The Link

by Dara Nelson

  “Crap!” I said, then I gasped when their surprised faces whipped around. I sheepishly grinned. “Oops, sorry. Please, let’s go again,” I said.

  “But of course,” he said and he sprung again. This time I was ready for him. This time I caught him but I didn’t fling him off, I held on and threw him onto his back on the floor, pinning him. My horrified gasp at the large crack in the floor that spread out from beneath him changed to an embarrassed smile when I saw him grinning up at me. “Very well done,” he said as he jumped up.

  We continued like that all day. I was really beginning to enjoy myself, until he said, “Okay, enough with me, now with him,” and he pointed to Matthew. My eyes grew wide and I stammered “I… I… can’t fight him.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” he replied, “There might come a day when you will have to fight someone you know, someone you care about. The life of a vampire can be very… volatile… to say the least. This kind of strength, this kind of power, is sometimes too much for some to handle. You must be prepared for this.” Then his voice grew stern as he continued, “And you will NOT go easy on each other, if you do you will be fighting each other for days, weeks, even months if that is what I decide.”

  “Okay,” we both said together - then I turned to Matt, smiled and playfully said, “I love you honey - but watch out, cause here I come,” then I sprung.

  We were laughing as we returned to our room a few hours later. I was riding on his back, playfully wrapping my arms around his neck. Our play fighting had to end, though, when it migrated into incredibly wild, passionate sex…. and we broke the bed.

  Lesson # 3 - Communication

  We woke the next morning, still exhausted, wrapped in each other’s arms, on top of the comforter on the floor. Neither of us wanted to get up, but we both knew that our breakfast would be here soon, so we grudgingly rose and went to shower… big mistake, I thought as I watched the water cascading down his chiseled body… guess we’d have to drink our breakfast cold…

  Which is exactly what we did when we emerged from the shower and saw the tray sitting on the table. I blushed. “Do you think they heard us when they came in?” I said. Matt gave me one of those ‘You really should already know the answer to that question’ looks.

  “Probably, honey. I hope you’re aware that quiet isn’t really how you do things,” he said and he winked at me. I just smiled and shook my head. I picked up the lukewarm bag of blood, drank and tried to suppress the “ewww” that wanted to escape my lips. Cold didn’t taste very good. We held hands and waited for the signal that our next class would begin.

  The cloaked figure opened the door a few minutes later, and we followed him. We entered the room this time to find the blonde female waiting for us in a chair near the front, and I pouted a bit. “What?” Matt whispered.

  “I was looking forward to fighting you some more,” I said and smiled and then I had to close my eyes and suppress a groan when he answered, “Later,” and he playfully squeezed my behind. Okay, I thought, he wins that round and in my head I began to plan the next round.

  We sat in the chairs across from the female. “My name is Malina. Today you are going to work on mental communication.” she said. “When you are traveling and searching, you are going to have to communicate with others and with us. All vampires can do this, but it’s not an instinctual skill, it is a learned skill.” She turned to me, “Now, I want you to stop thinking what you’re thinking about right now, you’ll be able to do that to him later,” and she smiled slightly. My eyes went wide as I realized that she had seen what I was planning to do to Matthew in round two. Another blush filled my body.

  Matt’s head whipped around to me with wide eyes, while mine dropped to the ground, “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  “It’s okay.” she said, “I’ve seen worse. Now, I want you to think hard of a color. I want you to tell me, with your mind, what color you want me to see. Concentrate hard.” The color red immediately popped into my head. She shook her head. She was clearly disappointed. “Really? Is that the best you can do? You’re life is filled with red now, that one is too obvious. Try harder.” We did this for the next few hours. Me thinking of colors, numbers, animals, and Matthew a few too many times as she said, “Again? Please, I’m going to get sick of his face if you can’t stop that.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “Sometimes I just can’t help it.”

  “Okay, okay, now it’s your turn.” she said.

  “My turn?” I asked.

  “Yes, relax. Don’t think about anything and tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.” Instantly Matt standing under the shower popped into head.

  “What do you see?” she asked.

  “You don’t want to know.” I replied, unable to stop the smile from spreading on my face. She shook her head, “You know, I can require you to stay in separate rooms until you can do this.”

  My eyes flew open, “No!” I said “Please don’t. I’ll get it right, I promise.”

  She leaned back in her chair “Okay, then let’s try again. Close your eyes. Now tell me what you see.”

  Instantly the color blue was swimming before my eyes, “Blue,” I said. “Good,” she said, “That’s better, let’s continue.”

  Several hours later she said, “Well, you’ve made such excellent progress that we’re going to move on now.”

  “Move on?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she replied, “To actual messages. Now, concentrate on what I’m going to send you.” I closed my eyes and waited. I began to see images flashing in my head, brief glimpses that were hard to make sense of: a ship, a dock, a sunset, San Francisco, was that a date? Too fast,I thought. I visualized that the images were on a spinning wheel, and I could reach out a slow it down. In my head I saw my hand reach out to slow down the wheel. The images slowed down and it was as if I was watching a movie - I saw it clearly now and I told her, “A young girl, about five or six, arrived on a ship with her mother in San Francisco on April 7, 1824.” I frowned, “That wasn’t you was it?”

  “No,” she replied. “Just someone I knew once.”

  I decided not to press for further information. “Okay, now you. Think of an event that happened in your past and send it to me, and not something involving Matt,” she said while rolling her eyes. Great, I thought, she had to say his name, now he was on my mind. Okay, think hard, I told myself. I concentrated, trying to think of an important event from my past. An event toyed with the edges of my mind, but I kept pushing it away, my mind screaming, “No, please don’t make me think of that,” and suddenly, without warning it was there. I gasped, my voice caught in my throat and my head dropped to my hands.

  “That must have been very difficult for you,” she softly said. Matt turned and looked at me and whispered, “May 5, 2005. We saw the last time you hugged them in the morning, and that night, at Seattle’s Harborview Hospital, the last time you kissed them goodbye when you had to identify their bodies.” Then he wrapped me in his arms. I nodded my head, it was all I could manage. They were silent, waiting, until it hit me.

  “Wait,” I said, looking at Matt, “you saw that too?”

  He nodded. “Clear as day,” he said.

  I looked over at Malina. “Yes,” she said, “that’s quite impressive. Communicating with more than one vampire at a time is usually something that takes months, even years of practice.”

  “Mmm,” I said, “let me try another one,” and I thought hard. They both spoke at the same time, “April 13, 2001, your parents fiftieth wedding anniversary, with a big family gathering in California.”

  “Yes!” I said.

  The three of us passed thoughts around for the next few hours, trying different aspects of it (all of us out in the halls where we couldn’t see each other, each of us sending different thoughts at the same time). She finally rose and said, “Very well done. That’s enough for today. You’re free to go now,” and she left the room.

  We walked arm in arm down the hall silently,
thinking about the afternoon, when I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to be planning a way to get Matt back for this morning. With a smile on my face, I silently passed an image, in naked, graphic detail, to him. He stopped in his tracks, but I kept walking, smiling and continuing to send him the images. I looked back and he was bracing himself against his knees, softly moaning and growling and saying, “Oh my… ooohhh mmmmmyyyy,” I opened our door and then turned playfully towards him and said, “Why, darling, are you alright? Is everything okay? Do you need some help?” He turned his hungry eyes towards me and growled “Woman, you are sooo dead.”

  “Why, yes I am, thank you,” I said and batted my eyes. Then he ran at full speed towards me, not breaking stride as he scooped me up in his arms. Spinning around just long enough to slam the door, then he continued full speed towards the bed. The newly replaced, beautifully decorated bed… that we promptly proceeded to break.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lesson # 4 - Blending in

  They left us alone for three full days this time. Good thing too, because I doubt we would have been able to stop if we tried. When they finally knocked on the door on the morning of the fourth day, the cloaked vampire brought in double the amount of blood. They must’ve known that we were famished. As we were waiting for them to return, I turned to Matthew and said,“Do you think these feelings, this desire, this insatiable hunger for each other, will lessen for us over time? Because right now I would swear it’s getting stronger.”

  “I know,” he said “I feel it too… and I don’t know if it will diminish… But I sure hope it doesn’t.”

  “Me too,” I replied, smiling. “Although it could easily get us into a lot of trouble if we can’t learn to control it.” I shook my head as I looked at the tattered mess on the floor that used to be our clothes. “If we’re not more careful we’re going to run out of things to wear,” I said,. “I don’t know about you, but me trying to concentrate on our lessons while you’re naked right next to me might be a tad bit difficult.”

  “Mmmm,” he smiled. “Most definitely,” he saidthen he showed me what he was thinking. I took two steps toward him but had to stop when we heard the ruffle of the cloak approaching in the hall. The guard came in, took one look at the mattress on the floor and the mess that used to be the bed frame and seemed to shake his head as he turned to go back in the hall. I turned and grinned at Matthew, “Do you think that means we don’t get another one?” I whispered.

  “Who cares?” he said and he pulled me closer as we moved down the hall. I had to clasp my hands behind my back to keep from grabbing him. They seemed to have a mind of their own whenever he was near. All they ever wanted to do was pull him closer to me.

  The lesson today was going to be from the grey haired vampire who sat at the end of the table when he was with the others. I wondered if we would ever have a lesson from the one in the middle, the one who seemed to be the ‘leader’ if there was one. The one who spoke to us at our hearing. The one that I was terrified of because of the pain he had inflicted on me. “My name is Stefan. Today’s lesson,” he began as I tried to place his slight accent, Eastern European perhaps, “will be on blending in with humans, something you will need to do if you want to have success at finding suitable mates for vampires.” I tilted my head to one side, studying him. How could this ancient creature possibly be an expert at blending in with humans, I thought. He must have seen my thoughts because he said, “Yes, I know I don’t look like it, but when I’m not here I maintain residences in three countries and hold a high-profile job.” My eyes went wide as I suddenly recognized his face, a face I had seen in the news and on Forbes magazine many times. The CEO of a huge global corporation, constantly in the top ten of the richest people lists. How did I not see it before? His pale skin, his dark eyes. How did I not know he was different? He smiled and answered my thoughts. “Because I blend in well,” he said. “Now, let’s begin.”

  We spent the entire day learning how to act human - what to order in a restaurant, how to make it look like we had eaten the food, how to move through crowds without being distracted by everything, how to dance like humans. He even took us on a “field trip” to a nearby village, where there was a street market with many people moving through the streets. We moved through the crowds, purchasing some items and pretending to taste some of the fruits and vegetables when they were offered. We even stopped at a small restaurant at dusk for “dinner.” I was running out of pockets to hide my uneaten food. I thought, “Yuck, it’s going to take several showers to get this smell off me,” then my mind started to fantasize about taking those showers with Matt. I happened to steal a glance at him, and he was staring at me, his eyes unfocused, a smirk on his face. Horrified, I stopped thinking at once, hoping that I hadn’t accidentally passed those thoughts to our other tablemate. I went back to pretending to eat. But I couldn’t help noticing, out of the corner of my eye, Matt grinning and shaking his head. I was definitely feeling like we couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I really have absolutely zero self-control when it comes to him.

  We returned to our room after dark, contemplating the fact that Stefan, the vampire who had taught our lesson today, would be traveling with us for a least the first few months, making sure we were blending well. That would really put a crimp on our alone time, which, at the moment, was never enough. We thoroughly enjoyed the showers we had to take to wash the awful smell of food of us, then moved our enjoyment to the mattress on the floor - I guess they decided not to bother replacing the bed. They probably knew we’d only break it again.

  Lesson #5 - Consequences

  This time they left us alone for a week, leaving trays of blood every other day on the floor outside our door. By the end of the week, the bed was not the only casualty in the room - the sofa lost two legs at one end and had stuffing coming out of one end (from me biting it to suppress my scream), the dining table resembled nothing close to what it once was: It was shattered and spread all over the floor. And the shower had several dozen broken tiles (from Matthew shoving me against the wall during a particularly epic moment for both of us, after which we both collapsed to the floor of the shower, unable to move, even as the water changed from hot, to warm, then to ice cold).

  We knew our training was going to continue today because they had knocked on the door this morning and brought the tray in instead of leaving it outside the door. I felt kind of sorry for the cloaked vampire as he first noticed the broken table, then glanced around the room for some sort of surface to put the tray on, and seeing none, he just shook his head, handed it to me and raised his arms in defeat as he walked out, not bothering to close the door. I turned to Matthew and smiled, “Maybe he thinks we’re gonna go at it again if he closes the door.”

  He smirked and said, “We probably would.”

  I smiled and offered him something to drink, grabbing mine as I placed the tray on the floor. My last empty fluttered to the floor and I looked at Matt. He had that sparkle in his eye again. “Come here, sexy,” he said as he held his arms open. We were so involved in our kiss that we never heard the cloaked vampire come back in the room. We both jumped when he actually spoke this time, “Oh puuuhhhllleeessse, would you two just give it a rest?”

  He shook his head as we both answered while smiling and staring into each other’s eyes, “Sorry, can’t.” He turned and we followed him down the hall.

  We entered the room and I cringed and squeezed Matthew’s hand harder when I saw it was the black haired, sinister vampire who sat in the center position at the table. The one that I thought was the leader. The one who had caused me so much pain. I started shaking. My eyes pleaded with Matthew, “Please don’t let him hurt me again,” I whispered. Matt dropped my hand and wrapped his arm around me, pulling me closer and forcing me to look into his eyes. He whispered as we walked, “He’s not here to hurt you now, Sarah. It’ll be okay, nothing’s going to happen to you.” I was trying really hard to believe him, but I was still terrified.


  “My name is Victor,” he began. “Today you will learn the consequences if you fail or disobey. Of what will happen to you if you break any of the rules and what will happen to someone you incorrectly choose as a mate.”