Maxwell found Anna in the kitchen, concentrating on drying the cook's veins. The woman was fighting Anna with horror in her eyes, to no avail. She was strong.
He approached and pulled Anna away from the cook with ease and looked at the woman.
"Your wife... She's gone mad! She's a monster!" The cook screamed, trying to get away.
Maxwell held her head and when she looked into his eyes, she froze.
"Nothing happened here. You haven't seen my wife since she arrived." Maxwell said and looked at the cook's neck. Anna was clumsy. He turned to her. "You got a one-night stand with an unknown man yesterday and he branded your neck. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir." She said with tears running from her eyes.
"Good. Now go and put a bandage on that neck."
As the woman was leaving, Anna tried to grab her, but Maxwell stopped her, holding her effortlessly.
"I want more blood!" Anna said in a guttural voice.
Maxwell looked at her and pulled her into the living room, where there was a mirror above the dish rack, and pushed Anna to look at herself in the mirror.
Before looking at herself, she turned her hateful face to Maxwell for interrupting her snack, but he waited patiently. She then turned to the mirror.
Her eyes were red. Her tall canine teeth were sticking out of her lips. Her face had changed completely, to something more like... The face of a bat. She turned, unsurprised, to Maxwell.
"I'm going to have to accept that I'm a monster, so let it be really, really ugly. I don't mind. Why did you stop me from continuing my snack?"
"You said you didn't want to kill anyone."
"And you said I didn't have to!"
"And you don't. But you will, Anna. Every time you feed, a poison is expelled into the victim's bloodstream. From the moment you sink your teeth into a person, they're already doomed."
Anna didn't notice her face returning to normal.
"So the cook is going to die?"
"Yes. And since she can no longer save herself, you must feed only on her until the time comes to put an end to her torment."
"What moment is that?"
"When her blood no longer satisfies you. It will be replaced by her poison, completely. Then you must bury her. She is no longer a living being."
"No!" Anna said confused. "Doesn't she turn into a vampire?"
Maxwell shook his head.
"No, Anna. She starts dying today. But... She could live for a few years yet. Five years at most. That's five years you'll be guaranteed food to quench your thirst."
"What if she tells someone?"
"You can give her orders. You can manipulate anyone's will, Anna. After you're ready, of course."
Anna thought for a while.
"I can see some faces, and a childhood, as if they were someone else's memories, but at the same time, mine too."
"The interesting thing about blood, Anna, is that it doesn't quench our thirst, but it's part of the soul that we follow along with it. You'll have memories and knowledge from every victim you make."
"If I want to bake a carrot cake..."
Maxwell smiled.
"Yes. That's it in a nutshell."
"I think I'll talk to your mother before I leave."
"You knew that decision."
Anna looked at herself in the mirror and realized that she was normal again, but another thirst began to overwhelm her. Without taking her eyes off her reflection, she asked Maxwell.
"I want to try something. Can you help me?"
"What?"
She turned to Maxwell.
"Everything seems to be more... Stronger. The colors, the air, the sensations... It feels like I can feel every movement of an ant, and experience what each one feels as they carry leaves to the anthill."
"Do you want to carry a leaf too?" Maxwell asked amused.
"I want to feel you inside me, like I've never felt you before. I want to know what you feel when you come inside me."
Maxwell was suddenly very close to her.
"Do you think you're ready for that?"
Anna smiled.
"Are you?"
Maxwell took Anna in his arms and in less than a second was throwing her on the bed and removing his own clothes, after removing her clothes.
The sensations, as Anna had expected, had become much more intense and her heightened senses became more sensitive to Maxwell's touch and her body responded to every caress with much more enthusiasm. However, as soon as Maxwell lay down next to her seven hours later and fell asleep, a tear rolled from her eye. Anna knew that with Adam, the sensations would be even more intense. And she was much more aware of her feelings. There was no longer any doubt in her heart. She had always and would always love Adam as the man of her life. But all that wisdom about her own feelings didn't teach her how to forget the man who had killed her and was responsible for what she had become. Nor did it teach her how to forget the man lying next to her. A man to whom she owed everything she had. Including her life. She could never abandon Maxwell. She loved him too. She just wasn't in love with him as much as she was with Adam. And even after seven hours of intense, wild and full sex, her body still craved Adam's touch, and that desire was as strong as her thirst for blood.
...
A week passed. Jasmine was looking for an opportunity to talk to Anna, because she realized that the human she had chosen was fading fast. She had to learn to control the flow of her own poison, or very soon the humans of that country would all be buried.
Anna didn't want to listen to anyone, and when she wasn't feeding in the kitchen, she was in the bedroom with Maxwell. She had become tireless. Maxwell understood that everything was new for her, but after a week, he felt frustrated. Anna wouldn't go near her own children, and Ian had been asking to speak to her for a long time.