Yugo got up, walked to Orhn's door, and knocked. “We should get going.” He said through the door.
Moira opened the door. She was wearing the bed sheet as a dress, and doing quite well with it. Small pieces of the long cotton dress she wore the night before were tossed around the room with dismay. Shredded from her activities with Orhn. “I'll get him. It's just that I hate to wake him when he looks so adorable.”
Yugo raised an eyebrow. He was honestly confused. Orhn was not adorable in any way, shape, or context. Moira must have been delusional from the excitement of the previous night. “Adorable?” Yugo peered in. Orhn was sleeping with one leg and arm hanging off the bed. His face was drooling and scrunched by a small rough pillow.
“I can get him up if we really have to go now.” Moira said with a faint request to let him sleep in. She wanted to keep watching him sleep like this.
Yugo chuckled. In the years he and Orhn had been together, Orhn had never shown this vulnerable side to him. This was Orhn unhindered by the worries of the world. It was the true Orhn that this newcomer had brought about. “Sure, I have to find Lucretia regardless. When I come back, we'll talk about your future. Our future, together.”
Chapter 9
Fate Drawn in A+
A crimson sky bled rain down upon a lush dark green forest. Lightning cracked as the clouds unleashed a flood that carved a channel to the ocean's shore. Black sand met the red water's edge as two figures stood evenly matched in the distance.
Clutched in warfare, one held her ground, cloaked in pure white without clear definition. Frozen light lifted with each motion. The flakes scattered and traveled in the wind as feathers across the sea of blood behind. Wings spread across the shoreline in a brilliant display of presence. She was ready. The second figure towered with black shadowy waves that engulfed the subtle form of a man. Sharp contours lined its large violent thorn shape.
A flash of silver struck from the white void. The black creature defended, catching the silver blade with its hand, bracing it across his arm. Dark ridges lashed out against the white void, jutting out, narrowly missing her. The white void jumped back, pushing away from the conflict. The black figure pursued immediately and was met with a silver weapon piercing his chest. The black creature swung as the white void seemed to explode before it. The sand beneath them kicked high into the air, spreading far and shielding the sight of any conclusion to the battle. The brazen sound of thunder crackled out as the black figure stood victorious.
The clouds receded, and the wind picked up. The scene cleared and the white void was gone. On a bed of depressed sand was Kyli, beaten and bruised. The left side of her body was cut with several puncture holes. She was bleeding, heavily. Kyli was exhausted and out of breath. She had lost to the black shadow. Slowly the man inside emerged from the blackness. He was average height with short black hair, and had a well defined jaw line. The black cloud dispersed and revealed Zack Giver, who smiled triumphantly. The dream world ended as the sky faded to red.
Back in Kyli's apartment, Zack and Kyli were clenched in an embrace. Kyli let up from Zack's neck, as she licked her lips of Zack's blood. Kyli was dressed in one of her black lace corsets. It was nearly the same as the one Zack had met her in, with the exception that it was strapless and Kyli was not wearing a shirt with it. She still wore a long skirt with it, black with a white slip. Kyli had become increasingly comfortable around Zack and it was beginning to turn Zack's head more than usual. Zack was in a dark gray long sleeve shirt with a dark red splash pattern painted on it. His pants were black and he wasn't wearing any socks.
After three weeks of training in Kyli's apartment, he was able to relax. Being with Kyli came to be a normal part of his life. His father, John didn't seem to mind the distance. It gave them some much needed space to grow. John with his new relationship and Zack with his as well. It still was odd to Zack that his dad was letting him stay at a strange, hot young girl's hotel room for weeks on end. Zack didn't mind too much, he was enjoying himself. Kyli was very free while in her element and continually teased Zack with glimpses of her very attractive, toned body. Zack had gained some much needed self confidence, but he was still reluctant to make an advance towards Kyli. Despite their daily embraces to enter the dream world, Zack was unable to come to the conviction necessary to turn a pass into a long kiss, or a hopeful shared bed. Zack had been sleeping on the couch all this time. While Kyli's bedroom door had been intentionally propped open every night. Zack's fear of the unknown held him in place. It had been Kyli's idea to open up their relationship to sex quite early, but Zack's timidness had kept her from pressing the issue directly. She wanted him to want her, to want what she was, and to accept her. The idea of pushing a him before he was ready didn't appeal to her. Kyli wanted Zack to show the initiative, to act on the intentions in his head and not to stand by while she idly toyed with him. If Zack wanted her, he was going to have to prove it.
The time spent training greatly improved Zack's chances of survival. Kyli had taught him how to summon the latent aura of his nature and the nature of the demon itself, as a weapon and a shield. The black figure that surrounded Zack in the dream world was offensive and defensive. It was a radical tool he would be able to use in his fight with Malio. Kyli had decided Zack's best possibility was to lure Malio into a false sense of power and then let him bite Zack in an attempt to taste his gift. At that time, Zack would finish Malio off in the dream world. With Malio subdued in his mind, Zack would be able to take control of the fight in reality. That was Kyli's plan at least.
“And how exactly how am I supposed to get him to bite me instead of kill me?” Zack said while laying on his back, holding pressure on a napkin to the left side of his neck. He was still very weak and didn't feel like getting up yet.
“It's easy, you piss him off.” Kyli replied, sipping the cold blood shake she had just made for Zack to drink.
“Let's say I do that and then he rips my head off to taste my blood. What then?” Zack conjectured while closing his eyes to the already dimly lit room.
“You have to make him want to taste it. Tick him off, and at the same time show him the weakling that you are. Show him that you can't handle yourself in a fight. Malio will want to mess with you then. Make him want to take his time killing you and he'll bite you after only beating the utter shit out of you instead of killing you outright.” Kyli walked over to Zack and handed him the blood shake with shaved ice. “Here, this will make you feel better.”
“What is it?” Zack eyed the open contents to see a primarily red color.
“It's a milk shake.” Kyli said with a gigantic smile.
“Really? This again?” Zack wasn't buying it.
“Now, now Zack, you are a growing boy. You need your milk.” Kyli laughed.
Zack reluctantly drank from the blood shake. “It tastes good. It has a milky texture. Did you actually make it like a real milk shake?”
Kyli chuckled again. “Yeah, can't you tell from the blood dripping down the corner of the straw?”
Zack examined the shake. It wasn't cherry and it didn't have milk in it. His face became instantly red, and blushed over the fact that Kyli had fooled him again. He had let himself be tricked. Zack didn't answer her.
“Come on, don't be like that. You thought it tasted like milk didn't you? Isn't that all that matters, what you perceived it to be?” Kyli argued.
Zack remained quiet with a sour expression as he sipped the shake he knew he needed to drink. “It's a milkshake. It's a milkshake.” Zack repeated as he continued to drink.
“Think of it this way, if all you ever knew of me was how I acted in your dreams, would that make me any less real?” Kyli tried to convince Zack. “Doesn't the perception of the experience matter?”
“But if you were only a figment of my imagination, it would matter, a lot. If you weren't real, then none of this would have happened at all. Everything I did wouldn't be real. It makes a difference.” Zack sat up, upset at the fact he had been t
eased for thinking there was milk in the shake.
“You're telling me that if you one day woke up and found out that your entire life had been a dream, that nothing you did or felt in that dream would mean anything? That all of the people and all of the interactions you had, however real they were should be made moot next to the fact of your sudden realization? You're saying that a journey in the mind doesn't carry any weight, that it should be forgotten?” Kyli sat down across from Zack on the couch.
Zack propped his back against the couch nearest to the kitchen. “Yes.”
Kyli got up. “Then I must be a dream right? Something you can play with and wake up from when you're done right?” Kyli stormed off into her bedroom.
“I don't feel that way about you Kyli. You're a real person that can enter my dreams, you're not a figment.” Zack climbed up to his feet.
“And if I was?” Kyli purposed, standing, facing Zack while under the archway to her bedroom.
Zack didn't answer. He couldn't think of anything to reply with. In Zack's mind, Kyli had come up with a hypothetical situation that meant nothing to him and he had given her the honest truth.
“That's what I thought.” Kyli slammed the door.
It was night, and a quarter till nine. Zack and Kyli had been getting to sleep around that time for the better part of a week now to wake up early enough to train the whole day. Normally, Kyli's door was purposefully left open as an invitation to Zack. Tonight that was not the case. Kyli's door remained closed and cold to Zack.
Zack laid down on the couch, thinking of what Kyli had said. Why she was so offended by Zack's refusal to recognize a dream. Zack pondered throughout the night, he didn't sleep. When morning came, Kyli woke him rudely. She drove a silver dagger through his left ankle, pinning it to the new coffee table. It was white with a feather pattern. It made it appear to be formed out of white wings instead of wood. The blade bore into Zack's flesh and sank into the table. His blood spilled into the small detail of the table, staining the feathers.
“What the hell!?” Zack cried out.
“So you're awake now?” Kyli asked while the dagger was still in her right hand.
“Of course I am, you stabbed me!” Zack shouted.
“But I did it while you were dreaming, so doesn't that make it partially fictional?” Kyli was trying to prove a point that Zack wasn't understanding.
“What the hell are you saying? It doesn't matter when you stab me, it hurts all the same if I'm awake or asleep.” Zack stated.
Kyli pulled the knife from Zack's ankle. “Thank you.” She got up and walked to the kitchen.
Zack knew Kyli had made her point. If something had hurt him, real or imaginary, it had happened to him, regardless of where it occurred. Kyli had reached through to Zack and she knew it.
“You'll need this.” Kyli tossed Zack a blood pack. “That leg looks pretty bad. You should bandage it up soon.”
“Why's that?” Zack carefully lifted his leg off the table, it was aching. It was worse than when he had broken his arm almost a month ago.
“I stabbed you twice before I hit deep enough to strike the bone. The pressure will help stop the swelling.” Kyli walked back to her bedroom. “It was a pure silver dagger. Unless you take care of it, along with drinking plenty of blood, it will continue to cause you pain.” Kyli threw out the corset she was wearing onto the couch next to Zack. “Now drink up while I take a shower.”
Zack quickly turned around in time to see Kyli's unclothed back walking towards her personal shower. Her single white wing was glistening in the morning sunlight on the right side of her back, close to the curve of her spine. Kyli's black hair wisped up as she stepped out of view and into the bathroom. Zack drank his blood pack and hobbled over to the guest bathroom with his bleeding ankle. Kyli had set aside a gauze wrap, scissors, and some tape. She was thinking of his well being even when viciously attacking him in his sleep. Zack thought that if Kyli really wanted to hurt him she would have done more by ignoring him. That clearly wasn't the case.
Zack spent some time rinsing his ankle in the tub and wrapping the gauze tight. He didn't think a silver blade made any difference in the amount of damage. Zack knew better now.
The sound of Kyli's shower rang in Zack's ear. She opened the bathroom door, standing on the other side of it. Water was pooling at her feet. “It's the silver that's blocking your ability to numb the pain. It's like a natural allergenic to us. Think of it as poison sumac.”
Zack was still tightening the wrap. “You mean poison ivy.”
“No, I mean poison sumac. It's worse and doesn't go away unless you know what you're doing. Plus, it can kill you if you inhale it.” Kyli warned Zack.
Zack turned the water off and stepped out. Zack leaned over his shoulder to try and catch a peek of Kyli.
“I like to think of silver the same way.” Kyli walked off to the kitchen.
“So there's a remedy for silver?” Zack asked as he watched Kyli dry off.
“Cleaver boy.” Kyli's leg reached up to the counter, then back to Zack's eager eyes. She slowly dried it off.
Zack could see her wet naked white wing tattoo glistening. He eased forward and slipped at the sight. His heart skipped a beat.
Kyli knew what had happened. “Are you okay?” Kyli was asking, but wasn't actually going to his rescue either.
Zack rubbed his left ankle. “Yeah, I'm fine enough.”
Kyli threw her towel over the bedroom doorknob and walked, naked across the living room. Zack only saw from the neck up while he was on his back, tending to his injured leg.
Zack scurried to get up in time to catch a glimpse of her in the nude.
“Now, now, you're not trying to peek are you?” Kyli had made it to her secondary closet already and was behind a changing window painted with Japanese cranes and Kanji. Kyli put on a pair of leggings one at a time as Zack watched intently. She knew the light behind her would cast an enticing silhouette of her body on the changing screen. She was counting on it. “There's a simple fix if you get stabbed with a silver blade.” Kyli stopped.
Zack managed to climb onto the couch and leaned against the back of the leather. He was hanging on Kyli's every word while staring at her seductive shadow. “What is it? What can I do to get rid of this feeling?”
Kyli didn't respond. She was putting on what looked like a long shirt.
Zack said nothing.
Kyli reached down, slipping one leg at a time into a pair of thin lace underwear. She slid them up and turned to Zack. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
Without thinking, Zack nodded a firm yes.
“I'm glad. Was it worth it at least?” Kyli inquired from the other side of the standing frame.
Zack didn't know what he was agreeing to. “Yes, every second.”
“Then we'll see how your leg is in a few days.” Kyli snapped at Zack.
Confused, Zack was taken aback. “What? Three days, Malio is going to try and kill me in three days! I can't wait that long.”
“You should have thought about that when you had your eyes glued to the changing screen.” Kyli walked out from the corner. The leggings were a fine black silk mesh, the dress she was wearing resembled a shirt. It appeared to be a long white, ruffled men's dress shirt with a slight gray tinge on it as a pattern that across the back It was frilled in front like a tuxedo shirt and open ended at the bottom in the front, giving a dual tail effect. It hid and exposed Kyli's figure in all the right areas. The dress was short, it came just past her hips, displaying the sides of her legs well. Kyli did a twirl for Zack. There was a diamond cut out in the back, showing Kyli's white wing. It was very attention getting, and instantly attractive. Kyli's hair was straightened and covered the more revealing sections of the unique dress. Kyli had put on a thick black satin choker with a bright pink heart in the center. She was planning on going somewhere and she hadn't told Zack anything.
“And what's this for?” Zack was getting defensive, almost demanding.
; “What does it look like?” Kyli answered, keeping her lip half shut.
“It looks like you're going out.” Zack was upset, he was feeling led on. He had no idea why she had dressed up and honestly he had no real right to ask. At best he should have been polite about it, but Zack had already lost that chance.
“And if I tell you, what then? Will you sit quietly and wait until I get back?” Kyli stepped towards her bedroom.
Zack blocked Kyli's path. He wasn't even trying to remain calm. He was letting his imagination run away with him. “Where are you going?” He said in a commanding tone.
Kyli didn't have time to play around. She had formal plans and reservations at a high class restaurant. Kyli sighed and kicked Zack in the ankle with enough force to drop him to the ground, quickly. The bandage bled. Kyli made her way to her bedroom closet without any further impediments from Zack.
“What are you doing and where?” Zack cried out, pitifully while nursing his left ankle.
Kyli stormed out, she was getting angry now. “You might as well ask who I'm going with too, while you're at it! Maybe then you'd show a little more back bone!”
Kyli's words were cruel. She had torn at Zack before, in much lesser ways. This was deeper, visceral. Zack's heart lay broken, far worse than his ankle. He didn't respond. Zack knew he was in the wrong on this. He should never have got in her way or demanded to know what her plans were.
“You have no right unless you are actually with me Zack. I do what I want until I choose to be exclusively with someone. If you really want to know who I'm going with, it's my father, it's our day of turning.” Kyli said as she went back into the bedroom to apply makeup.
Confused and defeated, Zack asked timidly. “What's a day of turning?”
Kyli was rushing her makeup. “It's the day you become a vampire, Zack. I thought that would be obvious.”
“But you're a vampeal. How do you get a day of-” Zack was cut off.
Demon Vampire (The Redgold Series) Page 40