Heartbeat (Morta Fox Book 1)

by D. N. Hoxa

  “Yeah, but we’re spending the day here to prepare before we get on our way.”

  “Why do you want to find him, anyway?”

  “Long story. But he took something from me. I want to know where it is.”

  “We do have time, you know,” I said, pointing around at the dark room. “And from what I hear, alcohol goes best with a nice story.” I jumped from the counter and to my bottle of whiskey.

  “It does, actually. Unfortunately, my story isn’t nice,” he said. He already had a small bottle of vodka in his hand. “What about you?”

  I was tempted to laugh. The nicest story I had was when Mom and the girls went to some of those high-class events and weren’t home all day, and I could do whatever I wanted, just for myself.

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Well, then, why don’t you tell me a not-nice story?”

  I jumped back onto the counter, shaking my head.

  “How will I help you find my Lord?” I asked instead. He clearly wasn’t going to tell me anything, and I definitely didn’t feel like opening up to a vampire, hotness aside.

  “You’ll show me the way to get to him.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  “Simple. You feel him. You’ll hear where he is in your chest, and it will draw you to him.”

  “Does your Lord draw you to him, too?” I asked, because it just seemed so impossible. To just feel someone like that.

  “I don’t have a Lord,” he said and flinched.

  “I feel like…like I’m connected to him. I feel compelled to call him Lord and…just…” But I didn’t know how to put my feelings into words.

  “Yeah, I know the feeling. It’s been a while since I had it. You feel like he is the center of the universe, and everything revolves around him. And if he tells you to do something, you’re impelled to, no questions asked.”

  “I didn’t know about that last part.” Probably because I never spoke to my Lord after he turned me. Which reminded me: “How does it work? I mean, where did vampires come from and how long…I mean, how is this possible? I’ve read books, but I still feel like this is a dream. My logic just can’t grasp it yet,” I said.

  “I’d forgotten how much fun it is to hang out with a newbie. But, since you beg, I’ll tell you our story.”

  “I didn’t beg.” I’d just asked him.

  “Sure you didn’t.” And he winked. “But since I’m a good guy, I’ll still tell you.”

  “You’re not a good guy.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Because you’re a monster with sharp teeth that sucks blood out of people’s necks.” There was nothing I could possibly imagine that could associate goodness with what we were.

  “I don’t appreciate being called a monster, Morta, because I am not one. I suggest you keep that thought to yourself if you…oh, wait! You don’t want to stay alive.” Real funny.

  “Sorry if you feel offended, but things are as they are. You’re a monster just as much as I am.”

  “We’re vampires, not monsters. There’s a difference,” he insisted.

  “There’s no difference. A monster is an animal that preys on humans without thought. Now tell me that’s not what we do.” That was exactly what I’d done. I’d had no thought and no control over myself as I’d sucked a man dry.

  “Not necessarily.” That made me stop.

  “What do you mean, not necessarily?” I had been turned a couple of days ago, and I already couldn’t remember what it was like when I didn’t crave blood every living second.

  “You don’t have to kill humans. I mean, sure, drink their blood, but make it clean. Drink a couple of mouthfuls and stop. There’s no need to rip apart or kill a human while you feed.”

  “But the teeth!” I said. Didn’t he see his own?

  “Yes, our teeth are made to tear into skin and show blood’s way to our mouths, but that doesn’t mean that we have to rip the skin apart. Two small points are more than enough. You’ve read the books.” I had read the books, but they were just that. Books.

  “That night with that man…I couldn’t even begin to…hold myself, to not rip his throat apart for the blood.” I remembered the feeling of warmth and power in my mouth, and I was forced to swallow whiskey from my bottle again.

  “That’s because nobody taught you. But you didn’t tear him apart, technically. You will be tempted to, when years pass and you grow stronger. The urge for blood keeps growing each day.” He flinched again.

  “I don’t want to be taught. I want to find my Lord and then you’ll kill me.”

  “The chase can go on for days. Weeks even. We’ll have to feed.” I wanted to puke at the word he used for what was murder, plain and simple.

  “No, we don’t. We just have to drink.” And I showed him my bottle before I put the rim to my mouth and turned it over.

  Something occurred to me then. I realized what I was missing. Cigarettes. I searched the knee pockets of my cargo pants and found a package with only three inside. They were going to have to do until the next night.

  “You don’t understand. The longer you go without feeding, the more violent you get. The virus within us takes over completely when we’re thirsty, and if you wait until you feel like you’re starving, it’s too late to think about not ripping your human apart. But if you feed while your mind is still your own, you’re guaranteed to make it clean and without fatal consequences.”

  His words didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t let myself believe that I was anything less than what I really was, so I shook my head.

  “Morta, you’ve taken this completely the wrong way. I will explain things to you, of course, after you give me a smoke.” He grinned, pointing at my pocket. I’d just sucked the first mouthful of smoke, and I wasn’t going to share.

  “Get your own. I only have two more.”

  “Oh, come on. We can get more tomorrow.”

  “Sorry. These are all mine.”

  He watched me, smiling a weird half-smile, and shook his head. He was back to being amused in no time. He then reached for his pocket and took out a pack of Marlboros. I hadn’t had one of those in two years!

  “Where did you get those?” I said, drooling. They were too hard to find.

  “I have hundreds of packs, and then more.” He grinned before he showed me that it was more than half full. “If you’d have been a little nicer and shared yours, I would’ve shared mine.”

  Good thing I was used to not getting most of the things I wanted. I shrugged. “If I’d known you had them, I would have given you one. But, since I still have two, I’ll be fine till tomorrow. Now back to the story. Where do vampires come from?”

  He seemed a little bit disappointed that I didn’t beg. But if he could find cigarettes, I could, too. With the vision and the speed, I had no doubt.

  “Okay,” he said, and slowly took a cigarette from the pack, smelled it dramatically, put it in between his lips and lit it, his eyes never leaving mine. I stared right back until he filled his lungs with smoke, made circles of it with his mouth, and finally spoke.

  “Nobody knows exactly where vampirism comes from. I’ve heard stories of the first vampire—who was not Dracula despite what you read—that say he was cursed. The other story says that it’s a virus that infects the human body by killing every other organ except for the brain. Now, the brain has the power to keep up and direct the body, but in order to do that, the body needs blood. Since it’s technically dead and can't reproduce on its own, we must drink it to be able to operate like our brain wants us to. Much like when you’re alive, you need food to keep going,” he said, stopping every few words to smoke.

  “The virus gives all the reins to the brain, so to speak, and the brain functions in a much higher capacity than it does in human form, hence the enhanced senses, and everything extra that we have. The deadness of the body makes it put to action every mechanism it has,” he said, touching his temples. “Or so said the scientists that have spen
t years studying us.”

  “It actually makes sense in a very twisted, unreal way,” I whispered as my own brain put the pieces together. “But what is the virus? Where did it come from?”

  “The virus is a nasty motherfucker that never dies. It’s like chalk; no matter how many times you separate it, squash it or blow it, it never disappears. It just grows smaller and smaller; but when it finds a host, it multiplies in a matter of seconds.”

  “And the turning thing?” The worst memory I had was that of my Lord turning me. I hated to bring it up, but the need to understand was stronger.

  “Not all vampires can turn. Only Doyens can do that. Master vampires. They drink the blood of a human body dry, and then transfer a mouthful of it back, blood already contaminated with what I call the V virus, which quickly spreads around all the organs and turns them to dead,” Hammer said.

  “And me? What about me? Why hasn’t the virus killed my heart?” I was sure I would have been sweating if my body could react to the feelings in my gut.

  “I don’t know. I mean, the virus doesn’t even work if the body isn’t completely dry. I have no idea what happened to you,” he said, shrugging, giving me a sincere smile that made me want to sweat even more. It was too beautiful to be true. The way his lips stretched and his square white teeth showed, it was honestly a crime.

  “Are you a Doyen?” I asked to distract myself.

  “No. I’m independent,” he said proudly.

  “And that means what exactly?”

  “It means that I don’t belong to anyone. I’m not of any gild.”

  “And I belong to Everard’s gild?” It didn’t hurt to double-check.

  “That’s right. And before you ask, belonging to a Doyen means that he, more or less, owns you. You can't say no to him, you can't lie to him, you have to fight for him when he wants you to, and you’re obligated to make sure he gets fed. Thank gods that’s humiliating for vampires. The world would have been weird if vamps had to think about feeding someone else besides themselves.”

  He shivered. My mouth almost fell open.

  “So I belong to Everard? I have to do whatever he tells me to do?” I whispered.

  “Yes on both counts.” This time, I shivered.

  “How do you become independent?”

  “That’s a long and not nice story, and nothing you have to worry about, since you’ll be dead soon. Also, enough about me,” he said and winked at me. I was so ready to burst into tears a second ago that I felt relieved to see his wink. He was right. I was going to die before my Lord had the chance to play dolls with me.

  But that didn’t mean that I wanted to share my stories. I turned my head the other way and lit another cigarette.

  “Come on! Can I at least get the story behind the name?”

  “No,” I whispered, and before I knew it, he’d come close to me, too close, and his finger touched my chin before I could lean away. He stared at my lips in wonder.

  “What about the story behind the red lips?”

  I casually dragged myself away from him, away from danger. Because I was looking down at his perfect lips, too, and I didn’t appreciate the feelings that grew like fire inside me and pushed me to do something I already regretted. He hopped onto the counter next to me.

  “It’s just a story,” he mumbled.

  “Yours, too.”

  “Here.” And he offered me his pack of Marlboros. I was tempted, but not that tempted.

  “No, thanks.” I showed him the burning cigarette between my fingers. My body was in constant alert, like I was waiting to be attacked any second.

  “Tell me where your name came from.” He just wouldn’t let go.

  “Tell me where your name came from.” He rolled his eyes.

  “Are you always this stubborn?”

  “No…” but when I thought about it, “actually, yeah. I always was,” I realized, nodding.

  “Let me guess, you took after your father?”

  “Never knew my father so I wouldn’t know,” I muttered.

  “Mother?”

  “Nope, not her either.” I actually did inherit stubbornness from her, but I was just too stubborn to admit it.

  “Brothers? Sisters?” And on he went.

  “No brother, and I didn’t inherit anything from my sisters.”

  “So, you didn’t know your father, your mother wasn’t your favorite person in the world, you had two or more sisters who were nothing like you.” He grinned proudly.

  I rolled my eyes. “Aside from my father, you got nothing right.”

  “Oh, yeah? What did I get wrong?” He tried to push me again, but he did say I was stubborn first so he should have known.

  “Is this a game to you? Find a just-turned vampire who hates herself and play your childish games with her to pass the time, just so you can entertain your boring self?” I said, rather calmly.

  “Excuse me, but I am not boring.” Hammer fell from the counter and came to stand directly in front of my knees. “And I wasn’t looking for a just-turned vampire. I was looking for Everard. You just happened to…fall on the way.”

  “I will hold my end of the deal, but that doesn’t mean that we can share our stories and become friends and hold hands while we look for my Lord, right before you kill me. So keep. Your. Distance,” I said, and for a second there, I even thought that it wasn’t fair, but then I remembered what he was and I felt all better again.

  “You didn’t have any friends, either, I guess.” He grinned, still amused.

  “Would you look at that? You guessed right! Good for you,” I mocked with a dry laugh. It really was no secret that I never had any friends.

  “Yeah, laugh all you like. But I’m going to have you figured out by the time your death is next on my to-do list.”

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  “Oh, I will. You can take my word for it.” He leaned forward, closing the distance between us.

  “Or, you can just take my word for it and save your breath.”

  “That would’ve been easier. But the thing is that I love a challenge. And you just presented me with one.”

  He just moved too fast. One second I was looking down at him, and the next, he was sitting on the counter right next to me, his fingertips caressing my jaw line. I pushed his hand away just as fast.

  “Can we move on to the important things now? Like, telling me more about your kind?” I needed to distract him. I was never good with handling too much attention on me. Maybe because I never had any. Who knows?

  “You mean our kind?” He grinned, raising his brow.

  “Yes, our kind. Where do they live? How do they live? How many of us are there, and are we really immortal?”

  He smiled and took the bottle of vodka, drinking half of it in one sip.

  “Vampires don’t get drunk, do they?” I asked, realizing that I had drunk too much whiskey and not once felt dizzy. Anthony said that alcohol didn’t work on vampires, but this guy probably knew better.

  “Nope. We regenerate way too quickly. And we heal just as fast, too,” he said, nodding at the bottle in his hands.

  “At least that’s good.”

  “It’s great. Imagine if humans could recover this quickly.”

  “That would suck,” I mumbled. I hated vampires, sure, but I wasn’t a big fan of humans, either. At least not of what they had become after the explosions. Chaos would rule if generations didn’t get refreshed every once in a while.

  “Couldn’t agree more.” He nodded. “And as for your questions, there are thousands of us around the world. We are immortal as the V virus never dies, but we can be killed. We live off blood, and we’re scattered around.”

  “You mean there are humans outside here?” I asked, not even sure why I was surprised.

  “Sure. There are plenty. And animals.”

  “You can drink animals’ blood, too?” I asked, hoping that if I had to feed again before my time came to die, I wouldn’t have to drink human blood. Bl
ood—what I hated and almost fainted at the sight of. A life does change in a second. Or in two days, in my case.

  “We can, but we can't live only on it. It isn’t as nurturing as human blood. If you’re wondering—and I’m sure you are—you can't survive and be the same by drinking animal blood only. So get the idea out of that stubborn head of yours.”

  I was going to say something, just because, but he continued. “But, since I am stuck here with you, and I say that in the best possible sense of the word,” he winked, “I will sacrifice myself and be your mentor. I will teach you how to feed from humans without ending their lives and how to make them believe that they just had a nightmare. It’s going to be tough, but I’m willing to give you my time.”

  “I don’t need a mentor. I need to find my Lord and then all of this will be over.”

  “True, it will be over.” He smiled widely a second before he was on his feet and in front of me again, and put his hands on both sides of my thighs. “So, while I do you a favor and teach you, why don’t you do a favor to yourself and enjoy the days you have left by letting go?”

  He leaned up so close to me that if I only moved my head down a little, I would kiss him. Which would be stupid, especially since it was all I wanted to do that second. I wanted to grab his beautiful face and take the breath out of him—symbolically speaking—by kissing the hell out of him. I’d never kissed a guy before because nobody ever came close enough or wanted for that to happen. So naturally, the desire I was feeling, and the desire that I was seeing in his eyes fueling mine, was scary for me.

  “And by letting go you mean agreeing to be your sex toy and letting you have your way with me?” I was trying to make it sound like a mock, but it actually came out as a real, non-sarcastic question.

  “I’ll be yours if you’ll be mine. There’s nothing wrong with that.” I smelled the vodka in his mouth, and for a second, I actually believed that just the smell of it could get me drunk. That is until his words rang clear in my head. He said he would be my toy. Problem was, I wouldn’t have had any idea what to do with something like that, even if I had it. But he didn’t have to know that, and I was wearing my lipstick. I wasn’t going to become anybody’s sex toy for as long as I lived.