Harsh Light of Day

by Jaye A. Jones

CHAPTER 10

  He followed far behind them, not trying hard to stay hidden anymore. Annabelle needed to know Declan was there. He could feel her presence from more than twenty miles away. Colin and the others still had not arrived. At least that was something to be thankful for.

  Lena had tied the garments Annabelle had draped over her body for modesty. It was humorous to him how conscious Lena was of human customs. She always had been.

  But Declan’s mind was soon far away again, where it was slowly traveling all day. Twenty years of denying his thoughts to dwell on the past had caught up to him. Everything he repressed came flooding in, and the memories hurt and soothed all at once.

  He saw her for the first time a month before she turned seventeen, Declan learned later. Already more self-assured than most, Declan became fascinated by her, enchanted by her affect on others, long before he felt those affects himself.

  Like humans and vampires alike, Lena was not without her faults. Naïve and trusting, as nothing in her life had gone wrong yet and no one had treated her too unkindly, she was overly honest with her feelings and her opinions. Age taught people to be guarded with their thoughts, something Declan learned many times over, a long time ago. Lena saw the best in everyone, focused only on their best qualities, no matter how few those qualities might have been.

  He remembered she was wearing light purple, and her warm, hazel eyes reflected violet. It would come to be his favorite color on her, most likely because it was how she looked when he first knew.

  Declan felt a stab inside himself as he watched Lena looking almost human as she strolled with Annabelle so slowly. But only almost human.

  Sure, he had watched her from afar before they met, was entranced by her life and wondered who she was, but the thought of picking a mate, any mate, still held no appeal. This was nearly two months after he left Colin and the others. Luckily, there was no time limit on this quest. Declan was free to take as long as he desired to find the human he most wanted to make his companion. After all, time meant little to someone who would live forever.

  Declan knew there was no rush. The sense of urgency was his own making. He wanted to return to Colin’s side, to his family as soon as possible. It was where he belonged. Lurking among the humans, trying to find something, anything enticing in any of them beyond their blood felt disgusting.

  The day inevitably came when Declan was ready to give up, ready to forget about wasting his time in such an egocentric, fruitless manner. He considered grabbing any human female he came across. He was convinced whatever female he chose did not matter. They were all the same, and would never, could never excite him.

  But then Declan met her.

  “I keep seeing you,” were Lena’s first words to him.

  She had gotten up from her picnic table where she often gathered with her many friends outside her school for lunch on sunny days. Declan had seen her more than a dozen times by then, though she had only seen him on a few of those occasions. Never had he imagined a human would be so foolish, so fearless, as to walk straight up to him.

  Never had he imagined a human could detect where he was, since his ability of stealth was so great.

  Declan wore sunglasses, but slid them off slowly as he studied her. He felt it then, peering deep into her eyes reflecting violet. He felt the subtle pull to be near her, and how something about her made him feel like he was capable of greatness.

  “What is your name?” was all Declan could manage. He thought the sound of his voice would frighten her, or the strange color of his eyes, or perhaps the swift gracefulness of his clearly inhuman movements.

  She smiled instead, her warm, incandescent smile. “I’m Lena,” she replied, taking a step closer to him.

  To his surprise, he did not want to sink his teeth into her neck. Her smooth, tanned, little neck. The thought of seeing her dead in his arms, cold and empty made him hate himself a little, for the first time.

  Declan never bothered contemplating what he was. He was a vampire and that was enough of a definition for him. He drank blood, he honored his Master, he followed the rules. That was the way of things.

  But the brief image in his head, the fleeting thought of a reality that was always a possibility because he was a predator, and she was just a human, sent a tremor of self-loathing through Declan’s body. He was an evil monster, but only in that moment.

  You may be a monster, her voice rang in his head, but you don’t have to be evil.

  He did not believe that was when he first heard those words. Important memories about important people often blended together. Time did not matter. Feeling something at all was momentous

  Now, in the tranquility of the empty campus and the still, night sky, he certainly felt something. So many terrible things. Remorse, regret, self-hatred.

  And he hated Lena for what she had become, for what she allowed him to take from her. It was misplaced resentment, but Declan’s hatred of himself was so great, it spilled out onto those around him.

  Possibly he hated Colin most. After all, had he not been the real cause of all this heartache, in the end? Declan did not correct himself this time. Though Colin was his Master, Declan felt little desire to give him the benefit of the doubt. He could see what Colin had done, who he really was.

  Colin truly was an evil monster.

  At that moment, Declan felt a familiar presence from far away. He travelled slowly, and the waning moon would keep him at bay awhile longer. But Declan knew Colin could sense him as he could sense Colin.

  He had let his guard down. He had not been focusing. And now Colin would be on his way.

  Declan being there was his Master’s beacon. There was no more searching necessary.

  And Colin was enraged indeed.