IMMORTAL BITE

by Long, Andie M.

  IMMORTAL BITE

  Andie M. Long

  Contents

  Warning

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Playlist

  The Midnight Coven

  A Taste of Vampire Mates

  Chapter One

  About Andie M. Long

  Also By Andie M. Long

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, with the exception of the use of small quotations in book reviews.

  Copyright © 2019 By Andie M. Long

  Cover by Jay Aheer at Simply Defined Art

  Photo from Adobe Stock

  Formatting by Tammy Clarke at The Graphics Shed.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Andie M. Long holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

  Created with Vellum

  Warning

  This book contains mention of self-harm.

  Should you be affected by any of the issues in this storyline, please see your G.P. or contact MIND.

  To the darker part of myself.

  At times you cause me pain; but you also give me a deeper understanding of the pleasures of life, and of the importance of feeling blessed every single day, no matter what.

  Vivienne

  Blood dripped from my thumb. Crimson red; just one small ruby tear escaping where I pulled out the thorn. I felt our reaction bone deep, as that one infinitesimal bead vacated my skin and dropped to the ground. It splashed on the bare earth around the rose bush like an atomic bomb. My breath hitched, waiting… wondering what the fallout would be.

  Our?

  ‘Our’ reaction?

  Who stood with me?

  Every time I woke from the dream it was the same. Vivid memories of rose bushes of all shapes, sizes, and species, and it always stopped when the thorn entered my skin and I bled. I could see the house; I could see the grounds; I could not see who kept me company. But I could feel them. Their presence always oh so close.

  I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling of my warehouse apartment, trying to find images in the concrete. Rain dashed against the large floor-to-ceiling window of my bedroom, and I welcomed the angry lashing.

  Come on, mother nature, show me what you’ve got. Is this the best you can do?

  The rhythmic patter engulfed me like a lover teasing me to orgasm as I heard it build and subside, build and subside, until the sound ceased as the downpour ended.

  Dragging myself to my feet, I wrapped up in my silk robe that had seen better days and padded on the concrete floor over to the window, mindful not to trip on my Aztec rug on my way. Fucking thing. I’d bought it because it was fashionable for warehouse living, and I’d kept it to punish myself for being a victim of commercialism.

  Standing at the window, I couldn’t care less that my robe had fallen open and one breast and half my vagina were exposed to the street. The rain still dripping down my window offered me a disguise and to be bothered I’d have to feel things and most of the time I did not.

  Not until the roses called to me.

  I heard their whisper in my mind from my dreams: show me, find me, feel me, let me and like a sleepwalker I left the window and walked out of my room and into my studio.

  I didn’t drink. I didn’t eat. I just painted.

  When I was finished, the red paint from the rose petals and the browns of the stems covered my robe and my skin. It looked like old and new blood decorating me.

  The cravings began.

  Bathroom. Razor blades. Skin.

  The cuts I made stung and I welcomed the pain. Not too deep; just a scratch really. I didn’t actually want to kill myself today. At times it was tempting to search for the place where it all ended, to call time on the nothing, the dark empty void within me. The truth was I wanted to live, feel, experience; but the black ghost dog that followed me everywhere was a bossy beast and after I painted, after I cut, I just ‘was’ while it gave a victorious howl that I was closer to its bidding than I was freedom from its snapping jaw. I’d succumbed before and they’d locked me in a building as dark and empty as I, where they’d medicated me until I convinced them I was better.

  Sometimes I stared at ceilings for hours. To outsiders they’d assume I lived a normal life as they witnessed me shopping, conversing, existing. But once I was back home and the door was firmly closed, I had to shower off the people I’d met; required silence to obliterate the incessant chatter of the ones I’d had to talk to.

  People made me feel like ants were crawling over my skin.

  Like they were consuming me from the outside in.

  Scratching at my skin helped to eradicate them.

  Maybe it was the scratches and the blood that made me dream of roses?

  Maybe it was the hope that one day I would wake and feel, that made me dream of another?

  Maybe it was the fact that dreams were better than my reality that called me to bed for hour upon hour upon hour.

  I lived my life in greys.

  And dreamed in vivid red.

  Once more, I crossed the stone bridge that led me to the medieval castle with its grand turrets. But while the building should fascinate me, it affected me no more than seeing a reality show contestant. I wasn’t interested in exteriors. Exteriors could mislead. Good people could be bad people and cheery folk could be the saddest people on earth.

  I reached the end of the bridge and my mind told me to turn back; that once I stepped off the bridge my path was chosen, but my intuition told me this was where I needed to be.

  That my life began here.

  The rose bush at the end of the stone bridge was withered and dead. No more than twigs and the dry husks of unopened buds.

  Your death is here.

  Your life is here.

  More whispers came into my mind from the roses. I followed their murmurs on the wind, stepped off the bridge and walked past the decaying rose bush. The enormous vista of the castle with its many windows stood before me, but I followed the whisperings all the way to the back of the building, to the gardens. A large stone seat was positioned where I could sit and see the garden; but for some reason, I knew deep within that the garden couldn’t see me. It felt me, but it couldn’t see me. Not yet.

  Come. Step inside. Touch me. Let me.

  Rising, I entered the garden and I walked towards the smallest rose. Unassuming and the red of pillar boxes, I reached to touch a petal and its softness warmed my skin.

  See, you are feeling.

  I was. I was. My face ached as a smile appeared upon it, as rare as a white peacock. It was foreign, but I felt that maybe it could stay awhile.

  Touch me, take me. I can remind you of how to feel.

  I went to pluck the rose and there it was.

  The thorn in my thumb.

  The crimson bead.

  And I felt him behind me. The other part of the ‘our’.

  I took the path and now it was fated.

  This is where it began, and ended, and began again.

  I heard him speak.

  “Welcome to Tetburn Manor.”

  Caleb

  My turning was violent and without con
sent.

  But I survived; if the life I led now could be called that.

  I was lucky. The word hit my mind and made me laugh, an unamused huff. My beloved fiancé of the time was not. She was drained and cast aside in front of my eyes, before my sire was slain and my saviour, Nicholas of Turrim Londoniarium clan, took me in and taught me how to be a vampire that could exist in the world without harming another.

  He gave me Tetburn Manor and staff who would ask no questions. Staff who had their own secrets and reasons for being there. Some were vampire, some were human. They kept themselves largely apart and did their tasks, including collecting donated human blood for me to drink, given by those who found it a thrill or a profitable career; and helping me run my business.

  I cared for and sold roses.

  My tribute to Rosemary Lyons, my never-to-be wife. I made sure that as I lived on, so did her memory.

  But as almost one hundred years had passed, my memories of her had almost faded away; and the importance of tending the roses and ensuring their survival had become an obsession.

  “Caleb. Have you finished with your drink?” Daria, my house manager hovered in the doorway. My dining hall was rectangular and vast: twice as long as it was wide, twice as high as it was wide, and with large windows to one side that looked over the front of my home; or should that be my castle. From here I could see the front lawns, the gravel paths, and the stone bridges that led to the outside world. There were security gates and fences to keep that outside world out unless I wished it otherwise.

  In the olden days, Daria would have entered through the screens passage at the rear of the room, but now we had modernised and she’d enter through a nearer doorway connecting the modern kitchen to this room. She was still some distance away from me now, but she knew my vampire hearing meant I’d heard every word.

  I picked up my ‘drink’, my daily glass of O-negative that stopped me from wanting to kill the human staff. I didn’t need to drink the whole thing daily, but I did anyway. I never wanted to leave even the remotest chance of a replay of how I myself was sired; how my love was destroyed with a fanged bite, torn apart. I finished, wiping my mouth on the white linen napkin. A faint crimson stain decorated it like fresh raspberries dyed my china plates. Food had no nutritional value, but my enhanced senses meant their taste was divine. I had a corner of the kitchen garden set up for raspberry growing. Maybe it was the fact their colour was like my most favoured roses and their canes had the same sharp thorns?

  Daria came over and took the empty glass from my proffered hand.

  “Thank you.”

  “So what’s on today’s agenda, Sir?” She asked, a hint of a smirk at her lip.

  “I think I shall spend some time in my office on paperwork and orders and then I shall possibly go care for my roses.” I returned her smile. My day never changed from its same routine and while some might find it wearisome, for me I welcomed the familiar and the ordinary. It was a good life and a safe life. I gave to the world the beauty of nature and in return it gave me peace.

  “And what about you, Daria? How shall you spend your day?”

  “Well, Sir. I think I shall oversee that everyone is doing what they should be and then I will probably be at the vegetable and fruit borders, doing maintenance and procuring some ready crops for the evening dinner. Lucinda is after cooking all of us a vegetable stew this evening, so I’d better hope I don’t disappoint her.”

  Tetburn Manor had a daily routine and I welcomed it.

  Our cook, Lucinda, was amazing at putting dishes together. She kept the staff fed and happy and knew how to make my vampire tastebuds zing with delight. She was a treasure.

  “Yes, you make sure to keep Lucinda happy.”

  “I will, Sir.” She smiled.

  Daria left the dining hall and went to join the rest of the staff in keeping the manor in order, and I rose from my seat. Though I could have been in my office in a blink of a human eye, I took my time, gazing at the familiar architecture: the timbered ceilings, high windows, the stone staircase. There were formal paintings on the walls of forebears that weren’t mine but held severe faces that felt like they were keeping watch on the building. Reaching the top of the stairs, I walked down the landing until I reached the door of my office. Pushing the heavy iron key in the lock and turning until I heard the familiar ‘click’, I opened the large wooden door, hearing its familiar creak. Stepping inside, I walked straight over to the window where I pulled back the shutters revealing the outside. A protective layer was fixed to all the windows that obscured the sunlight from entering the castle. It meant that when I rose at around 4pm, the summer sunlight could not burn my skin.

  Though I’d been born in 1889 and turned in 1921, I had moved with the times and anyone who met me would think I was born of the era of smartphones, WiFi, and Converse. I wore my dark hair short but styled with paste, and I dressed mainly in jeans and various different coloured t-shirts. Though my skin was cold to the touch, I myself was always an optimal body temperature and had no need of a sweater outdoors.

  Laptop powered up, I cleared the pending emails and reviewed the orders, printing out a list of what I needed to ensure was done today. Opening my mail, I had a cursory glance at the sample catalogue for the next season and found it lacking. It needed something to make it stand out in a sea of competitors, but what I didn’t know.

  I noticed I was restless. Something I’d not experienced in a long, long time. Why? Looking around my plain office with its bureau, chairs, chaise longue, and walls with photos of my favourite roses, I felt unsettled in my own skin. Like today this usual life wasn’t suiting me. It was as if I’d changed detergent and my skin was itching and desperate to escape my clothing. Maybe I shouldn’t have drunk the O-neg. It was possible that because my levels weren’t low that I’d overdone it. Once more I stood and gazed out of the window. I’d get myself out in the garden earlier than usual and work off some energy. Hopefully then I would feel more myself.

  From seemingly nowhere, a wave of agony washed over me and I clutched at my chest. What the hell was happening? Tremors wracked my body and I clutched the window ledge. A cold sweat began to cover my body, drops of liquid running down my face, dripping from my chin. I could feel it running between my pecs. I swiped my hand underneath my t-shirt to stop the almost tickle.

  And then I staggered some more, all the way back to my leather office chair where I fell upon it with a thud, as I took in a similar sensation beneath my hand.

  Th-thud.

  Th-thud.

  Th-thud.

  My undead heart had started beating.

  My hand hovered away from my flesh, but I could still hear it pulsing in my ears.

  Th-thud

  Th-thud

  Th-thud.

  I’d been told of a beating heart by Nicholas and had dismissed his teachings with derision. For I knew what he said caused such a phenomenon and knew that it would never knock at my door.

  A newly beating heart meant that my mate was here.

  My love.

  So had ghosts risen from my past with Rosemary, or was love destined to bloom from elsewhere?

  I sat with my hand upon my beating heart for so long, that Daria came to see why I’d not reached the gardens on time.

  Change was in the air. You could almost taste it.

  Vivienne

  For once I was out of my bed with intent and purpose and no delay. Not bothering to clothe myself, I stumbled into the living room, grabbed my laptop and trailed back into my bedroom where I crawled back under the covers. It took its usual seemingly never-ending time to open properly. My mind reminded me that its capacity was struggling under the weight of my downloads, and that I kept promising to clear it. It was an empty promise much like the ones my family made to me. The ones still alive, that was.

  ‘We’ll come see you soon’.

  No, you won’t. Because you’ll be reminded that I’m not whole and you don’t want to deal with the pieces. Scared
that by being in my company, my illness may mutate and infect you.

  Google appeared on my screen and I typed in the search bar ‘Tetburn Manor’ and then I gasped, peering closer at the screen. Because there it was. The house from my dreams.

  Clicking onto a Wikipedia page that I knew could be full of half-truths, I poured over the words, photos, and illustrations.

  The photo showed me the grand façade of the house, but I really didn’t need to look at it very closely because I already knew every part of its outer shell: every brick, every turret, every gravelled path. The layout of its gardens. It was the inside I knew nothing about at all.

  I discovered the house was built in the 15th Century and was home to the Brown family until the early 19th century when an unnamed organisation took over its ownership. For the past one hundred years the house had been noted for its roses, grown by the Miller family. Cloaked in secrecy, not much was known about the Miller family other than the rose business grew from strength to strength under the current watchful gaze of a Caleb Miller, current CEO of Tetburn Roses.

  Opening another tab, I typed in his name in order that I might see a photograph of someone who could be part of my ‘our’, but there was nothing. I was left dissatisfied, like a lover had walked out on me as I was on the cusp of coming, or the needle had been pulled from my arm just before the drugs hit my system.

  A hunger like I’d not eaten for days gnawed at me as I went back to the description and looked for the address.