Ivie hung from the tree upside down, her legs crocked on the branch firmly so that she swang free without falling.
She was thirsty.
Very.
She ran her tongue over her elongated fangs for the umpteenth time trying to remember the last time she had a drink. It had been but two days, and two days was not long enough to ignite the kind of hunger she felt.
She bit her tongue and tasted blood from it, but it would barely satiate her. She could go to the lunchroom and get blood but she wanted it fresh from the neck of a human, she wanted to hear their scared heartbeat and feel the rushing of their blood and watch fear cloud their eyes.
She propelled her body up and let it fall back so she would swing. If only Gaga was here, she thought, they would go for a hunt and she--
"My my, what does eyes beyond?"
The voice startled her and her leg loosened its grip on the branch and she came crashing to the ground. She was so annoyed thst she didn't pause to think on why she, with her heightened vampire senses, had not heard any footsteps.
"What in the world?!"
The person before her wore a soutane as white as the teeth his smiling face revealed, a smirk Ivie wished to slap off.
She had always imagined slapping Chi's smile but he smiled more often than she could imagine it. There was something about the smile that made her weary of it. Gaga thought it was a harmless smile and she thought his lips must hurt to much from such smile.
"Gravity has humbled you, hope the earth does not crack underneath?" Chi looked down to where she still sat on the ground. "Shall I seek to arrange an invitation for you to rise?"
With gritted teeth, she stood up. "Good day, Fada."
"Good indeed, I can see you are glad to lay eyes upon my visage this hot noon." He looked skyward, his hand shading his eyes. "The sun threatens to drive senses to oblivion and you camp out here?"
He walked passed her and Ivie heard the sound of blood rushing in his vein. Her eyes turned red immediately and she clenched her teeth to hide her fangs. Humans were such aphrodisiacs.
"I've heard a lot about you," she managed to say. And seen a lot.
She'd spent more time in the detention than in her room, and on each occasion, he had been there to punish her. He had not bothered himself with her then, nor the few times when their paths would collide in the lunchroom or the infirmary, he would always regard her with a look and smile, and say nothing, why now?
"You'd be deaf otherwise, especially since you've decided to befriend the detention room."
"For a priest, you have such sharp tongue."
"To think I'm here to reprimand you on such bad behaviour and gaze lingers on my mouth," he tsked. "Why have you removed yourself from the congregation of fellow students in a classroom again?"
"Again? Have you been monitoring me, Fada?"
"Oh, save breath. You're not so special that I would waste precious time waiting to see if you'll absent yourself from class."
This, his mouth, was what Ivie hated, that he could open it and strings words to make one look stupid. She had always gone out of her way to make sure she was not in his. And now he was in hers and she couldn't seem to get her thirst under control.
Maybe she should take a sip. She doubted, she would take a huge gulp until she would feel him weakening. Then she would pause a while to watch fear cloud his eyes.
"You're not a good student, do I have to monitor you to know that?" She heard him say. Then he was standing before her. He was tall and his cassock was turtle necked. She could smell him, she smelt blood.
Her hand acted before she could stop it. She heard the sound of cloth ripping before her fangs broke his skin, hungry as she was.
The world seemed to pause, even Chi.
His skin was soft against her lips, his veins pulsating beneath her. As she sucked him, she heard him sigh, a male guttural sound.
His scent filled her nostrils, intoxicating her. Their bodies were almost touching and his head was tilted to the side. He tasted like heaven, better than anything she had ever had, she couldn't stop.
"If I knew you tatsed this good, I would've had you long before now," she paused to say, almost in an inaudible whisper. "To think I wasted all that time in the detention room."
"Cease tongue and see to purpose." His words breezed above her temples.
Reluctantly, she pulled herself. "No, that should be enough, I can't have you killed, especially when you taste this good." She moved from him and licked the blood staining his flesh.
"Words carry sting of truth."
She paused and noted. "You don't look scared."
"Should I?" He cocked his head to the side.
He should, he had seen her drink blood from him, he should be frightened, all humans were. Except — fear trickled down her spine. She took a step back and looked into his eyes. "Forget what happened, you did not come here, you did not see me. You feel sick because you were bitten by a bug."
Her heart thudded anxiously while she waited for him to turn around and go back to the school. He was supposed to forget the event like it didn't happen and he was supposed to go to the infirmary to complain to Agatha that he was bitten by a bug.
But he did not, instead he asked, "Why should I?"
She halted for a short while that seemed like eternity. It did not worked, the priest could not be compelled.
She broke into a cold sweat as her hands flew up like a flash of light to grab the priest's neck. "You can't live," she said.
He caught her hand midair. Her claws raked across his chest, striking against skin that felt like iron.The impact vibrated up her arms, rattling her teeth. She hissed, a sound of pure, unadulterated malice, and spun for a throat strike.
"You... You're not human."
"You flatter, yet not enough."
"How--" she started to say, then charged at him again, the revelation still shocking. Chi did not move to meet her. He simply waited.
"I wonder why you creatures mistake aggressiveness for strength." He said.
She raised her foot to meet his groin. His hand moved—not fast, but with the terrifying inevitability of impact. He caught her ankle mid-air.
"Careful not to render me impotent," he warned softly.
"You're a priest, you won't be needing it."
The sound of her ankle snapping was like a dry branch breaking in a winter forest.
Ivie didn't scream, she bit.
"Have you ever taken life before though?"
"Today will be the first." Her eyes turned crimson.
"You desire me gone, a satisfaction I would see denied," Chi said and rubbed the sore spot on his neck. "You would have taken enough blood while you yet have might to do so."
When he released her ankle, she lunged forward, baring elongated fangs designed to pierce the thickest hides. She sunk them into Chi's neck, but this time, there was no blood, only a bitter liquid filled her mouth. She spat it out, disgusted.
He caught hold of her hand, twisting it behind her back.
"You can't leave here alive," she huffed, feeling helpless at being overpowered.
"Then you shall, absent of fangs." He spun her around and pressed her against a tree.
"What? You can't do that." She tried to fight him off but his hold was stronger than anything she had come across.
"Be still, Princess."
The name annoyed her like the first time he said it. It had been on the day of his arrival when students crowed at the bleachers with placards and voices raised. Gaga's had an inscription she found hasty, hers read : "I love you."
"How can you love somebody you have not seen?" She had asked.
"Have you seen the god you pray to?"
"That is different."
"I don't see how different." Gaga had motioned, "He's coming."
When he neared where they stood, Gaga had trusted her placard into Ivie's hand to smear a red lipstick on her lips. She had not been fast enough, and when Fada Chi stood before them, the placard was in Ivie's hand and she had seen an amused smile snake its way into his face.
"An intimate confession," he had said, and Ivie was going to say the placard was not hers, but a movement from the priest's bag caught her eyes and she stared at it to see two eyes watching her. The eyes had two striking colours, and she leaned further against the railing of the bleacher to take a better look, but when she blinked, it had disappeared.
With a frown furrowing her brows, she had looked at Fada Chi and saw his eyes on her, then he smiled fully.
"What name do you carry?" Chi had asked.
"Ivie," she had answered.
"Ivie? Most pleasing upon tongue, but not upon ear. I desire a more familiar personage." He thought for a while. "Princess."
A pressing against her head brought her back to the present.
"Let us fall to a truce, shall we?" Chi said, she holding her down. "It is you who seek to see heart not beat within chest? Fine, but if you can't then you shall leave absent of fangs."