SV02-06. Slave to a Vampire

by Katrina Kahler

  Catherine’s body thrashed beneath his and another scream escaped her lips, tearing at his heart. He had to help her! Get her free of the Master’s grip, but there was no way for him to enter her mind as she did his. Another idea came to mind, born of urgency.

  “Catherine, use me,” he whispered. “Use my strength, come back to me.” With nothing else to do, he lifted his wrist, tore open the skin, and pressed it to her lips, praying to whatever god might still listen to the prayers of the undead that this would work. He would not lose her so soon after thinking he would have her forever.

  Tula warned him to pull his wrist back, but Bastian ignored him. Catherine’s scream echoed in his mind and her plead for help would not leave him. If he could not follow her into whatever darkness that monster of a man had dragged her into, he would find a way to pull her out of it…no matter what it did to him.

  Suddenly, Catherine’s lips sealed over the bleeding wound and sucked hard on it, drinking his blood as if she had not fed in years. She drank large gulps, swallowing it down quickly. Bastian’s limbs grew weak and his eyes fluttered as the life was taken from him.

  “Bastian,” Tula snapped and tried to yank him away. “She will drain you!”

  “No,” he muttered. “I trust her….” The rest of the words died on his lips. Weakness filled him, but at the same time a new strength flooded his body. Bastian had no idea what was happening, but the warmth starting in his very center grew until it was a feverish heat, rippling over him as if he stood in the sun’s rays. Emotions attacked him, fear and an immense pain, but it was the glimmer of hope he clung to.

  Catherine…Catherine…

  His eyes slid closed and Bastian hissed when he found himself standing before Catherine in nothing, but darkness. They stared at each other for one long moment before he took her hand and with the angry snarls of the Master surrounding them, he dragged her back with him.

  They broke through the wall of shadows as if coming up from the very depths of the sea, the force of it sending Tula and Haddie flying backwards. Catherine whispered his name, her hand searching for his through the dirt and he scrambled to take it, pulling himself to lay beside her.

  “Catherine? Can you hear me, love?” he asked weakly, barely able to keep his eyes open.

  She nodded, eyes wide in fear. “Bastian, I…I saw him,” she hissed, voice shaking. “He wants me, he wants to take me from you.” She shivered and Bastian pulled her into his arms, holding her to him as they sat up together. Tula shook his head in stunned silence, but it was the knowing look that Haddie gave them both which sent Bastian over the edge.

  “What is happening to her?” he snarled. “Tell me what you know or I will tear you to pieces.”

  “You lack the strength so save your threats,” she told him lightly. “Besides, we need to find shelter. The sun will rise soon and I for one would not like to be caught in it.”

  Tula quietly told Bastian she was right when he snapped his jaws at her retreating back. “We will get answers when we are safe for the day,” he told him firmly. “You and Catherine are weakened. Picking a fight now would be a very bad idea. Besides, as much as I do not wish to admit it, we have need of this woman.”

  Bastian knew he was right and stood, helping Catherine to her feet. She wiped the rest of his blood from her lips, but did not say a word about what had happened. She winced, glancing at her bruised wrists, confused to feel them broken and bruised.

  “Sorry, love,” he said, taking each hand in his and kissing them. “You tried to rip my throat out.”

  “No, all will be well,” she whispered, giving him a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “They’ll heal fast enough, won’t they?”

  “By the time we find shelter, it’ll be as if it never happened,” he said, cupping her face in his hands and gently kissing her. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  She shook her head, but wouldn’t meet his eyes. He wanted nothing more than to make it back to the plantation and lock her away safely in the house, but they would never make it before the sun broke over the horizon. Tomorrow they would depart and then he would make plans to run with her, far, far away from the madness of a past he thought was long buried.

  ***

  The cave was large and led beneath the coastline along the island. They had to wade through the waves crashing against the shore to reach it, but once inside, it was mostly dry. Catherine asked about an incoming tide, but Haddie assured them that they were safe. She had stayed there another night on her way to the plantation. They settled inside on the soft, sandy floor just as the sun rose up over the water, but it wasn’t the sun that had Bastian worriedly watching over Catherine, unable to take his gaze from her. She said she saw him, felt him reach out and touch her. The Master. If he could reach her mind so easily, would he do it again? If she were attacked inside her mind, there was no way for him to protect her.

  As his mind fretted, she settled beside him against the cave wall and rested her head on his shoulder. “Bastian,” she said quietly, “what is happening to me? And you? How did you get me out of there?”

  He ran his thumb over her fingers, wishing he had answers.

  “Nothing is happening to you,” Haddie said, sitting across from them. “Your true self is simply being shown to you. It appears that dying is the best way to bring it out of a person.”

  “I don’t understand,” Catherine whispered.

  “No, you wouldn’t and neither will Bastian. Not yet,” Haddie said. “But you will before long. Soon, you won’t have a choice but to tap into the power you hold. I knew you were different the moment Victoria took you.”

  Bastian hissed at the mention of that woman’s name, but Catherine sat up. “Catherine?” he asked, watching her eyes widen. “What does she mean?”

  “I was able to break out of her control,” she said quietly. “It’s how I was able to call out to you and almost escape.”

  “You are a strong minded young woman to be able to do so as a mortal, but now that you have a vampire’s blood running through your veins, there may be no end to what you can do,” Haddie said. “Which is exactly why the Master will come for you.”

  “I wasn’t trying to connect with him,” Catherine said. “How did I end up in his mind?”

  “You weren’t in his, but trapped within your own mind,” she explained. “He, like you, is able to read others’ thoughts, control them on a very deep level. Before, he only wanted Bastian, but now that he knows about you both, I fear things are about to become much more complicated.”

  Catherine shuddered and Bastian wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “But I cannot do anything,” he argued. “Why would he want me? Simply because he created me?”

  “Did you not feel anything when you gave her your blood?” Haddie asked.

  Bastian shifted, remembering the searing heat that passed through him the moment he was able to reach through the darkness and pull Catherine back. In that exact moment, he’d been overwhelmed by an intense fear - not his own - and disgust for being trapped by such a monster. He remembered rage, but that was his. The other emotions, though. Bastian’s lips thinned as he glanced at Catherine’s worried gaze.

  “Bastian? What happened?”

  “I experienced what you did,” he said quietly, not even certain if it had been real or not. “I felt your fear as if it were my own.”

  Tula muttered curses under his breath, but Haddie smiled. “All these years, I never thought I would find two with such a strong bond and yet here you sit before me. It is remarkable.”

  Bastian shook his head, trying to clear it. “What are you talking about? None of this makes any sense. I’ve never been able to feel her emotions before or anyone else’s. Why would I suddenly be able to do it now? I have been dead for over one hundred years. If death is what sets it off, why has it in effect only now?”

  He wanted it all to be explained away and act as if none of it had happened. Catherine needed to be safe and if what had occurred was pur
ely by chance, then there would be no reason for the Master to hunt them down and take them. Haddie’s gaze locked onto his and the gleam in her eyes said all he needed to know. It was real and there was no escaping it. Whatever chance they had at secrecy was long gone now that Catherine’s mind had been penetrated by that man. He knew, he knew exactly what she could do and now he’d just proven what the others said about him. Bastian too was different.

  For over a hundred years, he had hidden himself away from the world thinking himself a monster simply because he was a vampire. He refused to learn about others like him or what else was out there in the world, hoping he would live out his days in peaceful isolation. What a fool he was to think he could hide forever.

  “I need a moment,” he said, kissed Catherine’s forehead and stood, walking to the front of the cave.

  For so many years, all he had wanted was to live in peace with one person who might understand him. He thought that was Victoria until she betrayed him and cast him into further dark despair. He’d believed that he would forever remain alone and in the shadows. He had gone about his days on the plantation with a tired and arrogant air, giving up on the idea of finding true happiness or even love.

  Until Catherine walked into his home and stared him down when his rage flared. She had listened to his story and instead of judging him for the monster he assumed he would always be, saw the man beneath fighting to break free. She brought him back from the brink of darkness and just when he thought he would have everything missing in his life, all hell had broken loose and he almost lost it all. The man who turned him...coming back had to be a coincidence, but what if it wasn’t? Catherine had no knowledge of what she could do until she was taken by Victoria and he still doubted that he was different to the way he was before.

  “You carry a heavy burden, Bastian,” Haddie said quietly as she approached him.

  “I do not wish to speak with you,” he growled. “I do not want to hear any more of your lies.”

  She laughed lightly. “And what have I lied about? You doubt what you felt, what you did to save her mind from the Master?”

  Bastian was desperate to save her, any man would have done the same for the woman who held his heart in her hands. “I gave her blood, it’s what strengthens us. That is all.”

  “And you are willing to believe that? Do you think she would have been saved if I had done the same? Or Tula?”

  “Yes,” he said, even as a voice in his mind told him Catherine would have remained trapped.

  “You lie to yourself and it will doom you in the end,” she warned. “I have watched you both closely since arriving here and in all my centuries of walking this Earth, I have never sensed a stronger connection between two beings.”

  He glanced over his shoulder to find Catherine speaking quietly with Tula. The second his gaze landed on her face, his chest swelled with the intense love he held for her. “Are you saying our love is what motivates these….these powers?” Is something like that even possible? He had heard stories, very old stories, of true love overcoming great evils, everyone did. It was a thing of fairy tales.

  Aren’t you a thing of nightmares? A voice whispered in his mind. Once upon a time you did not believe in vampires and look where you are now.

  “Love,” Haddie repeated and her gaze softened as she stared out of the cave into the bright sunlight. “To even believe it exists is hard enough, but to truly have it fill you, inspire you to be so brave that you put your own existence at risk, that is something not often found in this world, even rarer once you become one of us.” Her lips thinned and Bastian studied her face, truly looked at her and saw the weight of such loss in her eyes. He still didn’t trust her or even like her...but she had loved as he did now, once upon a time, and he felt it safe to assume that love had been taken from her.

  “Even if that is what we have,” Bastian said, knowing what he felt for Catherine was stronger than the love he bore his wife so many years ago, “how can I keep her safe?”

  Haddie sighed and all her long years passed as shadows across her face, pain and regret foremost among the emotions there, but a simmering rage just below the surface. “You cannot. Not now that he knows what she is. Telepath’s are rare amongst our kind, but you even more so. One who reads minds and one who senses emotions are strong on their own. Together, with the love bonding you so tightly together, is another matter entirely.”

  Bastian feared to hear what words would follow the intense red eyed glare she gave him.

  “You two could become extremely powerful and maybe even unstoppable if you mastered your abilities and truly became one. The Master himself is a telepath, but he has searched for an empath for decades. It must have killed him to know one of the very first men he changed was one and he let you slip away to the far west.”

  She slipped back into the cave quietly leaving Bastian’s mind racing. He could have handled the Master coming after him, but if he was going after Catherine, too, it changed everything. He turned, leaning against the cave wall, and watched her closely. She was stronger than he originally assumed, but strong or not, the Master reaching out and trapping her in her mind told him one thing: that bastard was stronger still.

  Catherine needed to go back to the plantation. Bastian would go after the Master with Tula and Haddie. She would hate him, but he would rather her be alive to hate him, then have her in the hands of that monster, or dead.

  After they all had time to rest, he would inform her of the new plan. Bastian gritted his teeth, forced his mind to remain as blank as possible, and stalked back to Catherine’s side. She was half asleep when he slid down beside her, but she molded herself perfectly to his side.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you, Catherine,” he whispered. “Never again.”

  She whispered something, but it was too quiet for him to hear and then she fell into a sound sleep. Tula nodded once before he closed his eyes and rested his head against the stone across from them. Haddie was near the very back of the cave, facing away from them all.

  Bastian closed his eyes too and waited for sleep to overtake him. Without meaning to, his mind pictured Catherine as they were in the clearing, alone, holding each other close as they came together as one. It was more than he ever imagined it could feel and as he replayed that special moment, his emotions fell away and instead, another’s slipped over him.

  An overwhelming flood of desire and love washed through his being and Bastian’s eyes shot open. Catherine. He was feeling what Catherine had felt and it was beautiful. He stared down at her, wishing they were alone. Their time together in the clearing had not been nearly long enough to show her how much he wanted her, body and soul. But it would have to do if he was going to send her back to the plantation tomorrow so he could find and destroy the Master.

  If he survived, he would return for her and together they would travel the world over. He’d spent enough time hiding away from it all and decided it was high time he saw what the world had to offer.

  Chapter 3

  Catherine hoped it was a dream as she walked through a forest filled with mist. Her bare feet moved through the leaves and dirt, taking her to a place she did not know. She kept walking, she was exhausted and wanted a peaceful sleep with dreams filled with Bastian and nothing more...but her dreams would not cooperate. She wandered further, not recognizing anything around her. And the cold, it was so much colder than the island’s climate she’d grown accustomed to.

  “Welcome, Catherine,” a man’s voice called out, grating painfully on her ears.

  Catherine came to a sudden stop, glancing around frantically for the man. He was the same as before and she swallowed hard trying to stay calm even as fear slithered up her spin to strangle her. “What do you want with me?” she choked out. “Just leave me alone!”

  “In time, you will understand,” the man told her. “For now, you must come to me, Catherine. Come to me.”

  The command reverberated over and over in her mind and her feet took a st
ep towards the voice, not wanting to follow, but at the same time needing to find this man and go to him. Catherine cringed as she took another step and another. If this man managed to take her, Bastian would be next and she could not let that happen. She closed her eyes tightly and whispered Bastian’s name until his face appeared in her mind, she felt his caress on her skin, his lips on hers.

  “I said come to me,” the man snarled when she did not obey and her feet refused to move again. “Come to me!”

  “No, never!” she yelled on a hiss and dug her feet deeper into the dirt.

  The man commanded her over and over again, but Catherine forced her body to turn and sprinted back through the trees. The man yelled after her, but she did not stop, did not slow down. Bastian. She needed to get back to him!

  And then her body slammed into something hard and her eyes shot open to find she was still in the cave. Hands shaking, she smoothed back her tangled hair and glanced around, trying to regain her bearings. Her hands dug into the soft sand beneath her, grounding herself in the real world. A dream, maybe it had simply been a dream and not the Master attacking her mind again. Every muscle tensed and her feet ached as though she had indeed just sprinted for miles over rough terrain to escape. Then, when she glanced down at her skirts, dirty from her recent trip through the jungle, she spotted fresh mud coating the bottom.

  “What?” she whispered in disbelief, dragging her skirt up to touch it.

  The mud came away cold on her fingers. Real. It had been real in one way or another, but how was that even possible? Her body had not moved from the cave. Bastian surely would have noticed her vanishing in the middle of the day. But there was the proof, right on her fingers, that somehow she had managed to be in that forest with the cold snapping at her heels.

  Catherine stood slowly, wincing as her feet healed. The skin stitched itself back together; she felt each tug and watched in fascination as a few moments later, her skin was soft again. The others were not there, but she heard their voices whispering outside the cave. She was too far away to hear them clearly and after smoothing down her blood-soaked dress, she hurried to meet with them, ready to tell Bastian what had happened while she slept. But the moment she stepped out to join them in the bright light of the moon, the voices stopped immediately and Bastian appeared before her, stopping her from going further.