"I'll arrange a coven meeting," my father said, wiping his hand over his brow, his face tight. He never was one for showing emotion, his obvious concern over my mother's plan had my stomach in knots. If we fail, both Chloe and I faced death. The lawmakers would lock us in the sun cell and watch us burn or they'd stake us through the heart, depending on how grievous they found our crimes.
***
I walked into the meeting hall in my father's shadow, my head bowed. Our lawmakers and military filled the seats, our civilians stood in the center, crammed into every available space. My father thrust me to the front of the stage. The head lawmaker publicly accused me of turning a human.
"It was not just any human," the commander yelled to the hushed crowd. "Princess Lilith brought a Van Helsing into our midst."
The crowd fell silent, mouths gaped open, one civilian fanned herself with a sheet of paper. He neglected to mention turning Chloe was his plan all along. Our people's appetite for war dwindled decades ago. They preferred our military to defend not attack. Deliberately snatching a Van Helsing without a public vote would lead to riots if the public found out.
"Princess Lilith would like to speak in her defense," my father said. The crown he rarely wore sat askew on his head, a symbol of his power and reverence among our people. He raised his hand, demanding silence from the panicked crowd. I raised my head, my tearful gaze reaching the crowd.
"Chloe died," I said, crossing my hands in front of me. "Her father, Hunter Van Helsing, drove a stake into her heart. He meant it for me, but Chloe threw herself in the way to save me. She did it because we are in love. We are bonded."
A mutter of dissent rumbled through the crowd. The woman fanning herself rested her bony hand on her cavernous chest.
"If I didn't turn her, she would die, forever. It is a reality I could not bear."
A collective hush settled over the crowd. My unit, usually supportive of me, dropped their heads, avoiding my gaze. I questioned my mother's wisdom.
"Chloe is the key to our peace," I pleaded with the crowd. "Van Helsing adores her, I witnessed the pain in his eyes when he realized what he'd done. I watched as he asked his imaginary God to spare her life and take him instead. If Chloe goes to him once she is past the hunger he will not bring himself to stake her again. He'll have no option but to listen to her. Once the vampire killers understand our similarities, with Chloe Van Helsing as a mediator, we can begin peace talks."
At least that's what my mother thought.
A few heads nodded, some people frowned. The military buzzed with excitement. It is their men who pay the highest price of war. My father stepped to my side.
"There will be a public vote, those who wish for peace, using Chloe, raise your hand."
Across the hall my people raised their hands. I deflated, the heavy tension in my limbs drained. If my mother was right about Van Helsing, this might work.
"And Aria," her father, our military commander demanded. The hands dropped. Only three remained in the air.
"We use the captive. Princess Lilith will talk with him. He will lead us to Aria and assist with her rescue. No more bloodshed, commander, please. Do not take my daughter from me because you lost yours. Save my Lily and she will save your Aria and end this war, please, I beg of you."
Every hand in the room raised.
"They have twenty-four hours to bring my Aria home, alive."
Chapter 8 - Lilith
The commander agreed to transfer Chloe to one of our medical facilities. Since I suffered the hunger, our medicine had advanced. Chloe wouldn't suffer as much as I did. They’d sedate her through the worst, only waking her to feed her from donated blood bags and human volunteers under strict supervision.
I dithered outside our containment cell. Inside, Ryan bellowed out threats of instant death to anyone who dared touch him. To get him to help free Aria seemed an impossible task, but if it would save Chloe and our love, I would find a way. I shoved open the door, stepping into the dimly lit room. Shirtless, chained to a wall, locked behind bars, Ryan's enraged eyes landed on me.
"You hurt Chloe," he accused, "and you will die for it."
"Maybe," I agreed. I wasn’t out of the woods until I brought Aria home, safe, "but maybe none of us will. There is a way you can live, I can live, and Chloe can live. We can reunite her with her father and end his pain, but I need your help."
"Liar," his face turned puce, he balled his fists yanking on his chains.
"Leave us," I instructed the guards. If I was to gain his trust, I needed him to see me as humane if not human. We had him chained to a wall, in a windowless cell unaware of the fate of his men. The guards nodded, backing out of the room. They locked the door behind them. I was trapped inside with a vampire murderer. The keys to his chains and the barred door separating us hung on a hook at the end of the hallway. He can't escape the containment unit. Even if he escapes his cell, they searched him before throwing him into his cell. He was unarmed. I slid the key into the lock, stepping into his cell. Eyes narrowed, he flew toward me. The heavy chains securing him to the wall pulled taut, jerking him back. He landed with a thud, ass first on the concrete floor.
"I will take the chains off," I told him, "but I won't let you go, not until you've heard me out. If I can't get you to believe what I am telling you, Chloe will die, I will die, and our soldiers will never give up trying to avenge Aria, the vampire you took a few days ago."
He growled, baring his human teeth.
Stomach in knots, I reached for his chains, slipping the long, silver key in the padlock holding them around his wrists. His left arm fell free. It raced to my throat, closing tight around my neck.
"I'm dead," I told him. "I do not need oxygen to function."
His hand stayed around my neck. I released his other arm. He didn't have the strength to hurt me, not without weapons. We could fight but without weapons, his efforts were futile.
"You won't turn me," he snarled, his face inches from mine, his fetid breath assaulting my nostrils, "I will die first."
"I don't want to turn you. If I did, my people would kill me. It is against our laws to turn a human. I turned Chloe because Hunter mortally wounded her. It was the only way I had of saving her."
"You didn't save her, you stupid witch," he spat, "you condemned her soul to a life of misery. What you have is not Chloe Van Helsing, it is a monster. She wanted to be a doctor."
"And she still can be. Chloe will be an asset to our pharmaceuticals company. We will pay for her to finish her medical training. She will study from home most of the time but there are ways we can walk in the daylight. We designed the sunblock your people love so much, but it is not infallible. So we prefer not to risk it."
"Vampires make sunblock?" His eyebrows raised so far up his forehead they blended with his hairline.
"Yes, we do and many other drugs your people use in our quest to cure ourselves. We are not soulless, that is a myth your forefathers made-up back when they believed the world was flat to explain the virus we suffer. Chloe is still Chloe."
"Let me see her."
"I can't, not yet. When a vampire is first made, the hunger they experience clouds everything, but it passes in time. If I show you Chloe now, all you will see is the monster you think she is. In a month's time, she will be Chloe, but Aria doesn't have a month to wait. To end this war, we need to bring her home today."
"And if I don't?"
"My people will execute me for the crime of turning a human. They will deliver Chloe to Hunter Van Helsing while she still suffers the hunger. She will feed on him and then my people will execute her for the crime of murder against a human."
"Your people murder humans every day to feed."
His grip tightened on my neck, he lifted my feet from the ground.
"My people are in their thousands. Two hundred live on this estate alone. We must feed once a week to stay healthy. What you say makes no sense. If we killed each time we fed, there would be hundreds of dead humans drained
of blood every night."
He tilted his head, his grip on my neck loosened.
"We found a dead nineteen-year-old high school student a month ago."
"Killed by a rouge. Our courts tried him, found him guilty and executed him for murder last week. Before him how many vampire kills have you witnessed? How many dead bodies line your streets every night? If I am nothing but the monster you say I am why do I tell you this? Why don't I feed off you and leave you to die?"
He dropped me to my feet, darting back, his hands covered his own neck.
"I don't know why you lie, monster, but you do."
"Let me show you, let me take you to Aria's house, to meet her lover. They're bonded, like Chloe and I are. It's a love deeper than one any human experiences. He's not coping well with her absence, but he should talk with you."
He nodded, dropping his hands from his neck. As we walked to the exit, he hung back, his eyes darting around the containment unit, his limbs trembling.
"If we wanted you dead," I told him, "you would be dead already."
I opened the door. He rushed forward, knocking me aside. The guards grabbed him by the shoulders.
"I can't allow you to escape, not until I have shown you Aria's house."
They frog marched him behind me. His eyes roamed over our well-kept estate with its manicured lawns and rows of pretty white houses. Except for the lack of windows, it could be any human estate.
"You drive cars?" he asked as we passed a Land Rover.
"Kind of, we drive four-wheel drives, mostly. We're kinda out in the sticks here. Regular cars cannot reach us. The drivers are people who work in your town. We put on a nightly bus for people who simply want to go into town and feed."
"On people, you feed on people," he reminded me.
"Yes. On people, but we do not harm them."
"Oh, no you just drain their blood, it's not harmful at all," he mocked. We turned into Aria's driveway. Nathan, her bonded lover, a vampire from a neighboring coven dragged himself to the door. Bleary-eyed and disheveled, he scowled at me, baring his fangs.
"I hear you're in love with a Van Helsing?"
"Yes."
"I didn't raise my hand."
"And I don't blame you, but I want to help you, anyway."
He swung the door open, inviting us in. The three guards followed us in, one blocked the front door, another took his place at the rear and the third hovered over the still shirtless Ryan. Pictures of Aria and Nathan covered the coffee table, empty blood bags and beer tins filled the floor. Bones poked from Nathan's transparent skin, his eyes sunk into his head. Aria was only missing two days, and he fell apart. If I didn't get her back, I feared he wouldn’t survive the loss. Ryan's wide brown eyes scanned the room.
"It's normal," he muttered, "like a house."
"Of course. Where did you think we lived?" I asked him.
"Um, a cave or a castle or a coffin. Do you sleep in coffins?"
"Not usually but we have used them to travel from country to country. More in the olden days than now. We'd take up residence on a ship, like in the books only we didn't eat the crew. It would've been kinda silly to eat the people who sail the ship, would it not?"
"So, what did you eat?"
"We feed only as much as a human can give without becoming sick."
"Yeah right."
"Again, how many dead vampire victims have you recovered in your lifetime?"
He glanced at the floor. A picture of Aria with her arms around the neck of a child rested by his foot.
"Her great, great, great niece," Nathan told him. "Ari kept in touch with her sister and then her sister's kids and so on. They miss her desperately. Little Susie hasn't slept all night. Her mom called me earlier. You can speak to them if you like?"
Ryan's head shook wildly. Nathan made the call anyway, thrusting the phone on speaker phone under Nathan's nose. Ari's nieces and nephews begged for her safe return. Tears rolled down Ryan's cheeks.
"You promise me Chloe is safe? She can visit us? She'll be happy and loved here, for always?"
"I guarantee it."
"They're holding Aria in a disused warehouse just by the harbor. I'll take you to her, but she's guarded."
"Thank you."
Chapter 9 - Lilith
Ryan took a bit more convincing. We showed him our factory where we processed blood we bought from the blood banks if they were overstocked or couldn't use it. Vampires don't suffer from blood-borne diseases or drug addictions. We made a call to our contacts in the human military and government. It was when he spoke to a pop star he idolized that he agreed to fight with us to save Aria.
My unit was the best, they tasked us with bringing Aria home. My commander tried to ground me, condemn to a cell until Aria was home but Ryan refused to leave without me. He crouched in the back of the truck, huddled into my side, side-eyeing my fellow soldiers.
"Are they hungry?" he whispered.
"No," I shook my head. The truck bounced over a speed-bump. Ryan's terrified screech echoed across the freeway. His tense hand gripped my thigh. If he was wound any tighter, he would snap. After ninety agonizing minutes, the truck rolled to a stop. We had three hours until sunrise. Three hours to get Aria back inside away from the glare of the sun. My unit carried bags of blood, sun-proof blankets and loaded guns. In twos, we jumped from the truck. Ryan stuck to my side like Velcro.
"Promise me again you won't hurt my friends," he begged. Tears filled his eyes; his face was devoid of color.
"We won't hurt anyone we don't have to," I promised him. I swear, if he had access to a Bible, he would insist we pause so we could all swear on it. Ryan and I headed up the unit. He slipped his key into the heavy lock securing the door. It creaked open. A slither of light escaped. My unit rushed forward, kicking open the door. Illuminated by a floodlight, her skin clammy and icy white, Aria hung from her wrists, moaning for Nathan.
"Ryan, my boy," Hunter Van Helsing jumped to his feet. "We thought they'd killed you."
"No, they just want the girl. They'll bring Chloe home if we give them the girl."
"Chloe is gone."
"She's not, she's changed, but she's not gone."
"Chloe is gone, and I killed her. The vampire dies too."
He pulled a stake from his waistband, aiming it above his head. I promised Ryan, but if Aria died, we all did. My men would not leave this room until every human was dead. They would sentence Chloe and me to death. I yanked my gun from its holster, aiming at Hunter's shoulder.
"Drop it," I yelled. He flicked his wrist back, taking aim. Eyes closed, my hand shaking I squeezed the trigger. Gunfire shattered through the building. Hunter thudded to his knees moaning. The stake skittered over the floor.
"Nathan," Aria moaned, her eyes open wide but seeing nothing. Bruises, blood and sweat covered her milky skin. Hunter fell forward, a deep groan rumbling from his chest.
"You promised," Ryan accused, rushing to his leader. Hunter's heart pounded hard and strong. My bullet ripped a hole in his shoulder.
"He will live," I said. My men ran to Aria, yanking on her chains, pulling the hooks securing them free from the ceiling. Someone lifted a blood bag to her lips. She suckled like a newborn kitten, blood drizzled down her chin.
"Take her," Ryan said, clamping his hand over Hunter's bloody shoulder, stemming the flow of blood. "Take her before the rest of the men get here. I want no more bloodshed."
"Nor do we. Tell Mr. Van Helsing, Chloe will come home by the new moon."
Aria stumbled to her feet, the drained blood bag hanging from her ruby red lips, still muttering Nathan's name. My unit leader scooped her into his arms, carrying her safely to the truck. If Chloe reached Hunter Van Helsing, the war was over. No one won, no one lost.
Peace and love are always the answer. That's what my mother always said.
Chapter 10 - Chloe
Groggy and disorientated, the sterile scent of a hospital filled my nostrils. My mind scrambled, trying to remember ho
w I got here. A dull ache ruminated in my chest. My father stabbed me with a wooden stake meant for Lilith. Lilith, the woman I love, is a bloodsucking vampire, ancient and evil according to my father. I felt a lot of things from her during our brief time together, evil wasn't one.
I opened an eye, expecting to see my pale-faced father leaning over my bedside. My eyes met with Lilith's icy blues one. Her dark hair scraped back into a ponytail, dark rings circled her eyes, like she hadn't slept in days.
Do vampires need to sleep?
"Lily?" I croaked.
"Chloe, you're awake, how do you feel?"
I pondered her question. For a woman who had a nine-inch wooden stake protruding from her chest the last time she was conscious, I felt fantastic. A little hungry and thirsty, my chest ached but other than that I felt stronger and more alive than ever. Strange scents filled my nose, alluring and exotic, like a kinda metallic iron scent. The light, airy song of birds reached me. It must be daytime, but if it is, Lilith isn't a vampire, vampires aren't real. My father is crazy, and he tried to murder my girlfriend. And he's not here.
"Where's my dad?" I asked, bolting upright. I had no tubes coming from me, nothing fixing me to the bed and the room I was in had no windows.
So, how do I hear birds?
Memories came rushing back in the wrong order. The hunger, oh God, the hunger. Not any hunger, I didn't want a salad or a burger, I wanted blood. Human blood. I needed it so bad it was agony, a deep physical pain. I wanted to bite into my father's neck and suck him dry.
I fed off Lilith. She promised my dad she was helping me and dripped blood into my lips. The world faded away, everything was going dark but as soon as Lilith's blood touched my lips, it came rushing back louder and brighter than ever.
Sapphic Frozen Touch Page 3
