Nocturnal

by Ilia Bera

  What she found most useful was a small artefact, made from a pure Red Sunstone. It hung on a black string, and it appeared to glow at night. The stone was supposedly infused with the blood of an Immortal Ancient—a vampire who’s reached a high level of power, only attainable by mastering one’s own vampirism.

  Brittany’s nanny was afraid that the young dark-skinned had lost her mind. She took off as soon as she saw the giant pentagrams on Brittany’s walls.

  Brittany was alone.

  No family.

  No friends.

  She couldn’t go to school anymore because of her sensitivity to daylight. She started to show up at random high school house parties, just to feel some human interaction. But at the end of the day, it was like nothing changed—still, she was invisible to boys. She stood at the parties and watched from lonesome corners as the girls with the lowest cut tops went home with the cutest guys.

  She didn’t feel comfortable wearing any of it, but she went out and bought some scandalously short skirts, deep low-cut tube tops, lewd crop-tops, and a few bralets—everything the popular girls were wearing.

  Before she knew it, she was turning heads. Horny men gravitated towards Brittany, hoping for an easy lay. Even though she wasn’t getting asked out to any movies, or to any nice restaurants, the superficial attention was better than nothing at all.

  The compliments from the horny men reminded her that she wasn’t just some invisible spectre.

  Finally, Brittany’s phone stopped ringing over and over; leaving her alone with the silence she was all too used to. She lay back onto a large faded occult triangle that she’s painted on the floor years before.

  Buzz!

  There was a text message on her phone. It was from Kane.

  “Please pick up. I need to talk to you,” the message read.

  Brittany ignored the text message, looking back up at the ceiling. A tear trickled out of the corner of her eye and ran down her soft cheek, pulling her black makeup down with it.

  Buzz!

  Kane sent another message. Brittany pretended to ignore it—pretending as though she’d never met Kane. After all, she couldn’t be hung up on someone she never met—right?

  Buzz!

  Kane’s messaging was relentless. Brittany tried to resist the urge to look, but she wasn’t strong enough. Finally, she caved. She grabbed her phone and opened her messages.

  “I’m on my way over. It’s important,” Kane’s final message read.

  Brittany had to read the message twice before her brain processed it. Her heart sank into her stomach and her head started to feel light. One look inside of her house, and Kane would have ended her vampire life in a heartbeat.

  She jumped to her feet and frantically looked around—what could she do? How could she hide the wall-sized pentagrams, the many jars of rat’s blood and all of the other condemning evidence?

  FORTY-FOUR

  VAMPIRE ROMANCE

  Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Connor and Hanna had totally lost track of time. Without the young pair realizing it, the cafeteria staff had showed up for their morning shifts, and the many hospital patients were starting to make their way towards the now-open buffet line for breakfast.

  “So if you pass English, they’ll let you back on the team?” Hanna asked Connor.

  Connor laughed. “I wish it was that easy. I’m too old to play on a high school team now. I need to get all of my grades high enough to get accepted into SBU. Then, I need to try out for their team.”

  “I’m sure you can do it.”

  “Thanks—I really hope so.”

  “Do all hockey players have to go to college to play?”

  “No—But the only Triple a team within two hundred miles of here is the SBU Snow Rabbits. If I lived in a bigger city with more options, I could just try out for one of the public Triple a teams. The choices here aren’t so good.”

  “Have you thought about moving down south, to play on one of those other teams?”

  “Thought about it—yeah. But I can’t just leave my mom here.”

  Hanna smiled.

  “So what do when you aren’t in class? Do you just practice your hockey?” Hanna asked.

  “Pretty much—and I wash dishes at Moonraker’s Restaurant.”

  “Wow—you keep yourself busy.”

  “It never ends,” Connor laughed.

  “You don’t work today, do you?”

  “What day is it?” Connor asked as he pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the date. “Holy crap—It’s almost six-thirty.”

  “Really?” Hanna asked.

  “Yeah—I should probably try and get some sleep before I need to work.”

  “I need to get home too,” Hanna said.

  The two stood up from the suddenly busy cafeteria table. Connor grabbed his coat off of his seat and quickly put it on. “I’m just going to check on my mom, and then I’ll walk you home.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Hanna said.

  “No, no. I insist. Please.”

  Hanna smiled. “Okay,” she said.

  The two made their way back through the busy hospital. The craziness in the reception area had died down, and the hallways had become quiet. The frantic midnight rush was over.

  “I’ll just be one second,” Connor said as they reached his mother’s hospital room.

  He slipped through the curtain, into the space where his mother was sleeping. He walked up to her and looked down at her sleeping face. He considered waking her up to say goodbye, but she looked far too peaceful.

  Instead, Connor used a hospital notepad to leave a note, telling his mother that he would be back as soon as his day of work and school was through. Connor quietly slipped back out of the room and met back up with Hanna. Together, they began their walk home.

  “I never asked,” Connor started. “How did you get that cut on your lip?”

  Hanna placed her finger on her lip, having forgot about the cut. “Oh—I don’t know. I was stupid.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was just a misunderstanding—with Brittany.”

  “She hit you?” Connor asked, shocked.

  “I don’t know what her problem is.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “I guess thought that I was going after you to make her feel bad, or something. So she slapped me and told me to back off. Her nail caught my lip.”

  Connor looked over at Hanna, shocked.

  “But—I don’t—I mean—I told her that she was wrong. It was just a misunderstanding, and she was mistaken—she was just mistaken. I told her that I wasn’t interested in you.”

  “Oh,” Connor said, looking forward again as he continued to walk Hanna home. He pretended as though the statement didn’t upset him, but it did.

  Hanna could see that her word-vomit had made Connor upset. Subtly, she pulled her hand out of her pocket and reached down, carefully taking Connor by the hand.

  The two continued to walk, hand-in-hand. The gesture quickly lifted Connor’s spirits back up, as a smile swept across his face. Without looking down, Connor slyly wrapped his fingers tightly around Hanna’s.

  “I don’t know that I could ever leave this,” Connor said.

  “Leave what?”

  “The snow. I love the snow here.”

  “It’s pretty.”

  “I just love the way it floats down so effortlessly—nowhere else does snow do that. And I love the way it looks when the town lights up at night,” Connor said as the two walked through the town centre, where a large antiquated clock tower stood, glowing with warm orange light. The clock tower was the oldest structure in Snowbrooke—built in the early 1900s out of sandstone.

  “I actually like that we get more night than day here.”

  “Me too,” Hanna agreed.

  Connor’s fingers tightened against Hanna’s warm hand, interwoven between her own fingers. The closer the two got to Hanna’s home, the closer they walked together. Befor
e long, they were cuddled up against one another, hand-in-hand.

  “That house there is mine,” Connor said, pointing out his little home. “But I guess you knew that, since you found my mom here.”

  Hanna felt more comfortable that ever before—safer than she even had in her life, nestled up against Connor’s warm body. For once in her life, she felt happy. She felt normal. For once, she was carefree.

  “I meant to ask—What brought you out here, so late at night?” Connor asked, looking over at his pretty young classmate. She felt a strong warm energy begin to take over her body. She took a deep breath in.

  But before he received an answer, Hanna stopped in her tracks and spun towards Connor. Without any warning, she pressed her lips firmly against Connor’s and kissed.

  Everything was perfect on that unusually warm winter morning. Connor enclosed his arms around Hanna and pulled her in tight to his body. The two kissed passionately as big fluffy snowflakes floated down gracefully around them in the soft air.

  Hanna’s hands clutched firmly against Connor’s sides. The perfect moment was seemingly endless.

  Connor leaned his head back slightly and looked down into his mysterious lover’s dark brown eyes, which sat just below her straight-cut bangs.

  A cool gust of wind whistled in the dark morning air.

  “Do you want to go inside?” Connor asked.

  Hanna bit her lip gently. “Okay,” Hanna said with her shy smile.

  Connor led Hanna into his house by the hand. He politely opened the door for her and then followed her inside.

  Hanna looked around the modest little house, admiring the photos of Connor and his family on the walls.

  “It’s lovely,” Hanna said.

  “It isn’t much.”

  “It’s lots,” Hanna said, turning back to Connor with a big smile on her face.

  Connor helped Hanna out of her coat, and then he removed his own. Hanna stood bashfully in her big oversized sweater as she stared into Connor’s piercing blue eyes. Her long thick sleeves sat, bunched up around the knuckles of her hands, and the base of the sweater nearly touched her knees.

  Connor stepped forward and gently placed his hand on the back of Hanna’s head. Slowly, he pulled her in close, and resumed their passionate kiss. The warm embrace filled Hanna up with an incredible energy—freeing her from all of her hang-ups and worries. She gently bit Connor’s lip and playfully gave it a tug. Connor laughed, admiring the girl’s light-hearted spirit.

  Without breaking their embrace, the two slowly made their way towards Connor’s bedroom.

  Despite the old high school rumours, Hanna had never had sex before. She’d never even kissed a boy before—until that moment with Connor. That’s not to say that she was a prude or that she held any religious or conservative values—it was just something that never came up for her.

  The only boys who ever showed any interest in her just wanted to get with her because she was “the weird chick”. They thought it would be “cool to get with the freaky girl”.

  They were never successful, but they would tell their friends otherwise, knowing the shy young Hanna wouldn’t stand up for herself, or put up a fight.

  Without looking, Connor opened his bedroom door. He gently pulled Hanna towards his bed and the two playfully fell down onto the soft mattress. Connor rolled overtop of Hanna as their passionate make out became more intense.

  Hanna’s tongue carefully penetrated Connor’s lips and wrapped itself around Connor’s tongue. Her soft plump lips were warm and sweet against—soft like cashmere.

  Sitting up, Connor took his shirt from the base. He pulled it up, over his head and then tossed it aside onto the floor. Hanna knew that he was athletic, but she wasn’t prepared for his impressive physique. Connor was a perfectly sculpted display of muscle mass and tone. He only weighed one hundred and seventy pounds, but there was not a single pound of fat on his whole body. As he leaned back down towards Hanna, his staggered concrete abs flexed deeply.

  Hanna couldn’t help herself. She reached her hand forward and ran her fingers along the long grooves between Connor’s abs. Once Connor was back on top of her and their kissing resumed, she reached her hands around back, running her fingers along the thick hard muscles on his back.

  Jolts of electricity were exploding through her spine—her body was being consumed by a commanding lust.

  Connor gently sunk down towards Hanna’s neck and he began to suck passionately. His fingers dug deeply into Hanna’s soft sides. As he travelled downwards, his spine arched, and his back muscles flexed. The sight of Connor’s perfect body alone was enough to elicit a soft moan out of the shy young girl.

  Connor gently bit the skin on Hanna’s neck as he kissed and sucked. In response, Hanna’s fingers dug deep into the muscles on Connor’s back, and she let out another soft, elated moan.

  Hanna’s head was spinning with emotions. Her hands were trembling with a combination of nerves and excitement. Like anyone, she was nervous about her first time.

  The rest of the world was silent, ceasing to exist. Nothing else in that moment mattered in the slightest.

  Connor sat up and moved his fingers down to the base of Hanna’s big sweater. Slowly, he started to pull it up, over Hanna’s soft tummy. Hanna bit her lip as she watched the topless stud remove her top.

  Then, a sudden bout of nervousness crossed her body. Her instinctual reflexes took over, and her hand moved down onto her sweater suddenly, stopping Connor from undressing her. Her eyes were side and her heart was beating aggressively at a mile-a-minute.

  FORTY-FIVE

  IN LOVE

  “Is everything okay?” Connor asked.

  Hanna looked up into Connor’s eyes.

  “Yeah—Sorry. I’m just—I’m just nervous, I guess.”

  “We don’t have to go any further, if you don’t want to,” Connor said. “We can wait. I’m okay with that.”

  Hanna didn’t know what to say—afraid that the truth of her virginity would scare her athletic lover away. She took a deep breath. “No—I want to,” she said. “But Connor…”

  “Yeah?”

  Hanna closed her eyes and hesitated for a moment. “It’s my first time,” she said softly. Hanna became frozen as she waited for Connor’s reaction.

  Connor smiled. He leaned forward and gave Hanna a little kiss on the lips. “Are you sure you want to?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just tell me if you feel weird or uncomfortable—Just try to relax, okay? We can stop whenever.”

  “Okay,” Hanna said, taking another deep breath.

  Connor smiled and he continued to pull Hanna’s sweater up, over her chest revealing the black satin bra, which sat over her breasts. Connor lowered his body down and gently kissed her chest. He slipped his hands carefully underneath Hanna’s body.

  Nervously, Hanna arched her back, giving Connor’s hands access to the clip of her bra. He carefully tinkered with it for a moment before popping it loose. Slowly, he pulled the bra off of Hanna’s body, revealing her soft bare breasts.

  Connor felt a surge of passionate energy render his body weightless as it fluttered in his spine. The nervous Hanna placed her hands over her breasts, covering them.

  “Are they too small?” she asked.

  “No—They’re perfect.” Connor smiled.

  He gently took Hanna’s hands and moved them off of her chest. One of her breasts was slightly larger than the other—a totally normal characteristic. It was obvious that Hanna was self-conscious about her chest, which was unfortunate. The reality was, Hanna’s body was perfect—flawless, even. Every part of the young girl was breathtaking. Her breasts were beautiful, her face was stunning and her body was exquisite.

  Connor leaned down and gently placed his hand around one of Hanna’s breasts. She could feel his lips press around her nipple as he began to stimulate her body with the tip of his tongue.

  Hanna felt exposed and uncomfortable, but she was quickly becoming relaxed
. She was happy that she was with Connor, and not somebody else.

  She took a deep breath, feeling the warm pleasure returning to her body. Her muscles began to let go of their tension, and she started to melt into the soft mattress of Connor’s bed.

  Connor let his top lip slide over Hanna’s areola as he began to sink downwards. He gently kissed her soft tummy before being met by the waistline of Hanna’s tights. He looked up at Hanna, who was smiling, relaxed. He smiled, and then began to pull the tights downwards.

  Hanna lifted her pelvis off of the mattress so that her pants could slide easily down her legs. Connor gently pulled the leggings down her thighs, her calfs, and then over her feet. He tossed them onto the floor below, leaving Hanna lying in just a pair of white cotton panties. Her legs were perfectly smooth and soft to the touch.

  Before bringing himself back down, Connor removed his belt, and then his own pants.

  Hanna’s heart was racing—beating well over one hundred beats per minute. As Connor brought himself back down on top of the beautiful girl, their passionate lovemaking continued. Their noses rubbed together as their kissing intensified.

  Their bodies were spinning with elation, away from their problems and anxieties. Connor’s soft cedar scent was rapidly overpowering Hanna’s sensual cravings.

  Suddenly, in her mouth, she felt a sharp pain…

  Her sharp fangs began to penetrate through her gums as they started to extend out. She knew that her irises were turning dark red, as her blood began to heat up, and her spine began to pulsate and tingle. Within moments, she could see Connor’s hot blood pumping hard through his thick veins.

  She wanted it badly—and the deeper she became lost in her powerful lust, the more she craved it.

  With all of her willpower, she fought the thirst back. She closed her eyes tight and let her head fall back, away from the warm blood in Connor’s luscious veins. She reached her hands down and slipped her fingers around the sides of her panties. She raised her butt off of the mattress, and slid her undergarment down.