Fated Realms: (Witchling Wars: Vampire Echelon Book 2)

by Shawn Knightley

  “Then why aren’t you the one hunting and then letting me just drink from you? I might not be able to stop.”

  He turned around to face me with a severity I hadn’t seen since he first held me in his arms and tore a hole into his wrist to feed me his vampire blood as I lay dying. “Because you need to experience it first hand. I won’t always be there and you might have to feed on your own. You must learn for yourself. It will help you over time as you learn to control it.”

  I huffed in irritation, wishing the dreaded dryness in my throat would go away. I needed a human close by to tear into. And yet, I was fearful of doing it all at the same time. I spent so many years in the service of protecting life. The vixra and other witchlings alike. Now I had to protect humans from myself while also surviving on their life force.

  “What do I do? Just find someone and tear into them? Or use a knife like vampires always do to hide their tracks?”

  He smirked, liking that I was at least a little acquainted with vampire tactics.

  “It’s not like vampires are subtle, are they?” I said.

  “We can’t help it. We represent the most basic desires of both humans and witchlings. Our urges are carnal and barbaric. I teach vampires how to find peace in the barbarism.”

  His voice was strong and smooth at the same time. As if he was still that vampire I met in Scotland two centuries ago trying to court a young woman who didn’t know any better. A young woman that melted at his knees just like all the other girls. I was an easy target back then. Not anymore.

  The sound of a car drew near. I could hear the engine running as the tires slapped the concrete of the highway several hundred feet away. I squinted my eyes to see better. And to my shock, it was easy. My eyes focused on the distance and I could see the vehicle as if it was only twenty or so feet away. It was a police car.

  “What are they doing this far from Denver?” I asked. “Their investigation couldn’t have led them this far away.”

  “Their reasons are of no concern for us. At least not yet. He might have a home in the nearby mountains or he could be changing shifts with another group of officers. Unfortunately, he’s going to be late for the meetup.”

  I smiled. I actually smiled. The thought of trapping those in the car and making a meal out of them excited me. Maybe it even thrilled me.

  I shook my head, ashamed of the thoughts running through my mind. This wasn’t me. Or at least it didn’t use to be. I didn’t have violent thoughts like this. Unless it came to thoughts of hurting Tobias. I had plenty of those over the years.

  “Embrace it,” he said, seeing the reluctance written all over my face. “It’s the only way you’re going to survive.”

  Then he fled and I was left with no other option but to follow. I trailed along behind him only to see that the cliff extended about another thirty feet. We covered the distance in what seemed like nothing. Tobias jumped from the side and prepared for the long drop below. I watched as his feet hit the ground with ease. He didn’t even look phased by the sudden stop. He was in total control of his body. Unlike those vampires I saw chasing after my Jeep just outside Georgetown.

  ‘You’re in a class all by yourself.’

  He peered back up at me, clearly amused by my shock.

  “It’s not every day I see people escape death, so excuse me if I’m a little stunned by seeing what a vampire can do up close,” I said from high above.

  He heard me with perfect clarity.

  “Come,” he said, extending his hand as if the moment was going to escape us if we didn’t move quickly.

  ‘You know as well as I do that the cop doesn’t stand a chance. No one would.’

  I closed my eyes and jumped off the cliff, letting my arms extend beside me and only opening them after I started free falling. I could do it with such grace. Such finesse. My feet didn’t touch the ground with quite the same amount of softness that Tobias had managed but I knew that was one skill I would be more than willing to practice on my own.

  Gravity didn’t work the same way for a vampire. It pulled them down like everyone else but not with such harshness. I wondered if that was how Christophe handled it when I threw him across Tobias’s apartment. He felt it in slower motion than a human or witchling would. He could control the collision. Not that I would have noticed. It was still much faster than human eyes could see.

  “Nicely done,” he complimented me. I was tempted to throw a sneer at him, not wanting to accept the compliment given that he knew he’d done it better. But I restrained myself. Instead, I listened for the cop car. It was coming in our general direction. I ran for it and Tobias followed. The hardest part about moving so fast was the brush on the ground from fallen tree branches and random pieces of debris in the forest. Remnants of snow turned to ice and the rocks that fell from the high cliff aging over time.

  I reached the highway and stood in the center of it, waiting for the cop car to approach.

  “Get out of the street,” Tobias ordered me.

  “Why?”

  “We don’t want to kill him. We’re only going to feed on him.”

  “So?”

  “So you don’t want to startle him by standing in the middle of the road. He might crash his car. Look at the drop off to your right”.

  I looked to the side to see that he was right. The mountain had a steep drop off by the road and the cop would likely crash to the bottom if he swerved to miss me. Then I wouldn’t have a fresh meal or a clear conscience.

  I rushed to the other side and hid behind the trees. Watching. Waiting. Anticipating with an excitement that I had never felt before. I was going to taste real blood. Not just Tobias’s blood from having fed on a human or my own blood. But human blood. What vampires survived on for centuries. Just the thought was maddening.

  “Focus,” Tobias scolded me. I didn’t like being ordered about. Not by the vixra and certainly not by Tobias. Not that it mattered. I needed to listen. I had to hear what he was saying and apply it. Otherwise, I would do something I knew I’d live to regret. I might make a mistake. I might take a life I didn’t want to take.

  Even as the thought occurred to me, it didn’t bother me as much as it once did. The thought of killing indiscriminately like vampires did was horrifying. And yet, as I stood there, waiting for the car to approach, my empathy was getting smaller and smaller. The value I placed on the cop’s life was not nearly as important to me as it was only a matter of seconds ago. And I couldn’t decipher if that was because I was thirsty for the warmth of human blood or because my transition into a vampire was getting closer and closer to being complete.

  The lights from the car started getting brighter. The car moved over the horizon and was only a matter of yards away.

  “Ouch!” I screamed, grabbing my side and staring daggers at Tobias. When I looked down at my side I saw a small pocket knife stuck inside my gut. “What did you do that for?”

  “To make you look like a victim in need of help. Now go back on the road and wave your arms around. Get him to stop and beg him to take you to the hospital.”

  He yanked out the knife and I gave a very unpleasant grunt.

  “Go now! Before it heals!” he commanded, shoving me forward and onto the road.

  I grabbed my gut with my left hand and stumbled onto the highway like I was badly hurt. If I were human, it might have been a deadly blow. But it wasn’t. I could already feel the skin starting to heal back over the wound. I had to do this fast.

  I limped forward and waved my right arm about, just like Tobias said.

  “Help!” I screamed. “Please help me!”

  The cop inside the car came to a gradual stop just ten feet away from me and hurried out of the car with his hand over his gun. I could sense his hesitation right away.

  ‘This guy is used to being fooled by common criminals.’

  “How bad are you hurt?” he asked me, looking at the gushing blood rolling down my side. Little did he know I wasn’t bleeding anymore.


  “I don’t know. I need to find a hospital.” With that, I let my body tumble to the ground. I lay flat on my back and stared up at the stars like I was going to pass out. Then I let my left hand over the wound drop and fell to my side as if I was losing too much blood to even stay conscious.

  “Jesus,” he swore as he finally let his guard down and bent over to check my pulse. I closed my eyes and waited for the right moment.

  I heard the white noise of his radio. “I have a stab wound victim. Send a helicopter to-”

  I never let him finish the sentence. My eyes shot open and I knocked the radio out of his hand. It broke into several pieces on the pavement.

  I reached for his neck and drew him in so fast that he didn’t know what had hit him. Then I bit down as hard as I could into his neck before he even had time to scream. My fangs weren’t fully grown yet but they could still do enough damage to give me a good taste of the blood churning away inside of him.

  The hot crimson liquid flooded into my mouth and I swallowed as hard as I could, trying to get as much inside of me as possible. Only I wasn’t aware of how fast that was. He started screaming only to stop fighting me in a matter of seconds. If I were still a witchling, his strong blows to my sides with his fists would have been enough to stop me. Or at least slow me down until I healed. Not anymore. He was mine before he could reach for his gun. And the taste of his blood was far too divine for me to let go.

  His body got weaker and weaker. He was getting limp. But I didn’t want to stop. I couldn’t. The warmth of his blood was too entrancing.

  “G,” Tobias spoke from a few feet away. “Don’t make me stop you. It will only hurt him more.”

  I opened my eyes and forced myself to stop drinking. And I hated Tobias for reminding me of what I said only moments ago. That I didn’t want to kill. Because I did. I wanted to feel his heart stop. I wanted to drain him dry. I needed to feel his life force abandon his body and rush into me, feeding me for days on end before I needed another life in my hands.

  “Stop!” Tobias hollered at me.

  I let the tension in my jaw relax and slowly pushed the cop off my chest. I had a new target in mind. The asshole that was telling me to stop feeding. What right did he have? What authority? He said we were going to be partners. I spent the last two centuries following orders because of him. Never again.

  I rushed to my feet with the cop’s blood still dripping from my mouth. I licked my lips, savoring the taste of his life force still trickling down the back of my throat and soothing the icy dryness lurking in the background. I wanted more. And Tobias dared tell me to stop?

  Tobias threw his hands up in front of him with a chuckle. “Don’t blame me,” he said. “You said you didn’t want to kill him.”

  I ran to Tobias and thrust my fists into his chest, letting the crowning magic inside me burst from my hands. He flew back a solid fifty feet before crashing into the road. Then he tumbled to the edge and was hanging onto the side by his bare hands.

  ‘So much for your graceful landings.’

  He pulled himself up and over the edge with ease and a nasty look on his face. He was ready to fight back. Good! It would only be more interesting if he fought back. I was stronger than him now. A position I had never been in before. Not with anyone. Not even with humans. I had magic and they didn’t. But I was never truly safe among them with my magic being so unpredictable. All that was gone now. There was nothing but the taste of blood and the bright red magic coursing over my skin and feeding me with more lust for whatever I wanted. And Tobias wasn’t going to stop me from having it.

  3

  “Do you feel that inside of you?” he snarled at me.

  “Can’t you tell?” I hollered back.

  “That’s the euphoria. All vampires feel it. But when a witchling becomes a vampire, it’s even stronger. And with you having crowning magic in your system, it’s going to take a lot to control it. You have great strength within you. It’s going to take even more will power to keep it under control.”

  “What if I don’t want to keep it under control?” I hissed. “What if it feels good to actually have the upper hand for the first time in my life? What if I choose to give into it?”

  I rushed for him again, wanting to see him go flying over the cliff side. Only this time, he wouldn’t have control over his fall. I wanted to see his arms and legs whip about, uncontrolled and fearing the sudden stop as his bones smashed into the rocks below.

  He stopped me. I guess he must have expected what I was about to do. Or what I was feeling. His emotions were so potent. A mixture of glee, frustration, and above all… worry.

  ‘You’re worried about me? A few centuries too late.’

  He blocked me as I ran. I collided into his strong arms. He threw me against the nearby rocks and held me down by my wrists. Then he pressed the full length of his body into mine and forced my eyes to meet his. I let out a snarl. The sound of it stunned me. It was louder than I knew I could project my voice. I heard it echo from the rocks and through the trees.

  “Then you will have made my effort to save you over the years a complete joke,” he roared. “You will have made Lenora’s effort to free us both from the vixra a joke. And you will make our attempts to prevent humans from finding out more about our kind a joke. War will be inevitable. But the way it happens can still be controlled.”

  He wasn’t convincing me that it wasn’t a good idea to tear his throat out. Far from it. I wanted to see his blood. To taste it. Did he have any human blood left in his body? I sniffed at his skin. He let me. It had been a while since he fed but there was still a trace of human blood inside of him. I could smell it.

  Without warning, he pushed me into his neck and I bit down hard onto his skin. It was easier this time. My fangs were getting longer. I dug two holes into his skin and sucked hard. He let his hand trail through my hair and held me from the back of my neck as I drank from him. The instant I did, I started to calm down. Not quite as fast as I’m sure he would have liked but it was an improvement in my mood.

  When I pulled away he was looking at me with a deep sense of satisfaction.

  “Why did I just do that?” I asked, feeling unsure of myself for the first time since he stabbed me with the pocket knife.

  “You were turned into a vampire with my blood. You’ll find it has a much more soothing quality than the blood you drink from humans. Human blood will give you a euphoria that makes vampires even more rabid before it gradually eases. My blood, however, will always satisfy you.

  ‘Is that why you’re incapable of leaving Victor behind? Being near him calms you? What control does he have over you?’

  I gently pushed him away. Not wanting to appear ungrateful but also not wanting to seem too eager to touch him. Because to my shame, I wanted to. The same cravings I had stirring inside made me want to feel any sort of release that I could. His blood wasn’t enough. Only I was wondering if my body would want more.

  I began pacing back and forth, trying to understand what my body was doing. Other than betraying me. I needed a release. Whatever this was… the euphoria he spoke of, it was making me want to break free of my body. My skin was a cage. I couldn’t escape it.

  ‘I can’t let him tempt me. Not like he did when I was young. I’m not that young woman anymore.’

  Tobias didn’t let me move too far away. He pulled me in and forced me to feel his body close to mine. Then he tilted my head up to look at him right in the eyes. The wound I created on his neck was already gone. The two little marks had healed. And for the first time since I was a young kruxa living in Scotland all those years ago, I felt drawn to him. And he knew it.

  He took out a handkerchief from his back pocket and handed it to me. “You might want to clean up,” he said smoothly. “You made a mess of yourself.”

  I looked away in embarrassment. He’d done it to me again. He’d made me regret feeling the least bit vulnerable.

  A loud cawing sound reached my ears from high above. Onl
y it wasn’t an owl this time. I recognized it right away. It was a red-tailed hawk.

  “How could you?” Kitty’s voice slithered through my mind, reminding me of what I left behind. And worse, what I had just done. She saw everything.

  The cop began to stir a few feet away. He got on his hands and knees, crawling like an infant trying to reach his car to call for help.

  Tobias walked over to him and rolled the officer onto his back with his foot. Then he grabbed him by the shirt and gazed into his eyes, luring away all his memories of what happened and replacing them with something else.

  “We have to go,” Tobias said as he let down the cop with a smack on the pavement.

  This time, I didn’t argue. I followed him as we ran back to the entrance of the cave inside Mount Evans and down the tunnels to the caverns hidden inside, all the while hearing Kitty’s voice in my mind. Her words hurt me more than the realization that I had nearly killed a man from the vampiric blood lust coursing through my veins.

  ‘Kitty, please don’t abandon me. Not now. I need that stupid bird now more than ever.’

  I had only been a vampire for a matter of hours and I could feel my senses expanding. From sounds in nature to the pumping of human blood to the way a human breathes so deep. And it was all so fascinating. Like a new place I had never visited. Only this place I moved to permanently. There was no going back.

  Lenora lay on the bed in a tucked away section of the caverns deep inside the mountain. Tobias made sure that the other vampires in the coven didn’t bother her. Even so, she didn’t take such chances. The doorway leading to her private quarters were tucked away and hidden with a special luxra magic. I stood in front of the invisible barrier for a solid ten minutes before I figured out how to step through it. For the first time in my life, I was powerful enough to overshadow luxra magic. And perhaps even vixra magic. I could feel the power of it running through my blood, lingering inside and replenishing me.

  I raised my hand up and carved into the space just like I would carve open a vixra tunnel. I could see blue light tear through the air as if I was cutting away a piece of fabric, splicing it open like it was the most fragile thing in the world. Then I stepped through it and entered her candlelit room. The doorway was hinged with a special metal and fastened into place. I wondered if Tobias made it himself to give her privacy. I could envision him using elemental magic to carve the tunnels like humans would a mine. Moving stones and earth with ease as he made a new nest for his coven.