The Dark Rose

by Ramsey, Valentine

  His nicotine spiced blood gushed in her mouth flowing so fast it spilled around the sides, dribbling down. The more she drank, the more Pan could feel the bottomless pit of hunger unfurling within. Her eyes burning crimson, she clutched his unconscious body harder, so tightly she was vaguely aware of his bones snapping.

  When the last drop of blood rolled over her tongue, Pan dropped his house of flesh now occupied of only meat and bones. Licking the blood from her lips, she stepped over him going in search of her next meal.

  It didn’t take long since her body and face hinted nothing of the predator she was.

  Finding an inferior one on the food chain, growls rumbled in Pan’s throat as the man struggled harder. It was futile. They both knew it, but it was the nature of prey to fight to live. Gasping raggedly, he finally succumbed to the inevitable, wilting in her slender arms.

  Sucking on his neck with an animalistic vigor, gorging on his aqua vitae, Pan paused, her eyes flicking open as the jumble of musical voices on the wind teased her ears. Tearing from his neck, she sniffed the air.

  Vampires.

  Unlike human stench, they smelled like the sweet nectar of fruit.

  Dropping the corpse, Pan fled into the shadows.

  + + +

  Blood was heavy in the air coating it with its metallic stickiness. Running across rooftops, following its scent trails, Urijah, Deacon, Elle, Dove, and Katzen leaped from a building, sailing up the air. Deacon landed on a dumpster and jumped off, landing in a crouch next to the others.

  Dove knelt, pushing the body over to examine.

  “Vampire,” he confirmed. He sniffed its neck. “Not Dom though.”

  Urijah’s eyes were closed, his head tilted as he listened to the man’s weak heartbeat.

  “Half drained, definitely not Dom.”

  Deacon rolled his sleeves up. “Chasing the ghost of my former friend’s host has worked up my appetite. Waste not, want not.”

  As he knelt a snarl of warning rumbled deep from within the shadows. Shock exploded onto all of their faces as one took form.

  + + +

  Territorial over her food, Pan slipped out from behind a dumpster, ready to fight. Her eyes glowed as crimson as the blood coating her mouth.

  “You just killed yourself,” Deacon said, stunned.

  Pausing, Pan’s lip twitched at the bitter ironic humor. “Apparently—I failed, though technically I’m still dead.” She looked up at the clear, star speckled sky. “I plan to meet the sun and be with my love yet again.”

  Closing her eyes, she pictured Dom’s face. She could almost imagine his touch on her elbow, pulling gently, urging her to follow him.

  “The hours flee when you have nothing to look forward to,” Pan whispered. “But when it is your existence at the other end of the spectrum…they drag.” Sighing, she opened her eyes. “Sunrise will not come soon enough.”

  Elle shifted and Pan’s eyes flashed to her. Elle froze knowing newborns were extremely dangerous and could fly off the handle at any moment with the surging hormones battling inside their conflicted corpse. To live or not to live, that was the question and the body was in confusion.

  “You don’t have to,” Urijah said breathlessly. “Dom lives. Ellis and Victor thought if they told you the other was dead, you would mourn then forget. How wrong they were. Your suicide has ushered in a new era—an end to the Gray Rose war.”

  Pan’s eyes searched his face for earnest. Could she live to hope? Or hope to live?

  “My Dom alive?” She wanted to grab him, thrash him, beg him, beat him for the answer. Her hands shook with the control it took not to.

  “Yes,” Urijah stressed. “He was there when you shot yourself, held you in his arms.”

  Pan strode to him fast. All but Urijah backed away, leery.

  “Where is he?” she asked with heavy desperation.

  There was pity on Urijah’s face as he looked down at her. “He took off. We lost his trail and were looking for him just now. Since your second death, he has gorged himself on humans. His plans mirror yours.”

  Pan gaped at him in horror. Dom was to walk into the sun? The same devastation at his faux death crushed her once again. She looked up at the sky. The bird’s dawn songs had already begun.

  “I have to find him.”

  “We’ve sear—”

  Pan didn’t listen, but took off.

  + Chapter 46 +

  The Sun

  Pan vanished in the night with maddening fight. She faced every shadowed plight, banishing them away with her inner light. Holding tight, clinging to gentle madness she battled against her mounting sadness.

  Refusing to give up the search, she looked everywhere for Dom’s suicidal perch. And everywhere was nowhere as he could be anywhere he was not.

  Distraught, Pan stopped, looking around. Rubbing her head, she gave a cry wishing she could fly. Where could he be? From the sky she could see. From the ground he was nowhere to be found.

  Pan whipped around in every direction, desperate for a hint. Run, race, but she could not afford to pace and waste seconds won, giving her longer to wait out the sun. The wind struck Pan’s face, cooling her flushed and fevered skin. Hesitating, she turned her face into it, feeling the breathy brine of the ocean carried upon it.

  The night she had first given herself to Dom blood and soul flashed into her mind. The cliffs. He was there. She didn’t know how she knew, instinct, intuition, but a relieved feeling of certainty unfurled within. Pan glanced at the lightening skyline, knowing she didn’t have much time before sunrise, and took off into the pitch black forest.

  Pushing herself hard, Pan flashed through the woods with blinding speed. The mounting sun, a victor believing himself pre-won, was already weakening her, turning the stolen blood in her veins into sluggish clotting lava. Her skin was already tingling with warning to seek shelter.

  Breaking through the forest, Pan ran into the field. Stopping, she looked around. In the open air there was no mistaking Dom’s scent. He had recently lingered here for it to still be so fresh. Following his essence, Pan found a flattened area of grass. Kneeling, she ran her hand over the folded blades.

  “Dom,” she whispered. He had lain exactly where he had first bitten his claim.

  Shooting to her feet, Pan was across the field in a second flat, plunging into the other side of the misty forest. Racing through it, twigs and bushes caught her dress, her hair, but she didn’t slow, she didn’t dare. Hearing the rolling breaths of ocean ahead, Pan burst out the other side, looking around frantically.

  He stood at the edge of the cliffs, overlooking the crashing frothy waves below.

  “Dom!” Pan screamed.

  If he heard her cry of desperation over the percussion he didn’t acknowledge it.

  “Oh love, oh life,” Dom said. “Not life, but love in death, I beg you to claim my everlasting breath!”

  He ripped his bloodied shirt off and held it to the wind, letting it float away like a twisting flag of surrender. He held his arms open in welcome to the cresting sun.

  Pan gaped at it in horror. She was too late to save him, her, both, from joined suicidal fate.

  “Dom!”

  “I hear you my love.” He tilted his face up. “And I’m coming.”

  Sensitive eyes narrowed against the harsh light, Pan rushed out from the shadows of the protecting forest. She didn’t dare slam into him, yank him around, throw herself into his arms, all like she wanted to unsure of his precarious suicidal perch.

  “Dom!”

  He glanced over his shoulder. Seeing her, his face contorted in pain.

  “You’re not real,” he said with anguish, and faced the rising sun.

  “Oh Dom,” Pan said, unbelievably saddened it had come to this.

  He glanced back again, skeptical this time. Shadowed with pain, his eyes searched her face.

  “Pan?” A hopeless whisper.

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  Shock exploded onto Dom’s face. “Pa
n!”

  Pan ran at him and Dom caught her up in his arms, spinning her around. Pan clutched him tight, arms wrapped around his neck.

  “Oh god,” he breathed. He ran his hands over her entire body, confirming that she was solid and real. “You shot yourself.”

  “Only because I believed I had to exist without you.”

  He held her crushed to him so hard if she had still been human it would have hurt.

  “I need you more than anything, Dom.” Pan kissed the side of his face and all the way down to his lips.

  Setting her down, he kissed her with fevered desperateness, clutching her so tight Pan was sure their molecules were melting together, creating one singular, infinite, everlasting, creature of arcane love. Pulling away, he rested his forehead against hers, cupping her cheek.

  “I cannot live without you either. How—” Dom closed his eyes and shook his head, still trying to comprehend. “How is this possible?”

  Pan looked up at him. “I don’t know.” The fiery sun set his iridescent skin aglow. So newly healed, her heart broke all over again. “But it’s too late.”

  + + +

  Dom followed her gaze, looking out over the ocean at the dawn bursting over the horizon. Ripping back nights curtains, Helios dragged forth the sun with his fire footed steeds. Pan was right. It was too late. They would never be able to find shelter in time as it shone with unhindered avenging triumphant. Caught on sight, they were dead in the morning light.

  She stared up at him with resolution in her eye. Dom read her thoughts playing across them.

  “Forever and always?” he said.

  Pan nodded. “Forever and always.”

  She rested her head against his chest and Dom kissed the top of her hair, binding her to him with his arms. Resting his cheek on her head, he watched the sun rise in his majesty, casting down its golden rays of tragedy that the world so gloriously beholds in bold, that made tree tops and ridged waves burnish gold.

  From the inside out, their skin began to glow with a luminous gold halo, like a bats wing stretched over a flashlight; a beautiful effect with excruciating respect. His bones aching, Dom’s skin began to burn with penitence for this night’s sin, the ash of it flaking and floating off into the wind. The damage was done, the sun had won.

  Pan gave a little cry. Gritting his teeth, Dom turned his back against the acidic rays in attempt to protect her and provide a few minutes of painless stay. He would stand between her and that hateful sun until he fell, doomed to the depths of hell.

  Pan looked up at him with her huge gorgeous doe-eyes, the pain and sadness in them giving him enough reason to die. She blinked, her lashes wet with blood tears, tears that rolled down her cheeks, falling to his chest.

  “I love you,” she said.

  He had planned to die to hear those words again. Gazing down at her, the intensity of his love shone pure and true, he knew.

  “I love you more,” Dom said, stroking her hair back, kissing the freckle under her eye. Her skin burned his lips.

  Sigh celestial breath whose gentle wind cooled her glowing flesh as multifaceted as sin, sigh celestial breath whose gentle wind hopes to cool the heat of this ascending sun. His shadow would only spare Pan so long from Gods scorching eye shining from heaven.

  Shaking, Dom grimaced, hunching further over her. He stared into Pan’s terrified eyes where a tear welled over and ran down.

  “It hurts,” he said between clenched teeth.

  Pan pulled his face down to hers. “Kiss me and forget.”

  Her savior of a kiss was a soothing balm, chasing away the burning torture. She was worth it though. And if he were not immortal, his life was done between this heavenly and earthly sun.

  But fate…had other plans.

  A slow darkness fell, cooling his skin. Breaking from Pan’s lips, Dom looked up at the sky. The moon had collided with the sun, the horror of it all newly begun.

  Pan gasped. “Impossible.”

  “A solar eclipse,” Dom breathed in awe. “It seems someone—wants us to live.”

  The suns silver faced lover now looked upon another. The blue gem in her earthly fem. Envied, the golden sun sought a remedy and fueled his flames putting his original dawn to shame. His bright flair to which none could compare created a glare blackening the silver faced and violet laced moon like a hole in the sky or a black fiery eye. The sting of its flames now diluted to a white blazing ring.

  “And in the brightness of the morn, the Princess Moon beheld her forsaken children and stretched forth her hand, sparing them by shadowing the land.” Dom looked down at Pan, his future. She tore her eyes from their salvation and smiled up at him with a joy no words could explain. “Let’s go home,” he said.

  Hand in hand, they fled into the forest, into the shadow land, into the future of love lacking death.

  And They Lived Happily Ever After

  Or So They Thought….

  + Afterward +

  A glooming peace this morning with it brings as the sun for sorrow will not show his face. And not so far away the twice failing and once conquering death sings, ringing his bones that he gets to drag another soul home.

  Familiar yet otherworldly tendrils of fog drifted and twisted in the misty blue forest. A dozen wolves, variously sized and colored, raced each other, leaping over logs and rocks, dodging swiftly around stationary tree trunks, clashing sides as they fought to get ahead.

  Charging up a hill, they skidded to a halt. Whining, they pranced and leaped, snapping jaws and stamping paws. A large gray wolf shouldered his way through. He snapped at one and they all scattered, heads bowed in submission. Whimpering, he pawed the earth and nosed a limp hand with chipped gold nail polish on the broken, dirt incrusted nails.

  He sniffed along the sprawled body dressed in jeans and a suede jacket. The russet skin was pale with death, her long brown hair disheveled and knotted with twigs and leaves. Sniffing along her collarbone, he snorted and thrashed his head. Pawing his nose to relieve it of the stench, he snarled. The pack recoiled, whining. The bite marks on her neck and chest were jagged with shredded skin and coagulated with black blood.

  Werewolf by blood, Princess by birth, woman by nature, Neoma Bloodgood had been born into a pack of privilege, descended from a powerful ancestry of Shamans. Regal and beautiful, strong and fierce, she embodied all qualities demanded of a Princess and werewolf. But with the desires of a woman, she had a taste for night walking admirers and was plagued with the magnetic attraction to dangerous creatures that by birth and blood, she was forbidden to find romance with.

  But the thrill, oh the thrill of danger straying into new manger drove her where no rationality, not even her royal nationality, could prevent her from following that dark shadow into deeper seductive shadows where she would never again resurface into the light of life.

  The gray wolf threw back his head and let out an eerie howl of mourning. The rest of the pack joined him in his ghostly lament of a crying promise. Revenge, revenge, revenge was the only amend to this so great offend as they would crash and burn and break their bloodthirsty fiend.

  Staring up through the trees, Neoma’s glassy eyes fixated on the orbital eye of Artemis as the ominous sun had again won, beating back the moon. The moon, the moon, oh the glorious silver faced moon, that in her lifetime has been known to steal the hearts of lovers and all their swoon.

  Sigh…the moon.

  This is not the end.

  It is not even the beginning of the end.

  But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

  + Sir Winston Churchill

  + Scene Songs (Spoiler Alert!!!) +

  1 + Still Tippin’, Mike Jones

  + When Dom and others are cruising for Rose’s.

  2 + Dragula (Si Non Oscillas, Noli Tintinnare Remix), Rob Zombie

  + When Pan and others go into the Gray Prince’s party.

  3 + Stumble and Pain, Joseph Arthur.

  + When Dom stalks her as she dances.

&
nbsp; 4 + Archangel, Burial

  + When Pan and Dom dance.

  5 + Bad Romance, Lady Gaga

  + As they run around, trying to find a place to be alone.

  6 + Colorblind, Counting Crows

  + When they’re in her garden.

  7 + Vampire, The Blakes

  + As they date and go to the circus.

  8 + Sonnet #119, Dutch Pink

  + When Dom chases Pan through the forest and catches her.

  9 + Infra-Red, Placebo

  + When Pan runs to make sure Dom is okay.

  10 + Showbiz, Muse

  + When Dom leaps the rail and all the vamps fight.

  11+ You Are Mine, Mute Math

  + When they dance in the desert.

  12 + Seventeen, Ladytron

  + When at fashion show and after with Dante Pearl.

  13 + Undenied, Portishead

  + When Dom rescues her in Greece.

  14 + Paradise Circle, Massive Attack

  + When they make love.

  15 + Mourning Air, Portishead

  + When Dom’s dead and Pan mourns him.

  16 + We’re No Here, Mogwai

  + When Pan is walking down the road like a zombie.

  17 + Angel, Massive Attack

  + When Pan screams at her father.

  18 + Molten Light, Chad Van Gaalen

  + When Pan commits suicide and Dom holds her and then goes to her in mausoleum.

  19 + Cosmic Love, Florence + the Machine

  + When Pan’s running to find Dom and save him from the sun.

  20 + Staring at the Sun, TV on the Radio

  + As the sun rises and burns them.

  21 + From the Valley to the Stars, El Perro del Mar

  + When the eclipse happens and saves them and they run into the forest.

  22 + Watching the Planets, The Flaming Lips

  + When Neoma’s body is found and her glazed eyes stare up at the moon and sun.

  23 + Sickle and Hood, Brown Bird

  + Closing song.