The Night Within Us: Dark Vampire Romance

by Sylvie Grohne

  “You think too much. Every answer comes in its own time. Try to tame the storm in your head. Distance yourself from your thoughts and listen to what is within.”

  Stopping the flood of thoughts is easier said than done, but I manage to bring calm to my mind, and lay my hands on my belly. I barely feel the cold of the water anymore. And then I can make it out – a quiet whispering. Unclear and as if from far away, yet clear enough to understand. But they're not words I'm receiving. They're messages formed from emotions and images. Knowledge which opens up to me with a tender feeling I can't even begin to describe.

  Joy flows through me, a joy which doesn't care whether it is appropriate or not, given that my world is in ruins. It simply exists. Deep and fundamental. I look at my father, overcome. “I can hear them.”

  He smiles knowingly. “How beautiful you are. Just like your mother.”

  I take my hands away from my stomach, and the quiet voices still.

  “She's dead. . . Mama is dead.” In my head, I whisper my mother's words for my father. “Tell your father I never wanted to be a rose, only ever a night-scented gilliflower, and his moon was my sun.”

  With the grief that appears in his eyes, his image fades before me.

  “One day you'll realize how strong you really are, Amkaya. Don't be afraid of your weaknesses; it is through them that we grow.”

  “Wait!” I reach my arms out toward him, because I see him slowly drifting off into the darkness. In vain. His image disappears and as the water clears, I feel the cold in my bones again. Mercilessly, it draws every last ounce of strength from my muscles. But even worse is the lack of oxygen, which makes me panic again. Time isn't standing still anymore. Every second that passes and keeps me from breathing makes that unmistakably clear to me. My lungs hurt unbearably.

  I can't drown. A short death would be the final death for the life within me. That is one of the messages I received.

  I turn in the frosty water and press my hands against the icy ceiling once more. My fingers are totally stiff and my power is waning. I have to breathe. Goddamn it, I have to breathe! Air bubbles escape my numb lips.

  “Aven!” I scream in my mind. “Help me, Aven!”

  Suddenly I feel the glassy surface jolt. A massive shattering sound resounds in my ears and I see cracks spreading through the ice. Like an eruption, the ice breaks open in one spot and I fight my way over to it with weak swimming motions. The hole isn't big enough to climb out of, but I really don't care, because all I'm following is the instinct to breathe so I don't drown. I claw my fingers as well as I can into the sharp chunks of ice and press my face up through the water to the surface. I inhale raspingly, sucking the oxygen deep into my lungs. Delicious oxygen, which makes me feel almost high for a moment.

  “Let her out!” I hear Aven shout, and I want to lift my head so I can see him and maybe even catch a glimpse of Airas, but I can barely manage to stay in the position I'm already in. My fingers threaten to slip down the smooth ice.

  “You ungrateful son of a bitch. Is this the thanks I get for all I gave you? You're using your powers against me?”

  “What about all you took from me?” screams Aven. “You stole my family from me.”

  “Do you think that's the way you should be talking to me? I could squash your heart with my fingers or simply rip it out of you,” she warns and Aven groans in agony once more.

  “If you want me to spare you and let go of your heart, then now would be the right time to ask for mercy and beg for your life, not someone else's.”

  The terrible image that appears in my mind at these words makes me tremble with more violence than even the deathly cold managed to.

  “You can rip it out of me, but it still won't belong to you.”

  “Your father dared leave me. I won't give you the chance to do the same,” Violette hisses her answer malevolently. They're the last words I hear clearly, because my hands slip and I sink back into the water beneath the icy ceiling.

  Although there is no current, to my horror I begin to drift away from the oxygen source. Try as I might to paddle back over to it, I can't. And even worse – the ice begins to close up again.

  Time is against me. At some stage I'm going to have to breathe again. What played out between Aven and his would-be mother doesn't inspire hope of getting out of my situation, and it troubles me greatly. As furious as I am at my newfound twin brother, and as incredulous as I am at the things he did – I certainly don't wish him dead. He's my only chance right now.

  Airas! When will he come back to life? I can only hope Aven's assumption is correct, that he didn't lose his immortality in spite of being in a different form, and his broken neck will heal. But I might never find out, if I don't get out of my icy prison soon.

  What is this? The surface of the ice above me darkens for an instant. A shadow, which darkens the light above me briefly and then dissolves again. Even before I can think about it, I suddenly feel the touch of a hand on my cold body. Stunned, I spin around and stare in astonishment into the dark blue of Noah's eyes.

  My heart has amnesia. How else is it possible that with only one look all the disappointment and anger of the past weeks are forgotten? I want to throw myself into his arms, but I can't move and only stare at him. His slow movements in the water have something surreal about them, and yet I know, with a deep conviction, that this here is surely no dream. The initial soft expression in his eyes suddenly clears and he looks above us at the ceiling of ice. I follow his gaze and see a little, round opening quickly widening there, forming a way out. I turn to him in relief, but he is gone. Someone reaches down for me from above, through the opening, and pulls me out of the icy water. Noah. Sopping wet, I gasp for air and look around the room anxiously.

  “Where is she?”

  “Who do you mean?” Noah, who is standing next to me also dripping wet, watches me closely.

  “The witch! Violette. She attacked us and locked me in down there. You didn't see her?”

  Noah shakes his head and fixes his gaze on Skin, who is cowering in the shade and almost looks a little lost. I see the glint in Noah's eyes, which tells me he is about to use his own inborn weapon.

  “No, don't. Leave him,” I call out and run across the ice to Aven, who is lying lifeless on the floor in the light of the morning sun.

  “Aven?” I kneel and lean over him, noting with alarm the deep, gaping wound in his chest. But he is alive. Even if his heart is beating only weakly, it is still there, where it belongs. I feel immense relief. Couldn't Violette bring herself to kill her foster son after all? Or did Noah simply interrupt her when he turned up? I wonder whether the witch's spell is only confined to keeping people from leaving the house, or it was generally of no consequence to Noah because of his powers? I stand up and glance over at him. He is approaching Airas, and for a moment I think I can see his wings. Just a hint of them, as if transparent, shining in the sunlight, but in the next instant the image has vanished.

  “It's Airas,” I call out to him and he glances at me briefly, before bending over my brother's mutated form. I catch myself staring at him, unable to tear my eyes away.

  “Behind you!” The croaky cry from Aven, who now has his eyes half open, makes me whip around. Violette. Face twisted with hatred, she hurls herself at me, her claw-like hands now only a few inches away from my chest. Even before I can react, I see Skin's huge muzzle out of the corner of my eye. He comes flying over and with a single bite severs Violette's hand from her body.

  In doing so, he not only stops her attack on me, but shoves her a good two yards away and almost makes her fall. A fountain of blood sprays into the air and covers the paintings on the walls. The witch's face freezes into a shocked mask, which follows the flight path of her own hand all the way to the ice where it, inclusive the ruby ring on the ring finger, lies motionless. A grotesque picture. Skin yelps. His fur is being singed by the effects of the sun and smokes a little as he skids across the ice and slips back into the shade.

/>   “The sun! My ring!” The urgent whispers from Violette's mouth draw my gaze back to my mother's murderer, who is now looking at Aven and me with an ashen face. The skin on her bloody stump blisters, peels off her flesh which is seething underneath, and disintegrates. Wanting to protect her face, she jerks her arms up, but her black hair is ablaze and the flames spread over her whole body as if it were made solely of paper. Her shrill cry cuts off as her face distorts into a horrific grimace, breaks up and crumbles like ancient brick, and together with the rest of her body disintegrates into a pile of ashes.

  I would laugh from joy and relief, if the horror weren't stuck in my throat at the same time, cutting off my air supply. I stare at the ashes by my feet in disbelief. The vampire witch had such unbelievably strong magical powers, and then it's a mere bite, from a creature she created, that seals her fate. It seems unreal to me.

  “Are you okay?” Only now do I notice Noah, who is standing behind me and whose emerald-green eyes are turning back to a dark blue. I nod silently. I don't have time to lose myself in them again, because a splashing sound distracts me. The ice has vanished into thin air and Skin fell into the water. I see his blurry form moving underwater and can tell something has changed. But even before I can make out the difference, Noah touches my shoulder and gestures to Airas, who is now lying by the pool, naked and in his normal form, but still doesn't move. That worries me, but I'm distinctly relieved he's not stuck in the body of a repulsive creature anymore.

  “Will you help me take them both upstairs?” Although Noah's body language clearly shows me how unenthusiastic he is about my request, he nods. His quick glance at Aven is scornful. He turns away and heads for Airas. Of course. The message hurts, but I probably deserve it.

  I'm bending down to Aven when suddenly a blond man appears from in the water and clambers out of the pool only a few yards away from me. I straighten up again, curious, because I realize this must be Skin in his real form. Tall, slim and stark naked, he stands by the edge of the pool and looks over at me. His muscular body sports a few burn wounds which are healing at a very fast pace. I'm confused. Why doesn't the sun, which is falling on his naked skin, hurt him in his current form? I'm sure this man is Skin, because of his eyes - they don't match. One is brown and the other blue. In the past I've met two or three people with heterochromia of the iris and I automatically have to think of David Bowie, but never was the difference in color so puzzling and pronounced. The look he gives me is long and strange. He lays his right arm across his stomach and bows slightly, without taking his eyes off me. The vampire witch's ruby ring! It's on his finger, you can't miss it now. So it was through this ring that Violette possessed the ability to defy the sun, just as Skin does now. The beginnings of a smile flit across his face, and the next moment he has disappeared through the swinging door at a sprint.

  “Should I go after him?”

  I answer Noah's question with a shake of the head. Perhaps it would be sensible to ask this Skin some questions, but my gut feeling tells me now isn't the moment for that, even if I might never see him again. He saved my life, and I owe it to him to let him get away.

  With Airas in his arms Noah walks past me. His fleeting glance is cool and almost dismissive. It hurts. I have to talk to him. The unspoken words between us are like a wall I want to tear down, because I can't stand the distance.

  Aven tries to get up, putting all his energy into it now. I help him up and support him. His dark-blond hair is completely messed up and his eyes shine feverishly. He doesn't need to say anything, because they tell me of his pain, his regret, his confusion and his love, which he still feels and is trying to recategorize now.

  “Did you know, I always thought it was Violette's magic that protected me from the sun?” he tells me on the way upstairs. “And yet it was my real mother's blood. What a fool I was, to not notice anything.”

  “Then we must all have been fools.”

  With every step I haul him up, it becomes clearer and clearer that even Violette's death won't make up for the fact he never had the chance to know his real mother. And after all the years and the things we've missed out on, together with recent events, I doubt we still have a chance now to grow into a family. The future lies before me like a big, black hole. But the life within me is the light that makes me go on now. Full of hope, step by step, into an uncertain future.

  41

  Amkaya

  I close the door to the guest bedroom quietly behind me and make my way to Airas's room. Aven will be better in a few hours and I can only hope the same goes for my big brother too. I find him still lifeless and tucked in up to his bellybutton in bed. No sign of Noah. I pull the covers carefully up to his shoulders and only now do I see that my fingernails were completely destroyed during my numerous attempts to scratch my way out of my icy prison. Shivering from the cold, I leave the room and head for my own wing. The wet shirt clings to my skin, cold and unpleasant. I slip it off by the door of my bedroom and reach for the next best sweater and sweatpants from my walk-in closet, because I'm so freezing it hurts. That doesn't change with the dry clothes either. I'm trembling all over and I'm no longer sure whether it's only from the cold or it's my body's belated reaction to the last few shocking hours.

  “Noah,” I whisper, although I can't smell him. Aside from the pervasive cold, I don't seem to be able to perceive anything anymore. As if it has numbed my other senses.

  “Noah,” I repeat his name somewhat louder, and cling tightly to the bedpost where we made love what feels like an eternity ago, on that day when I knew for the first time that I love him.

  “Amy?” There it is. My name, forged in his beautiful voice. For a moment the trembling intensifies, and I feel like my heart skips a beat. I search for words, want to say something, but I can't get a word out, I can only look at him. Meanwhile he too has freed himself from his wet clothing and wears jeans and a black shirt with the words BREAKING BAD on it. Only now do I notice he has changed his hairstyle. It's shorter, bolder and more daring. He looks simply ravishing. I automatically want to go over and embrace him. Explain everything to him. But I don't dare, because his expression is distant and chilly.

  “I'm glad you came. . .”

  “You don't need to thank me. It's not necessary.” The dismissive tone in his voice has me feeling even colder.

  “Yes, it is necessary. You saved me,” I say and take a step toward him. “You saved us,” I then add, and see him make a disgusted face and turn away.

  “If you mean him, then you really can save your breath. He could have died as far as I'm concerned. I didn't save any of you, because if you were destined to die, you'd be dead now. I thought you understood that by now.” The derision in his voice is unmistakable.

  He still doesn't look at me as he goes on. “I could sense the impending death in this house all the way across the other side of the city, that's how strong the vibrations were. I didn't know who was going to die or how. . . only that someone here was going to die, that was for certain. I only wanted to make sure it wasn't you. Otherwise I never would have turned up here.”

  “And why not? Why didn't you think it necessary to answer my messages? Not a single one of them? Was it so easy for you to just give up on us?”

  “No,” he shakes his head and looks at me. “It wasn't easy. It wasn't at all easy, but I wanted to give you time to figure out what you wanted. Who you wanted.”

  “And although you assumed I decided against you, you came to save us?”

  “Yes, the fool that I am, I even came back one more time although I saw you in the library the first time. . . and your decision was pretty obvious.”

  For a moment I can see pain in his eyes, before a curtain of coldness settles over it again and I register that he too isn't wearing his ring anymore.

  “Well then, there's nothing standing in the way of your happiness anymore. Is there anything else? Can I go now?”

  His blue eyes look right through me and I feel ashamed at the thought of
Noah seeing me and Aven like that. What an irony of fate that he was here right at that particular moment.

  “No, please don't go,” I beg him. “I have to tell you something.”

  I have to explain now, before he disappears again. But how and where do I begin?

  “The thing with Jack. . . it was a mistake. A huge mistake.”

  “For once I can't argue with you.”

  “Jack is my brother.”

  I'm no longer invisible to Noah, because he's now staring at me intently.

  “Say that again.”

  “He is my brother. The twin brother we all thought dead, Aven.”

  He's clearly surprised, because for a moment he seems to lose all control over his facial expression, but then it freezes once more into a mask.

  “And how does that change the fact that you would have traded me in for him? Apart from making it even more disgusting.” It tears me up inside, the way he looks at me.

  “Please, hear me out. I'm trying to explain. It isn't easy. The whole thing isn't easy for me either. In fact it's damned hard, because it hurts. It hurts to realize things you'd prefer not to admit are true. And it hurts to see you like this, even though I do understand. But no matter what you say to me now and how you act. . . I do believe you still love me, and that's the reason you're here. And what you need to know, what you need to believe, is that I love you too. I never stopped loving you.”

  Noah looks at me as if he has his doubts about my sanity.

  “I didn't know why I suddenly couldn't stand you, why I suddenly felt so unwell when I was around you, why I even attacked you. I had no idea how I could suddenly lose my way like that emotionally and then the thing with Jack happened, who turned out to be Aven. Right from the start it felt wrong, but I simply couldn't stop it. This attraction and this connection between us. . . I misinterpreted it, because I had no idea. . . how could I have guessed he was my twin brother?”