My biggest fear used to be something happening to Candice. She's so vulnerable - small, delicate, shy, thin. I've been in love with her since we were both kids. I'm her opposite in so many ways - tall, broad, physically powerful, intimidating and imposing - so it always felt like protecting her was my natural responsibility. I liked doing it. It's a privilege to take care of her. I took it very seriously. Harm coming to Candice would have meant a horrible failure on my part. 

And I did fail.

She insists that it wasn't my fault. I wasn't there when it happened, she says. It was so fast, she tells me. Nobody could have seen it coming. I'm strong and capable but I'm still just one human man. What could I have really done to fight off an ambush from a ravenous, hunger-mad vampire?

She's right. I know she's right. But still.

I should have been there. I should have done something.

Thankfully, mercifully, she survived. The monster tore her neck open and drank from her, but somehow didn't kill her. It left her for dead, bleeding onto the filthy alley two blocks from our apartment, too weak to even call for help. Somehow she pulled through, crawled home, and I bandaged her and watched over her and held her through the shakes and fever and agony of the next few days.

Candice changed.

The wounds were the worst things I'd ever seen. They were ragged and cruel, made worse by the fact that they existed on the neck of the person I love most in this world. I could barely look at them, and I wept with angry, bitter horror every time I cleaned them and changed her bandages.

By the middle of the second day they were knitting themselves back together.

If I forced myself to watch, I could see it happen. Almost inexorably, the skin reached for its partner across the ragged red gulf, stretching itself closed slowly. Barely visibly, but it happened. Impossibly fast healing.

She didn't get better, though. She went pale, then beyond it. Ashen. Ghastly. If I touched the delicate skin of her neck, in between the remains of the wounds, the pulse I felt was wispy and thin. Her breathing was shallow and terrifyingly slow. Strained sips of air, barely once every minute. Her skin was icy. Her mouth became cold and dry, lips cracking and turning white, then blue. 

She was dying.

I tried to give her food but she couldn't chew, couldn't swallow. Even just spoonfuls of watered-down broth made her gag and retch, vomiting up watery bile until there was nothing left inside her.

I couldn't bear it. She just laid there, wrapped up in blankets, shivering and sweating, riding waves of aches and nausea I can't even imagine. And all I could do was hold her, and watch her, and lie that it was going to be okay. I simply couldn't bear it.

So I got the chef's knife from the kitchen. The one I used when I made that chicken cordon bleu that she loved. The only thing I could reliably make well, really. She was always a better cook than me. She did most of the real cooking, and I tried to help as much as I could. I'd use this knife to chop vegetables, affecting an accent, saying "oui chef!" when she wanted more green beans or whatever. Stupid joke. It made her laugh every time. Making her laugh made me glad to be alive.

I took that knife and I dragged the blade against my palm. I held my hand up over her, and I squeezed my fist so a red trickle of blood poured down, into Candice's mouth.

I think she fought it at first. Or would have, if she could have lifted her head. She tried to say something, I think. She didn't want to be a monster. I know she didn't. But... what was I supposed to do? I don't know how to live without Candice. I couldn't stop this from happening but I could stop it from taking her away forever. I couldn't protect her but I could save her. I'd give anything for her.

She drank.

* * * * *

She got stronger.

It wasn't fast and it wasn't easy. I still wasn't sure she was going to make it for a couple of weeks. I stopped going to work - I needed to be here, taking care of her. Feeding her. I got better at rationing, figuring out how much I could empty from myself without getting too weak. Figuring out how much she needed to keep getting stronger. I could tell how hungry she was, and how much she was holding herself back.

She got stronger.

The color came back to her skin, but different. Milky, paler. She's as beautiful as she ever was, but it's ethereal now. Like she's a version of herself that's being lit by bright sunlight reflected off of snow. She's stunning. Perfect. She always was, but now it's more striking in a way that's deeper than my ability to say.

Her eyes are darker, too. She used to have pale blue eyes. Now they're more of a deep sapphire. Sometimes, when the light is just right, I feel like the pupil isn't exactly black. It's almost a dark, glowing, burnished red. 

She's still cold, and her heart doesn't beat. She doesn't breathe. She's so still much of the time. Elegantly posed and still and perfect. But she's here, and she talks to me, and she loves me, and she's safe.

I didn't need the knife anymore. She fed from my wrist. It doesn't even hurt, not really. There's a little bright slice of pain when she opens me, but that's euphoric now. She took what she needed and stopped herself and I bandaged myself up until the next time. I take care of her. Just like I always have.

She got stronger.

* * * * *

She started going out at night. It was hard for me to go with her. I couldn't really keep up. I was weak much of the time. My body didn't seem to replenish the blood quite as fast as I gave it away, and that started to add up. Getting out of bed in the morning was difficult. Gradually I settled into her schedule - waking at dusk, going to bed before dawn. 

Candice didn't want to be a monster. She never wanted to hurt anyone. That became the thing I protected her from - the hunger. The desire to hunt, stalk, drain, kill. She shouldn't have to do that. I tried to take care of her. Tried to provide for her.

I went out and I hunted instead. I went to bars and clubs, searching for a target. It wasn't easy. Once upon a time I would have had plenty of eager offers to follow me home, but weeks of feeding Candice had left me wan and sallow and weak. I failed the first night, and the second, and the third. I was filled with frustration and disgust at myself, and Candice was getting hungrier and more desperate. I tried to give her more of myself but it was getting harder for her to stop when I did that, and so she began starving herself instead.

This wasn't tenable.

The fourth night, I succeeded.

I met a young woman. She told me her name, but I didn't let myself hear it or remember it. We danced, and my head was pounding the whole time with dehydration and exhaustion and anticipation. I kissed her, touched her body in all the ways I thought she'd like, and she did. I hated myself for it - it felt like unfaithfulness to Candice. I shoved that away, though. This was for her. Like everything I do.

I brought the girl home. I gave her a drink. I let the things in it put her to sleep. And I opened her and I drained her and I stored what I took from her, and I cleaned it all up so Candice never had to face it. She could just feed her hunger. 

I could do it. 

I could provide.

* * * * *

It didn't work, though. Not well enough.

The blood doesn't keep. It's fine, apparently, but it's not the same. Once it's cold like that, it thickens and becomes... unsuitable, somehow, I guess. I don't know. Candice did her best but drinking that didn't sate her much. We tried everything we could to make it seem more fresh, but it just clearly wasn't a real plan for the future. The work that went into acquiring that little bit, and the paltry satisfaction she got from it... it wasn't even close to enough.

So I gave more.

Just a bit. I could still function. I was just slower. Sluggish. Weaker. She took what I offered, reluctantly, but I knew how much she needed it.

She got stronger.

So did her needs. Her hungers. It wasn't enough just to drink. She started to burn with another fire, one that glowed brighter than it ever had in our old lives. I didn't complain, of course. She's so perfect now, more gorgeous and desirable and sexual than she'd ever been. I want her every moment. It's just difficult to keep up. She's so much more than me now, and I'm fading away a little bit every day.

We got some pills that helped. Even when most of my body was tired, my cock kept going, and she could ride me until she got what she needed. Use me like a toy, a tool for her pleasure. I was happy to do it. Anything for her.

Sometimes that wasn't enough, though, and then she'd lie me down on my back and straddle my face and I'd just lick. Over and over, nearly suffocated, my jaw numb and my tongue aching and my chest burning from oxygen deprivation. Anything for her. I love her so much. All I want is to provide.

* * * * *

Last night was the best night of my life. Candice gave me my pills, and I fucked her until I couldn't anymore, legs and lungs giving out. Then she rode my face, let me feel her cum on my tongue. She kept going.

She pulled my arm up while she was grinding on me. She kissed the bend of my elbow. Kissed her way up my forearm, shivering into me. I licked and I licked and I felt my cock strain with excitement. She nuzzled her mouth at my wrist, and she shivered with anticipation. I could feel her thrill pulsing in her cunt.

Then she bit me.

My fingers spasmed, but I didn't pull back. She wrapped her lips there and sucked hard, drinking. Draining. It was ecstatic. A blur of perfect pain and purpose. My cock throbbed so hard it hurt. I buried my tongue in her and she ground down, hard, drinking me. Her weight pressed down, forward, as she indulged. Taking what she wanted. What was hers. 

She came. 

I came.

I blacked out.

* * * * *

I can't really move correctly right now. She took so much. It was perfect. She says she wishes she'd turned me, like her, but it's too late now. I'm too weak, I'd never survive it. That's fine. I don't need that. I just need to provide for her. I need to take care of her.

I've got a little bit left.

She can have it all.