her lips.

"You are so innocent." He said as he continued laughing. "You should be human."

"I wish I was." She said truthfully.

"But you are not. And can never be." He told her the sad reality. "So, stop wanting to be what you are not. Just embrace and love who you are. As far as you are not causing harm to humans. I also wish I was human sometimes, but—" He trailed off and slightly shook his head before he continued. "This is who we are; there’s nothing we can do about it."

"Yes. I realised that a long time ago." She said, nodding sadly as she leapt to her feet.

He gave his shoulders a half-shrug. "If you look at it from a brighter side, we are special. Because we can do what they can’t."

"Which Is why I want you to teach me how to compel. I want to be able to protect my identity with it."

"Really?" A smirk touched his lips as he inched closer to her, looking intently into her eyes. "What color of underwear do you have on?"

"Is that supposed to work?" She scrunched up her face as she placed both palms on his chest and pushed him off with her vampiric strength until he hit his back on a tree.

“Ouch!" He groaned as he picked himself back up and dusted dirt off his body. "It didn’t work on you because you are a vampire. If you weren’t, you would have told me right away."

Her brows furrowed. "Don’t tell me this is how you flirt with girls. Are you cheating on Chloe?"

"Of course not!" He exclaimed. "I was only trying to teach you how to compel."

"You couldn’t think of another thing to say aside from that?"

"I was just trying to be playful. Trust me, I don’t misuse my power that way, and I like Chloe a lot. So, I would never cheat on her.” He told her.

She raised a suspicious brow at him. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely!"

"Then you better—"

"Shhhh." Damon suddenly cut her in.

"What—" she tried to talk, but he quickly covered her mouth with his palm to stop her from doing so.

"Vampire hunters. We have to run." He said with urgency, and her eyes widened in perplexity.

She had heard of vampire hunters before, but she had never come across one. She was damn scared. Scared that that might be the end of her after escaping death just yesterday.