by C L Walker
Since it was my eighteenth birthday it looked to them like she had celebrated her freedom by burning down her trailer and taking off. They thought she was crazy, but they also weren’t surprised so that’s the story we stuck with.
She’d have to answer to them for the fire, but I had a feeling she wouldn’t be easily found.
Once we were back at Micah’s I had to answer several phone calls as news had spread, and everyone was worried about me.
I spent a half hour on the phone with Sai explaining that I was fine and that things felt different, but good. He finally agreed to let me go after I promised that we would celebrate my birthday the next day since it was almost eleven o’clock pm.
Micah filled a bath for me, and I had been sitting in it for an hour when he came inside and told me it was time to get out and eat something.
My mind immediately went to blood, and the image of drinking his flashed before my mind.
Great I’m a cannibal, I’m a defective vampire.
I dried my body and put my robe on before I left the bathroom.
The house was dark except for a dim flickering light that came from the kitchen. I walked to the table to find that an obviously homemade chocolate frosted cake sat on it with a single candle in the center.
“Just one?” I asked as he wrapped his arms around me from behind.
“It’s the first year of your new life.” He kissed my cheek. “Happy Birthday, beautiful.”
I smiled before I was about to blow out the candle, but I stared at what was written on the cake instead.
Skylar.
It didn’t say anything else aside from my name and the significance was not lost on me.
Micah knew my thoughts, so he must have known what led to their death and that I hadn’t seen my name on a cake since my dad had opened that fateful box to find it spelt wrong.
Rather than feel guilty for what had happened or curse my dad and Brian for leaving me to my fate as I used to do, I did something else.
Thank you, Daddy, for loving me enough to find something as simple as my name being spelt right on a cake so important.
I closed my eyes, pulled air into my lungs, blew out the candle and made a wish.
“There’s one more thing.” He pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to me. “She dropped it when she got up to leave.”
I looked down at the small photograph in my hands and began to cry, it was the picture I had wanted, the only picture left of my dad and Brian.
I set it down on the table before I slipped my arms around his waist and clung to him.
I cried in his arms and let the feelings that surged when we touched engulf me. I knew that they were something I would also have to work to control. But in that moment, I didn’t want to do anything but feel everything I had tried to keep tucked away for so long.
“Thank you, for everything,” I said when my tears dried. “I’m sorry my emotions are all over the place, they are so strong I can barely control them.”
“You’re welcome.” He brushed my hair out of my face. “And don’t worry it will get easier, and once you feed… that will also help.”
“Feed?” I asked with hesitation as I recalled what I had thought of before I left the bathroom.
“Yes, you need to feed at least once a week, well depending, but don’t worry, you’ll be able to do it more than that.”
“From whom will I feed?” I chewed on my lip and looked away from him guiltily.
“Why are you hiding?” he asked in a playful tone.
“Answer the question.” I didn’t want him to figure out where my thoughts had gone.
“Me,” he said casually.
“Isn’t that like immoral or something?” But also, thank goodness. Drinking from a stranger would be awkward and personal so I couldn’t imagine drinking the blood of some random human.
He raised his arms in the air as he yawned. “No, it’s just blood, don’t be such a square.”
“I thought maybe it was wrong,” I said.
“You thought about it?”
“When you mentioned it was time to eat, I thought about drinking from you. Wow, that sounds so wrong.”
He gave me a concerned look. “You little freak.”
I hit his arm and managed to do so without putting too much power behind it. “Don’t be a jerk, you’ve drank my blood twice now, I just wasn’t sure if we could only drink from humans.”
“You’ve drank mine as well, it was my blood that was used to change you. My Great Grandma was the one that gave it to you because you were somewhere I couldn’t go since I’m not dead.”
Great Grandma… White eyes flashed in my mind. She had played a part in saving me, I would have to thank her someday.
“That makes sense, it’s what happens in almost every vampire story I’ve read when someone is changed.” He rolled his eyes and I laughed. “But what if you aren’t around and I need to feed?”
“Then you would have to find someone else, or preferably a blood bank, I will tell you which ones serve us. But unless I am dead, I would prefer that you not drink from others.”
“Who did you feed from before?” It hadn’t mattered before and I never let myself even wonder where he got his sustenance from but suddenly it mattered, a whole lot.
He took a step back cautiously. “Uh, from a girl that lives in the city, there are other supernatural’s that offer resources to our tribe because they know that we live by a set of rules that prevent us from harming humans. It’s a give and take situation, we are often employed by them as protection.”
“Some girl that lives in the city?” I asked as I closed the space between us. I pushed him against the wall for once. “You drank her freaking blood, before or after you tasted mine?”
He laughed as he put his hands up in mock surrender. “The last time was before I tasted you, but I needed to feed, and I’d rather take it from those that are willing.”
“What happened to the blood bank?”
“It’s better fresh.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“Hypocrite.”
“Hey,” he said as he gave me a cute look. “We weren’t together then so it was different, I would never do that now.”
Why do I hate everything about this so much?
“Because we are deeply connected and you’re as jealous as one can be right now.”
“Shut up.”
Deeply connected…pfft.
“I’m sorry to break it to you like this but I was only able to bring you back from the dead and change you because my ancestors took pity on us for one reason and one reason alone.”
“And what’s that?”
You’re my blood mate, my fate. Aka: Deeply connected.
“Fate? You mean to say we were destined, and all of this was meant to happen? This is what you meant when you said we are ‘spiritually connected?’”
I still had him pinned against the wall as he said, “It was meant to happen, but we still chose what to do with the cards that we were dealt. I tried in the beginning not to want you despite knowing that you were meant for me, but I couldn’t stop myself. We both still have choices in everything that we do but I’m choosing fate, I want you.”
I inhaled sharply as that want rolled off his body and hit me, igniting my own need for him.
“Then why does the mere thought of living without you nearly bring me to tears? I don’t feel like I have a choice.”
He gave me a dark look. “It just means I am the perfect fit for you, it doesn’t mean you can’t make bad decisions and leave me.”
Bad decisions, so cocky.
“But it won’t be the same, will it?” I asked.
Fuck no.
His hands found my hips and his fingers sent tingles down my spine. “But if you want to have less enjoyable sex, shallow companionship, and a meager sense of belonging, by all means choose someone else.”
My mouth dropped open as I recalled what had taken place during the ritual.
“Speaking of that. Why did we uhm… you know at the end of the ritual?”
“Have sex?” he asked with a sly smirk, and I nodded my head. “That was part of the ritual, we had to because…well, how do I put this?” I froze as I felt him grow anxious. “As I said I was only allowed to change you because you are my blood mate, so that means we did a ritual that binds our souls together. It’s like marriage in a way… and like marriage it has to be consummated.”
“Soul binding… Marriage–” I closed my eyes as I tried to process what he was telling me, but I kept recalling how it had felt to make love to him.
“Meaning you are mine, mind body and soul if you want to be,” he said. “Although, if you don’t want to be I can’t erase the soul tie.” His tone had grown sensual, he must have known what I was feeling, he knew what I was more concerned with in that moment.
He moved his hands from my hips to my ass and he squeezed.
“Oh, my.” I began to ache so acutely I could barely hold on to thoughts about anything other than what I wanted him to do to my body.
He flipped us around in the blink of an eye, slammed me up against the wall and pinned my wrists above my head. “I think this conversation can wait,” he said, “don’t you agree?”
“Yes. We have more than enough time to talk.” I kissed him as I fought to have my hands free because I wanted to touch him, but he was still so much stronger than me.
When I opened my mouth, he immediately slid his tongue inside, and a wave of desperation crashed against my body as his want for me bled over and mixed with my own.
I wrapped my legs around his hips as he ran us up to his bed and threw me down. The force of it caused the tie on my robe to undo, revealing all that was me underneath, so I reached to cover myself.
“Don’t you dare deny me this pleasure, you’ll pay for it,” he said as he stood before me disrobing himself.
I weighed my options, if I closed it, logic told me that his threat would be acted upon in a sexual way that I’d enjoy. But with the way that he was looking at my body as it was laid out before him, with such hunger that it made me feel sexy and powerful, I couldn’t possibly close it.
I sat up on my elbows as he began to kiss up the length of my body, he explored every inch of me with tender kisses and curious hands.
When he planted a kiss between my legs it was almost enough to make me explode, my toes curled as I barely managed to stop myself from falling apart. I felt as if I were a string pulled too tightly, any pressure was sure to make me snap.
“Just let it go, there is plenty more to be had.” He gave me a devilish look right before he slowly licked my sensitive flesh, and it was all the encouragement I needed.
“Micah!”
So many colors.
“So pretty,” he said, before he continued to kiss his way up my body as my hands ran the length of his back and he situated himself between my legs.
I twisted my head away from him to give him better access to my neck so he could more easily suck on my flesh. When his teeth grazed my skin, I shivered and dug my nails into his back as I wondered if he would bite me again.
I opened my eyes to see black swirls coming from both of our bodies. It all felt so animalistic.
It didn’t feel like I thought sex would feel like, but then again, we weren’t mere humans, and we were so much more sensitive to touch that it made sense.
It felt perfect.
My life had changed in an instant, but I didn’t regret it because I felt like I was exactly where I was always meant to be.
You are where you belong, and so am I.
“Now if you don’t mind, may I?” he asked out loud, the need evident in his tone.
“Please,” I whimpered without a second’s hesitation.
As he pushed himself inside me, he bit into my neck and broke the skin.
“Oh!”
Words failed me, as the pleasure was too much.
He drank from my flesh for less than a minute as he pumped inside of me slowly before he flipped us over and said, “Your turn.”
I straddled his hips and moved over them slowly as he wiggled his way back until he could lean against the wall in a sitting position.
“You feel so good, babe.” His hands trailed up my stomach until he cradled both my breasts in his hands, and I moaned despite how nervous I was.
“Micah?” His eyes met mine. “Can I hurt you?”
He shook his head.
But I’m scared.
Trust me and trust yourself.
He chewed on his blood-stained lip as his eyes dipped and he watched me move over him. It felt so good I forgot about what I was supposed to be doing until he got tired of waiting for me.
He grabbed my face and pulled it down to his neck. “Do it, you know it only hurts for a second before it feels good, so don’t worry about me, I want it.”
I licked his neck hesitantly and he seemed to relax, and when I grazed his flesh with my teeth he tensed up and grabbed my ass hard and forced my hips to move over him more slowly.
Take from me!
I sunk my teeth into his flesh with ease and expected something metallic like and strange to flow into my mouth but instead it was something hot, sweet, and delicious.
I drank from him and forgot all about my previous worries and after about a minute I simply didn’t want to drink anymore. I knew that I had had enough and the lust for what his body could give me disappeared, well, in one sense anyway.
I pulled away and he flipped us over again to take over, he pounded my flesh harder and faster than was humanly possible and it didn’t take long for both of us to fall apart so wonderfully.
“I don’t even know what to say,” I said sometime later as we lied in each other’s arms. “That was simply amazing.”
“It’s like touching the stars,” he said, and his dreamy tone had me sighing in agreement.
“Micah?”
“Yes?”
I couldn’t help myself as I considered that when he had tasted my blood before, it had always been during a sexual encounter. “Did you feed with her the same way you just did with me?”
He rolled over and sat up on the edge of the bed. “It wasn’t like this at all, she let me drink from her wrist, it was very businesslike.”
I nodded my head as my mind considered what that would be like, awkward. “So, to be clear this means that you didn’t have sex with her, right?”
He sighed. “No, I did not have sex with her.”
“Don’t give me attitude, do you want to play the guessing game about people I’ve had sex with?”
“You haven’t had sex with anyone else and I hope we never have a reason to have that conversation.”
“Well how lucky for you that I haven’t slept with anyone else, and I never will, meanwhile I have to sit here and wonder all sorts of things about you!”
“So dramatic. I’ve never had sex with anyone except you.” He stood up and started to walk towards the stairs. “You could have asked before assuming.”
“You were a virgin too!” I ran up behind him and jumped up and put my arms around his neck. I put too much power into it, and we smashed into the wall and put a dent in it.
“I’ll add that to the list of things you have to pay me back for, that’s one banister, a wall and I do believe I heard my couch protest when you unceremoniously landed on it this evening.”
“Don’t be an asshole, I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t break my shit, I still have to work for my money… well I will once I graduate anyway.”
“You haven’t even had a job before, have you?”
He refused to answer.
“Pampered,” I teased.
He walked down the stairs with me hanging off the back of his shoulders and made his way into the kitchen. “Says the girl who is going to spend possibly the next thousand or so years being pampered by the guy whose never had a job.”
He grabbed a beer out of the fridge and offered me
one, but I shook my head.
I smiled to myself as I imagined what it was going to be like to have someone around that wanted to take care of me.
“I’ll have you know that I know how to build just about anything, and hunt and survive off the land in pretty much every place on this planet. Those are more important skills to have and at least you know I can take care of you even if this world were to go to shit.”
“I’ll give you that and I can’t say there isn’t something sexy about you knowing how to do those things, and I’ve thought so since you made me come here to do your chairs and I saw all the handy work you had done.”
“You don’t have to tell me I know it made you hot.”
I pulled myself up higher on his back where I still hung and put him in a headlock of sorts. “Don’t you dare bring up all the times you snooped around my mind, you little lecher.”
“My apologies, my lady,” he said sarcastically.
He walked to the couch and grabbed the remote and was about to turn on the tv when I said, “But I want to have sex again.”
He dropped it immediately, chugged the beer down in seconds flat all the while I hung limply from his body before he walked back up the stairs.
He flipped me onto the bed and stood before me with his hands on his hips.
“What, is that a problem for you?” I asked when I wasn’t sure what his rigid stance meant.
“Hell no, get on your knees.”
Twenty-nine
Micah
I charged towards the door as it closed, and my heart felt like it was being squeezed within my chest. I knew I shouldn’t have let her go in alone, but I had realized it too late.
I could smell her blood.
I pushed open the door to find Sky sprawled out on the floor, her mother sat beside her rocking back and forth. Her eyes didn’t even spring to mine, she looked as if the blood on the floor was the only thing she could see.
I wanted to tear her apart, but I knew Sky was fading fast, as the blood continued to push out around her head quickly.
I picked her up and tore through the woods towards the hospital because it was faster than my car given that I couldn’t be stopped by lights or traffic.
I cradled her head as the blood spilt out over my hand and her breathing grew shallow.
