“She might try to find another body to inhabit now, yes. I don’t know how we will break the hold she has… she’s blocked Juniper’s telepathic reach and there are still some vampires out there, going about unchecked. I dread to think how many have been born since Leticia died and your sister… took her place.”
Jaimie gulped and as we rounded a corner, walking in the direction of a car most likely hers, she asked, “How is Jodie? Sorry, Juniper.”
“Not the same,” I replied, “not the same.”
Jaimie unlocked the car door and was about to sit in the driver’s side.
“Let me drive?”
“You can drive?”
“I can fly, too, you know?” I winked.
“Okay,” she allowed.
I helped her into the passenger side and with great effort, she managed to bring the belt round her stomach. “I don’t want to go home. Louis was staying there and it’s trashed. He got angry… he was… so upset about the change.”
She looked down at her lap and swallowed her sadness. I understood more than most that immortality wasn’t as glamorous as expected. One lifetime was more than enough, so long as it contained love.
“We can go to a hotel and you can rest and prepare for the birth, yes?”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“Let’s go.” I stared the engine and decided we had to stay within the city walls, just in case she went into labour.
NOT more than an hour later, I had secured a suite for us at the Marriott and Jaimie was sleeping in a big, queen-sized bed. For hours, I listened to her chest heaving up and down and often, she had to roll over to get comfortable again. For a woman in her situation, she was fairly calm and content.
As I spent the day watching the sun cross the sky, I was arrested by someone trying to break into my thoughts. It wasn’t Juniper, it was Leticia.
I never took you for chivalric, rescuing the girl?
Go to Hell.
Ha. Maybe later. Right now, I have a body to find. A better body.
Juniper, no! Oh god, no!
Why do you continue to meddle? I will never love you!
It doesn’t matter if you never love me. You will serve me. As will Louis. Come back home at once and be with us. Juniper is a minor piece of this mess. She could never rule Valdoria, not as I have, you know that now. She holds no comparison to me.
Be gone. I want nothing more to do with you. I snapped shut my mind from her and she was gone from my thoughts.
I reached out for Juniper’s mind, but she was unresponsive. I reached for Louis and what I saw through his eyes, across the oceans and land, frightened me to death. He woke next to Juniper and turned to say to her, “I love you.” As they fell into each other’s arms, he didn’t realise the swap had already taken place.
Love. Ha. I shook my head. He had no idea what love was. In his vampire form, he was a truer version of the man he’d held back as a human. As a vampire he was full of hate and rage, despair and temper. Leftover issues from his former life would never resolve now, such as abandonment at the hands of a father and the love for his wife that was never the same again after he cheated on her behind her back. Now I felt sort of glad I had stuck my cock into the furthest reaches of his belly and made him squeal like a stuck pig. The bad boy. He was rubbish at concealing his mysteries, his secrets, and I had read them all during the times I recently fed from him. Feed deep and you might discover much more about the person than they would ever tell you.
I would never tell Jaimie what I knew except I was hyper-aware Louis’s bereft soul would easily be turned to the dark side because of the sins he harboured, still. He and Leticia would be terrible together.
During the rocky period of Louis and Jaimie’s marriage last year (before he even changed), he let one of the secretaries he worked with ride him in the staff toilets. It happened once and he hated himself afterwards. Jaimie probably never imagined him capable of doing something so base, but people’s ineptitudes could drive them to stupidity I supposed. He yearned and ached for his beautiful, luxurious wife to love him again, but he was useless at communication. When she voiced her fears about starting a family, he took it as a rejection and didn’t think to find out more. He didn’t know it was the mother-in-law that had put the fear of having a family of her own into Jaimie. Stupid boy, for that was all he was.
I pulled my mental block up and held it tight in place. I didn’t want anyone finding Jaimie and I, not now. I had to protect her because she was an innocent in all this.
I moved to the side of the bed she occupied and sat on the edge, watching as she stirred from sleep. I started to get up, not wanting to wake her, when she reached for my hand and asked sleepily, “Why don’t you bite me? Surely, you want to.”
“I want to, but I won’t. You would surely taste as delicious as you smell but I won’t bite you.”
Her eyes flickered open and she asked in a pained voice, “Did he not love me enough?”
My jaw set and I had to bite my tongue. “Dearest Jaimie, when we make the change, hardly anything of our old soul carries over. We become our demon selves. What pieces of our souls do carry over are usually the worst pieces. He must feel he never got enough of you and he just wanted to take what else he could… that is, in biting you. We don’t just drink blood Jaimie, we drink souls.”
She sniffed and smiled a sad smile. “You’re trying to make me feel better, but it won’t work.”
She brought the covers around her body and I helped secure them tight around her.
“You should eat, Jaimie. What about a sandwich? I could ask for one to be sent up?”
“What? And have those women on the desk slaver all over you again?”
I sniggered. Women weren’t very good at hiding the effect I had on them. I was a vampire, naturally attractive and with a sexual magnetism they would never understand until after I took what I wanted from them.
“Where did you get all that money from, by the way?” she asked, suspicious.
I carried a lot of money around with me, usually euros, but I had recently made a stop and exchanged all I had for pounds. “I have lived a very long time, Jaimie. I perfected the art of pick-pocketing long, long ago. Only the rich, mind you. I would never take from the poor.”
“Oh, so a moral vampire are you? A bloodsucking Robin Hood?”
I smirked and picked up the hotel room phone, dialling room service. “A club sandwich please and some cake, a glass of milk and some fruit… yes… whatever you have.” I sounded impatient because I was. I could have gone down to the kitchens and gotten all the provisions myself already but for the sake of propriety and keeping Jaimie happy, I wouldn’t.
“I’m not a child, I could’ve ordered for myself,” she growled, and I realised she was much different to her twin. This one was easily hurt and offended, much more sensitive and shy, and altogether Juniper’s opposite.
“I am used to women who like me to be in charge,” I returned, giving the only excuse I had.
“Sorry,” she replied, “could you switch the TV on and help me sit up?”
After I helped her get comfortable, some nature programme on the TV, the food arrived and despite some curious looks from the waiter over the woman in bed with a huge belly (staying in a hotel room), I tipped him £20 anyway.
She ate ravenously, hungrier than she’d realised, and after she was full of milk, cake and sandwiches, she asked, “What is it you know about Louis you don’t want to tell me?”
I sat on the vacant side of the bed and stared into her eyes. “How do you know there is anything?”
“I know, feel it,” she replied, chewing her top lip.
Surveying her then, even though she looked the same as her sister in every way, I was faced with a different person altogether, a soul which when you looked closer, made her seem so much different to Juniper. Jaimie’s mannerisms were twitchy and open, nervous and jumpy. She’d been kept in the dark about her family’s problems for so long, it was no wonder
she was a nervous wreck.
“Essentially your husband is dead, Jaimie. The demon living in his body now is not the same.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
Where to start with the revelations? He fucks men now too, Jaimie. Most vampires do switch sexuality, actually. But oh, if you really want to know… he thinks he’s in love with your vampiric sister and he cheated on you last year.
Surely two babies would slide onto this bed very soon if I laid all that out for her (spending time with Juniper had given me all these modern sayings I was growing fond of!).
“Please tell me what you meant,” I asked, weary.
“He’s done something bad, hasn’t he? I can tell.”
“Yes.”
“What, exactly?”
“He should tell you himself, though I very much think he’s too buried in your sister to worry about your fragile heart right now.” It slipped out.
She burst into tears and screeched, “That’s not fair, Fabien!”
So, she remembered my name.
“It wasn’t.” I tried to touch her hand, but she dragged it away. “I’m sorry. It isn’t fair for me, either. I waited for centuries to be reunited with her and the moment Louis shows up, I am tossed to the side, rendered incomparable to his fresh blood.”
I turned from her and walked away, standing with my back to her as I watched the sun drop below the horizon. The dark setting in, my mind eased a little, though having not slept in so long was starting to take effect.
“Why shouldn’t we do the same, Fabien?” Her voice was seductive, laced with hurt. “Take me and pleasure me, feast from me. Enjoy my fullness.”
I turned and she stared at my erection, my cock instantly hard with the words feast and fullness. She looked delicious and was human. I hadn’t slept with a human in centuries. Oh, but to feel the heartbeat of a human woman against my tongue…
“You’re only saying that because you’re upset. Upset, and full of hormones.” I could smell them, like catnip. I rose to my feet and walked round the bed, heading for the bathroom. “I’ll run a bath for you. It might help you relax and bring on the labour. You need to give birth soon; you’re most in danger while vulnerable like this.”
In the neat but rather unstylish toilette, I swirled some bath suds and waited for steam to fill the room.
“Jaimie, come. Or do you need help?”
“I need help,” she called from the bedroom.
I waited until the tub was full and left the room, heading back to the bed to assist her in lifting from the mattress. She clutched my hands as I helped her; clearly it was her back causing her grief.
“Ooohff,” she complained.
I walked her to the room, my hands guiding her by the shoulders.
“I’ll leave you.”
“I can’t get in without help.”
I considered her request for a moment before I watched her draw her nightdress over her head. It was, after all, a roll-top tub on large feet, making it high enough it was difficult to climb into. I held her hand and tried to avert the sight of her loveliness as she stepped into the tub, relying on me catching her if she slipped.
Sinking into the deep waters, she shut her eyes and sighed. “Oh this feels so good. She keeps cat litter trays in her tub and I didn’t want to risk it.”
Typical witch, I thought, putting felines before her human daughter.
“I’ll…” I paused, wondering what the hell to do, “…go and sit and wait.”
“Don’t. I’m frightened. I don’t want to be alone.”
I stared at her, wondering if she was really frightened. Her pupils were of normal size, her heart rate raised because of the babies but not extreme. I judged she wanted my company, that was all.
I sat on the closed toilet lid, trying to quell the exuberant length in my pants. She was naked, smelt delicious, and I was perpetually amorous—unavoidable in my vampire state when in the company of an exquisite human female. I couldn’t avoid the sight of her natural beauty, pale and pink. Her breasts large, her nipples were bigger than Juniper’s ever would be.
“His workplace kept ringing… asking where he was,” she began, getting her worries off her chest, “I… didn’t know what to say except to suggest we’d split up and he’d run off with another woman.”
I frowned. This was all my fault. I didn’t have anything to say, but I could see from the way her pretty face was squirming in anxiety, she had plenty to impart.
“When it was first revealed I was carrying twins, he started going out drinking a lot more. One night a few months later, in July in fact, he came home like he had on Christmas Eve… rampant and with strange puncture wounds here,” she gestured at her jugular. “Prior to that, I’d wondered what his problem was, why he was drinking so much. After all, our issue seemed to be the question of starting a family and with twins on the way, what could be wrong with the world? Anyway, all my fears were swept away when I woke up to find a grey-skinned beast like you next to me. I realised immediately my husband had been taken. Even though I denied what was happening, like I denied what you were when we first met, I still knew what he had transformed into.”
“Jaimie, I don’t know what to say—”
She held a hand up. “You’ve spent time around him since. Why has he done this to me? He wanted a family… I gave him that, but more drinking… now this. As a vampire he wasn’t the same but I was determined to love him still, but he just couldn’t help himself… he tried to BITE ME!”
She burst into tears and I rushed over, taking her wrists, trying not to peek beneath the bubbles. “Please Jaimie, for the sake of your unborn children, try to calm down.”
She nodded, every fear she’d been holding in pouring from her. She was stronger than I ever realised, a little fighter beneath her shy exterior. I massaged the rocketing pulse in her wrists, trying to help calm her, though I had to fight with every ounce of me not to bite her, to touch her, have her.
“Tell me what I have left, tell me,” she begged, her lip wobbling, her heart breaking.
I reached beneath the water, touching her swollen abdomen. “Love, you have love. I’ve looked for centuries, never finding it. I feel the love you already have for these angels. It’s special.”
She wiped her palm under her eyes. “Doesn’t she love you?”
I shook my head. “Vampires don’t love. Rarely, if they do. When I see, I see through a hunter’s eyes, and humans are my prey. Every vampire is out for his or herself and love isn’t possible, not for us. We’re creatures of excess, of indulgence. We stray, act on impulse, without thought or guilt. We’re soulless, Jaimie. I thought what I had with Juniper, or Jodie, was real. Now she is a she-vampire, she’s the same as the rest of us. Needy. Demanding. A slave to her urges, her impulses, her immediate desires.”
Jaimie calmed and I lowered to the floor, sitting instead of kneeling. I held her hand on the side of the tub but now I was sitting, she could no longer see my face beyond the high walls of her luxury bath. Her fingers were dainty but calloused.
“What happened? I mean, what’s the story?” she asked, “with you and my sister? Obviously, there is more I don’t know.”
So, I told Jaimie about my life; how I met Juniper over three centuries ago, how our queen killed her for daring to love me. I described how fraught I was for hundreds of years, so certain one night with Juniper was all the happiness I was ever going to experience—and I wanted it back. I’d hoped she might reincarnate in another lifetime and I’d wasted years hoping, waiting.
“You’ve been so alone,” Jaimie said, her voice so gentle, soft, and tender. She didn’t see the beast anymore, she saw me.
I lifted so I could look into her eyes, peeking over the top of the tub. “There’s nothing left, Jaimie. I feel as empty and useless as you. I wish I never bit Louis and I would never have found her, never have known the loss I know now. I waited for so long and in seconds, she decided I wasn’t enough. She lured Louis into
our bedroom.”
“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you. It just means she’s not mature enough yet to know what is right in front of her. You said it yourself… your kind are different and she’s just doing what those do when in Rome.”
I snickered at her ‘worldly’ view of it all. “That’s sweet of you to try to make me feel better, but I can’t undo how I feel now. She doesn’t just use his body, she speaks romantically with him… kisses and cuddles, with him. Even Leticia had respect enough to segregate fucking from love… and we always slept in her bed, with no other partners once bedtime arrived.”
She crooked one eyebrow. “You said vampires don’t care for affection, for love?”
I grunted. “Time to leave the tub. You’re pruning.”
I fetched a towel while she stood with some effort and stepped out, falling into my arms in a clumsy fashion. I wrapped her up but the bath sheet didn’t fit all the way around her, a gap in the side showing how large her belly was side-onwards. She waddled towards the bed and not drying off properly, climbed back in still damp and naked.
Folding my arms, I tried to focus on the rubbish on the television. Nothing was helping. I wanted to weep. How was she not on her knees, giving into despair?
“Do you have money? Are you secure?” I was trying to show I cared.
“I have some, set aside. I will have to report Louis missing and try to seek life insurance. I don’t know how I will manage maternity leave when I work for myself and there’s no other money coming in.”
“I’ll get you money. Stick with me… everything will be okay. Don’t worry.”
She blinked fast, trying to stay awake, the bath having made her lethargic. She smiled, but it was such a tragic smile. “I can’t remember the last time I didn’t worry.”
She slept, but her cares didn’t leave her. I saw into her mind and experienced her dreams with her as she lay there…
◊◊◊
DESPITE her desperate need for peaceful sleep, Jaimie remembered the last time she saw Louis. She was staying at her mother’s house of her own free will, trying to figure out her next move. Her husband had become a creature of depravity; she saw it in his eyes, didn’t need him to admit a thing.
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