Blood Sick

A vampire must have blood to survive, even if that vampire is an alien shipwrecked on Earth after a secret landing to harvest human blood. But surviving on human blood comes at a high cost, both for this vampire, and her victims.

Third in the Alien Science Fiction series by Simon J. Cooper, this one is not for the faint hearted.

Opening:

Calla floated in a sea of blood, but still she was hungry. A lone sun burned in a clear blue sky. She lifted her arms to shield her face, and the network of veins inside writhed against the radiation. They were empty, clear as her flesh. Her hands dropped into the sea, and lapped the thick liquid over her face, and into her mouth. It cooled her from the heat, but the need persisted.

She turned herself face down into the warm liquid and sucked as if she was in a feeding bath filled with the choicest bloods from a thousand worlds. But no matter how much she drank, her body craved more.

Twisting upright, she saw the sky had become one of the grey city domes of home, an eternal protection from the binary stars. If it was home then this was the waking dream. The dome split with a metallic clunk and a line of fire seared all beneath.