“What in the name of the Holy Spirit are you? Speak, demon!” he shouted at me. I stood there proudly, and bared a fang-flashing smirk at him.
“That’s not very nice to refer to us as demons, ignorant foolish man. And it’s not very nice for a man to hit a lady. Don’t you know that God created a woman to be your equal? I dare you to try to lay a hand on me, the way you did to her. Come on,” I challenge him, waving my hand in a come-hither motion.
“Nayeru, do you know this monster? Tell me, you have not made a pact with the devil,”
I looked back and her eyes widened with fear, and through cries I was able to hear her tell me,
“Please, Enttu, back off, he will kill you!”
The empty threat didn’t faze me, the priest had done nothing more than bark commands and rage at me.
“You know his name Nayeru? So, you’ve let yourself be defiled by a bloody vampire?! You have been tarnished by none other than this blood sucking scum? You will be punished by death!!” he growled in rage.
He attempted to push me out of the way and lunge at her with the branding rod, but I grabbed him with one hand by the throat and seized the sizzling rod with the other. It was grilling the skin off my palm as soon as I grabbed it from him, so I threw it across the room into a pile of clothes in the corner. With a flick of the wrist, I then sent the priest flying in the same direction the brand went. His back fell right onto the white-hot metal rod, and it burned a hold right through his robe to the bare skin of his back, and he growled in pain. As fast as I could, I tended to Nayeru in the corner, and scooped her from her feet, cradling her in my arms, and covered her with my cape. I took off in flight into the night, and I held her warm, conscious body tightly against me. She was badly beaten, her vision blurred by fresh blue tears. The burn on my hand had begun to heal itself as I flew as fast as I could through the night.
“He or no one else will ever hurt you ever again, I’m going to take care of you,”
It was a promise I intended to keep. I flew swiftly into the castle, rushed past the court where my mother and sister drank, alarming them both, and went up to the nursing chamber we primarily used for newborns and new mothers, the chamber next to it for war casualties.
Tyro’s mother, Marion, had prepared dressings with various herbs and holistic medicines for Nayeru, and covered her wounds with damp cloth and herbs, the girl weaving in and out of state of awake as I held her hand the entire time. I must have stayed at her side without moving for three nights as she healed, ignoring my hunger and the need for blood. I couldn’t leave her alone, and I couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to her for a moment of my absence. She awoke after the three nights, and I had some of the castle servants prepare a bath, and one of the human cooks prepare a light dinner for her, as she obviously would be appalled by the thought of ingesting blood as her primary diet. I fed alone, until she was prepared to talk to anyone, and she sought me out in the star tower.
Without words, she leaped into my arms, and I caught her, holding her still, inhaling the strawberry scent of her raven hair. My sister had loaned her a blue satin dress that she looked absolutely stunning in, the corset really accentuating her small curves.
“Thank you for what you did for me. I know I can’t stay here for long and I will have to face my father eventually, I wanted to spend time with you before I have to go,” she told me, holding back tears.
Little to her knowledge, I had already arranged for her to stay the time she needed and wanted, after all, I was the Selenian prince, and my words carried heavy weight in the palace when I wanted them to.
“No, you don’t ever have to go back if you don’t wish to. I want you to stay here, keep on pursuing your studies. We have human chefs, martial artists, professors from all over the world, you have everything you need here, I can assure you,”
“Enttu, you know your family will not ever fully accept me. Your family is made up of all vampires, and I’m just a human who will never truly fit in,”
“Wrong,” I cut her off, “we’re dhampirs. At least my sister and I are, and for two, you forget my mother was herself once a human, she never mentioned it to you?”
“I don’t meddle into your family’s personal business that way, I know how universally minded you all seem, but it’s not tactful to me. Even as much as I want to, I must face my fears,”
“And you don’t have to face them alone, ever again, now that I’m in your life,”
She crossed her arms and scoffed at me through a smile,
“You really are the humblest person I know, but you have a heart of gold, your intentions are good, but you should save your energy for someone who isn’t troubled.”
This was the part where I always and often spoke without thinking, at most times this worked out like a charm for me.
“Nayeru, I love you,”
She raised a brow at me, and her face flushed a rose color.
“Excuse me?”
“I love you. You have really enlightened a lot of the darkness I carried after my father died and I went off into war. You amaze me every single day with your beauty and brilliant mind, and your sharp tongue. I didn’t think I could be in a serious romantic involvement, I had never given it much thought, but you happened, when I ran into you that night. I know you have endured a lot of pain and heartache yourself, and you are mistrusting, which I cannot blame you for. But ask yourself, have I ever been responsible for your pain?”
She looked around and darted her eyes nervously, unsure, before she softly replied, “Well, no. I’ve just been raised to never believe in love. Or maybe, I just have never really known what the true experience is,”
I approached her and kissed her softly, the light of the moon beaming a bluish white aura off our skin, and she kissed me back with equal emotion. My hand swept a lock of hers behind her ear, and I kept my hand on the side of her face, velvety soft and warm, and stared into her eyes with tenderness.
“I love you, Nayeru,”
“I love you too,” she said back, so warmly, it did melt my ice-cold heart that barely ever beat, except in the while that I fed.
“Marry me,” I told her, if not out of impulse, out of what I truly longed for, to start a family, and with none other than her.
“You’re bluffing,”
“Have I ever?”
She answered my question with another kiss, her fingers lacing themselves throughout my hair. While her eyes were closed, I slipped a gold ring of diamonds and a moon-shaped ruby on her finger, and she stared at the twinkling jewels in awe. I then lifted her up against the wall of the tower, and the kisses became heavier, followed by sighs, followed by the eventual consummation of our affection for each other. I had been her very first lover that night, and soon enough, the rest of the time that led up to our marriage a time later.
One month passed from my proposal which she had accepted gladly, and I was out in the streets of Lower Meytros to have an ale with several of my companions from war, some of them dhampirs and vampires, some of them humans who had fled Upper Meytros and joined us in battle. I’d gone back with Tyro to the castle, when his mother, Marion the witch, had told me that Nayeru wasn’t feeling well, and vomiting soon after every meal she tried to eat, as well as some of the electric lamps in the chambers going out where she expelled. I came to her side, and helped her clean up, holding her hair back. The smell of human vomit was putrid and unlike anything I’ve ever come across. I stayed here with her for a few more hours, leading her to our bedroom later and I slept beside her with her head nestled in my arm. My hand hung over her flat stomach, when I clearly felt a protruding blunt object slide underneath my palm and disappear back into her womb. I was no fool to know what was going on and what I had already had my suspicion about; she had become pregnant with my child.
We were married not much long after. In front of the entire population of several hun
dred dhampirs, vampires, humans, and witches, we wed in the front courtyard of the palace with the moon shining down on us, and Marion was our priestess. She summoned the goddess Selene to bless our matrimony, I wore a white ceremonial tunic of our tribe, and Nayeru wore a gown made of diaphanous white lace and pearl, radiant and splendid to look upon. After the ceremonial dance and the tradition of drinking a single drop of each other’s blood after cutting our hand with a golden dagger, we were escorted to an open canopy inside the Temple of Selene where we would later consummate our marriage in front of the priestess, following the mating incantation.
Later, in early 1888, my wife’s pregnancy became apparent. For her own safety, I didn’t allow her near the laboratories, and instead encouraged her on the arts and vampiric history. My mother was very mum the entire time about the sudden ordeal and didn’t lecture me much, except tell me that she hoped I was sure about my decision. I told her she was thinking like a mere mortal.
My sister and Tyro were very endeared at the thought of my wife and I bringing a new child into the family and entertained the thought of conceiving themselves. My wife’s pregnancy had been a very peaceful one at least in the start, with the exception that she was grew weaker and paler nearing the birth of our baby. I would go out to hunt at night for blood, and had our butlers make her what she could hold down and would provide enough nutrients. The color was draining from her face on a daily, and my worries only kept growing, as my lively, beautiful wife seemed to have the pregnancy take a toll on her.
CH.7
THE GRATEFUL UNDEAD
She was skin and bone except for her protruding baby bump, ripe like a fruit, which her frail frame was struggling to support. Her hair was thinning, her face was becoming as pale as mine naturally was, and she developed noticeable, dark circles under her eyes. My wife was very likely having the life drained out of her from the vampiric-human fetal survival mechanisms. Mother had pulled me aside one day and told me that I must act soon even if that meant doing the unthinkable, and that she herself endured transfiguration after she had my sister.
It had to be done swiftly and I would need to have an elder next to me to pry me off in case I lost control. Nayeru had become bed-ridden a few weeks shortly of childbirth and labor, and her breathing had become shallow and painful, her pregnant belly sketched everywhere with thick, blue and purple veins stretched around the forming, moving child, that deformed the belly with each kick and punch. My wife was in such severe pain, she’d become almost catatonic, her eyes glazed over in a trance. I couldn’t stand to see her suffer anymore and I did what I had to do, to ultimately save her life and the life of the baby. With a vampire elder standing behind me, I took my wife into my arms, and pushed her hair out of the way of her exposed, succulent jugular, that smelt hypnotically intoxicating, my mouth watered as I savored the impending taste. I looked at her once more, with love, before I bit into her neck, holding her still as she trembled in my arms, and her crimson nectar flooded into my mouth. She tasted divine, and the I felt myself getting drunken from euphoria, with adrenaline and life pumping in my veins, suckling from her neck faster and harder, gripping her so tightly I could have killed her if the vampire elder hadn’t pulled me away in time.
Blood ran down my lips and down the corner of my mouth, before I wiped it with the sleeve of my right hand. I was panting heavily like a rabid animal from the bloodlust. The elder called my attention,
“Quick, now she must drink your blood or her and the baby will die!”
I stood up, walked to the side of her bed, and bit deep into my own wrist until I tasted my blood combined with hers, and it poured down my sleeve in scarlet ribbons. My wife was almost unconscious now, and I pressed my bleeding wrist against her lips to initiate the taste and transformation, urging her to go ahead and drink. She hesitated, so I gently leaned her head back, slightly opened her mouth, and let a falling stream of my blood touch her tongue. It must have roused her out of her near-death state she was in. With more notable strength, she grabbed my wrist and started to drink my blood with more need, and her grip became so strong I couldn’t break free. My own vision became darker, and I felt my body hit the ground. My memory failed me temporarily as to where I was, when I was awakened by the cries of a newborn baby.
We welcomed a beautiful baby girl named Vanya Aurelia Tepes to the world, and she was my mirror, with pale, luminous almost-grey skin, white-blonde hair, electric blue eyes, and two tiny fangs, but her persona was very much her mother’s. I helped my wife raise this adorable child in her infancy, and shortly after she weaned off the breast, she started having a feigning for blood after she had bit me, and now feeding responsibilities fell upon me.
I hunted small animals for her, occasionally I would bring in spies from the human sector of Meytros whom were sent to infiltrate our village to seek out the whereabouts of my wife and our family. By then, Nayeru and Vanya were with our family for about three years, and I had sired my wife well since then. Other than the intruders which I made an example and a meal out of, the years with my wife and daughter were peaceful, and I felt a sense of full accomplishment and satisfaction with my life. I could’ve lived like this forever, attending soirees, dances, sleeping comfortably in our velvet-lined coffins, in the lavish life we had built for ourselves through years of very hard work and won and lost wars.
Vanya attended metaphysical and music lessons for the piano and harp and loved to sing for the village. She was a very lively little girl, always in extravagant dresses of brocade, velvet and taffeta, stockings, and glossy Mary-Jane shoes. I always adorned her hair with different colored ribbon for a different day. She planted her own rose garden outside of the temple of Selene and had made the palace into her own hide-and-seek playground. She was an excellent shapeshifter, inheriting that ability from me, and I always found her hanging in the highest corners of the ceiling in the form of a bat. She was a picky eater, and besides obviously needing blood, she also liked the taste of macarons baked by the human chefs, and that was about all she consumed. Her mother had taken a liking to performing opera at our coven gatherings and was sought after for every sort of ceremony amongst our people. Nayeru had also really perfected medicinal studies and had advanced into the anatomy and functions of dhampir and vampire physiology. She went without slumber for nights on end and would even shoo me away from the laboratory while she worked so meticulously. She discovered also that her touch could make electric lamps turn on and off at will and began to design a module very similar to a Tesla coil. This, we found out, stemmed from the maternal bloodline of witches she unknowingly descended from. Later did I know, she was related to Alucard’s muse, Elvira.
Nayeru was beautiful as a human, and she was even more splendid to behold after I transformed her into my vampire queen. Marion had told me that this wasn’t a coincidence; my wife had always been spiritually gifted, and that her transformation had only heightened her supernatural ability. When she studied and worked, I took to martial arts and sword fighting to keep my combat skills fresh should I have ever needed to fight again.
My daughter had come to where we slept for a period when she was almost 4 years old, with complaints of grey skinny monsters outside of her window, and silver disks in the sky that looked like the sky was falling. My scholarly years came to mind of broaching of the subject of extraterrestrials during our alchemy and history classes, and I knew that they did exist in the realm that our Goddess dwelled in as well, since they were mentioned in preserved texts and scrolls kept within the temple, and outside of the entrance, there were stone effigies resembling the description of a large head, oversized almond eyes, vestigial nose, short, slender frames. What shocked me is she hadn’t begun her education yet, nor did we teach her any of this matter ourselves.
Nayeru deducted all of this to our heightened metaphysical and supernatural abilities and hyper perception. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that otherworldly entities were trying to get in contact
with her or with us, as much as my wife brushed the matter off. Some of the projects she worked on were coming to fruition, such as providing electrical lighting for the entire palace, and later on, to the streets and other dwellings of the village, with no need for the modern day cabling that came to be another century later. I still didn’t fully understand how she was able to do it, but it involved alike metals and frequencies, to attract a needed number of electrons from one path to another to complete the unfinished atoms of the compounds of the metals. I never had an understanding for electricity the way she did, and the one time I wanted to know how one of her coils worked out of sheer curiosity, I wound up receiving a large surge of current from one end of my arm to the other, and had I been a mortal, I would have died of a stopped heart.
Soon enough, I felt as if I was constantly being watched myself, even during my hours of meditation in solitude, and one night, I had awakened to the silhouette of a being with a large head above me as I slept on my back next to my wife, but I could not distinguish a face to go along with it. A paralysis so severe overcame me, I was not able to move, much less, barely able to breathe, however it didn’t frighten me, as I had already seen a plethora of atrocities in my short lifetime here on Earth. Quite soon, I stood on a glass pathway in a large room made up of stars so nearby to me that I could reach out and grab them, and a large green and blue planet with rings much like Saturn above me in a proximity of a ceiling.
The Dhampir Dimension Page 18