Alicia Selleck looked at Avice, who did not have the heart to meet his mother’s gaze.
“Kill her, tonight.”
“But mother,” Avice tried to cajole her, but Alicia was quick to slap him across the face.
“You are a Selleck. A member for the ‘Keepers of the Blade.’ Which is more important to you? Your status, or the love of a dangerous girl?”
“That girl helped us win a war,” he said quietly. His hand touched the bruised spot where his mother had just slapped him.
“She did, and now she is collateral damage.”
“You can’t possibly mean that,” Avice said, horrified. “Is this how we repay her for helping us vanquish the Bloodlust Clan?”
“Yarra is an Oracle. Her kind is too powerful to be kept alive, Avice,” Jared Selleck said. His voice was softer than Alicia’s, although just as resolute. “There will come a time when she might turn against us.”
“I can’t believe this,” Avice said, stepping back. “You are just the same as the Bloodlust Clan. You don’t care about all lives, just the lives of those weaker than you!”
Alicia spoke up. “Everything we do is for the survival of our clan. And Yarra, as much as she has helped us, is detrimental to our existence.”
“But I love her!” Avice exclaimed.
“Does she love you?” Alicia said quietly.
“All these years of being together, and she has not had a vision of you?”
“Not even once,” Avice echoed softly, looking thunderstruck.
“Kill her tonight,” Alicia said, pressing a small handgun into Avice’s hand. “Only then will I know that you are a worthy member of our Order.”
The vision vanished in a dazzling flurry of broken images, like butterflies flitting away from a meadow of flowers.
When she returned to reality, Yarra stared at herself in the mirror. She did not recognize the girl who looked back into those accursed eyes. The brush hung prematurely in her hand.
The hair was brushed long, and messy in its unruly curls, just the way Avice had loved them. And tonight, he would be coming to kill her.
Chapter-9
Back To The Present…
Yarra lied awake, her eyes staring intently into the wall. The shot from Avice’s handgun did not come.
Avice’s cologne still lingered in the air. His presence filled the room, creating a tense atmosphere within them. His breath was short and harsh.
She understood now why the Sellecks wanted her dead. She was used goods. What was worse, the power that she harbored was one that was feared by Alicia Selleck. And those who were gifted with such potent superpowers did not deserve to live in her eyes. And she could also comprehend how Avice had been coerced into killing her. Family came first, to many people.
He had also been convinced by his mother that Yarra did not have his heart.
“I do love you,” Yarra spoke out suddenly.
A small but audible gasp came from behind her. She heard the rustle of his clothing, but did not turn around to face him.
“You knew I was here?” His shallow breath came out, hoarse.
“I knew all along, Avice. I knew that this would happen from the day that I first saw you. From the moment that we sat down on our first date together at that café across the street, I knew that you would kill me. I just did not know why.”
Avice did not speak. She took the opportunity to wipe her eyes. The white walls became blurred from the tears welling up.
“You often asked me of our vision together. For months, I could not answer you, Avice. Because, it was this. This was the only future I could foresee for us. And in those visions, it always ended up with you killing me,” Yarra said, sniffing. “How was I to tell you such a morbid prediction?”
“Why didn’t you?”
He too, had started crying. There was a loud metallic thud on the floor where the gun was dropped. Running to her, he grabbed at her shoulder to make her face him. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this?”
“Because I do not care, Avice. Even if you were to kill me, I would die knowing I enjoyed every moment spent with you in the past year?”
Avice sobbed and smiled weakly. “Even with the war and all?”
“War and all,” she nodded. She reached up to wipe the tears from his face.
They held each other for a while, neither one knowing their future destinies. Avice leaned in and kissed her on the lips, procrastinating on the need to worry about what will happen.
“I know why your mother wants me dead,” Yarra said, the moment his lips parted from hers.
The bewilderment in his eyes could not be contained. “How…?”
“She is right. I am starting to get better control of my power. I can not only foresee the future, but see that which has transpired. I am a demon, Avice. Not an Oracle who holds answers. My Eye sees too much, it can know too much, it can pervade all.”
“Baby…, I…, I…,” Avice stuttered.
“I will not hold it against you if you kill me now,” she admitted. It pained her to see him in such a bad way, torn between choosing the expectations of his family and matters of the heart.
War was not a life that she would have chosen willingly, or easily. If she remained alive, there would be the need to constantly live in fear, to look over her shoulders. Perhaps today she would be able to escape the ‘Keepers of the Blade’ with her precognition, but until when?
Alicia Selleck would not rest till Yarra’s body was washed up lifeless in the shores of a deserted beach.
Avice stood from her bed and walked towards the window. His face was speckled in grave concern, his eyes squinting into the darkness of the night. She did not need him to tell her that they would be awaiting his return. The gun glinted on the floor, untouched. It would not kill her tonight.
Suddenly, she realized that her vision might not necessarily come true. All that she had known for the past year had to be suddenly unlearnt. Avice would not kill her. He did not want to either, knowing now that she loved him just as he loved her.
A wave of excitement surged through her body. The fact that she did not know what the future held proved exhilarating.
“Baby,” she murmured.
“Hmm?”
He did not falter when she stood behind him and wrapped her arms around his muscular body. He was no longer the awkward boy she had known twelve months ago. Tonight, he stood taller, prouder, and stronger than he had ever been. This was a warrior.
“Run away with me,” Yarra said, surprising even herself. Where did that come from?
Avice’s hiss of surprise was a sharp whisper. His hand clenched at the clasp of her arms around his body, unwilling to let go of the poignant moment.
“Either kill me and return to your family, or run away with me forever,” Yarra said. Her voice was listless, absent of wild demands. She said it with total apathy, accepting whichever decision Avice would choose to partake in. She would not harbor any ill-feelings towards him if he chose the former.
“I don’t want you to die, baby,” Avice said finally.
“And if I am to live, I don’t want a future without you in it,” she said.
Avice turned in his spot to face her. The juvenile pockmarks on his face had completely vanished to reveal a smooth, chiseled face underneath the deliberate swarthiness. Standing a head taller than her, his height radiated no strength tonight. All that was present was his feeling of vulnerability in front of the woman he loved.
“Then, all I ask for is one thing, Yarra.”
“Name it.”
“Consult your visions. Tell me what you see of our future.”
Yarra smiled widely. Closing her eyes, she imagined Avice and herself standing together in the empty black, canvas of unknown.
Slowly but surely, just as the pages of her university assignment had filled up the unwritten words, so too did an image began painting itself in real time.
She saw the future Avice and Yarra walking in a small green f
ield, towards a small house situated in the middle of a vast meadow.
Brick homes were scattered sparsely, each too far away from another to discern with the naked eye, but it was paradise.
Birds tweeted, and the sky was a light pallor of grey and blue. They loved the superficial gloom weather.
Yarra’s vision adjusted. She could see the image of her and Avice walking quietly, holding hands. There was a clear baby bump protruding underneath her white sundress.
On Avice’s shoulder was a child approximately four years of age. She had Yarra’s nose, but Avice’s clear, ruby red eyes and tiny vampire-like fangs.
But what she also had was the healthy color of a human devoid of all paleness. And she was happy and smiling, not cold and brooding.
The place was on a plateau, in a highland somewhere in a fairy tale.
“Mummy, mummy!” the girl screamed in delight as a butterfly fluttered past them. She let out a chubby hand to grab at it but failed.
The Avice and Yarra in her vision continued to talk in voices Yarra could not hear, but knew to be pleasant conversations. Soon, the baby would be born.
She watched the happy family enter the home never to be disturbed by anyone. At the fencepost is a small wooden symbol with a delightful carving, “Home of the Davises.”
Avice took Yarra’s family name when they got married.
The vision evaporated like pollens blown in a windy day, and Yarra was back in her apartment. Avice still had his muscular arms wrapped around her dainty waists.
“Well?” he smiled. “What does our future hold for us?”
Yarra hugged him, her head resting on his chest. Without missing a beat, she told him what she saw, in true Oracle fashion.
After she was done, she closed her eyes and waited for Avice to make his decision.
Avice squeezed her shoulders and held her at arm's length. His brown eyes looked deep into hers. A warm smile broke out on across his lips, and the tears began welling in his eyes.
“Well then,” he said, “…, let us go make that vision a reality.”
Epilogue
Yarra knew that it would be a happy ending for Avice and her in the end. But, that is what it was, an ‘end.’ To reach that destination, they would have to cross convoluted bridges, slog through haranguing pathways, and schlep of tumultuous mountains. She knew that the ‘Keepers of the Blade’ would not take to kindly to Avice’s betrayal.
There would be plenty of wars to be fought before they can finally acquire their ‘happily ever after.’
And the next war will not be easy, for Avice would not be embroiled in a battle with some random enemy. He would have to fight the members of his own order. He would have to stand up to his mother. And that was not going to be easy.
As they walked in the stillness of the night, away from everything they knew, the two lovebirds swore to have each other’s back till the end of time.
A vampire, and an Oracle.
*****
THE END
BOOK 4: A CHOSEN FATE
Description
Black and beady eyes stared right back at Madison Blake.
It was not what she expected when she opened her eyes in the middle of the night, waking up at the telltale sensation of something hovering over her. She thought it was her imagination playing with her or the ghost that was in the movie she had last seen. But it was not.
The mattress dipped at the pressure while the bed gave a soft squeak at a weight she knew was not Phoebe, her Russian Blue kitten.
Madison remained unmoving, her body splayed on her bed. Her hands were rested on her sides while her legs were slightly apart, feeling heavy and numb.
She looked right ahead, the pair of orbs dark and rounded. She laid there unblinking, drowning in the pool of blackness presented.
The eyes went lower, and she could barely register the dark brown brow and long lashes as she tried to follow it. When it reached her neck, she gave up tailing it and looked back to her plain pale yellow ceiling.
She felt heady. Breathing in, she took in her room, mind fleeting. It was a state of being trapped between a deep slumber and reality.
Cold air puffed against her neck, and then down her collarbone and up again, the sensation leaving goose flesh on its wake. It stopped at the junction between her shoulder and neck, and she shivered when a chilling wetness traced a line down her throat.
A sniff, and then a deep breath, as if savoring a scent that was so longed for.
“You smell different,” a man’s voice hissed. It sounded guttural yet breathy, causing a shiver to run down her spine.
“Different but delectable.”
Another wet stripe was left against her skin, tracing the same area. Madison was still immobile and indifferent; a strange reaction for someone who woke up with a man licking down her neck repeatedly.
The sensation rattled her, and she tried to clench her hands into fists to no avail. The attempt to curl her toes also proved futile, and she could only bask at the feeling of being tasted. There were no signs that she was tied down, yet her limbs were heavy that even sluggish movements could not be done.
The man stopped with his ministrations, and the eyes reappeared in her vision. The black seemed to be swirling, the irises rendering her defenseless, and she gazed at it, mesmerized and captivated.
From her periphery, she could see the man grinning maniacally, and a perfect row of teeth gleamed as the moonlight filtered through her window. Her knees jerked when she saw something amiss: a faint outline of sharp canines.
She parted her mouth in a silent scream as the situation registered in her mind. The mouth disappeared from her sight, and she internally panicked and let out a soft whimper, which was only a soundless vibration in her throat in reality.
Two sharp canines rested near her throat. Her lips had gone dry, and her breaths became short. A cold drop of sweat fell down her temple despite the blasting cold air from the air conditioner.
She felt the ghost of a smile, the feeling of soft, cold flesh stretched against her skin before something pierced through her neck. Madison let out a small yelp and the man stopped, pulled himself back and studied her face, looking at her quizzically with his brooding eyes.
Warm and sticky liquid pooled on her neck but Madison was once again captivated with the eyes staring down at her. She blinked and the male gasped loudly and scrambled off the bed in an instant.
She could not see him, but she could feel his presence. His shadow was casted on her, and she knew he must be near her window.
“How did you…” It was merely a whisper, but the dead silence in her room echoed the words.
“You weren’t supposed to…” He cut off what he meant to say again. Madison struggled internally, commanding her brain to thrash wildly and kick the man who had bitten her neck. Instead, she laid on her bed peacefully, eyes wide in alarm but body still unmoving, as if she was still in a peaceful slumber.
She could hear the faint sound of footsteps going farther and farther until it stopped.
“We’ll meet again.” He threatened with a deep voice.
The feeling of air was back again, and her head felt light. She blinked repeatedly and heaved deep and long breaths until the hammering of her heart calmed.
She sat up and looked at her window, which was closed just as how she left it before going to bed. Her door was also shut. There were no signs of the man nor a hint that he had just been there.
For a while, she was tempted to stand and inspect her room, but the trembling of her knees begged to differ.
Lying down, it did not take long before she was back to dreamland, mind and body fatigued to even deal with what just happened.
The next morning, Madison surveyed her room immediately, looking for those pair of orbs that haunted her dreams. Everything was in place, and there was no strange man in sight.
It was just a dream.
A shiver run down her body when she scratched her neck.
She gasp
ed.
There were two small punctures and dried blood.
She looked at her fingers and saw the bits of red. Madison gaped in terror.
It wasn’t a dream at all.
Chapter-1
Madison evaded the throng of students coming her way and slung her bag on her shoulders, holding the handle tightly.
The Alien Surrogate (The Klaskians Series Book 1) Page 29