by A C Warneke
The woman’s eyes flew open as sharp teeth pierced his flesh and he gasped. Had he discovered a new way of creating Aradians? Would they be able to release the captive Breeders, who were so fragile it seemed kinder to kill them?
No, the woman’s eyes were duller than they had been, not the brilliant jewel tones of an Aradian. No, he had created something new, something that gave him power. Gently cradling the woman’s head in his hand as she continued to drink, he smiled with satisfaction. He had never experienced anything like this before and he couldn’t wait to experience it again.
He couldn’t wait to share his discovery with Jiro.
“It is not our nature to destroy and yet that is all vampires do; destruction is all that they are,” his father said, looking at him with compassion. His father’s eyes were the same shade of green as Feryn’s but he had no pupil. Despite being almost human in appearance, there was something about the original Aradians that was wholly alien yet sublimely beautiful. Feryn thought pure Aradians were the most exquisite creatures in the universe and before he had begun creating vampires he had cursed the fates that allowed him to be born to a human woman instead of an Aradian.
“They are the destruction of their humanity, the destruction of their soul,” his father continued, his alien green eyes seeing far more than Feryn could ever hope to see. “They are the destruction of their creator.”
At that, Feryn smiled because in his four hundred years he had never felt more powerful than when he began creating vampires, even if the power came with a price. It had only been sixty years and he only had fifteen or twenty vampires but he felt so alive. “You’re wrong, Father. They are life.”
His father smiled slightly at Feryn’s defiance, the patronizing smile that conveyed so much. It taunted Feryn with the knowledge that his father was so much older and had seen so much more and in that moment, it pissed Feryn off. Why couldn’t his father accept the fact that as a Breeder-born Aradian, there were certain things that Feryn could experience that no pure Aradian ever would, and that included vampire creation? How could his father understand something he had no knowledge of?
“Remember how you felt prior to your first vampire, Feryn,” his father murmured calmly, unruffled by Feryn’s insolence.
“I had been weak,” he answered, remembering the reckless youth he had been, struggling to find his place in a world that looked down on Breeder-tainted Aradians like him and his brother. Vampires had allowed them to rise up to meet the Aradians on their terms and it wasn’t something he regretted. It didn’t bother him very much that his eyes were no longer as brilliant as his father’s but it hardly mattered since they were still far more brilliant than the Breeders who worshipped them as gods.
His father chuckled, “But you were getting stronger every day. No, remember how you felt. Clean, uncorrupted. Whole.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Feryn sneered but he was afraid he did know and it wasn’t something he was comfortable admitting. While it was true that he was stronger than ever, he felt his spirit torn between all of his vampires and it was that splintering that kept him from creating too many vamps. He also needed to rest several months between vamp creations so he didn’t have as many vampires as he would have liked. A few of the other Breeder-born Aradians didn’t seem to have that problem and had created dozens more than he had. But their eyes were duller than his by far and deep inside he knew that there was something inherently dangerous in becoming addicted to the rush of vampire creation. Crossing his arms over his chest, he met his father’s eyes, “I can control it, Father.”
“The damage is done, son,” he said. “And it will continue to erode you from within if you allow your creations to continue living. You must purge the vampire rot that plagues you if you ever want to heal.”
“But my power,” Feryn protested. “My strength….”
“You have corrupted your body and it is going to hurt.” His voice was warm, sympathetic, as he consoled his son. “It will take time to regain what is lost but it is necessary if you wish to lead your brethren.”
Feryn’s eyes flew to his father’s face, concern making him put aside his resentment for a moment. “What do you mean?”
“I won’t be here forever, son,” his father said with an indulgent smile. “One of these days, you will be called upon to lead the Breeder-borns but you won’t be strong enough for what is to come if you insist on continuing on this path of destruction. Your core is rotting away so you must cut the vampire rot out and begin anew.”
“I’ll be weak,” Feryn protested once more, suddenly afraid of the path that was laid out before him, the path he had to take. It was going to hurt but he knew he had to do it.
“Yes, as weak as a new born babe,” his father murmured with a sympathetic smile. “But I’ll be here to help and then you can help the others who have followed you on this path.”
“All of the Breeder-born Aradians have followed me,” Feryn wheezed, the color draining from his face as he thought about all of those he had led astray.
“Yes, I know,” his father grimaced, “But it is the wrong path.”
Swallowing thickly, Feryn turned to his father, “If I do this, if I destroy what I have become to start anew, is there any guarantee that it will work? That I will be stronger than I am now?”
“No,” his father answered bluntly, unwilling to soften the blow. “But it is the only way. If you continue as you are now, you will wither away until there is nothing left of you and you will be forever lost.”
“But I’ll still be alive,” Feryn said, his head whirling with his father’s words.
“You’ll be dead.” His father’s words were coldly spoken but Feryn felt the heat beneath the frozen tone. “You will walk around reveling in a corrupt power and you will be stuck on this plane for eternity, the living dead.”
“I like this plane,” Feryn said with naked honesty. He loved the human realm, his playground.
His father sighed in weariness and looked away. “Yes, but after time it will become too cold here to remain and you will long to move on. If you insist on destroying yourself with vampires you will never be allowed to cross over and you will pray for a death that will never come.”
“How do I do it?” Feryn asked, his skin prickling with apprehension because he didn’t know if he had the strength to fix what he so carelessly broke.
“As quickly as possible,” his father said kindly as he turned to walk away. Pausing, he glanced over his shoulder but didn’t look at Feryn, “And sooner rather than later.”
Now that he allowed his father’s words to penetrate the shield around his heart, Feryn realized that the power he gained with each vampire was wrong and as much as he enjoyed the strength, the sex, he had to end it before he could no longer bear his own company. After an eternity of debates and arguments, he was grateful that Jiro had come to a similar conclusion.
He closed his eyes in painful ecstasy as he allowed himself one last gathering with his beloved pets. It was a week-long orgy of pleasure and blood as he fucked and fed his vampires. Refraining from drinking too much, he groaned as four pairs of sharp teeth pierced his skin, one at his throat, one at his right wrist, one on his left flank, and the fourth on his inner thigh close to the vamp riding his thick erection. Countless hands caressed him as the dark power echoed in his body and he didn’t want to give it up even though he knew it was inevitable.
Opening his eyes, he found himself staring into the familiar gray eyes of his first vampire. Her fingers caressed his face as she smiled down at him, her body slowly undulating as she drove him closer and closer to the edge of release. Ignoring the pull and tearing along his flesh, he reached up and caressed her beloved face. Pushing his fingers into the silky, dark brown locks, he cradled her head as he murmured, “You are so beautiful.”
Smiling shyly, she ducked her head, kissing his palm as she basked in his praise. “You have made me beautiful, my lord.”
Sadly, he no long
er knew if that was true. He had the vague memory that she had been a pretty human with long brown hair and gentle curves but nothing too memorable. When she had become a vampire, her skin tone had evened out and her blemishes had disappeared and she had become exquisite. Every imperfection disappeared and she became the most perfect version she could be. Out of all of his vampires, she had been the one to most often share his blood, his bed, and she had a special place in his heart. Melancholy flooded his thoughts and he abruptly wanted to know, “What is your name?”
“I don’t know.” Her forehead crinkled in confusion as she tried to remember who she had been before but he doubted the memory would come. The person she had been had died the moment he turned her into a vampire, nearly a hundred years before. In his arrogance, he had never bothered to ask her name. It didn’t matter anyway.
When the week came to an end, he stood amongst his vampires as they lay in languid repose around him, satiated smiles on their unnaturally beautiful faces. With a heavy heart, he looked around at his creations, his destruction, and knew that his reprieve was at an end. Slowly, dreading the ordeal to come, he dressed in the loose garments he had arrived in.
“I’m sorry,” he said with genuine remorse.
Forty-seven pairs of eyes looked up at him with love and devotion, completely void of any trace of humanity. How long had it been since he had seen a glimpse of the human they had been in their dull eyes? He hadn’t even known that the humanity was fading, he hadn’t cared, and now it was now long gone.
He led the small group to the most serene spot on the Aradian grounds, a glorious waterfall that seemed to sparkle in the sunlight as the water fell. The pool was deep and the water warm and the ground next to the pool was lush in vegetation. There was a small clearing near the pool where his brother was waiting for him, wearing the same grim determination that he felt pressing down on him.
Their vampires were as placid as sheep going to the slaughter and in that moment he hated them as much as he loved them. They had given him everything of themselves until there was nothing left and now he was going to finally release them.
One by one he staked his creations, the source of his power, and each loss felt as if he was tearing off a limb or ripping out a piece of his soul. White hot pain radiated from each cell as he slowly made his way through his vampires, barely aware of his brother as Jiro did the same thing. Feryn didn’t know if the vampires screamed because his own screams were shredding his throat. Sweat beaded along his upper lip, his forehead, matting his hair to his scalp. His skin was on fire and he didn’t know how he was going to be able to finish it. If he stopped now he’d never have the resolve to try again.
He had only staked four.
It was going to destroy him to stake the rest.
In agonizing slowness, he moved on to the next vampire, grateful that they didn’t have the desire to flee from him. If he had to chase them down he would have said fuck it. Holding onto the young vamp’s shoulders, he raised his other hand and pressed the tip of the stake over its heart and took a deep, steadying breath. It was as if he was pushing the stake into his own chest and the only way he was able to finish it was through sheer will power.
“Feryn, I cannot continue.” Jiro’s broken voice grated over Feryn’s exposed nerves and he cringed. Turning his head, Feryn saw that his brother was on his knees, his arms clutching his stomach as blood oozed from his pores. Reaching up, he brushed his hand over his own forehead. Blood glistened on his fingertips but he couldn’t afford to stop.
Fuck. When he finished staking his vamps he would take care of Jiro’s since it was his fault his brother ever started creating vampires in the first place. The least he could do was clean up the mess.
Finally he stood before the woman who was the first and who was going to be the last. Her eyes were wide with fear as she looked up at him but she still didn’t run. As he cupped her cheek, she wrapped her slender fingers around his wrist and whispered, “Please, my love.”
“I’m sorry, Malorie.” Swallowing against the agony slicing away pieces of his soul, he closed his eyes and slammed the stake through her heart. He could still feel her hands long after she imploded and disappeared. Crumbling to the ground, he had to catch his breath before he dealt with Jiro’s vampires.
“Feryn,” Jiro croaked. Feryn wanted to ignore his brother’s unspoken plea but he couldn’t. Instead, he pushed himself to his knees and crawled over to his fallen and bloodied brother.
“How many more?”
“Four or five,” Jiro managed to answer through clenched teeth, his skin mottled and purple and the vessels in his eyes broken making him look like he had the plague. His silver-green eyes were brilliant with pain and tears and his color was ashen beneath the blood and Feryn knew he looked just as horrible.
Feeling her consciousness returning before she was ready, Malorie pushed her fingers into the cold ground to release the energy she could feel pulsing in her numb body. The earth shook as a tree burst through the ground and shot upwards, the roots curling deeper and deeper into the soil. As her thoughts calmed, she squinted her eyes open and looked up, way up, to see the mature tree that hadn’t been there moments before. With a smile, she let her eyes drift shut for a while longer, trying to find her center as her head continued to pound.
Groggily, feeling like ass, Malorie was still lying on the ground a few minutes later unwilling to open her eyes again as the memories of Feryn and his vampires and how much it had hurt to kill them echoed in her head. She could still feel the months of agony that followed as his body and soul recovered. But it was his first vampire he created, the last one he had destroyed, that bothered her the most because the creature could have been her twin. When he said goodbye, he had called her Malorie.
She was almost certain that the memory was mostly accurate, from the creation of the vampires to their destruction, but there was no way the vampire could have been her. It was like the memory of the girl from the opera house. It was a manifestation of her fear that Feryn was going to end up destroying her in the end when he no longer needed her. Hell, he had destroyed a part of himself to get rid of the vampires so what would he be willing to do to be rid of her?
Well, she wasn’t a vampire so there really wasn’t anything to worry about. He bound her to him but the converse was true as well: he was bonded to her, wearing her mark just as prominently as she wore the mark that curled along her skin. She just needed to adapt to their relationship, to his intensity.
Something nudged her ribs and she pried her eyes open and wished she hadn’t as blinding white light pierced her brain. It was freezing outside and she was lying in the middle of a forest and her tree was as majestic as any of the old trees there. She tried to stand up but she couldn’t get her body to obey such a complex command and ended up bringing her hand up to her eyes to shield them from the bright light. “Where am I?”
“Central Park, miss,” the man answered, his voice firm, deep, authoritative. Crap, a cop.
“I, um,” she turned her head, wincing when the stiff muscles screamed in protest. “I was mugged.”
“Really.” He didn’t sound like he believed her but what kind of person went out in the middle of winter wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt? Obviously something happened and a mugging made perfect sense.
“Yes, really,” she bit out through chattering teeth. “Some jackass hit me in the back of my head and that’s all I remember.”
The light faded a little, or she was just getting used to it, as the cop kneeled down and put a hand around her arm. The desire to flip him on his ass and run was almost enough to give her the strength to move. Instead, she let him haul her to her feet and prayed the world would stop spinning madly out of control. He started to let her go but when she teetered his strong arm was back, holding her steady. “Are you okay, Miss? Do you need a doctor or something?”
“No doctors,” she said with a shudder, remembering the brief time she spent in the hospital Christmas Eve. “Just giv
e me a moment and I’ll be fine.”
“You’re shaking like a leaf,” he said with kindness in his voice. Pulling off his heavy police parka, he wrapped it around her and the heat instantly seeped into her frozen bones.
She snuggled further into the warm coat and sighed in pleasure. “Thank you.”
As he led her over to the police car, a wave of panic hit because she couldn’t afford to be arrested. They’d take her finger prints which could potentially link her to a few unsolved crimes. It didn’t matter that everything she had done before had been towards the destruction of vampires. Her eyes darted around the park but it was late and she still felt woozy and there weren’t a lot of options.
His grip tightened and she looked up at him, the hard line of his jaw as he grimaced. He was a handsome man, with medium brown hair and clear blue eyes but she preferred Feryn’s dark and brooding looks. She imagined she would always prefer Feryn to any other man. When the cop spoke, it was through clenched teeth, “Do not run.”
“I wasn’t going to,” she lied, still trying to figure out if running was an option.
He smiled slightly at the lie but he didn’t ease his hold as he continued dragging her towards certain incarceration. “Don’t worry, miss, I’m only taking you down to the station to get your statement. We wouldn’t want other young women to suffer the same fate as you, would we?”
“No,” she offered weakly, shaking her head and wishing her brain would stop shaking when she stopped. “But I doubt I’d be much help. I didn’t see anything.”
“But you might have other recollections that can be helpful and we’re going to help you remember.”
Shit. “Great.”
Looking over her shoulder one last time, she sucked in a soft gasp as she saw her tree. The leaves glimmered in the dark, as if infused with phosphorescence. It was eerily beautiful and slightly alien and she prayed no one connected her to the tree. She snapped her head forwards before the cop decided to see what had snared her attention. Had he noticed the tree? Maybe he was more impressed with the fact that it still had leaves in the middle of winter rather than the fact that the leaves were glowing.
