“I’m better now that I have curbed my appetite for human blood for over a month.” I could tell he wasn’t buying what I was selling, but he didn’t question me or my motives.
“I didn’t believe you when you handed Zoey off to Ryan. No one believed you but Zoey. I know how I feel about Terry and I could never leave her to another being whether they are mortal or immortal. But I think Zoey and Ryan took you at your word.”
I stood at the door with him as we walked into the jet. “Where is Samantha now?” Lauren asked sitting across from me.
“With Aare. Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts about being her slave, Lauren?” I glanced at his face. I saw weakness. She had that hold over vampires and men. Her perceived beauty and sexual attraction had snared many men over the centuries, where she manipulated and spread her influence over them through magic and potions, and then she weakened and destroyed them.
“No. Terry is all I need. If I’m looking to be dominated then I’ve found that in her, and I love Terry. She’s strong and we make a good couple. She dotes on me and I like that. It’s the first time I’ve found someone that truly loves me. I need that now.” I looked into Lauren’s eyes and they didn’t betray him. He was indeed satisfied with Terry’s domineering behavior.
At first I thought about telling Lauren about Aare, but I became satisfied that he wouldn’t want to align himself with Samantha if she ever offered herself to him. He had thrown off the burden of servitude and being her sex toy, and he traded her for Terry who was a little less demanding and a little less severe in her treatment of him.
I glared out into the distance and thought of Zoey and said, “Aare and Samantha will keep themselves occupied with their depravity, and when there are no more fresh bodies they can exploit for two weeks, and all the humans are turned, then they will come looking for me. Until then, I need to find Zoey and tell her how much I love her and miss her.”
“She may not want to see you,” he said to me. Did he know something I didn’t know? Had he seen her?” I walked close to Lauren and watched his face.
“Why did you say that?” I asked. “You know where she is.”
“Not me. Terry found her. Can you believe that? My Terry who pretended she couldn’t do anything without me. She went back to her apartment and retrieved her computer. The landlord had stored her stuff in the basement and she found out the location of this Island owned by Ryan’s family. It took some time but she did her research. She went to college before she was changed.”
“I know, Lauren. Just tell me where Zoey is living.”
She retrieved these photos. He handed me three pictures of me and Zoey. I remember her taking the photo on her phone when she was fifteen. She had them and kept them. I looked to Lauren with wide eyes. Of course he didn’t know the significance of the photo. He didn’t know our history together. He had only recently been turned by Aare and then given to Samantha as a present.
“You have to get to Seattle and then you take a boat and she’s on this island,” he said pointing to a map on his smart-phone.
“Is she with him?”
“Of course she’s with him. If you meant Ryan, yes she’s with him. If you didn’t want her to be with Ryan Cole, then you should never have asked him to marry her. From what I’ve heard from Terry, he’s working on that right now.”
“I have to go. I need to get there in a hurry.”
Lauren and I parted with a handshake after we arrive in Seattle. After I said goodbye to Lauren, I rented a house near the island. I could look out and see that island from my window. I don’t know why it took me long to contact her, but I had been conflicted. I didn’t have anything to offer her. Just myself and a whole life of misery, but I could no longer go on the way I was.
Samantha would be looking for me after two weeks had gone by and I hadn’t returned to her where she could keep an eye on me and make me into what she wanted. I thought it best that I see Zoey if only to see if she was happy and see if her pregnancy was going ok.
It was only right that I should make some attempt to see her, so I waited until I knew she would be sleeping and then I would visit her and get back to Samantha to make sure Aare and she didn’t completely destroy everything in the Vesper kingdom.
I rented a boat that evening from a fisherman who needed some cash. It had been a long time since I had fed, but I wouldn’t feed on human blood just before I met Zoey. Human blood caused me to be unpredictable and animal like. It showed in my eyes and I thought Zoey would notice. I wanted to be what she wanted me to be.
It wasn’t that I had all of a sudden changed my ways, but I didn’t know if I could go back to animal blood. I think by returning to my choice of human blood, I had crossed the line.
As I approached the island, I anchored the boat, but it was difficult seeing the house where I stood.
Lauren had said that it was on the other side of the hill facing the Pacific Ocean. It didn’t take me but a few minutes to reach the house when I set foot on the beach. There was one light on and it was coming from the living area. I watched through the window. There were no curtains hanging there but covering another room. That must have been Zoey’s room and I didn’t allow myself to think that she shared it with Ryan
Sitting in a chair, near a fire in a stone fireplace, with his head lying to the left, his eyes closed and his glasses and a book lay across his lap, Ryan had no idea that I was near. Shouldn’t he have a dog or something to warn him, I thought. This is the kind of place that Samantha would be able to find. A remote island near Seattle. It wasn’t that difficult to figure out if they took the time to look. But then maybe they already had.
Feeling relieved that he wasn’t sleeping with Zoey, I knew now I had a chance, a small one but a chance nonetheless, to win her back. A gamble I was willing to take. If she thought there was nothing between us she would have been sleeping with Ryan. I could be wrong, but I reasoned that Zoey couldn’t fall in love easy. I knew I couldn’t.
In all the years when she became a woman she never let anyone near her in a way where she would let someone touch her or make a pass at her. She never put herself in a position where a man would read her wrong.
When she turned eighteen and had a high school date where young women were having their first and second sexual experiences, she asked to be dropped home directly after the dance. Her friends went on to a nearby hotel where there was a party but she stayed home reading Romeo and Juliet. I watched her the entire time throughout her high school years, and when she enrolled in college.
I watched over her on that faithful night Aare found her and Terry.
Moving around to another window, I found Zoey sleeping with the window open. She must have gotten too warm. I’ve warned her about that but there she lay stubborn and beautiful as before.
Wandering into her room I stood at the foot of her bed, and stole a glimpse of her loveliness. How beautiful she looked as she slept. It was the wrong thing to do not to feed before I saw her. I realized that too late because I had been drawn by her intoxicating scent, and now it will take all the self-control I had not to feed on her lovely body.
Seduced to hysteria by the thought of her blood I turned away and decided to leave but the aroma of her blood became too much for me to resist. I could smell it and taste it and I wanted to have her blood in my mouth as I made love to her. I wanted to sink my teeth into her beautiful long neck and lose myself in her and with her.
It took all my strength to refrain from being myself. The one thing that calmed me was the thought of my unborn son.
After getting myself under control, I dropped my cloak and walked to the bed and lay down beside her. I felt the warmth of her body and she remained asleep even with me close to her. My breathing became erratic at being that near where I could smell her skin and feel her heart beat.
Trembling at the thought of the last time I had her near, I pulled her into my arms and she snuggled close to me as if she knew I was beside her, but she didn’t k
now because she was asleep. Her body warmer than I remembered. I wondered if she was ill. But her heated temperature cooled after a moment of me lying next to her.
Holding her, looking down at her, I needed to possess her and never let her go. But I couldn’t, I had no right to ask her once more to go away with me, especially this time.
Before I could leave, her eyes fluttered as if opening, and I carefully lay her in her sleeping position on her side facing the window.
Stepping to the floor, I spent a moment looking down at her. Her breasts were larger than I remembered and she had a small bump in her belly. Was that my son? I couldn’t resist and I leaned and placed my cold hand on her stomach. I felt movement or I imagined he was moving.
Zoey’s eyes opened immediately and her gaze shot to me.
“What the fuck have you come back here for? Did you have misgivings and are you planning on changing me. Well you are too late. I don’t want to risk losing my child. I like being human. I like being mortal. I don’t want to be dead anymore. I don’t want to be like you,” she said sitting up and eyeing me. Her eyes flickering matching her temperament—excited and annoyed.
“And I see you haven’t changed. You still curse,” I said. She narrowed her eyes. I was trying to break the ice between us. I thought her swearing was cute, because she looked comical when she tried to curse. She didn’t really know how to use fuck to affect me, but I wouldn’t tell her.
“Have you changed? Are you still kidnapping little children for that bitch?” she asked. It was the first time I felt pain and anguish and it showed on my face. She could have impaled me with a stake and it wouldn’t hurt me as much as those angry words came spewing from her mouth like a broken water facet.
The silence grew strained between us as we watched at each other not saying a word.
But Zoey wasn’t finished punishing me for all I had done to her, and she said, “Shouldn’t you be on your honeymoon?” Again my jaw tightened and my hands flexed and she continued, “I’m trying to forget you. I don’t want you around my child.”
“He’s my child too,” I said in my defense. My voice breaking. “No I wouldn’t change you now or ever.” I swallowed hard.
“But you would hand me over to a man to raise your child. What kind of man are you?”
“I’m a vampire remember. No longer a man.”
“Yes. I remember. A soulless monster who has no feelings.” She broke my heart and I wept inside, but I couldn’t show her how much I wanted to be with her. Couldn’t she see me anymore? Couldn’t she see I did this all for her and my child?
“Please leave me, Sebastian. I’ve shed enough tears over you for a lifetime. I want to have a normal life. You owe that to me.”
Did she mean what she was saying, I asked myself. How could she be that cold as to push me away when she knows me better than I know myself? She knows that I’m here because I do love her and can’t bear to be away from her. I never could.
Zoey looked at me as I backed to the window. I didn’t want to hurt her any more than I had done. I had no right to her now that I was unwilling to make her my bride. I had chosen someone else and I had to live with it. I had to live with knowing that Zoey would be with someone else beside me. Ryan would hold her when I couldn’t, and love her the way I never could.
“I just want to know one thing.” She looked at me with her bright eyes, “Will you love anyone more than you love me?” I asked not knowing the answer but hoping for one I could exist with in my long life on earth.
She didn’t take but a second to answer. “Yes. I will love someone again more than you.” I thought she wouldn’t answer so readily, but she did, and she had a smile on her face when she said it. My heart broke a second time, and it felt as if she had burned me. I lowered my head and closed my eyes for a moment.
“I will love your child more than you.” And she glared at me. I took a step to her and she raised her hand. “No. Leave me. Leave me to make a life for your child because you have left me empty. All you do is confuse me. I’ve had enough of you and your family and Samantha controlling my life. If she discovers you have been here we can never be safe.”
“I have provided money for you and my child for a lifetime and for all his descendants. You can go to any bank and use the money as you like,” I said.
She glanced at me, “Do you think money will ease your conscience or make me forget what you have done to me?” She sat up. Her eyes cold and lifeless. I wondered if I appeared to her the way she looked to me now. I wanted that warm young woman back.
I sat near her and took her hand. She pulled it away from me. It appeared she was lost to me.
“All I want is for you to be safe. I won’t bother you again. I promise.” I stood after I heard the drumming of her heart calling me to her, and a coldness descend over me. Never in my years had I felt so empty and alone. I turned around and faced the open window and when I heard her turn away and lay down I left her lying in the bed and I heard her cry.
Or was it me?
Chapter Twelve-Sebastian
When I walked into the great room, it was littered with the carcasses of dying and dead young men and women. Aare sat in my chair and on his lap sat a young emaciated woman who resembled a skeleton, nevertheless, he continued feeding on the large vein in her neck and looked up only once to see me standing glaring with disgust at him.
“Why don’t you put her out of her misery? You don’t want her anymore. What is it about you that just wants to punish and abuse?” I asked him. I knew the answer. I knew him since he was a boy. A cruel little boy who tortured animals and children.
He took a few seconds to answer me, “I do this because I can.” And that mischievous smile I saw cross his face reminded me of when he was a child and how harsh he had been and how monstrous he had become.
My eyes followed the young woman and sitting in the chair next to mine, the queen’s chair, Samantha sat peering at me with her cold dead eyes. She brushed the girl’s hair with her long fingers trailing down the dry yellow hair as if she was giving comfort, but she and I knew what she was doing. She couldn’t wait until Aare had finished with her where she could use her as one of her lab rats to complete her serum to cover up the fact that she was over five hundred years old. How old I didn’t know and when I first met her it was irrelevant to a young man with his first sexual experience.
Then I only thought about how beautiful she looked and my need for sex became ravenous until I learned to control myself.
Once her eyes were warm and her body supple and receptive. Her thoughts then wasn’t how to keep herself young because she was young, but as I never aged and she had begun to age she saw the difference in me and her. I would live on and she would die if she didn’t do something. She did find a way to follow me into the next century and keep her beauty. At first I didn’t question how she did it, but then soon I found out from Aare.
Aare was assisting her when I no longer would. He was her partner in crime then and now, and when he no longer needed her to satisfy his sexual appetite, at that point he began to keep the young women for himself only relinquishing them when they were drained of everything he needed.
“Is that all you’ve been doing? Killing the locals. Don’t you know someone will miss those young people and come here to investigate?” I warned. I knew this couldn’t go on much longer and I even warned my father and mother about his. If they were to exist they would have to find a substitute for their food supply.
“Let them,” Aare said. “They can’t get access unless we allow them. Besides, I pay the town and the mayors enough where they will sweep everything under the table. There will be no need for them to look for runaways. And some of the town leaders are anxious to become vampires. They want to become immortal.” Aare gave out a small laugh. I knew why because being an immortal wasn’t what they had imagined.
“I’ve convinced them that it will take some time. And like that I can do whatever I want,” Aare said extending his hand in Sa
mantha’s direction. The young feeble woman took his hand and he lifted her back on his lap.
Aare looked at me with a raised smile and sunk his teeth into the girl’s neck. She didn’t flinch. I suspected that Samantha had given her drugs she had cooked up in her lab. The look on the girl’s face, and her eyes black and lifeless told me all I need to know. I had seen those kind of eyes before.
“Is that what you call them runaways? Well I’m modifying how the police force search for runaways, and there won’t be any more feeding on humans.” Aare eyes shot to me and he smirked with droplets of blood dripping down his shirt. “I’m the head of the council now,” I said. Aare shot me a closed mouth grin.
I would have to destroy both of them now, but I couldn’t with all the newly formed vampires and zombies staggering around each corner, who obeyed them.
“So you fashion yourself to be a king. You would be nothing if I hadn’t gotten rid of our mother and father. You would be in the states watching over Zoey. That’s where I made my mistake. I wanted her too. But not for the same reason as you.” One side of Aare’s mouth tilted to the right as he laughed and pushed the young woman to the floor and stood over her, and defiantly facing me
“Have you forgotten about me, Sebastian? I’m your queen and Aare and I have more power together. It is my wish that everything remain as it is. If you want to keep seeing that young woman of yours, then you should at least respect our needs. They have to be met one way or the other. Or you may not see her again. I promise you.”
I turned and walked away. I felt ill because I hadn’t had any fresh blood and I didn’t want any. I needed to feed, but after seeing Zoey, I didn’t have the stomach to feed on humans again. I would find food in the nearby forest.
As I ambled away headed for the door, I turned slightly to see Samantha and Aare whispering. Two young vampires opened the door. I looked up at them. They didn’t recognize me as king. Clearly they took their orders from Aare and especially from Samantha. They appeared to be there to protect her from me or Aare. I wasn’t sure. The two iron doors slammed behind me with a boom, and I slipped off into the corridors so no one would see me.
The Soul of a Vampire #3 Page 7
