by Lillian Grey
“Why me?”
“It’s hard for me to explain, its just how you look at me, how you seem to perceive me. When I look into your eyes what I see looking back isn’t lustful. It’s almost like I am a person again, I don't have to put on an act for you and I’m such a selfish creature that despite all my reservations about changing you, I will be here waiting for you to ask and when you finally do I will make you vampire, and protect you always.”
Vanessa Stanton
Chapter 17.0
Despite that being maybe one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me, or one of the cockiest.
“I dont know what to say,” it was probably the first time in my life I had said this and meant it.
“You dont have to say anything, just before you ask make sure it is really what you want.”
“I will,” I said and he smiled.
I finished eating; Alik paid for the food and the chef gave us a friendly wave with the same smile Alik had on his face. Alik then drove me home slowly, taking a much longer than necessary route. When we got outside, he walked me to the door and turned to look at me right in front of the door. He placed his cool hand on my cheek and leaned closer. “You know, my mother and somehow Sam are trying to watch us,” I whispered.
“Yes, I can hear them giggling.”
“Then what are you doing?” I said, leaning back and looking into his eyes.
“Giving them a show, what does it look like I’m doing?” He meant that.
“Your mother is right, you do have a high opinion of yourself.”
“Are you going to stop me?” I hesitated and he took that chance to kiss me. I couldn’t stop myself from going along with it; I had never kissed anyone like this. The low squeals from behind the door were just a faint noise in the backdrop. All my senses focused on my lips and the small of my back where his hands were sending an indescribable sensation racing up my spine and out to my fingertips. When we pulled apart, I looked into his eyes with a dazed expression. “Did you like that?” he asked in a whisper.
“This isn’t a TV show. The kisses on the porch after the first date won’t win me over, you know?” I felt a low tug of longing to kiss him again and he smiled. However, my words were somewhat weaker as my voice slightly shook, giving me away as well.
“I’ll think about it and see if I want to try any harder then,” he said, the smirk still on his face as he stood back.
“Maybe I will let you."
“I never thought human would be my thing,” he whispered, leaning back in.
“I’m still not sure vampire could be mine.” I placed a finger against his lips to stop him and he closed his lips around it.
“May I have a taste?” he mumbled.
“No, behave,” I reprimanded, taking my finger back. Not that I would tell him, but it took all the self-control I had to do so.
“When do you move into Cornell?” he asked, changing the subject.
“In two weeks.”
“Want some help?”
“Of course, but in between those two weeks, I expect to see you. If you want to win me over, that is.”
“I’ll think about that as well.” He started to walk back to his car.
My mom and Sam opened the door, seemingly unable to hold their excitement anymore and pulled me inside. As they attacked me with questions, I could hear Alik outside laughing as he drove away. Stupid vampire, he knew this would happen.
After what Sam and my mother thought was a date with Alik, I was bombarded with questions. Maybe it was a date, or even a little more. It seemed that Sam and my mother had taken a liking to Alik more than anyone I had ever gone on a date with. My mother wanted to know about the date itself: where he took me, what we talked about, and whether or not he was polite?
Sam ended up spending the night and when we got to my room, she hit me with another set of questions. Sam was much more interested in whether he had held my hand, if he tried to stay close, and the details on "the kiss". I lied through all of this and I thought I did well, considering that I hadn’t really been on a normal date if it was a date. Then Sam asked me one last question, “So, do you like him?”
Did I like Alik? I didn’t know. This was the fourth time I had seen him and I just didn’t know what about me he liked and what was some abstract vampiric effect. The only time where I had ever remotely felt anything like this was that time with Seith. I’m still not sure what I felt then. With Seith, I was mad, comfortable, doubtful, and depressed when I had to leave for a while. Whenever I saw love, it was smiles and hugs. When my parents expressed love, I smiled and they smiled and we were happy. I can’t remember looking at Seith and smiling just from love. Thinking about my night with Alik, I hadn’t once just smiled and felt happy, or gave him a loving hug. I don’t consider the kiss a hug.
“I don’t know,” I answered Sam honestly.
“Yeah, I guess it’s still too early to know. Right now, it’s all about those amazing eyes and that tight ass.”
“I hope that’s all it is.”
Alyon Alik
Chapter 18.0
I had just two weeks before Vanessa would go off to school and she could possibly be so far out of my life that I would no longer matter, and my mother could be intrusive to no end or silent as a ghost. I couldn’t rely on my mother intrusion into Vanessa's life to possibly keep me in her thoughts. I had to think of something. I brooded over this singular idea that entire night after I dropped her off at home. My mood somehow snaked its way up to my mother’s penthouse and pulled her down to my rooms four floors below.
“I think you did good, why are you moping?” she asked, taking a seat and making herself comfortable in my room without invitation.
“Really?” I sighed, not looking at her.
“Well, that is unless you went off on some horrible tangent and became your usual morbid self.” I didn’t respond. “You did, didn’t you...” She then sighed and mimicked my posture with her arm over her eyes, head leaning over the back of the chair.
“Can I help you?” I said, annoyed that she was still here.
“No, but I think that I can help you. I know that I haven’t given you much advice over the years apart from the many ways you know how to kill men and vampire or seduce women with your charms. So I will give you some advice on how to make a woman love you.”
“What is that exactly” Despite myself, I was interested.
“Gifts and jewelry will not win you a woman’s heart, just what’s between her legs. In the days of the knights, it was their promise that won them a maidens favor and their actions captured hearts. They would quest for the maidens they desired. It could be anything from picking a flower that only grew near the mouth of a dangerous beast lair to finding her lost father stolen by bandits. You need to figure out your quest.”
“Vanessa,” I said in a deep voice trying to sound gallant. “I am here to serve you, please bestow on to me a singular quest so that I may win your fair heart,” I said mockingly, moving to one knee in front of my mother as I took her hand. She gave me an exasperated look and kicked me with her foot so hard that I slid the few feet between us. “Oww!”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it. I’m trying to be a mother for once and you're not helping me out much here.”
“Okay, okay. So you’re saying that I should do something specifically meaningful for her?”
“Yes, you need to find out her likes and dislikes, dreams and passions.”
“That would take time, I have two weeks before she starts her first semester of college.. In Ithaca.”
“What is she studying?”
“I don’t know, I only know that she is going to Cornell as she mentioned it to a guy at Masteria.”
“Do some digging,” was the last thing she said before she stood. “Brooding here isn’t going to help you.”
I called Vanessa the next day to ask if she wanted to get lunch.
“I’m not going to be on the menu, am I?”
“Only if you want...”
“No, I would like pizza.”
“Done.”
“See you in thirty minutes?”
“See you then.”
New York was the hardest place to find a good pizza place so I was feeling confident. When I got to her house, Vanessa wasn’t ready yet but her mother Marie and Sam were cooking downstairs in the kitchen. I felt bad for a moment, taking her away from what her mother was cooking, but then I found out that Sam was cooking under the watchful eye of Mariee. The end result wasn’t pretty...
“So Alik, do you have a brother?” Sam asked and I smiled.
“No, I only have a sister. We were both adopted by our mother.”
“Oh,” she said like she might have made a mistake.
“Have you ever tried to find your real parents?” Sam continued with renewed boldness. Nothing kept her back for long I saw.
“No, Lilith is my mother now. Whatever situation my real parents were going through doesn’t matter. I like my life. Everything that has passed led me to sit in this kitchen and wait for the most beautiful girl I know.”
“I thought you were here for Vanessa, not me...” she said, shocked, and Mariee laughed. I couldn’t help but laugh, too. She looked so genuine when she said it.
“I hope this doesn’t sound insulting, but I don’t see how you and Vanessa are friends, you are just so different.”
“We get that a lot,” smiled Sam.
“Sam actually gave Vanessa a black eye when they were in elementary school,” Mariee stated, trying to salvage what Sam had tried to cook.
“Really?” I asked,my interest peaked.
“I got a bloody nose in return,” Sam informed, smiling at the thought. “I knocked my juice box over on a picture she was drawing. All around kids were drawing their mothers and fathers, Vanessa was drawing the Empire State Building.” Vanessa’s mom laughed.
“She has always been fascinated with buildings,” Mariee finally said. “Ever since she could hold a crayon. Some of her work is very beautiful, and I’m not saying that from a mother’s perspective.”
“She has designed stuff before?”
“Oh yes, she has tubes all over her room full of designs she has done. You should get her to show you.” She sounded very proud. “I wish I had the means to build one of her homes. They are so beautiful.”
“What died...” Vanessa chimed in as she walked into the kitchen she gasped as she caught a smell of Sam’s cooking at full force.
“Shut up, I’m still learning...” Sam pouted. “But let’s show Alik some of your work.”
Sam took my hand, pulled me from the table past Vanessa and up the stairs to Vanessa’s room. I think Vanessa was shocked at the turn of events as it took her a moment to realized where we were headed.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. No.” She ran after us, managing to pass us and block the way to her room.
“Move Nessa, this is good for boyfriend here.”
“One, he isn’t my boyfriend, he is just a boy. Two, what about what is good for me?” she shouted.
“It will be good for you as well.” Sam picked Vanessa up off the ground, locking her arms next to her. “Go on,” she told me. My next action would damn or save me, but I decided to go and open the door.
Vanessa’s room was simple: a bed, a dresser, mounted TV, and a mirror all in a corner. However, about two thirds of the room was taken up by three bookshelves and two glass drafting tables. The two walls without windows were covered in artistic sketches of homes and actual blueprints of those homes.
“Wow...” I said as I looked around. There was one in particular I really liked that was hanging up. It was a one bedroom, multi-level, of mainly steel, wood, and glass. The artistic sketch of the house colored in showing how light would reflect off the glass walls.
Vanessa managed to wiggle out of Sam’s arms, pushed me out, and slammed her door. “Okay, you’ve seen enough,” she shouted, pushing Sam and I back down the stairs. “We have pizza to eat,” she said to me. “You have slop to fix,” she glowered at Sam.
Sam stuck her tongue out as Vanessa pushed me out the front door, slamming it as we exited. We were in the car for a moment before I was brave enough to ask.
“So you’re going to study Architecture at Cornell?”
“Yes,” she said, stiffly. “Just how much did you see?” her tone now timid.
“Everything out on the walls. I can still see it. It was all beautiful. You have a gift.” She didn’t even say anything about me looking her in the eye as I drove.
“You mean it... Thank you.”
My mother was right, I thought. Damn it, she would be smug later. The rest of the date went well, Vanessa mostly asked about me, but when I told her where I had gone, she always wanted descriptions of the places and things I had seen. I enjoyed the looks on her face most. She lit up like a child when she talked about buildings and homes. When I dropped her off, I managed to get another kiss on the doorstep, a more private moment without her mother and Sam watching.
“I enjoyed myself,” she whispered.
“So did I. Can I see you tomorrow?”
“We will see.” She smiled and went inside.
It was still early, so as soon as I got into the car and drove off, I pulled out my phone and dialed Sam’s number, which I stole off of Vanessa’s phone.
“Hello?” she answered, I heard the suspensions at the strange number in her voice.
“Sam, it’s Alik.”
“Oh, hi, what’s up?”
“I need your help.”
I had found my noble quest.
Vanessa Stanton
Chapter 19.0
I spent the next two weeks mostly with Alik and I nearly forgot that he was a vampire. It might seem strange to say it, but there was just so much human in him. He told me he didn't have to act around me, but what did that mean really. That bothered me a lot because I would ever really get to know just who Alik was. Was he a sophisticated and well-traveled man, or that dark brooding vampire all the female leads love in the books. It was all so damn confusing especially because while he opened a new Masteria, which brought back an old vampiric practice. He shunned the old vampiric practices of Masteria, and still he would not stop the humans practicing these practices.
Also, it felt like he was trying to keep me away from anything vampiric and wouldn’t go in depth with anything on that subject. That was until two night before I was to leave for school. That morning he messages me asking to stop by, I reply and he knocks about half an hour later
“Do you know how to dance?” he ask before I can say anything and without a hello when I open the door.
“Do you have a black dress?”
“Yeah, but why.”
“I want to take you to one of my mother’s clubs tonight,”
“One of Lilith’s,”
“Yes, and it will be a black tie affair.”
“Why this all of a sudden?”
“Because I've been trying to hide what I am from you and I've been starting to think that is wrong, in this place I can be who I am.”
“What time?”
“I will be back around seven,”
“I will be ready.”
He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek I blinked and he was in his car driving away. That was the first time he had moved like a vampire since that first night he told me what he was. He was serious, and I was actually scared.
At exactly seven Alik knocks on the door and I open it and he just looks at me for a moment. It gets to the point its uncomfortable and I blurt out “What?”
“Nothing its just your beautiful.” I was wearing a simple long form fitting black dress, I curled my other wise straight hair and put it up letting a few extra bouncy curls hang. I highlighted my eyes in a little black eyeliner and a light silver eye shadow and out lined my lips in black.
I blushed, “Well lets go,” I said walking out the door. He followed me and opened my door and I sat down, he closed it t
hen got in and drove heading into the heart of New York. We didn’t head into the more upscale areas, he weaved through the streets eventually parking on a street with little light. He got out and opened my door and lead me over to a set of stairs that headed down under the sidewalk. I could hear the music the moment my foot hit the first step, I could smell the air grow sweet with the scent of obscure tobacco. My tense state relaxed and by the time I made it to the last step I was at ease. Alik knocked twice on the door and a slit opened, I a pair of eyes looked out and then the slit closed and the door opened. As we walked by Alik shook hands with the door man.