Moonlight

by Amanda Ashley

  “I don’t know. Please, let me go.”

  Dark rage bubbled up inside him as he saw the fear in her eyes, felt it in the trembling of her body. Smelled it on her skin. What did she see, he wondered. What had Katlaina seen when she ran from him in terror?

  “You’re afraid of me,” he said, his voice hard and flat. “Why? I’ve done nothing to you.”

  “Please let me go!” She tried to twist out of his grasp, cried out in pain when he tightened his hold on her wrist.

  “Why are you afraid of me?” he demanded.

  “Your eyes…they’re red.” She stared up at him, her gaze trapped by his. “Glowing. Inhuman…” A sob rose in her throat. “Who are you? What are you?”

  He felt the power coalesce within him, felt it in every fiber of his being. His gaze held hers, his eyes seeing into her thoughts, imprisoning her mind until she had no will but his.

  She stopped fighting him, her body suddenly limp. As if in a daze, she cocked her head to the side. Her hair fell back, exposing the length of her neck, the pulse beating there.

  He felt the sharpness of his fangs against his tongue, and then he was bending over her, enfolding her in his arms, hiding her in the voluminous folds of his cloak. She stood motionless in his embrace, her arms at her sides, her eyes vacant.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered, and then, unable to help himself, he pierced the vein in her throat, his eyes closing as her life’s nectar filled his mouth.

  Laughter. Dreams. Of a home, a child. The ache of a love lost. The joy of a love found… He drank in her thoughts as he drank her blood, heard the pounding of her heart as it sought to beat in rhythm with his own, hers growing weaker, his growing stronger…

  With a cry of self-loathing, he withdrew. She would have fallen but for his arms around her.

  “It will be all right, Joselle,” he said, his voice soothing, hypnotic. “You will go home now. And you will remember none of this.”

  “Home,” she parroted the word without inflection.

  “Yes. Go home.”

  He gave her a little push, and she stumbled forward. He watched her walk toward the village, her steps uneven, wondering how he had known her name, marveling at the power of his mind over hers.

  He had so much to learn. About himself. About the world. She had expected payment for the meal. What sort of payment?

  He glanced down at the stained cloth of gold trousers he wore. He needed clean raiment. Boots. Where did one find such things? Food and clothing had been provided for him since birth.

  Food… He grimaced as he recalled the taste of the meat he had consumed earlier. The memory of eating cooked animal flesh sickened him as the thought of partaking of blood would have sickened him only days ago.

  Shaylyn. He had to find her, force her to tell him what he had become. But how? Where did one look for a goddess?

  Wrapping his cloak around him, he began to walk east, away from Katlaina, away from the rising sun.

  Chapter Eight

  Blood. The need for it, the hunger, the passion, burned within Navarre, haunting him, tormenting him. Like a beast gone mad, he hungered for the taste of it even as he abhorred the unearthly need, the unending desire.

  He tried to ignore it. He avoided towns and people, living like some outcast on the edges of humanity, but the hunger was excruciating and he lacked the strength to fight it, to endure it.

  He hunted the back streets and byways, taking his sustenance from the sick, the dying. Some deep instinct warned him not to feed off the dead. His existence filled him with self-loathing, yet he continued to hunt, unable to resist the relentless thirst.

  Six months passed. Miles passed. The moon was his sun, and he explored the world in her pale silver light. He saw mountains and valleys, herds of cattle and horses, flocks of sheep and goats, villages large and small.

  He learned to shut his mind to the constant barrage of sounds that assaulted his ears. He tested the extent of his abilities, and for a while he was heady with power. He had the strength of a hundred men, the ability to transform into a dark mist, or into a wolf, to shield his presence from mortal eyes. He could, with a glance, bend another’s will to his own.

  In time, and with great effort, he learned to control the hunger that was ever present. He wasn’t immune to pain, but his body had the power to heal itself. A minor cut healed in minutes, severe injuries healed overnight.

  He learned that he could feed off the blood of animals, though it was not as strengthening, or satisfying, as the blood of mortals.

  In the beginning, filled with power and anger, he killed many of those he fed upon, feeding off their fear as he fed off their blood, until he had lost every shred of humanity, until he was truly a monster, until he became a creature so vile he could stand it no longer. Overcome with guilt and regret, he vowed never again to kill for the sake of killing, never to take a life except to defend his own.

  By day, he slept in the bowels of the earth, wondering, on occasion, why she didn’t vomit him up, for it was there, resting deep in the ground just before the darkness swept him away, that he was most aware of the vast gulf between himself and humanity. His was a life against nature. Unclean, he thought, he felt unclean, defiled by the life he led.

  He had searched for Shaylyn in every village and town, but she seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth, and, day by day, his hope of finding his way back to mortality grew fainter.

  He was lonely. So lonely. He thought often of Katlaina, of the son she had born. Had she returned to Grenalde? Did she ever think of him? His son would be crawling now. Soon he would be walking, talking. Would she tell the boy about his father when he was old enough to understand?

  With a sigh, Navarre shook his melancholy thoughts from his mind. He had not fed in two days and the hunger was growing stronger, more insistent.

  He smelled the village long before he saw it, his nostrils filling with a miasma of odors that meant people. Smoke and sweat, the fragrance of perfume and hard-milled soap, the sickening scent of roasting meat, the pungent odor of human and animal waste.

  As he drew nearer, he saw that it was a large village. Flocks of sheep and goats grazed on the hillsides. He heard the lowing of cattle, the rustle of feathers as chickens bedded down for the night, the warning bark of a dog, a child’s laughter, a woman’s tears.

  Ordinary sounds, he mused. The sounds of life, the kind of life that was forever lost to him unless he found Shaylyn.

  Lamplight glowed yellow in the windows of the cottages he passed as he made his way toward the center of the village. He paused outside one of the cottages, listening to the clatter of pots and pans as a fair-haired woman prepared the evening meal. He heard the high-pitched laughter of a little girl, the deeper, answering laughter of her father.

  Pain twisted through Navarre’s heart as he caught sight of the family gathered around the kitchen table. They bowed their heads, and he heard the father offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the food they were about to eat, for the roof over their heads, for the peace and plenty they enjoyed.

  Navarre stood on the outside, looking in, yearning for the life that had been denied him, for the carefree childhood he had never known, for the father he had never seen.

  He had a sudden urge to smash his way into the house, to tear down the walls, to let them see the horror that he had seen in other eyes before he robbed them of their lives.

  For a moment, he imagined what it would be like. The father would rush forward to defend his family, but his puny mortal efforts would be wasted. The woman would cry and beg mercy for her child. And the young girl… She would look at him through eyes filled with terror…

  With a feral growl of self-hatred, he turned away from the cottage, despising himself for what he had become. He was every man’s enemy, every child’s nightmare, a soulless aberration who had no right to prey upon the lives of others—no right except the innate need to survive.

  * * * * *

  It was on a dark winter
night that he was set upon by thieves. Ordinarily, he would have heard their approach, but on this night, he was sunk in the depths of despair. He was weary of the life he led. He ached for Katlaina, longed to spend his days and nights at her side, and yet, no matter how he wished for a normal life, he knew such a thing could never be.

  The thieves were upon him in a trice. Two of them bore him to the ground and before he could summon his wits, the third stabbed him with a very long, very sharp, knife.

  With a gasp of pain, Navarre tried to fight them off, but the blood flowing from his wound drained him of strength.

  As from far away, he heard them complaining because he had no money, and then darkness descended upon him. His last conscious thought was that death had found him at last…

  He woke feeling groggy and disoriented. For a moment he lay where he’d fallen, wondering why he was still alive. Surely the thrust of the knife should have killed him.

  Slowly, he sat up, his hands probing his chest for the wound. His fingers encountered torn cloth where the blade had pierced his shirt, but there was no wound in his flesh, so sign that he had been attacked save his torn and blood-stained shirt.

  He stood up, feeling weak and lightheaded. Blood, he thought, staring at the crimson stain that spread across his shirtfront. He needed blood.

  Staggering slightly, he made his way toward a large pasture located across the road. He knew somehow that he was far too weak to seek nourishment from a human source. For now, bovine blood would have to suffice.

  He grimaced as he crossed the road and slipped between the rails of the fence. A placid cow provided the sustenance he needed, and then, feeling only a little better, he sought a place to pass the night, wondering, as the darkness settled over him, why he was still alive.

  * * * * *

  Another six months passed. He had given up all hope of locating Shaylyn when he found her. Or, to be more accurate, she found him.

  He was sitting in the far corner of a small inn, staring out into the rain-swept night, when a faint movement caught his eye. Startled, he swung his head around to find her sitting across from him.

  “So, my handsome one,” she purred, “we meet again.”

  “Shaylyn.” He breathed her name, wondering, as he did so, if she was real, or merely an illusion.

  “You have survived your first year,” she remarked. “So many do not.”

  Leaning forward, he grabbed her by the hand. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what I am.”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “No. Tell me. I was stabbed in the chest. It was a mortal wound. Why didn’t I die?”

  She laughed softly. “Ah, my handsome Navarre, still so much to learn. You are already dead.”

  “No.” He shook his head, refusing to believe.

  “Yes. I told you as much the night I brought you over. Did you not believe me?”

  He shook his head again. “No.”

  “You are vampir,” she explained. “One of the undead. You cannot die by being stabbed, my Navarre, because you are already dead. But, be warned, even the strongest vampires can be killed. A wooden stake through the heart will kill most of us. Fire and beheading will most certainly destroy you. Young ones, like yourself, must avoid the sun.”

  “Vampire.” He spoke the word slowly. In all the scrolls and manuscripts he had read, he had never come across the word.

  “There have been vampires since the beginning of time,” Shaylyn said. “I have made and destroyed hundreds of our kind.”

  Navarre swallowed the knot of fear that had lodged in his throat. “And have you come to destroy me?”

  “No. I only came to see how my youngest fledgling is doing.”

  “I’m lonely,” he confessed, not meeting her gaze. “I long for…”

  “Katlaina.” The word hissed past Shaylyn’s lips. “If you want the woman, Navarre, why not take her? Use her as you will, then destroy her.”

  “Destroy her! Are you mad?”

  “You cannot live like other men. You can no longer father a child. If you desire the woman, take her and be done with it. But you must not tell her what you are. She will hate you for it. If people suspect what you are, they will hunt you down and destroy you.”

  “Why didn’t you just kill me?” Navarre asked bitterly. Surely that would be better than the life she described, better than the life he had been living. He stared into her eyes. Sitting there, her hands folded on the table, she looked human, though he could sense she was not. Vampire. One of the undead. What did it really mean?

  “If you don’t want to take the woman, then leave this place. Go to the city, Navarre. Find yourself a place to live. Don’t shut yourself away from mortals. Laugh, my handsome one. Dance. Find a woman to love, and then, when she begins to age while you remain the same, move on and love again.”

  “Is that what you do?”

  “Yes. I’ve hunted the world over in my time. I have known many mortal men. The world is a very big place. There is much to see. Much to do.” She shrugged. “If living in the city doesn’t appeal, then go find yourself a small village in the mountains and be a god. The peasants will revere you. They will build you a place to live, and sacrifice virgins to appease your lust and your thirst.”

  “No!” He shuddered as he imagined Katlaina being brought to him as a sacrifice.

  “Do what you will, then,” Shaylyn said irritably. “Forever is a long time. You must find a way to fill it.”

  “And if I don’t wish to be part of the world?”

  “Then bury yourself in the ground, my Navarre.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Dig yourself a hole deep in the earth and go to sleep.”

  “What will that solve? I sleep every day.”

  “Not the day sleep, but the long sleep. You can take your rest for a year or a century. But beware, when you wake, you will be too weak to feed off any but the smallest, most disgusting of creatures.”

  “Have you done this?”

  “Once, shortly after I was made.” She stared past him, her thoughts turned inward. “It was like sleeping. I dreamed things, heard things. Strange things. And when I woke, I realized the things I had heard and seen were the voice of the earth, changing.”

  She looked at him then, the light of desire glowing in her eyes. “Come, hunt with me, Navarre.”

  “No.”

  “Still determined to travel alone, I see.” She stood up, a vision of dark beauty. “Mayhap we will meet again, my handsome one.”

  “Wait.” He rose to his feet, a feeling of emptiness coursing through him as he followed her outside. He hated her for what she had done to him, but she was the closest thing he had to family now.

  “What is it?” she asked impatiently.

  He didn’t know how to tell her what he wanted, but she knew. With a sigh, she drew him into her arms and held him tight.

  “It will get easier, Navarre,” she murmured, lightly stroking his hair. “Don’t shut yourself off from the world. That way lies madness.”

  Shaylyn sighed as she felt his arms steal around her waist. Shudders racked his body. She should have hated him for being so stubborn, for refusing to hunt with her, live with her, as she had intended. But she couldn’t hate him. In spite of all he had been through, there was an air of innocence about Navarre, a deep inner goodness that she feared would be his undoing.

  Murmuring his name, she pressed her lips to his.

  For a moment, he clung to her, his arms pulling her up tight against him. He felt her heated response, knew, in that moment, that he could take her, then and there. Almost, he surrendered to the temptation of the warm body pressed intimately to his. But it wasn’t just physical relief he wanted. No, he wanted the love and caring that went with it.

  He wanted Katlaina. Gently, he released his hold on Shaylyn.

  “Come,” she said, holding out her hand. “Walk the night with me.”

  “No.” The thought of watching her hunt, of seeing her pre
y upon some helpless mortal, draining the helpless creature of blood, filled him with revulsion.

  “Just a walk, Navarre,” she promised.

  It was still raining. Thunder rolled across the heavens, lightning crackled, a chill wind rode the rain.

  Shaylyn lifted her face to the sky, laughing softly as the thick drops washed down her cheeks.

  “I’ve always loved winter,” she mused. “The darkness. The violence of a storm. The power of lightning.”

  She was like the storm, he thought. There was lightning in her eyes, violence in her soul. And yet she was beautiful, even now, with her hair falling in damp ebony strands down her back. Her gown clung to her, molding itself to her body, revealing ample curves.

  The sight teased at his desire, but it was Katlaina he yearned for, Katlaina whose lips he yearned to kiss. Katlaina… He shook her from his mind, and yet, deep inside, he knew he would not rest until he had seen her again.

  Chapter Nine

  It was early spring when Navarre made his way to Grenalde. The countryside was everything Katlaina had said it was. Beautiful and green, lush with trees and grass and flowers.

  He walked down a narrow lane. Cottages lined the roadway, dark at this time of night. The air was cool, fragrant with new-cut hay and the scent of damp earth. A dog barked as Navarre passed by, but he silenced the animal with a glance and moved on, drawn toward a small vine-covered cottage at the end of the lane.

  He placed his hand on the narrow door, closed his eyes, and concentrated on the dwelling’s inhabitants. And knew that this was where Katlaina lived.

  Her scent drew him toward the back of the house. Peering through a small square window, he saw her. Clad in a long white sleeping gown, she sat in a rocking chair, singing a lullaby to the child cradled in her arms.

  Katlaina. His voice whispered to her mind. Katlaina.

  Slowly, she looked up, a frown drawing her brows together.

  Do you ever think of me?

  “Navarre?”

  I have missed you.

  Rising, she placed the sleeping child in its bed, then stood in the middle of the room, her hands clasped to her breasts. “Navarre, where are you?”