Love of A Dragon (Exalted Dragons Book 1)

by K. T. Stryker

  “But no one had told me of the hunger, or of the changes that came with my new condition. I tried eating normal food but was violently ill. The only thing I could keep down were raw, bloody steaks but even those settled poorly in my stomach. I kept dreaming of waking up in the night to drain my wife dry and in the day, all I could think about was the sweet smell of blood.

  “I had accepted the woman’s help, thinking it was the only way I’d be able to stay with my family, but I soon realized I was a danger to them. So I packed my things and left them.”

  Peter couldn’t believe the vampire that had turned David had just let him go off on his own like that. It was beyond irresponsible. He truly was a victim, just as Ashe was and all the others who had been hurt by vampirism whether they knew it or not.

  Peter sighed. “I’m sorry for what that vampire did to you. But it doesn’t change the situation now. You’re still a vampire, and we still need our blood. You have to stop supplying to Landon’s clan.”

  “But that’s the thing,” David said looking resigned. He started walking again and Peter had no choice but to follow. “Did you ever wonder why I moved back here, when there was such a high risk I’d be recognized?”

  Peter shrugged. He thought it had been strange, but had been more worried about other things. Namely, fighting his own thirst for Ashe’s blood.

  “Landon’s mother, Constance. She’s the one who turned me. Their clan used to go out into the country to feed, but these days it’s just not enough. She tracked me down and offered me a job. I knew that if I refused, she’d hurt my family.”

  Of course, Peter thought. Landon had been all too smug about his family’s new blood supplier. Like David, Peter did not see any other alternative. He did not want to see Ashe come to any harm. But it didn’t change the fact that his family needed blood.

  “Okay, I won’t let that happen. Let’s go to the hospital now. You get what you can, and I’ll meet you around back. I’ll make sure you keep enough for both yourself and to keep Landon’s clan happy. My clan will be fine for another few days.” Though this last part was a complete lie, Peter did not want David to panic and put the whole operation in jeopardy. He just needed a little time to think of an alternative. If Peter had to, he would go hungry for a couple of days. He knew he could stay in control. He had to.

  They came to the edge of the park and Peter looked up just in time to see Ashe standing across the street waiting for the light to turn. She was the last person he wanted to see right now. It didn’t seem like she had spotted them yet. Peter had to act fast.

  He put a hand on David’s shoulder, stopping him mid-stride. “You go ahead to the hospital. I’ll be there when you get out. I don’t want people seeing us together around the hospital, just in case something goes wrong.”

  David nodded and set off at a brisk pace towards the tan stone building. Peter turned down a path out of sight from the intersection. They were both gone by the time Ashe crossed the street.

  “Ashe,” Peter said, walking up to her with his hands in his pockets. “Taking a break from studying?” He gave her a warm smile.

  Ashe tried to appear calm, though she felt like she was losing it. There was no one with Peter, no professor and certainly not her father.

  “I—I wanted some fresh air,” she stuttered. “But I probably should be getting back. I left my books all over a table in the student center.”

  “I’ll walk you,” Peter said. He put a friendly arm around her shoulders as they walked back towards campus together. Ashe couldn’t help but lean into his side as they walked, knowing his embrace was only one of friendship but feeling like she was his.

  The feeling gave her the confidence to ask him about the man she had seen him with. “Hey, were you walking with someone earlier?” she asked.

  Peter took his arm from around her shoulders and looked at her. “No,” he said with a slight frown. “I came to the park by myself. Why?”

  “Never mind,” Ashe said feeling stupid. It must have been her mind playing tricks on her, after all.

  “Professor Sharp’s going to start announcing topics for the final paper,” Peter said, happy to change the subject. “So you’d better get caught up on your reading by the end of the week if you want plenty of time for research. I can recommend some books once you’ve decided what you want to write about.”

  Surprisingly enough, Ashe was already close to finishing the required reading for the class. All she had was a book about the history of vampire lore to get through. All of the gruesome artwork in the book had turned her stomach and she was struggling to get through even the first few chapters. It seemed terrible that anyone had the imagination to invent such stories in the first place. Ashe preferred the children’s folklore of the middle ages, though that too could be grim at times. It had to be, for an age when the life expectancy was nearly half what it was now. At least vampires could live forever, Ashe thought with a smile.

  Peter walked her back to the student center before saying goodbye. He had a psychology class to get to and couldn’t stay with her to study. Ashe reluctantly went back to her books, wishing she could have spent the time with Peter instead. Even so, she found herself absorbed by her reading, enough that she nearly forgot to leave in time for her shift at the bookstore. She hastily gathered up her things and ran downstairs.

  The church bell started to toll before she had made it in the door. Her supervisor, an elderly lady with thick glasses and a perpetual frown clicked her tongue as Ashe threw her bag behind the counter and clipped her nametag to her sweater. She had forgotten she was wearing the black one with the holes in it that barely covered her band t-shirt underneath. This warranted another tongue-click from her supervisor. The bookstore was nearly dead, only a few red-eyed students wandering between high stacks of shelves, no doubt looking for books they should have picked up at the start of the semester.

  The door opened with a rush of cold air and a student Ashe vaguely recognized walked in. It took a moment for her to place him as the man who had nodded at her on campus only a day ago. Today he was wearing a long wool coat like the kind Peter often wore and his sleek black hair looked disheveled as if he had recently woken up. He smiled as he saw her looking at him. Ashe averted her eyes and busied herself with the inventory list.

  The student came up to the counter, drumming his long, slender fingers against its edge. “Ashe, right?”

  Ashe looked up in surprise. The student gestured at her nametag.

  “Did you need something?” she asked.

  “I only wanted to introduce myself. I’m Landon.” He held out his hand to shake but Ashe ignored it. He shrugged and put his hand back on the counter.

  “You’re friends with Peter, right?” he asked. The way he said this made Ashe think he was a friend of Peter’s as well, though she couldn’t recall seeing the two of them together before.

  “Yeah,” Ashe replied. “He’s my mythology tutor.”

  Landon chuckled. “Of course he is. It’s always been his best subject.”

  Ashe went back to checking the inventory list. She was supposed to be working, not talking, and she could feel the sharp glare of her supervisor coming from behind a stack of books to her left.

  “But he’s not just your friend, is he?” Landon asked with a raise of his eyebrow.

  Ashe tried to not let her embarrassment show. “Like I said, he’s my tutor.”

  “He’s told me a lot about you,” Landon said in a low voice. “Really, you’re all he talks about.”

  Ashe couldn’t help but feel a swell of hope at these words, though her face remained a mask. Maybe she and Peter had a shot of being together after all.

  Landon glanced over at Ashe’s supervisor before leaning in towards Ashe and whispering, “Don’t let his words fool you. Deep down he’s shy and unsure of himself. I think he only needs a nudge in the right direction to make him see that he doesn’t need to hide his feelings for you.”

  He leaned away just as Ashe’s
supervisor started making a beeline straight for the counter. The depth of her scowl gave Ashe no doubt that she was about to kick Landon out.

  Landon smiled at the old woman, then at Ashe, and left the store with a skip in his step. Ashe watched the door close behind him, feeling all at once excited and terrified at the idea of tempting Peter to forget his duties as her tutor. She knew she could manage Professor Sharp’s class on her own. She didn’t need Peter to help her study. She needed him to be hers.

  CHAPTER 5

  Peter’s phone buzzed loudly against the wooden top of the dresser. Peter groaned and sat up. He was both exhausted and jittery and his stomach was making obscene noises as it called for Peter to feed.

  He picked up the phone. “Hello?” he grumbled.

  “Can I come over?” Ashe asked. She didn’t sound upset, but rather there was an almost singsong quality to her voice. She seemed happy.

  But Peter had no intention of inviting her to his house and he didn’t think he was up for meeting her anyway. “Sorry,” he replied. “The place is still a mess from the move and I’m supposed to take care of some errands.”

  He lurched through the hallway and into the kitchen. The plastic shopping bag David had dropped by the house was still sitting on the counter. There were maybe five or six bags of blood inside, not nearly enough to tide the clan over. Peter forced himself not to take one of the bags.

  “Please,” Ashe pleaded. “I need help with this book I’m reading. I’ve been trying to understand it on my own but no matter how many times I read the chapter I just can’t wrap my head around it.”

  She really did sound like she was trying and Peter had a responsibility to help her. He found himself digging through the plastic bag on the counter with his free hand as he replied, “I guess I could make some time for you. But I can’t stay long.”

  “Great,” Ashe replied. Peter couldn’t remember her sounding so happy. She must have finally become motivated to do well in Sharp’s class.

  Peter took a glass from the cupboard. “But you can’t come to the house. I’ll meet you on campus. The student center okay?”

  “Meet me in the music building. I found a study room we can use,” Ashe told him as he filled the glass with blood.

  Peter said goodbye and hung up. He tried not to picture Ashe’s face as he drank the contents of the glass in his hand, but it was no use. His desire was too strong. He could imagine the feel of his lips against the soft skin of her neck, and then his teeth, followed by the warm rush of life flowing from her veins into his. The thought both disgusted and excited him. He promised himself he would not lose control as he walked from his house back to campus.

  The music building was quiet today and Ashe was waiting for him at the front doors. Despite the cold she wore tight jeans with slash marks all the way up her thighs and a form-fitting sweater that couldn’t have done much to ward against the cold. She smiled at him and took his arm. Peter gulped, feeling his hands grow clammy as he followed her into the building.

  This time, instead of going up to the roof, which was now inaccessible, Ashe led him into a small study room off the main hallway in the basement. It held little more than a desk and a single chair, and couldn’t have been much bigger than a broom closet. It looked like it had once been a music practice room that had since been turned into a makeshift study room. Peter supposed that an enterprising music student had done so years ago.

  Peter held his breath as Ashe squeezed past him and went to the desk.

  “You can sit here,” she said, offering Peter the only chair in the room. The book that Ashe had apparently been struggling with was already open on the desk. Ashe leaned against the desk off to the side, not having a place of her own to sit.

  Peter tried to ignore the sound of her beating heart echoing through the tiny room as he looked at the page.

  Ashe leaned over him and circled the passage with the capped end of a pen she was holding. He could almost smell her blood through her skin. “It’s this part that I’m confused about. It starts talking about witches and vampire lore and in a lot of places it’s hard to determine between the two. Like this part about staking witches through the heart and the Albanian witch that drinks blood. But Professor Sharp wants us to talk about the two as separate myths and I don’t know where to draw the line.”

  Peter was having trouble paying attention to Ashe’s words. Her thigh was inching closer to his side as she shifted against the desk, her heat radiating towards him like a flame. Peter’s gums started to itch as his canines grew fractionally longer.

  “And in Spain there are stories of witches who drank blood as well.”

  Peter wished Ashe would stop talking. The words swam on the page in front of him as he fought the urge to quench his thirst with her blood.

  “It won’t change anything,” Ashe said suddenly.

  “What?” Peter replied, confused.

  “My grades only improved because I wanted to spend time with you,” Ashe said. Her voice was quiet, but her eyes held his without wavering. “I’m sure I could figure this stuff out on my own, but I keep asking you to help me because I want to see you.”

  “I can’t,” Peter said. “I already told you.” The pleading look in her eyes made it even harder this time.

  Peter raised his shaking hand to her thigh, his fingers trailing the soft skin under the tears in her jeans. Ashe met his gaze and a soft smile stole over her lips. He stood from his chair as if pulled up by an outside power, something far too strong to resist. He needed to have her, to know she was his. His mouth found the crook of her neck and hovered there. He could hear the flutter of Ashe’s heated breaths as his canines extended. He could think of nothing but feeding.

  “It hurts,” Ashe whimpered as his teeth found flesh. She struggled to push him away.

  Peter stumbled backwards, upending the chair, which crashed to the floor violently. The realization of what he had nearly done sent waves of guilt crashing over him. He had to get away from her.

  Ashe reached towards him as he lunged for the door, but he was gone before Ashe could say anything. His only thought was to get away before he hurt her even more.

  It was only once he had made it across campus and calmed down a little that he realized leaving her like that had likely hurt her as much as his bite had. But he could not go back to apologize in his current state. He didn’t trust himself to be around her, or anyone for that matter. He thought he could keep her safe, but he was too weak after all. He was no better than any other vampire, no better than Landon. He despised himself more than he ever had before and he wondered bitterly if he’d be better off dead.

  The heavens opened up and rain started to pour down on the city as Peter walked through the city. On his way home, he stopped at a butcher’s shop to pick up some cow’s blood, hoping it would not become a regular thing but dreading that it might. It came in a frozen block and Peter hoped it would thaw before his sisters woke up and found the half-empty sack of blood donation bags that David had left him with. He knew his sisters had no issues stalking live prey and Peter didn't want that on his conscience.

  Ashe felt numb. She sat between the gravestones with her legs pulled up to her chest and her head resting on her knees, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Maybe she had been wrong to push him away, but the look of disgust in Peter’s eyes as he had left without a word told her all she needed to know about his feelings for her. Ashe couldn’t for the life of her understand why he had been so nice to her before, and why he had insisted that they remain friends, when underneath there was only one thing he wanted from her. Whatever the reason, one thing was clear. It had all been an act, one that Ashe had foolishly fallen for.

  The crunch of dry grass nearby caused Ashe to look up. Someone was approaching, but she couldn’t see them because the gravestone was in the way.

  “Is someone there?” she asked, briefly thinking it was Peter coming to apologize, though she knew it was too much to hope.

 
“Ashe?” A man’s voice asked.

  Tears prickled Ashe’s eyes as the man came into view. Her first impulse was to run up and hug him, but she quickly remembered just how much she hated him.

  “Dad,” she said, slowly getting to her feet. So she had seen him in the park, after all! But he was just as young as she remembered him. The grey hair at his temples had not spread in nearly ten years and his face was no more wrinkled than the one smiling at Ashe in her photograph. She couldn’t believe her own eyes.

  David approached her cautiously, as if afraid she would run away. He stopped a few feet off and attempted a smile. It looked more like a grimace. “I’m so sorry for everything,” he said.

  “Where were you?” Ashe asked, her voice cracking. Wherever he had been, he must have been taking good care of himself. He had not aged a day in all that time. Ashe’s first instinct was to run. It had to be a trick of some sort, a terrible trap.

  “I have a lot of things to explain,” her father replied. “I know you probably hate me.”

  “Is it really you?”

  David took a small step closer. “Yeah, Ashe. It’s me.”

  Ashe hugged her arms to her chest, feeling a sudden sharp sense of longing. “I don’t hate you,” she found herself saying through tears. “I just want to know where you’ve been. Why did you leave us?”

  David wiped a tear from his own eye before replying, “I know you won’t believe everything I say, but I want you to listen to me. Whatever I tell you, I’m not lying.” He closed the gap between them as he talked and Ashe did not move away from him. Though she had thought she hated him all these years, now she only felt a deep loneliness and the childish desire to be hugged and comforted.

  “You don’t know this, but weeks before I left you I had a car accident on the way to work,” David started.

  “If you’re going to lie to me you don’t have to waste your breath,” Ashe muttered. Her dad had walked out on her. This had nothing to do with some accident.