“Then I accept this, I embrace this destiny!” Thalestris stepped out of Athena’s arms.
“Love will be distant,” Athena warned. “You will never again be filled as you were with his child. I see a future in which you will know love, but also loss and pain. I grant you this boon only if you accept it fully and knowingly.”
Thalestris felt the emptiness in her where life had grown and for a moment she hesitated, but then anger filled the void, rage at her loss, at the unfairness of the world, and she pushed all doubt aside.
“Give this boon to me,” she said firmly.
Athena opened her mouth as if to speak but instead she stepped forward with fangs extending and took Thalestris into an embrace once more.
APPEARANCES
Lily
I DON’T RECOGNIZE THE PERSON IN THE MIRROR in front of me. This can’t be me, can it? I turn to my left, then back to my right. I look amazing! Being dead seems to agree with me. Well at least being dead and having a creator who is apparently rich beyond words, what can’t money buy?
Just two weeks ago I worked the night shift at KMC Radio hosting my own talk show “Overnight with Lily”. I’ve known for years that vampires are real; I just never expected to become one. That all changed after I met Wolf, I fell for him but he doesn’t seem to love me back. I haven’t seen him now in over a week. He wouldn’t even save me; I was turned into a vampire by Athene, not Wolf. Not to mention, he’s the one who killed me.
Long story and the memories of it aren’t really all that pleasant. When I think of Wolf I feel a hole in my chest to go along with the nasty scar there so I avoid it. Yeah, there it is now, an empty hollow feeling. I don’t know how to fill it, so I put all my attention on my new look.
Athene sits in the corner looking at me with a smile as I turn side to side and admire the transformation. My hair is no longer a cheap red dyed color; Athene has a stylist on call so I’ve had a proper dye job now and the red looks much more natural and less shocking. I never liked my hair’s natural mousy brown color but I didn’t have the money for a professional look like this. Then there are the dresses! Athene collects clothes and is more than happy to share with me.
“Do you like the way this fits?” The small woman fussing with the hem of my dress asks me.
I look down at her as she looks up at me through very thick glasses; her pinched face is angled so that the light reflects off her lenses. The line of her neck calls to me and my vision narrows until it is all I can see. The slight movement of the arterial vein there bounces with each pumping of her heart. I can hear it beating and the smooth sound of her lungs inhaling and exhaling.
I feel the monster inside me rising up but I fight to contain it, to hold it back as it mindlessly assaults my reason. Images of her torn, bloody, and laying before me conquered as the prey become sustenance, start to fill my head.
“Ma’am?”
I tear my eyes away as I force the reactions down. My muscles ache with the strain of containing the new beast inside me. Everyone has this little bit of darkness in them, I can sense it. I know when someone is evil, has bad intentions, or is about to do something wrong. I’ve had that ability for years. Before I died it went into overdrive, I assume because that last week or so I was surrounded by vampires. The potential for evil waits to be unlocked in anyone if you just give in to your vile, hidden thoughts. The beast is primal urge given form and shape and as a vampire it’s a thousand times worse and so hard to control. If you don’t learn to contain it, you lose that spark that makes you human; you become the monster in shape as well as form.
You lose your soul, if you believe in such things as a soul, I’m not sure if I do or not. I didn’t see any lighted tunnel when I died but I did see Wolf and Athene arguing over my body as I slipped into death. Dying hasn’t given me the answers to what’s on the other side, so I’m still up in the air on that.
“It’s fine,” the muscles in my neck strain as I finally force the words out.
The seamstress nods in response, mumbling to herself. I keep my eyes averted from her, looking around the room until I lock gazes with Athene.
Athene is beautiful. She has raven black hair that hangs in easy, relaxed curls around her perfectly round face, alabaster skin, ruby lips, and deep brown eyes. She looks like a fifties movie star or pinup and her only imperfection is a scar in the form of three slashes close together that runs the line of her cheekbone on the left side of her face. I feel the monster inside calm as soon as our eyes meet, she smiles and something in me lifts up like sunshine peeking through on a dreary day. A tremble runs through my limbs and then the beast is under control again.
“You look absolutely stunning!” Athene exclaims. She looks me up and down while taking in every detail of my appearance, obviously pleased with her choices.
I focus on the dress, it really is beautiful and I look great in it. The fabric has been custom tailored and fit to accent my best parts. I rise up onto my toes and look at how my calves will show under the hem with heels on. My five foot two will look at least five foot five and the cut accents my legs very nicely. I hear something outside the window and my heart leaps as I rush to look, startling the seamstress with my speed. I pull the curtains aside to search out into the dark streets below. I stare into the shadows but there is no one there, Wolf has not come. The sinking in my chest physically hurts, where my once living heart had been now feels like a void and something is falling into it. I feel a touch on my shoulder as Athene rests her hand there with a gentle caress.
“He will come around.”
There is sympathy in her voice and I feel a comfort I did not expect, I lean back in to her and rest on her strength as well as her body.
“Why does he avoid me?” I continue to stare out the window as Athene begins running her fingers through my hair.
“He is angry,” she excuses his absence.
The words may be simple but my feelings are complex. I know he doesn’t love me, not in the way I was falling for him before everything went down. That night though, the night he turned in a mad frenzy and attacked me, the night the man I love killed me, I learned he might not feel anything for me at all. He refused to turn me into a vampire even to save my life. If Athene had not arrived I would be dead, well for real dead anyway. I turn my head so that her hand caresses my cheek and the beast inside purrs, coloring my emotions and flooding my body with pleasure. I let her embrace enclose me in a protective circle.
“Why?” my throat tightens and I push back the urge to cry. “I love him. He saved me from Aiver, the Regent, and I gave him everything! I don’t understand how he can just leave me.”
Athene strokes my hair and presses my head into her shoulder. “Wolf is a man,” she says softly.
My beast rises up as an embodiment of anger; I feel its roar pulsing through my veins. I push away from her as a black rage grips me. “Then I will destroy him!” I scream.
I see myself tearing around the room with blinding speed and throwing things around in a tantrum. I want to stop, part of me does, but the beast is in charge. I see it as a lion going for its prey, it is rage given form. I pull away from it; I can’t hope to cage this dark force. I simply can’t live like this, every moment fighting to keep control of myself. If the part of me that’s me just goes to sleep, it will win.
Athene grabs my hands and holds me without effort, her gaze locks to mine and everything around me slows.
“Stop.” The order is direct and final.
The beast cowers before her and so do I. The room fades to the background, her face looms in my vision and she is all that I can see. Shame floods me; I can’t believe how I’ve acted, that I caused that look of disappointment in her eyes. I feel so bad. I want her to be happy, I want to see her looking at me with pride, not like this.
“I’m sorry, I . . .” There are no words so I trail off. She stares at me and I fight the urge to beg her to forgive me. Wolf taught me to be a predator, not prey, but I can’t stand up to her;
she is too beautiful, too strong.
“It is fine Lily,” she relents. “We need to finish getting you ready for your debut. Come.”
Just like that it’s over, the monster in me is calmed and I return to the seamstress. Athene smiles and then starts talking to the seamstress, discussing fabrics I’ve only vaguely heard of and fashions I know nothing about.
I feel removed from myself. This is not my life; I used to be a survivor. I wore jeans and hoodies, Salvation Army chic was the extent of my fashion sense. Now all of this is more than a bit overwhelming.
“Now, when you come out at your debut,” Athene is speaking to me and I draw my attention back to the present. “You’ll need to present yourself with a Society name, that is the tradition. You are leaving your old life behind and embracing a new life. No longer are you Lily, that is your human name, in Society you must have a name appropriate to you.”
I feel the animal in me purring and I know what my name will be. “Lynx, I want to be known as Lynx.” I speak with certainty but I feel tension as I await her approval of my name. I want so much for her to be proud of my decisions. It feels odd, but natural all at the same time. My entire life I’ve been on my own, defending and caring for myself from a very early age. I had no experience with wanting to please another person but Athene has this power over me. She looks thoughtful, her lips purse together as I wait for her approval of my choice.
She nods at last. “It is a good choice,” she says with a smile. The left side of her mouth curls oddly because of the scars when she smiles. I reach out slowly and tentatively towards them, she doesn’t move as I touch the scars and trace them up towards her eye.
“What happened?” I ask. I know something happened with her and Wolf, but neither of them talk to me about it. She rests her face against my hand, her eyes are half-lidded and the smile continues to play across her lips. I feel the beast in her reaching out to me, radiating desire, it wants to be satisfied but it is light and well controlled as always. I never sense her struggling with it like other vampires, or like I do with mine.
“That my debutante is a story for another day,” she brushes me off. “Suffice it to say that Wolf doesn’t always like the words I bring no matter the truth in them.”
I didn’t really expect her to answer me, but I had hoped she would.
“Do we all have the same abilities?” I change tack, sometimes when she knows she’s dodged one question, she’ll give in easier on the next one. “Does every vampire have claws like his, do they all leave scars like that?” I have so many questions still, so many unanswered things. I often feel a bit lost; the problem is that I don’t know what questions to ask. I know I can move fast now, much faster than any human ever could, but Athene is faster still. I understand that no one else sees the beast inside like I do and I see there is a connection between the vampire powers and the beast which others have mentioned but I’m not sure how it works at all.
“No child, we do not.” She adjusts my dress as we look in the mirror.
My bones ache and I feel thirsty, like a parched throat that constantly pulls at my attention. Athene says that I will learn to control that as well in time. She doesn’t allow us to feed directly off of humans, that is what the beast wants but she denies it.
I never see how my ‘food’ is prepared; it is delivered by Jeff, a tall and gauntly thin man that is Athene’s ‘House Captain’ as she dubs him. He seems like a butler to me, he is not a vampire but he knows we are and doesn’t seem to be freaked out by it. Jeff never speaks but is always there when you need him almost as if he has powers of his own.
“Each vampire manifests their own powers, though there are only a handful of different ones that I know of. Maybe a dozen different abilities that manifest with the change. Some traits do tend to run in ‘families’, from progenitor to child. Speed and strength are most common in our family line. Wolf’s claws are uncommon.”
I nod in answer to her, watching as the seamstress adjusts the hem line a final time.
“What will this be like?” I wonder. My mind is filled with possibilities and concerns. I’d been to vampire ‘Society’ twice now and neither time had really ended in my favor, the last being my own trial and sentence to become what I am now.
“This will be very nice,” she asserts. “I am arranging all the details myself. There is one thing though, a very important detail that you must not let slip. You are not my child, you are Wolf’s. That was the Regent’s decree; it would not do to flaunt the Law.”
I feel a flutter in what would have been my heart at the idea of having been Wolf’s child, but he had refused.
“It is safer as well. None of us are completely safe, even me. Many would love to use you against me if they knew how we are connected in truth. You remember the Laws as I’ve taught them to you? You will need to recite them before the Regent and the Keeper tonight.” She easily changes the subject.
“Yes Athene, I remember them well.” I start to recite them, holding up fingers for each one. “Maintain the Silence. No one must know we exist. Creation with Permission Only. We must maintain the balance. Do Not Murder. We do not murder our own kind. Maintain Society. We are not our beasts, we must remain in control.”
Athene smiles as I rattle off the Laws, she had drilled me on these every night. They are the rules of my new life, the rules of the Society that I am entering, that I am being reborn into. I had traveled from hopelessness with no choice but to survive and not end up prey, to being a predator of the night in full. Tonight, I join a Society made up of monsters and only a thin social veneer keeps us from killing each other.
Athene turns me around and steps back as her eyes rove over me. An odd mixture of pleasure and discomfort blends inside of me as she does so, her appraising eye takes in each detail. My body has been worked over for the past several days, from hair to nails, facials, and eyebrows. No detail on me is untouched. Now the wardrobe is coming together, chosen by her and a retinue of people who come and go in whirlwinds of activity. It helps the nights pass quickly, keeps me from noticing the hunger, keeps my attention on the latest pampering being lavished on me, and it helps keep the cravings of the beast at bay. But each night is harder. I feel it stirring as she looks at me and my thoughts turn black, to how I might be able to take her despite the fact that she is stronger than I, faster, but if I can surprise her . . .
“You are perfect!”
Her exclamation interrupts my thoughts and I’m grateful for it. It is hard to separate my own rational thinking from the killing urges of the monster; they seem to be one and the same more often than not.
“Thank you.” I look down at myself. The dress accents my waist and pushes up my small breasts. “I wish my tits were a little bigger.”
Athene smiles broadly. “And I wish mine were closer to yours. In my mortal life, you would have been considered to be of superior form. You will be excellent at the use of a bow, in the coming nights we will start to train you to use one.”
“You used a bow?” I cock my head to one side; she has never spoken of her life before becoming a vampire.
“Oh yes, I taught the girls of my tribe, they were very proficient. Though girls with smaller chests always had an easier time, breasts can get in the way when trying to pull and aim quickly.” She turns and walks over to the four-poster bed and digs into her purse that she tossed there earlier. She pulls out a small, rectangular box that is wrapped in satiny silver paper and adorned with a bow. She smiles girlishly as she hands it to me.
I look at the box, tears threatening to well up behind my eyes. I don’t remember the last time anyone gave me a gift. I open it without saying a word; I couldn’t get them out if I wanted to.
Inside the box rests an emerald and diamond necklace, the diamonds form a star burst shape around the emerald. I stare at the gift and my mind is blank, I can’t think of a word to say. No one in my entire life has ever given me a gift like this, nothing even close. One guy I dated brought some flowers that I
was pretty sure he had stolen from a gas station. Nothing could ever compare to this. I try to speak but the words won’t come. I look up at Athene who is smiling, beaming would be more accurate.
“Thank you,” I finally get the words out.
She steps forward and without words takes the necklace out of its box and raises it up. I turn around and lift my hair; she lays it across my neck and fastens it for me. Her arms wrap around me, pulling me back against her and we stand in front of the mirror together, her head rests on my shoulder. I admire the way I look in the mirror and am again struck by how much I’ve changed. My skin is paler than before and I’m showing more of it than I think I’ve ever exposed in public. I smile broadly and my fangs come down slightly so I can see them in the mirror. Athene’s embrace tightens around me holding me close.
“Remember, you are Wolf’s child,” she whispers. “That is important.”
“I understand.”
“I have to go finish my own preparations,” Athene says as she pulls away and leaves the room.
I smile, turning in front of the mirror as the seamstress finishes hemming the dress. The thirst is bad tonight so I try to pour all my attention into how I look to distract myself. It’s not helping very much so I reach over and ring the bell on the small table next to the mirror and as I do the seamstress who is pinning the hem stabs me in the calf with a needle.
The seamstress screams. She is in my arms so fast I haven’t processed it yet myself. My fangs rip through my gums and I bury my face in her neck, piercing the artery. Warm blood pumps into my mouth and I swallow as fast as I can. The girl’s screams turn to moans, a vampire’s fangs release something inside a human which stimulates the pleasure centers in their brains. I don’t understand it but the blood is sweet, rich, and still not enough to slake my thirst. I suck and take more, wrapping my arms around the girl, pulling her up against me, enjoying the sensation of her warmth pressed against my cool skin, smashing her breasts against mine. Her moans get louder as I continue to feed, her hands clench in my hair enticing me on.
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