“Ok, fine. Walk me home. But you put one foot wrong, Mister, and I’ll be seriously pissed.”
He grinned. “I wouldn’t dare unleash your temper, my sweet lady.”
Did I really want to walk home? “Just take me in the car,” I said, sighing in defeat. “Please.”
A knowing smirk tweaked at his lips before he nodded. “Your wish is my command.”
As shocked as I was, I also found myself curious. I had a million and one questions I wanted to ask him but only one sat forefront and centre in my mind, resting right on the tip of my tongue. I sat back in the car and closed the door.
Marcus struck the car up and started driving. I kept my lips pressed tightly together as I stared out of my window, watching the scenery roll by. It took all of my willpower not to ask the one thing that burned a hole right through my soul. After five minutes, I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Does your blood really heal anything?”
He glanced over at me, his striking blue eyes full of sympathy. “Yes, Caitlyn. I could save your father’s life, but it’s not as easy as that.”
“Why not? Surely all he’d need to do is unknowingly digest some of your blood and then he’d be ok again?”
Marcus shook his head. “The mind needs to be prepared to cope with the physiological changes the body will go through. If it isn’t, the subject will still die. The mind and body were designed to work together as one, if one fails the other, there’s no hope.”
“So he’d have to know what he was taking into his body and accept that it would save him?”
Marcus nodded. “We’re a higher state of being, the next link in evolution if you like. Everything about our existence is about being aware of who and what we are and embracing it. That drills down right into the basic biology of our bodies, including the blood.” He pursed his lips for a moment, then said, “If I were to give you my blood now, and you weren’t fully accepting of what you were taking into your body, your body would fight it because of your mind. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” I replied, frowning. “Kind of like the whole ‘mind over matter’ thing? If you think you’re in pain, then you will be, but if you think you’re ok, then you will be. Is that what you mean?”
“Yes, that’s exactly it. The brain is a very powerful tool and at our level of existence, we are able to use around thirty percent of our potential capacity, as oppose to humans with their ten percent. If the mind can’t keep up with the physical side, then something has to give.”
“I thought that was just a myth? The whole ten percent thing?”
He laughed. “Not at all. It had to be later discredited and said to be a myth in order to make humans feel better about themselves. Such an arrogant species at times.”
It felt so odd hearing him talk about people in third person, like we were an entirely different creature to his kind. “You were human once, right?”
He flashed me a cheeky grin. “You’d love me to say yes right now, wouldn’t you?”
“Wait, you weren’t? Then how did you…how are you?”
“What your TV shows, films, and books miss out with all the myths is that the dead can indeed procreate. Are you familiar with ancient Egyptian history at all?”
“Bits and pieces. I prefer Greek. Are you telling me you were born a vampire?” My mind had scattered into so many pieces across so many places right now, I found it difficult to focus on anything.
“Night-time reading for you—research the myth of Isis and Osiris.”
I frowned. “Can’t you just tell me?”
“That would take away all the fun.”
“So how old are you?”
“Seven hundred and four to be exact.”
Wow. Just wow. How was I supposed to even deal with this? I found myself giggling which then turned into uncontrollable laughter. He had to be joking, playing me for a fool. This wasn’t possible. Was it?
“What’s so funny?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“The fact you almost had me believing you.”
He pulled the car over and turned to face me fully. His eyes swirled with amusement and frustration. “What makes you think I’m lying to you?”
“This is crazy, Marcus. It isn’t humanly possible. Vampires are fantasy, legends, made famous by Bram Stoker and his Dracula, ironically born right here in Whitby. Don’t you feel it’s all a little bit cliché?”
“I understand it’s a lot to take in. I assure you, Caitlyn, I am not lying. You said you needed some space, so let’s give you that time to soak all this in, hmmm?”
Acting purely on impulse, I blurted out, “Bite me.”
His entire being immediately darkened. Every muscle in his body visibly tensed. His right hand, gripping the steering wheel, turned whiter than white as he squeezed the soft leather. His eyes seemed to darken ten shades and his face suddenly seemed cast by shadows.
“Don’t say things like that to me,” he said, all but whispering. “It’s a very dangerous thing to do.”
“If you’re a vampire, show me what you do best—bite me.”
He clenched his fists. Veins in his neck bulged as he strained against himself. My heart thudded against my ribcage, desperately trying to leap free. “Caitlyn…”
I licked my lips. The tension in the air became almost palpable. We were balancing on a precarious edge and only my words could swing it either way. I thought over my options for several agonising seconds. I had to know. The only way I could believe any of this would be to see it, feel it, experience it. Seeing is believing, after all.
“Bite. Me.”
What happened next happened in slow motion. As if the elastic band keeping him taut had just broken, he lunged across the car at me, his eyes turning to the deepest shade of black. Instantly, two huge canines, needlepoint sharp, protruded from his top lip, poking the soft flesh of his lower lip. He reached for me, cradling my head in his huge hands, tipping me sideways to expose my throat to him.
I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the excruciating pain of being bitten. Instead, I felt a feather light kiss brushing over my pulsing jugular vein. His heavy breathing filled the fraught silence in the car. I suddenly became very aware of the fact I was shaking from head to toe.
“I will not feed from you to satisfy your curiosities, Caitlyn,” he whispered, covering me in chills. “You are far too precious for that. Perhaps my loss of restraint for the merest of seconds was enough to convince you of my truths?”
I nodded, stifling the whimper accumulating in my throat. I truly felt like the mouse in this game I’d insisted on starting.
“Look at me,” he breathed.
I dared to open my eyes to see his handsome face inches from mine. His eyes were sparkling sapphires once more and his features light and airy.
“You have no need to fear me, sweet, sweet, Caitlyn. Perhaps one day I will allow you the intimacy of being fed from, but now is not that time.”
I nodded again, my head whirling from the dark turn of events I’d brought on all by myself. What the hell was this?
Chapter 23
Marcus took my back to my apartment. I needed comfort of familiar surroundings to process this huge turn of events.
“Is this why you left me that night I fell asleep on you here?”
He shook his head. “No, of course not.”
“Why did you leave?”
He faltered for a moment before he said, “You’d fallen asleep so I thought I’d leave you be.”
“Not because you wanted to…bite me?”
He laughed. “No, Caitlyn.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Ok, well that’s a relief at least.”
“Would you still like some space?”
“If you don’t mind. I kind of can’t deal with you and process everything at the same time.”
“That’s more than understandable. I’ll come and see you tomorrow?”
I nodded.
He cupped my face in his hands and gave
me a heart stopping kiss. My knees literally went weak as I had half a mind to beg him to stay with me.
“Goodnight,” he said, pulling away from me.
“Night,” I replied, trying to catch my breath.
As the door closed behind him, I ripped off my clothes and jumped in bed naked. Flicking my magical TV into life, I put on Killer Couples and tried to take my mind off the huge turn of events that had just happened.
When I finally fell asleep, I didn’t even get a peaceful sleep as the wolf returned to my dreams, haunting me once more. The way it said my name had changed though, it now seemed more frantic, urgent, desperate to try and tell me something.
When I woke the next morning, I had one thing and one thing only running through my mind—potentially saving my dad. How could I have a conversation with him though about vampires and saving him without giving away Marcus’ secret?
As I hurried to get dressed and meet him for breakfast, I chewed on my lip, thinking over various ways to start the impending weird chat we were about to have.
“Morning, Dad,” I said, skipping into the kitchen. I flicked the kettle on. “How are you feeling today?”
Dark bags hung under his eyes, making him look even more gaunt than normal. His cheeks seemed sunken, like he’d lost a stone overnight, and his skin had turned pallid and sticky with sweat. “I’m ok, pumpkin. How are you?”
My heart ached as I saw the pain filtering through his eyes. He was putting on a brave face. “I’m ok. Bacon sarnie for breakfast?”
He nodded.
I busied myself with gathering the bacon, bread, and butter, all the while mulling over picking up this odd topic. In the end, as the bacon sizzled in the frying pan, I figured the direct approach would be the best.
“Dad, if you could access a life-saving…revolutionary…drug, would you take it?” I looked over my shoulder to see him frowning at me.
“Where’s this come from?”
Clearing my throat, I shrugged my shoulders and replied, “I’ve just been doing some research online, that’s all. I’ve found something that seems really promising.”
“I’m presuming that this…drug, is something currently being trialled in the States?”
I hesitated. I would have to lie good if he was going to ask these kinds of questions. “No, it’s worldwide. Just not available…mainstream.”
“Why not? What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing. It’s a one hundred percent success rate. It’s just being kept very quiet.”
He laughed. “You’re telling me they’ve found a cure for cancer but are keeping it under wraps?”
I nodded. “You know pharmaceutical companies basically run this world. If there’s no illness or disease, then there’s no money.”
“Caitlyn, come on now. You know how I feel about your conspiracy theories.”
I rolled my eyes. “Dad, it isn’t a theory, it’s an actual fact. Did you know there’s a patented cure for aids?”
“I’m sure there is,” he replied, smirking and shaking his head. “I’m not prepared to be some guinea pig for a mad scientist, potentially face days or weeks of unknown side effects just to extend my miserable existence by a few months at best.”
“But what if there were no side effects?”
“There’s always side effects. Even if it’s something like putting weight on or getting teenage acne all over again. Drugs always come at a cost other than money.”
“But there are no side effects, Dad. A hundred and ten percent.”
“Caitlyn, whatever you’ve been reading, I think you’ve been sucked in a little too much by it. Trust me, there is no such thing as a side effect free drug.”
I sighed and started buttering the bread. “Just humour me for a minute. Please.”
“For what reason? I’ve accepted my fate. Things happen for a reason, pumpkin. For whatever reason, unknown to me, the universe has decided this is my time and this is how I die. Given the grisly ways some people go, I think I’ve been quite lucky.”
“Not knowing if you’re going to wake up every morning?”
“I’d rather die in my sleep than be eaten by a shark or burned to death in a fire.”
He had a point there. I had to agree with him on that one. “So even if this drug was genuine and there were no side effects and it was guaranteed to rid you of your cancer, you wouldn’t take it? Is that what you’re saying?”
I took his bacon out of the pan and laid it on the freshly buttered bread.
“I’m sixty-five, Caitlyn. I’ve had a good life. I’ve watched you grow up into a beautiful young woman and I’ve ran a successful business. My mind is full of good memories. I’m quite at peace with this being my time.”
I served him his breakfast and then stood in front of him, my arms crossed over my chest. “You’re quite happy to just die then, are you?”
He sighed. “Pumpkin, come on now. I thought we’d put this in Austria?”
“I know, I just…” I ran my hands over my face, rubbing away the building wall of tears “…I thought I had a ray of hope, that’s all.”
“If I don’t die now, it’s going to be at some point in the future, anyway. It’s inevitable. Remember what Joe Black said?”
I smiled at his favourite quote from one of our favourite movies. “Yes, Dad. The only certainties in life are death and taxes.”
“Like I said to you before, I’ve come to terms with it, I’ve dealt with it. I think this is more about you dealing with it than me, pumpkin.”
I turned back to the cooker to fry my own bacon. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was clinging onto this for myself but then who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t want to save their dad from dying? As I watched my bacon sizzle away in the pan, I decided that now would be the perfect time to broach the subject of his hospital letter.
After smothering my bread rolls in soft butter, I settled the crispy strips of bacon in them, licking my lips as I watched the delicious butter melt all down the side of the rolls and onto the plate. Picking my moment, I sat at the table, took a bite, just to satiate my taste buds screaming for crispy bacon and melted butter, then looked at Dad.
“Good?” he asked, smiling.
I nodded. When I swallowed my mouthful of food, I sucked in a deep breath and blurted out, “I know.”
He frowned. “Know what?”
My heart started pounding. There would only be two outcomes from here on out—a peaceful resolution or a giant row. My bets laid with the latter.
“I know about your cancer, Dad.”
He frowned harder, his bushy grey eyebrows almost touching together. “I know you know about my cancer, pumpkin.”
I sighed and put my roll down on my plate. “No, Dad. I know you lied.”
He froze. After a few seconds he pursed his lips and let out a long breath. His skin seemed to go through another twenty shades of sickly grey. “How did you find that out?”
“The other week when you asked me to fetch your diary. It wasn’t on your desk; it was in your drawer. When I pulled it out, the letter was stuck in one of the pages.”
He glanced down at the table. The atmosphere turned into a heavy forlorn silence I wanted to escape from; now. My hands broke out into a sweat and as my bacon rolls grew colder, my appetite did too. I shouldn’t have said anything. This had been a bad move.
All of a sudden, he erupted like a volcano. He banged his fists on the table, making the plates and cutlery clatter around. His face flushed bright red and his eyes burned with anger. When he stood up, his chair fell over, bouncing back onto the hard wood floor.
I shrieked and jumped back, scraping my chair across the floor. I'd never seen him like this.
“All I wanted was to die my way. How I wanted it, not the doctors or my friends and family, me. The last bit of control I had over my pathetic miserable existence is gone. For fucks sake!”
I burst into tears. Dad never swore.
He kicked his chair, breaking off one of the legs and sending
it spinning across the kitchen floor. I scrambled out of my seat and ran back to the worktop, huddling into the corner.
“You’ve kept this from me for nearly a month?” he yelled, glaring at me. “Do you have any idea how humiliated that makes me feel?”
“I…Dad, I’m sor—”
“Save it!” He waved his hand through the air dismissively. “I don’t want to hear your excuses or your whimpering apologies.”
Shaking uncontrollably all over, I could do nothing but watch in horror as Dad kicked the hell out of the kitchen chair, breaking it up into several pieces. When he picked up the seat and smashed it down onto the floor like The Hulk, I screamed.
“What the—”
Marcus appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the utility room. He took one look at me and one look at Dad and stood in the middle of us.
“Brian, I think you need to calm down,” Marcus said. He stood directly opposite my dad, shoulders squared but relaxed and his voice quiet and calm. “You’re going to upset the guests.”
I could see Dad’s face over Marcus’ left shoulder. He stopped for a moment and something flickered through his eyes like a switch being turned off. Taking a few steps back, he surveyed the damage he’d caused and scratched his head.
“I…I don’t…”
Luke rushed in then. His eyes immediately fell on me and he came straight to my side, wrapping an arm around me. “Are you ok?”
I nodded, too shocked to formulate words.
“Come on, let’s get you out of here.” He looked over at Marcus and said, “You alright dealing with this?”
Marcus nodded once, not even returning Luke’s eye contact. “I’ll sort it.”
Luke ushered me outside and into my apartment. He sat me down on the sofa, grabbed a blanket off my bed, and covered me with it. I felt nothing but completely numb. All I could do was stare into space. I couldn’t even begin to process what had happened, especially as it all happened so quickly.
“Do you want a drink?” Luke asked.
I stared up at him, unable to answer him because I didn’t know.
He scanned his dark eyes over me and pulled his lips into a thin line. “I’ll get you some water.”
Love, Lies and Immortal Ties: A young adult paranormal romance (Love, Lies and Ties Book 1) Page 21
