Breathless

by Heather C. Hudak

  “Tell me more,” I mumbled. “I want to know the rest. Are you some kind of hybrid freak?”

  He laughed.

  “More like a super freak,” he said, winking.

  “I bet you can do some really neat stuff,” I said, knowing my choice of words sounded childish and silly.

  “I don’t want to disappoint you,” he started. “You seem to be expecting something extraordinary. I’m just your run-of-the-mill, semi-immortal being.”

  I wasn’t sure how to react—it was possible that Chaseyn was a threat, but I had trouble believing that. Flight was my first thought, but running away again wasn’t going to solve anything. I decided to channel my response in another direction.

  “I’m not sure what that means. Can you be a bit more specific?”

  “Alexei is my father,” he said.

  I gasped, terrified, now. He caught me completely off guard. Suddenly, our light-hearted fooling around went awry. Until he said Alexei’s name, I had convinced myself that it was still possible we were talking about two totally different things—that Chaseyn had inadvertently played into my worst fears without knowing it.

  Clearly, I was the one being played. My grandma wasn’t entirely wrong. Alexei hadn’t come for me, but his offspring had. Beneath the blankets, I scrambled to pull my knees up tight to my chest in a defensive pose. If Alexei was Chaseyn’s father, it could only mean one thing. A part of him, if not all of him, was vampire. Chaseyn noticed the realization in my expression, and he immediately began to reason with me.

  “Don’t,” Chaseyn urged. “Don’t be afraid.”

  It was easy for him to say. He wasn’t staring his destiny in the face.

  “Are you kidding me? He sent you to do his dirty work—reel me in—and then, what? You’ll turn me over to him to be his immortal bride for all eternity. Is this some kind of sick joke?”

  “No, Cordelia. It’s not like that, I swear. Calm down,” he said, his hands out in front of his chest to brace against a potential attack from me.

  “Then, what is it, Chaseyn,” I was trying to be abrupt but calm so as not to raise my mom’s suspicion. “What are you doing in my neck of the woods if you’re not doing his bidding?”

  It all seemed so incredulous. The fact that there had been some truth to my grandma’s story seemed to be the least of my problems. Chaseyn’s ominous confession was a bigger concern to me now. He had all but confirmed that the finer details of her tale were true. I had no idea what to do next. It seemed futile to flee, so I waited impatiently for Chaseyn to speak.

  “I’m not here to hurt you, Cordelia. It’s quite the opposite, in fact,” he said trying to calm me, but it was no use. I trembled uncontrollably. “Please, let me explain.”

  Realizing my options were limited, I decided to remain perfectly still. This same person who had once made me feel more safe than ever before was now the thing I feared most on the planet. Perhaps, if I avoided sudden movements, he would let me live.

  Chaseyn stood calmly, avoiding quick movements so as not to frighten me further. He crept slowly up the side of the bed, and I pressed harder against the headboard, my legs pushing me back farther and farther away from him, until there was no place left for me to go. He sat on the edge of the bed at my side and stroked my hair back from my forehead. Tears flowed freely down my cheeks. Choking back the sobs, I managed to shake my head quickly from side to side, indicating I didn’t appreciate his caress.

  “Shhh,” he whispered, bringing his face closer to mine. I imagined his teeth sinking into my neck, and a chill ran through my spine. “I’m not going to hurt you. I can’t do what you think I can.”

  Swiping with the back of my hand at my tear-stained cheeks, I lifted my head to look into his eyes. He was intense, and perhaps, a bit saddened at the thought that I was so frightened by him. He took my chin in his hands and forced me to look at him while he spoke. His grasp was firm, unrelenting.

  “I’m not a vampire, if that’s what you’re thinking.” he said, staring me straight in the eyes, unblinking.

  “But—” I started to talk, but he cut me off abruptly.

  “Let me finish first,” he implored.

  I nodded.

  “But, I can turn you,” he finished, bracing for my reaction. I pulled away from him, standing quickly and walking to the other side of the room. “I wouldn’t, Cordelia. Not without your permission.”

  A million thoughts raced through my mind, drowning out the words he spoke next. He muttered something about protecting me, immortality, and never hurting me intentionally. That was the problem—he could hurt me unintentionally.

  “Permission? To make me a vampire? This is ridiculous, Chaseyn. Did my grandma put you up to this?”

  He shook his head, but it was starting to make sense to me now. She had found a comrade in Chaseyn, and the two of them had set up this crazy plan just to get a rise out of me.

  “Cordelia, if I were to bite you in the jugular now, it would start the transformation process,” he explained, his face stone-cold serious. It was suddenly clear that this was no joke. “It wouldn’t take immediately. I would have to do it several times, and then, you would need to drink some of my blood to complete the process.”

  I was pacing the room now, rubbing my temples frantically as I let the words soak in. I didn’t dare look at him. I didn’t want to witness the sincerity on his face as he explained vampire philosophy. The fact that I was even playing along with this ridiculous ruse was unthinkable.

  “And, then I would be a vampire?”

  “Well, something like that, anyway. It’s not quite that simple. Your human body has to die first,” he said lackadaisical. Ignoring my look of disbelief, he continued with his reasoning. “My mom and I began looking for you as soon as we heard about the curse of Lorelei Dryden. We thought it would be difficult because we weren’t actually sure you existed, but it was surprisingly simple. Your family is easy to trace. Your great grandmother came to the United States as a war bride in 1945. She lived with her husband’s family in Amarillo, Texas, and they had three children—your grandma and her two sisters. As you know, two were brunette and one was blond. None fit the description to fulfill Alexei’s curse. Your grandmother was the only one to bear a daughter, your mother, but she, too, did not meet Alexei’s standards.”

  “How do you know so much about my family,” I asked awestruck by his knowledge of my entire family tree.

  “Public records. They’re surprisingly easy to trace,” he explained matter of fact. “Anyway, your mom went off to college and met your dad. You were born soon after, and they moved here for your dad‘s work. We didn’t know when we came here if you would fit the description, but it didn’t take me long to find out. I knew the minute I laid eyes on you at school that day that you were Lorelei Dryden’s kin. Have you ever seen her picture?”

  I shook my head, and he pulled a crumpled paper from his pocket. He unfolded the relic carefully and reached across the room to hand it to me. I didn’t want to come too near to him, so I gripped the corner from the farthest distance I could manage. I was taken aback by the face staring back at me from the tattered image. I gasped loudly. It was as if I as looking into a mirror.

  “Ah, you see the resemblance,” he said. It was impossible to miss. From the auburn ringlets to her golden brown eyes, she looked nearly identical to me. “Beautiful, isn’t she? I can see why Alexei was so taken with her.”

  The sound of his name sent a tremor though my body.

  “Alexei will come for you eventually, but only once you have reached a certain maturity, if you will. That’s why it was so important for me to come now, while you’re still so young.”

  I still didn’t understand why Chaseyn was here. He could tell.

  “I came to stop him.”

  “Why?”

  “My mom was victim to his charisma when she was human,” he began to explain.

  “Your mom’s not human?”

  “No. But she was when she met h
im. They had a whirlwind courtship, marrying just before he was scheduled to ship out to Normandy during the Second World War. She became pregnant immediately with me. He knew he had to turn her or risk losing us both. I’m half human, half vampire, but she is completely undead.”

  “I’m still not sure I understand why you want to help me and not him,” I said cautiously.

  “He never came back for us. He left us to learn the ways of this new life on our own, which is unacceptable to our kind. Had he not been the ‘child’ of such an ancient, formidable vampire, others would have tortured him with the most severe of punishments. But that is a story for another time,” Chaseyn said casually. “For most of their short-lived union, Mina and Alexei lived in his cottage in the woods. He never returned to the house after the war. Though we remained there for a brief while when I was first born—and visited for short stays often over the years—Mina hated being in isolation. She wanted to be among others like us. Fortunately, in Europe our kind are much more common, and Mina soon found a coven working as folk musicians in a Soho pub where she had taken a job as a barmaid. At first, she wasn’t aware of what they were, but they knew immediately that she had a dark secret. One evening, they invited her to their home in a dark alley behind the tavern. In her previous form, she would have feared for her life, thinking these beautiful, brooding creatures wanted more than she was willing to give. But soon, she clued in to their alternate lifestyle. They took her—us—in under their wings to help us adjust to this life of eternal darkness. I hate to think where we would be today if not for them. We stayed with them for only a short time—about 15 years.”

  “But, what about him,” I asked, frustrated that he hadn’t said any more about Alexei.

  “We only know what those most-hospitable vampires told us years ago. Alexei was a relatively young vampire at the time, having been turned about 100 years earlier. His father, though, was one of the ancients, offspring of the original immortal couple. He was very powerful, and he passed some of that power on in his blood. But that’s a story for another time.

  “My mother didn’t know what Alexei was when she married him. She didn’t choose this life, and she’s not the only one. He’s done this to other unsuspecting women. It’s nearly impossible to know who he will prey on next, but we knew he would come for you one day soon. If we could even stop him from claiming one more innocent life…”

  “So that’s it? All this time, you’ve been leading me on in an effort to save me from him? How could you lie to me like this? I fell in love with you.”

  “I’m not done,” he said, fury raging like a storm in his mossy eyes. “That first day, at the school, I saw you, and something happened that I wasn’t expecting. Something I couldn’t control. This is going to sound silly, and I’m embarrassed to even speak the words, but it was love at first sight. You felt it, too. I know you did.”

  He was right. From the moment I first had laid eyes on him at the back of the English class, and then again in the hall later, I knew we had an impenetrable connection.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. Not ever.”

  “How can you be so sure? Don’t you have uncontrollable primal urges? I’ve read Dracula.”

  Gregarious laughter rolled off his lips, and I thought he might actually bust a gut.

  “What,” I shrugged innocently. By now, my fear had eased, and I felt fairly certain that Chaseyn was harmless—to me anyway.

  “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not a vampire. I’m human—mostly,” he said, grabbing my hand and placing it on his chest so I could feel his heartbeat.

  “It’s the mostly part that scares me,” I said, curling into his arms.

  “For all intents and purposes, I’m no different from you, with the exception of a few minor details.”

  “Can you fly,” I asked deadpan.

  He just smiled and shook his head.

  “Does holy water burn your skin,” I asked next.

  Chaseyn rolled his eyes. I was taunting, and he knew it. Relief washed over him; I could tell by the way his shoulders relaxed before I asked the next question.

  “Do you read minds?”

  Now, Chaseyn was laughing uncontrollably. He was taking great pleasure in my ignorance.

  “Well, why don’t you enlighten me, then,” I said, embarrassed that I was so clearly naïve to immortal code. My hands were trembling, but my anguish had softened. Still, I wondered, now that I knew his secret, would some sort of undead justice league force him to kill me?

  When Chaseyn finally regained his composure, he looked at me with sincere concern. I wondered what he was contemplating. Perhaps, he was deciding my fate.

  “Forget everything you thought you knew,” he began.

  “That doesn’t leave very much,” I said.

  He shrugged and continued.

  “I can’t fly or leap tall buildings—just small ones—and reading minds is just a myth, too,” he began.

  “Well, that sounds like a rip off. What’s the advantage,” I asked.

  “That I’m going to look this good forever,” he said with a wink. “Seriously? I’m not sure you would call them advantages.”

  I looked at him with pleading eyes. Now that he had entrusted me with his secret, I wanted to know everything, and he was holding out.

  “I have heightened awareness on multiple levels—it’s kind of like sensory overload. I can hear a pin drop, run like the wind, smell the faintest odor, and see with incredibly clarity for miles. I have exceptionally precise aim, my intellect is incomparable, and my reflexes are second-to-none,” he explained.

  “Anything else,” I asked.

  “I have a reflection, as you know, but true vampires do not, and my saliva has a healing power. Remember when we first met…that wound…no scar,” he said, before carrying on with a snicker. “Oh, and, I don’t sleep in a coffin and garlic, holy water, and crucifixes…more myths.”

  “That’s it?”

  “One last thing,” he added. “I have a sixth sense. I am incredibly intuitive.”

  That last part explained a lot, I thought. Like how he always seemed to know what I was thinking or planning before even I did.

  “Is that right,” I asked.

  He smiled coyly.

  “I think I might need an example to illustrate what you mean.”

  “Well, I know that your mom is likely getting suspicious about what’s happening up here. We’re being too quiet,” he said.

  “That’s too obvious,” I replied.

  “Okay, um, let me think of something else. You’re hungry.”

  “My stomach growled, and it’s been six hours since I last ate. Anybody could draw that conclusion,” I goaded.

  Chaseyn shrugged.

  “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see,” he said, reaching his hand out, palm up, next to my head.

  “What are you doing,” I asked confused.

  “Shhh. Wait.”

  Just then, my left earring fell from my lobe, landing softly in his waiting hand.

  “Lucky guess,” I said, though I was clearly impressed. He smiled like the Chesire cat.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said, kissing me on the head and dashing for the door. “I should head downstairs before your mom comes up. I’ll tell her you’re sleeping. She’ll likely come up in a minute or two to check that I’m not lying. Curl up on your side, tuck your arms under your pillow, and breathe deeply.”

  “How did you know that’s how I sleep?”

  “Really? I thought you were paying better attention,” he chided. “Have you forgotten already?”

  “Wait,” I shouted just above a whisper. Chaseyn turned quickly on his heel to face me, sensing the urgency in my voice. “We’re hardly through here.”

  Chaseyn was stepping backward, inching his way closer and closer to the door. I had mere seconds to get out the words I needed to say before he would disappear into the narrow hallway.

  “You’re practically over it,” he replie
d smugly, his hand reaching behind his back for the doorknob. “I can tell that you’re warming up to the idea. Everything will be back to normal soon.”

  “You never told me about Alexei. What’s he going to do to me?”

  “Nothing,” he said firmly.

  “Nothing,” I repeated. Surely, we hadn’t gone through this entire charade for nothing.

  “Not while I’m here. I promise.”

  And, he was gone. Sure enough, less than five minutes later, I heard the soft pads of my mom’s feet climbing the staircase. She peeked her head inside the door and seemed sufficiently satisfied with what she saw. I, of course, appeared to be sleeping soundly. In actuality, I was working hard to maintain control as I pondered all of the outrageous events that had transpired over the afternoon. It explained so much—the cool breeze whenever Chaseyn was nearby, the low gasps as my finger bled, the calming effect he had on people, the haunting dreams and how they stopped when he arrived. It was so clear now. He had been there all along, keeping a constant vigil outside my bedroom window.