The Progeny

by Shelley Crowley

  “Whoa, what-”

  She flipped her red waves over one shoulder and exposed her throat to him. “You’re hungry for blood and I’m full of it. Drink.”

  His eyes flickered over the pulse point of her long, pale neck. She tensed at the hunger in his gaze. He shook his head. “I can’t.”

  She leaned closer to him and watched as the beautiful blue colouring his irises were engulfed by his expanding pupils. His pupils continued to grow until his eyeballs looked like two shining black orbs. The corded veins under them swelled and turned thick and purple. He pressed his lips tentatively against the hollow of her neck.

  The sound of his fangs unsheathing made her swallow a whimper. He parted his lips and dragged the tips along her throat and she braced herself over him, shuddering with a mixture of delight and trepidation. But then he pressed a soft kiss against the base of her neck. “You are my love. Not my food. I told you I wasn’t going to make a habit of biting you.”

  She leaned back and he smoothed his hands up and down her sides. He smiled softly and retracted his fangs, his eyes now blue yet solemn. “But you’re hungry.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll live.”

  She slipged back into her space beside him.

  “I saw your pyjamas in the wash basket. There was blood on the sleeve. Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. It was just a cut.”

  “Is it still there?”

  She nodded.

  “Want me to heal you?”

  “No. Like I said, it’s just a cut. I’ll live.”

  “Okay.”

  When the minute hand on the clock on the mantelpiece started ticking past ten, Evie found her eyelids growing heavy. She yawned and stretched out her arms. “Right, I’m going to bed.” She turned to Caius who was looking as spritely as a vampire can.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I think my body clock is starting to shift.”

  “Getting used to you being human,” he said. There was underlying bitterness to his tone. It hurt.

  “Goodnight.”

  “Night,” he mumbled softly, closing his eyes as she planted a kiss on his forehead.

  “Are you going to go to the hospital for more bags?”

  He looked to the T.V. “I might just do some channel hopping.”

  She watched him for a moment. The muscles in his cheeks rippled but he kept his eyes averted. “Caius, are you scared about going outside?”

  He scoffed but said nothing.

  Six men were needed to hold him down. The encounter was still clearly haunting him. “I’ll go to the hospital tomorrow.”

  His eyes stayed stuck to the screen, wide and vacant. “Thank you.”

  Evie felt herself drifting awake. She tried her best to cling onto her dream but she could feel it slipping away. It felt so wonderful to dream again. Vampires didn’t experience sleep, just the weariness of the sunlight dragging them down and then the sensation of rising from a pit when the sun set. There was no blissful in between stage where you lost all inhibitions.

  Finally, Evie released her clutches on the fantasies of her mind and flickered her eyes open. An arm was wrapped around her middle. Not her arm. This one was pale and laced with muscle. She twisted her head and started a little at the pair of soft blue eyes gazing up at her through a mess of mahogany hair.

  “Caius,” she croaked then clears her throat. “What are you doing in bed? What time is it?”

  “Three in the morning. I just wanted to spend some more time with you before I… you know,” he replied, resting his chin on her shoulder.

  She smiled and ran her hand through his frizzy hair. “So, you decided to watch me sleep? How very Edward Cullen of you.” She laughed. “Remember those books?”

  He rolled onto his back, looking up at the ceiling. “Yeah, I wish I sparkled in sunlight. It would be a much easier alternative.”

  She cupped his jaw and kissed him passionately. He caressed her back, keeping her pinned against him. “You shaved.”

  “Yeah,” he murmured, running his thumb over her lips. “The blood in my beard was very stubborn.”

  “I like you better without the beard.” She peppered kisses over his smooth jawline.

  He laughed at her tickling touch. “Noted.”

  She stayed leant over him for a moment, gazing deep into his eyes, before a yawn hit her unexpectedly and she dropped her head back against the pillow. “I’m going back to sleep.”

  “Okay. Mind if I stay?”

  Her eyes fluttered closed. “Not at all.”

  He shifted himself and spooned her side, resting his head on her chest. She smiled lazily and curled into him. The soft, rhythm of his tapping fingers on her thigh soothed her. But her eyes flew open when she caught on to what he was doing. The rhythm-- the rhythm of tapping fingers was the rhythm of her pulse.

  His eyes were closed, features slack and lips curved into a content smile. He was completely oblivious to what he was doing. Even in his rested state, he was still fascinated by her beating heart.

  Was that what made him follow her to bed? Was that why he wanted to stay close to her? He said he wasn’t going to drink from her but that didn’t negate the fact that pumping around Evie’s body was the thing that he craves the most.

  When her heart starts to race, his fingers picked up their speed. She snapped her eyes shut and sucked back a sob. She really needed to get him some more blood bags. He may have chosen to not feed from her, but there might come a time when it was no longer his choice to make.

  Evie stretched her arm out awkwardly and grabbed her clock, unable to move from underneath Caius’ dead weight. Before she even saw the time, she knew it must be day. With enough effort, she could probably push Caius off her, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to spend all day alone, have a few hours with him and then leave him all alone for the night. It wouldn’t work. So, she decided that she would train body clock to go back to how it was when she was a vampire. It was a big sacrifice. She could walk in daylight now. She didn’t need to be nocturnal anymore. Making this choice would be like a someone who suddenly was able to walk again staying in a wheelchair. She was crippling herself. For Caius. Everything she did would always be for Caius.

  After a couple of hours, she got restless and hungry. On the third attempt, she was able to successfully dislodge herself from under Caius. He flopped onto his back with a heavy thud like a felled tree. She dressed and ate a bowl of chocolate cereal before heading out of the door. The hospital was further away than the shop so she took their old, beaten up, rust coloured 1989 Chevrolet Cavalier. Evie hardly ever drove. She and Caius only ever used it when they were move towns. She would be using it a lot more often from now on.

  The hospital was busy as usual and Evie pulled her hat further down nervously as she headed towards the huge sliding doors at the side of the building, set away from the A&E. It was a smart idea to set the blood bag collection point away from all the injured people. Hungry vampires plus a room full of bleeding wounds equalled a very messy job indeed.

  There was only one other person at blood collection so Evie relaxed. Of course, it was quiet, it was daytime. The woman filling her purse with blood bags must be a friend or lover of a vampire, like Evie. She smiled at Evie and held her head high. There was no judgement in this room.

  “May I help you?” asked the man behind the counter.

  “Yes, I’d like some blood bags please,” Evie replied.

  “Okay, what’s your name?” he asked, looking to his computer screen.

  “Evie Graham.”

  The man started tapping on his keyboard.

  “Okay, so it says here you were last here a month ago and you collected fourteen bags.”

  “Yep. That’s correct.”

  He furrowed his eyebrows at the screen and looks outside at the sun. Clients at the collection point were not authorised to tell the members of staff whether they were a vampire or human because of some sort of Right of Privacy but by the
confused look on the man’s face, he must have figured that Evie was a vampire.

  “Right…” he looked back at his screen. “That means that you have twenty-eight assigned to you this month. How many would you like now?”

  “All of them, please.”

  “All of them? Clients usually make several collections over the month to make them last.”

  Yes, well those clients aren’t living with a hungry vampire that could turn on them at any moment. She kept her bright, innocent eyes on the man and repeated, “All of them, please.”

  His eyebrows formed a thick line but then he sighed. “Okay, twenty-eight blood bags, coming up. Do you still want B positive?”

  “No.” Evie rushed and paused to think of what Caius’ favourite is. “O negative, please.”

  He tapped away at his computer and sent the order.

  “Oh. Is there any way I could also pick up my friend’s blood bags for him? He’s… away at the moment.”

  The man sucked in a breath through his teeth and looked up at her apologetically. “I can’t do that, I’m afraid. Clients must collect their registered blood bags themselves, sorry. We’ve had serious cases of blood hoardings in the past.” He placed a clipboard on the countertop. “But you are welcome to make a donation and you may take your own bags.”

  Evie held back a shudder when a hand of ice ran up her spine. For the first time, she could actually fill it out. They gave her the form every time she came, it was simple procedure for anyone not already on the donor list. But she couldn’t do it. If she handed Caius a bag of her blood, he would know it was hers and feel like she tried to trick him. She was also struck by the memory that that was what Catherine used to do for him. Evie’s gut twisted. She was not Catherine.

  She pushed the clipboard back. “No thanks.”

  The man tried to hide his disappointment by looking down at his keyboard. A sliding door lifted in a window behind him and a pair of hands push a tray of blood bags through.

  “Ah.” The man swivelled chair around in his chair to collect the tray. “Would you like a bag?”

  “No thanks,” said Evie. “I’ve brought my own.”

  On her way back home, she passed a young couple arguing as they attempted to fit a car seat into the back seat of their car while their eldest child entertained their new addition, bouncing the chubby little baby on his lap on the porch steps. Evie slowed down on the residential road, her palms feeling clammy against the steering wheel. The bitter, thick taste of envy made her mouth feel tacky.

  She pulled up into her drive moments later and hefted her filled bag into the house. A knot cramped in her stomach when one blood bag tipped over in the fridge and knocked against the block of cheese she bought for herself the day before.

  They’re both so different now…

  Evie sighed and checked the time. A few more hours needed to pass before the sun went down.

  She ran a bath for herself.

  When she tested the water’s temperature with her toe, she flinched back with a hiss. She still wasn’t used to how responsive her body was now. After adding more cold water, a soft smile filled her face and her eyelids drooped closed as she immersed herself in the tub. The minerals in the bath bomb she threw in eased her aching joints and tense muscles. She was always achy and tense now. Her heart felt heavy at the thought that it was because she was now a human living with a vampire.

  She let out a steadying breath.

  Everything’s going to be fine.

  Everything’s going to be fine.

  Everything’s going to be fine.

  Everything’s…

  Evie sprang up in the tub coughing and wheezing. Her head had slipped further down the tub until she was submerged up to her eyes in the soapy bath water.

  She blew her nose and tipped her head from side to side to let the water drain from her ears. Before her skin became too prune-like, she grabbed her razor from the side and lifted her left leg into the air, running the razor from her ankle to her knee. After one leg was completely smooth to the touch, she switched to her other leg.

  Caius appeared at the door; his expression stiff as if his skin had been pulled too tightly over his face.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

  Her eyebrow lifted. “Yeah?”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  She looked back to her leg and noticed the trail of watery blood dripping from the cut on her ankle. “Oh yeah. I hadn’t even noticed.” She dropped her leg back into the water.

  A muscle in Caius’ cheek rippled. He nodded curtly and leaves.

  Evie dressed into something comfortable and dried her hair before hopping down the stairs and meeting Caius in the kitchen.

  “I see you got me some more blood,” he said, sealing up a bag and putting it back in the fridge.

  “Yep. What would you do without me, ay?” she wrapped her arms around his middle from behind. He laughed as he stumbled forwards a little and smoothed his hands over hers.

  “Not much.”

  She squeezed him and kissed the centre of his back before pulling away and heading towards the living room. Caius knots the cord of his fraying dressing gown around his waist and followed with a glass of blood.

  “Anything on?” He settled down on the sofa beside her. Evie flicked through a few channels before she made her decision.

  “A cooking show. Really?”

  Evie shrugged, watching the woman in the apron pick out her ingredients. “I guess I need to start learning.”

  Caius snatched the remote from her hand and muted the T.V. Evie spun to him, her expression sharp. “What was that for?”

  He heaved a sigh, his body slouched as he watched the silent screen. “Did you want to be human from the start? Is that why you were at Nico’s?”

  The gravity in his tone was like a punch to Evie’s stomach. She shook her head. “No. I was taken like you.”

  “And then he cured you?”

  She nodded. “After a failed attempt.”

  His head snapped to her, making his long hair float over his shoulder. “He hurt you?”

  “Not as much as he hurt you though.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I felt it. Your cry for help.”

  His eyebrows rose. “I sent you a cry for help?”

  She noddeed. “So, it wasn’t intentional?”

  “I would never have wanted you to see me like that.”

  “Well, we’re out of there now. So, we can just forget about it,” she forced herself to sound dismissive.

  She looked back to the screen but she could feel Caius’ eyes still on her, burning into the side of her face.

  “Then when did you decide you wanted to stay human?”

  She cringed at the question. When she stayed silent, Caius pressed. “Evie.”

  She looked at him. Red pooled form under his eyes as he watched her. She sighed. “There was a girl- a vampire- in one of the cells. She was so complacent, just letting Nico inject her with all sorts of things. At first, I thought it was because she had given up. But it wasn’t. It was because she wanted him to be successful. She wanted him to cure her.” Her bottom lip started to tremble. “That’s when I realised that me being cured isn’t so bad. If she was so desperate for it that she was willing to go through all that agony, it must be worth it.”

  He blinked hard and the brimming tears vanished. His jaw jutted out with irritation and jerked his head back to the screen.

  A few moments passed. Evie watched him desperately, willing him to turn and look at her again. But he didn’t.

  “Caius.” She reached over and stroked his hair over his shoulder. His nose crinkled with a sneer at the contact. “Please don’t be mad at me for wanting a life.”

  “A life?” He scoffed bitterly. “You mean the life I stole from you? Is this it? Your way of getting back at me for what I did to you?” She opened her mouth to protest but his eyes were on her, cold and steely through his hair. “I remembe
r what I said, Evie, about not wanting to burden you with my curse but then we fell in love and I thought you had forgiven me. Clearly I was wrong.”

  Clear tears welled in her eyes. “I did forgive you, Caius. You did what you had to do. I don’t want to stay human to have my old life back. I know that that is impossible. William’s gone. That’s not what I want. I just want to experience being a human again, that’s it. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “But it’s affecting us,” he said hollowly, pain glinting in his pale eyes.

  The look yanked at her heart like an iron fist. “I know.”

  “And you’re still not going to change?”

  She bit back a sob and shook her head before managing to choke out, “I’m sorry.”

  He looked to the T.V. “We’ll just have to try harder.”

  He unmuted the T.V but accidentally changed the channel at the same time, replacing the woman making risotto to Lady Sylvia on the News… yet again.

  “Of course, it should be allowed! You claim to not be discriminating against our kind yet you find the thought of human and vampire marriage, I quote, repulsive!”

  The camera snapped to a man, shaking his head. “Two different species should not be allowed to marry. It’s bestiality!”

  “Bestiality?!” cried Lady Sylvia, outraged. “We are not beasts! We were like you at one point!”

  “Were, exactly, you were like us. Now you are infected mons-”

  Caius flicked the channel back to the cookery show, his expression stiff. They both sat there in silence, watching but not concentrating on the aproned woman on the screen.

  Caius was right, if they want to stay together, they had to try harder. Evie was trying her best to not pressure Caius into getting his life back on track too soon. She was trying to be sympathetic; he was clearly still haunted by what Nico did to him, but worry was eating away at her. He was never been the happiest man in the world but she didn’t blame him for that. He had been on the earth for ten centuries and he had only disclosed parts of what had happened to him in that time to her. She figured that the memories he kept to himself were too painful to pass his lips.

  But he was a good man. As good as a vampire could be. As human as a vampire could be, that’s how he blended in so well and that’s how Evie learned how to do the same. He loved Evie with every fibre of his being, she knew this, despite her existence being a punishment to him.