by Lainy Lane
“Very well,” Vulcan composed himself. He was being forced to accept defeat, but he would take it in stride. “Come.” Vulcan stood.
After an extended intense stare, Phoenix finally broke his gaze from me and stood. He walked over to Vulcan and seemed very timid. Vulcan placed his hands over Phoenix’s temples.
“Thank you,” he spoke quietly, and seemingly against his will. “For being the first to voluntarily want to be part of my clan.” With a broad glare, Vulcan walked away without another word and Phoenix slumped over dramatically.
“Are you ok?” I ran to him and put my hand on his shoulder.
“Let’s just go.” His eyes begged me to ask no questions. I obliged, and we all walked out right away.
No one said a word as we walked back to our cemetery. The silence seemed deafening as we entered into the enclosing that held Ember’s coffin, which hid our choice of residence. We all walked to our rooms, without so much as a glance at each other. When life takes the kind of turns that ours had today, when one person makes decisions that set the course of multiple lives off the natural beat, there isn’t anything to be said. No words would’ve changed the facts of what I’d done tonight. No apologies would’ve changed that I’d screwed up again. No looks would have been able to take away the guilt I felt from the fact that I’d led us blindly into yet another bad deal. Nothing could be done to change the fact that I’d allowed my love for Phoenix to put him before my sisters. I wasn’t sure that I would ever be forgiven, I didn’t think I’d be able to forgive myself for that. I wasn’t sure what would change between the three of us now, but I knew for sure nothing would ever be the same from here on out.
“Acqua,” Phoenix started in as soon as we got to my room.
It didn’t surprise me. I knew, even with the absence of the bond, that he’d been dying to speak the entire way home. He had too much to say, and he’d already held it for longer than he wanted to. I held up a finger to pause him for a moment. I, on the other hand, needed a quick minute. I needed to breathe, not oxygen, I needed to breathe in something to ease my nerves. I lit a cigarette before signaling him to continue.
“Acqua, change me back.”
“Excuse me?”
I expected to hear words of disgust. I expected to be reprimanded for making such a hefty decision, with someone I should have known better than to trust. I expected him to yell at me for changing everyone’s lives without knowing anywhere near enough back information to realize what repercussions would arise. It was, after all, my fault that Phoenix was no longer a vampire. I had forced that decision on him, without any warning, preparation, or time to consider before he made a final call. I had convinced myself that I was helping him, or maybe that I was helping myself. Either way, I had in turn, cost him the very thing that he had gone searching for to make himself feel whole. He wanted it back. I had expected him to, but I hadn’t expected him to ask me to be the one to give it to him. Especially so soon after he had lost it in the first place.
“Turn me back. Let me be sired to you.” Phoenix didn’t miss a beat. The look on his face informed me that he had thought this through. Most likely, he hadn’t thought of anything other than this choice as we’d all walked home, lost in our own minds.
The thought had never occurred to me because I’d never actually needed to feed for substance, not since that first night. Due to being a witch, my body sustained itself without blood. I had fed, more as a sense of desire versus the way vampires needed to fill themselves. I didn’t need to feed. I still hadn’t fully come to terms with the fact that I was partially vampire. I had only fed once on someone other than Phoenix. It had been out of frustration. Since then, I’d fed on Phoenix once, which had also been out of desire, but a different kind of desire.
The sire ordeal made me feel queasy. It was an odd relationship that I apparently still didn’t fully understand. Controlling someone, especially someone I loved, wasn’t something I had any interest in doing. The thought of siring someone had me feeling sick to my stomach. I took another drag of my cigarette as I tried to process through unclear thoughts clouding my head. I wasn’t willing to do it, especially to Phoenix.
“No, Phoenix, I—I can’t.” My head began shaking uncontrollably.
“Think about it, Acqua, it’s the only thing that makes sense.” He was out of breath, a sound I was unaccustomed to.
It was an unwelcome reminder that he was, indeed, human. Because of me. Generally, when Phoenix was nervous, he paced, like me. He was standing oddly still, there was no thinking involved in this reasoning. I wasn’t sure if it was because he’d done all his thinking on the way here, or if it was a stupid enough plan that there wasn’t any thinking involved. I could tell by the look on his face, he wouldn’t be persuaded in this choice. Either he was going to convince me to fulfill his request, or he would leave with nothing.
“How does it make any sense at all, Phoenix?” My voice squeaked and gave away my unstable emotions regarding his request.
“The triangle bond, Acqua, it was the one thing Vulcan knew I wouldn’t accept. That’s why he let you make the deal. He wanted to form the triangle bond. He wanted to have the upper hand, it’s all he ever wants. He thought that me being a vampire was the only thing that would make me accept him screwing me over, once again. He knew how much I would hate the idea of sharing you, especially with him. He also thought that nothing on the face of this Earth would ever cause me to give up my Vampirism.”
“So, why did you?” I walked closer to him, suddenly intrigued. I was still trying to understand where his line of thinking had been, and where it was currently going.
I wasn’t following at all. The absence of our bond made it even harder to try and figure out. Part of me wondered whether or not that was part of his desire to be a vampire again, just to get the bond back. I wasn’t exactly the easiest egg to crack into, even with a blood bond formed. Being without one, I might be impossible to break into. Something told me that thought struck a fear in Phoenix that he wasn’t sure how to control.
“Because I won’t share you.” His finger brushed along my cheek, and it was a good thing I no longer needed a beating heart to live because mine stopped. “Because you are more important than my Vampirism, more important than anything.” He brushed my hair back behind my ears and stared intensely into my eyes, more intently than he ever had before. My emotions were caught in my throat, and the cigarette was burning into my flesh, but I didn’t mind.
He leaned in and kissed me, deeply. Our lips seared together with a burning passion. My blood pulsed against his. It was odd being able to feel and hear his heart pumping. To sense his pulse in his veins. To feel his breath catching and raising in response to my touch. He was used to feeling my response, but even with the bond, I’d never been able to sense his response to me. It was exhilarating, and I couldn’t pull away. I didn’t want to stop feeling it, feeling him, and how he was responding to me. It may have been the lack of temptation because he couldn’t feel me the way I felt him, but Phoenix finally gained enough composure to push me away.
“Listen,” he began, his breathing still hefty. It was a vulnerability I’d never seen in him before, and it was weirdly attractive. “If I’d allowed myself to stay sired to Vulcan, we would’ve played into his plan. We would’ve had to play by his rules.”
“I think we’re going to have to do that either way.” I stepped away from him a few steps. I needed some air, and standing so close to him wasn’t giving me any space to think.
“No, don’t you see? We have a way to turn this around, so he has to follow our terms. We have a way to flip this deal back over on him. If I’m sired to you, I become a vampire again. I remain un-sired to him, and out of his control. The three-way bond will still be there, but not at his discretion, under ours. It gives us the upper hand.”
His plan made sense. I didn’t want it to make sense because I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to sire him. I didn’t want to turn him. I didn’t want t
o have any part of this situation. However, I’d started the entire ordeal, which meant it was up to me to end it. We needed the upper hand. It was hard to get over Vulcan and, given a chance to do so, we were going to need to take it. Logically, it all made sense, but my mind still didn’t want to wrap around the idea of actually doing it. I couldn’t figure out how to make myself do it. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to have no part of it. I’d dropped my cigarette on the ground somewhere in the crazy train of my thoughts.
“Acqua, look,” Phoenix closed the distance I’d created between us, “we don’t have to make this decision right now, ok? We have a week before the next full moon, we have time to think about it. Right now, let’s just go back to focusing on us.”
Without allowing me a chance to argue further, as he knew well I wanted to, his hands were back on my face. One hand on each of my cheeks, the warmth of his skin within me, which was yet another thing I’d never been able to feel coming from him. It heightened every desire already coursing through me. His arms wrapped around the small of my back and mine instantaneously wrapped around his neck as I gave into the distraction he was throwing at me. Somehow, I knew that with everything going on in my world right now, I shouldn’t allow myself to fall into this kind of a diversion. Yet my head wanted nothing more than to put away from all of the drama for as long as possible.
Carefully, Phoenix backed us up and leaned us against the bed. I followed his lead, shutting down the part of my brain that wanted me to go back to Vulcan’s instead. That was a complication I couldn’t even begin to fathom at the moment. Phoenix slowly lowered me to the bed and stared at me for several moments before he laid on top of me. His fingers ran through my hair as his gaze caught mine. My body wanted to continue what we were doing before making it to the bed; apparently his wanted to talk.
“This is new.” He smiled.
“What?” I breathed out impatiently.
“Me being the vulnerable one. The non-dead one, and you being able to feel all of me.”
I smiled, but lost my non-existent patience with the dialogue, it wasn’t what I was craving at the moment. I laced my fingers around the back of his neck and pulled him into me, our mouths closing around each other once more. No resistance from Phoenix, of course, he caved into me and followed my lead. Each breath intensified our actions. Each kiss deepened, each moment heated. Every nerve in my body was set on fire, and I was slowly reaching a point I knew I wouldn’t be able to turn away from. A point I’d never allowed myself to get to before. I rolled us over so I was on top of him and broke from his lips. An action that was met with a small groan from Phoenix. I pulled him closer to me, and he arched his back to further oblige the request.
My body seemed to be in tune with his in a way that I had always allowed myself to believe was a result of the bond. The bond that was no longer there. The bond that I now only had with another vampire instead. I felt his hands rummaging around my back, desperate to just keep feeling. My skin tingled at each movement he made. Finally, I couldn’t keep myself under control any longer. I couldn’t keep my passion at bay anymore. As if he knew what I wanted, his neck elongated, and I bit into him.
Feeling his blood course into me, lit my entire body on fire. I could feel his emotions coursing inside of me in a sensation that was far different than just hearing them through the bond. I could feel them buzzing in my veins this way. He moaned as I fed on him. The moment I felt his emotions start to dwindle, I immediately pulled away from him, terrified of what that meant and what I was doing to him.
“It’s ok,” he mumbled. “I'm all right.”
I leaped off of the bed in an instant and began pacing around the side of the bed, observing him. I was mentally counting each time his chest rose, ensuring it remained steady. I had never taken a full meal since becoming a vampire. My blood felt like an inferno flowing through me. I couldn’t sit still, my muscles were aching to move, every limb in my body was begging to go. I felt more energized than I ever had before.
“Acqua, I’m fine, I promise.” He chuckled, which did little to ease my nerves.
“Okay.” My hands were trembling as I fought the urge to jump around and lit a cigarette, hoping it would help to ease the tremors coursing through me. “So, what, now I’ve just changed you?”
He laughed. “Not quite, babe. It’s not that simple. If it were, there would be an enormous number of vampires running around, don’t you think?”
I shrugged. “I guess I never thought much of it.”
“No, you didn’t change me. I need you to use your blood to replace what you just took from me to be changed.”
I puffed and paced and tried to slow my brain down enough to process what was happening.
“So, the ball is still in your court, Acqua. I wouldn’t want it anywhere else.” He smiled, and I hated the emotion it ignited in me. I was too stressed to deal with him being cute at the moment.
“Why would you want to give me that kind of power over you?” I finally found the nerve to ask the one question that had really been gnawing at me since Phoenix had suggested this particular charade.
“Better you than Vulcan.” He smiled.
“Choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil, Phoenix,” I countered.
For once, Phoenix decided not to respond. I couldn’t figure out what to do with that. He was right about taking the upper hand over Vulcan. I was going to have to find a way to get around what I would need to do to make that happen. I was apparently rather good at going into things without putting too much thought into all of the consequences of the actions. Now, to prevent my decision from backing me into yet another corner, I seemed to be over-evaluating the consequences. There had to be a middle ground somewhere that I had missed entirely.
I walked over to the bed cautiously, trying not to think too hard about what I was doing. I laid down next to him, bit into my wrist, and held it over to him. Without asking questions that might dissuade me, Phoenix took it. He placed the open wound in his mouth and took my blood into him. As I felt him draining me, I relaxed, shut off my brain for the first time in a while, and passed out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The brush crunched under my bare feet. I ignored the branches pressing into the soles of my feet. The air was crisp, fresh, and felt blissful entering my lungs. My body seemed more at ease than it had in a while. My heart was as light and breezy as the chill whipping through the breeze around me. I was even resisting the urge to skip to my destination, wherever that was. I didn’t know where I was or where I was going, but it felt good to be heading somewhere. I hummed a soft random melody as I looked around, taking in the view of the woods surrounding me. The moon was full and bright in the sky. Was it already time for the full moon? I felt like I had an obligation of some sort to fulfill on the full moon. But I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember what it was now. Maybe that’s where I was headed, but shouldn’t I be able to remember if that were the case?
I smelled a fire. Someone was burning something, and it smelled divine. Gardenia flowers and bitter herbs, the scent was reminiscent of some of the teas Ember had made me over the years. I breathed in the smell and let it fill me, lightening my spirit. I walked further, the trees grew thicker, and I could no longer see the light of the moon filtering through the branches above me. There was water close by. I could sense its presence, I could feel the soft babble of a stream nearby. Energy surged me as I felt my affinity charge me.
“Acqua,” a sweet voice called from above the trees.
I stopped and looked around, curious. It didn’t seem too odd, somehow, to hear the voice. I felt as if I recognized it. I was confident that I had heard it before somewhere, though I couldn’t put my finger on where or when. It was a comforting sound.
“Yes?” I answered, wanting nothing more than to please whoever had such a soothing voice.
“Come, my dear,” the voice responded.
“Where?” I looked around in the air above me, wher
e the voice seemed to be coming from, but I couldn't see anything past the tree branches.
“Follow your instincts. If you seek me, you will find me.” The voice spoke knowingly.
“But I don’t know who you are?” Panic began to rise within me at the thought of being unable to find her, whoever she was.
“Just come.” The voice reiterated its smoothness easing the anxiety threatening to overpower me.
I wasn’t sure what to think anymore. I walked forward, continuing on the same journey I’d felt I was already on before I had heard the voice. I seemed to have, at least some idea, of where I was going beforehand. Maybe I had known what I was doing all along, but my mind and limbs were keeping secrets from each other. I kept walking, using the sound and the feel of the creek as my guide.
The smell of the woods shifted to a lavender scent. The air changed direction, and I felt the entire spirit of the atmosphere transform. A sense of belonging filled me when I reached the place I was apparently supposed to be. I looked around, for a sign, an indication of the voice I’d heard earlier, but I came up with nothing.
“Hello?” I called, unsure of who I was attempting to talk to and the sense of stupidity setting into me in response.
“Acqua,” the voice responded at barely above a whisper.
“Who are you?” I asked, but I didn’t need an audible answer.
A woman stood before me, with an aura shining brighter than anything I would’ve ever thought possible if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Her hair was as dark as the midnight sky with skin as white as the accompanying stars. Her eyes were an intense shade of yellow with navy highlights. Her fair skin seemed to shimmer. She wore a halo of the night stars around her gorgeous head. The outfit silhouetting her figure appeared to be made from the sky with sparkling stars among it outshone only by the intricate gold outlines. My breath caught in my throat as her beauty overtook me. I couldn’t make myself take in any air, it was a good thing I didn’t need it to survive anymore. I couldn’t seem to remind myself of who I was, my brain felt like mush. I was entirely overcome by her presence. I didn’t have to ask to know who she was. I could sense it, in my very being. I wasn’t sure if that was because I was connected to her or if it would have been evident to anyone. I swallowed hard several times before I could enable myself to speak.
