Scent of a Vampire

by Jude Stephens

  I was contemplating on where and how I was going to cross the river. I had to cross because people were waiting for me on the other side. As I stood there I heard a rustling in the bushes.

  When I looked in the direction of the sound, I saw a large silver wolf emerge from the woods. I wasn't frightened, only curious. The wolf moved forward to stand a few feet before me. We seemed to take each others measure. As if we had some understanding, the wolf lowered his head as if to say nice to meet you. I nodded back. Then the silver wolf turned and went the same way he had come. How strange, I thought, still standing by the water. I eventually turned my thoughts back to how to cross the river when I saw there was a vine tied to a tree and the other end was dangling at the water's edge. This was clearly the way for me to cross but there was a great fear inside of me. I did not want to go.

  That was all I remembered of the dream. It is weird how the mind works. How can your mind make a dream so vivid and real? I thought as I prepared to get myself up and get dressed and begin my training. I rolled carefully out of Roberto's arms and rolled my eyes at myself.

  "I will never get used to sleeping with a dead man." I laughed out loud. The laughter died on my lips as I looked down at my feet. They were dirty. There were little flecks of mud on both my feet.

  "What the heck?" I said. I looked around the floor but didn't see any dirt. I pulled the covers back and didn't see anything there either. I tried to think what I had exactly done last night. I took a shower and did not go outside after that. I was a little spooked by the whole thing; the vivid dream and now the dirt.

  Just then there was a knock on the door. I opened it and Janel was there dressed and hopping from one foot to the other, clearly impatient, "Can you hurry up and get dressed?

  Andy and Mark are waiting for us. Andy is really cute but there is something mysterious about Mark that I find fascinating. He is handsome in a rather rough way don't you think?" Janel paused for a second. "You look different today. Did you lose weight? You're probably not eating right. I'm going to make sure that you eat a proper meal today." As Janel rambled on, my mind was still preoccupied with my routine of last night.

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  Maybe when Roberto had taken me downstairs there was some mud on the floor someone else had tracked in. That is the only plausible explanation I could think of at the moment. Janel pulled me back to reality when she said, "Do you think I can?"

  I looked at here in confusion. "Do I think you can what?"

  "You weren't listening to a word I said." Janel accused.

  "I'm sorry. You know how long it takes for me to wake up. What was it you asked?"

  "I asked you if you will ask Andy and Mark to let me train with you. Of course Mark will train me. Maybe we will do some body to body combat." She said hopefully.

  "I think you mean hand to hand combat."

  "Whatever, as long as there is some type of contact." She said and I laughed. I decided to forget my problems for the moment and go with the flow. After promising Janel to take a quick shower and be downstairs in ten minutes I ran in the bedroom I was supposed to be sharing with Janel. I grabbed a pair of jeans and brown turtleneck sweater from the new things we had bought and headed to the bathroom. Ten minutes later I was headed downstairs with my hair wet but otherwise ready to learn how to defend myself. I met up with Andy and Mark in the kitchen talking to Janel.

  "Wow, a navy seal. I bet that was exciting. I bet you have to be in really good physical shape in order to do that kind of thing." I heard as I walked in.

  Both Andy and Mark looked relieved that I had come in.

  "Good morning." I smiled at them.

  "Good morning." Andy replied. Mark just nodded.

  "Let me grab a cup of coffee and a bagel and I'll be ready to start."

  "Oh no, I got a proper breakfast for you. Sit down. I got bacon and eggs and some toast." Janel said as she set everything in front of me.

  I looked at Andy and Mark to apologize for the delay but Janel saw and said, "These guys are fine. They will wait. You need to take better care of yourself." She admonished.

  "Okay, okay. But you are going to spoil me." I said. But I was pleased. Usually, in the scheme of our relationship, I was the more sensible one. It seemed like Janel had grown up in the last few days. I ate everything on my plate and drank two cups of coffee and actually felt better than I had in days.

  "All right. Make me a bad ass." I said as I got up from the table.

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  Andy smiled and said, "I don't think you need any help in that department. I heard about last night." My face must have shown my embarrassment because Andy added, "Don't be ashamed of what you are Olivia. Besides it being what you are, your Sensay abilities may help keep you alive one day. Today we're going to start with some basic defense maneuvers. These maneuvers are life saving techniques. They are designed to stun your attacker to allow you enough time to escape."

  For the next few hours Janel and I learned how to counter chokes and holds. How to counter an approach with a weapon, hip throws and body strikes. It was hard work but I thought back to how in the fall, a few women from the hospital had been attacked as they left a late shift. This stuff should be taught in every school to every girl, so they can learn to defend themselves.

  Andy told us to take a break for ten minutes and Janel and I collapsed on the ground.

  "God, how is Mark ever going to be attracted to me when I smell like a sumo wrestler?" Janel complained.

  I laughed. We did smell a little ripe.

  Andy walked over to us and with disgust I noticed that he wasn't even sweating. "I've asked Mark to work with Janel a while. I'm going to instruct you on some offensive strategies." I looked up at him in confusion. "What does that mean?" Andy tried to explain, "We want to teach you to be in command of situations where you may find yourself outnumbered. How to ambush the enemy with stealth and surprise to defeat them."

  "I don't know about that Andy. I can see myself defending myself to prevent myself or someone else from being hurt. But it sounds like you're asking me to condone random killing. I don't think I could do it."

  Andy squatted down next to me, "What if the other day when you arrived at your parents'

  house and they had still been alive, but being held by a highly trained unit? The only hope of their rescue would have been you, but you had to out maneuver-trained soldiers. Maybe they were even guerilla trained combatants. Would you wish at that moment that you knew what to do?" He looked at me with cold steely eyes.

  "I'm sorry for being so harsh. But reality is the people you are going to be up against are not going to be pacifists. Either you beat them or they beat you. It is that simple." He stood up and offered me his hand. I understood what he was saying. I knew this was just the beginning of putting myself in a totally different mindset than I had been for the last thirty years. Violence and pain had replaced harmony and peace in my life. I took hold of his hand and let him help me off the ground.

  "Okay. I'm game. I just want to warn you though. I don't think I have the killer instinct in me but I'll try." I warned him.

  He laughed, "Tell that to Cristoforo. I'll bet he'll disagree." I groaned. I had a feeling I was never Scent of a Vampire – Jude Stephens

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  going to stop hearing about that unfortunate incident. It was the third grade all over again, when I accidentally called my teacher

  'Mom' and everyone made fun of me for the rest of the year. I spent the rest of the afternoon learning about stealth attacks and using the terrain to ambush an enemy. By the end of the day Andy wanted to do a trial run, so he was hiding in the nearby woods. My directive was to sneak up on him and engage him. It was hard, but not impossible to make no sound as I crept towards my objective. I had spotted some movement to the right of the tree line about a hundred yards across a meadow. I didn't use the direct
route across the meadow, instead I skirted around the meadow concealing myself in the growth of trees. I was sure Andy was maybe fifty feet to my right behind a large evergreen tree. I had seen a flash of movement over there. It may have been some leaves blowing but I didn't think so. I crouched low and kept my eyes on the tree. A silver wolf stepped out and looked at me with silver eyes. I closed my eyes for a second to make sure that my vision wasn't playing tricks on me. The wolf was gone. Great, now I was having delusions. I needed to ge....

  "Hmmpph," I grunted as Andy tackled me from behind. For one second I just lay there with him on top of me.

  Then I got pissed off. I bucked up hard and threw him off balance and before he gained control I rolled to the side and pushed myself to my feet.

  He was up an instant later, circling around me looking for a point of attack. When he struck, I countered with a spin and a quick kick to his feet to unbalance him. At the last minute, he jumped out of the way. Andy moved with lightening speed and got behind me and put me in a chokehold. I countered the hold by leveraging his weight to flip him over, just like he had taught me. Andy looked up and laughed, "Very good. You're either a quick learner or I'm a good teacher."

  "You're a good teacher." I panted, out of breath.

  "I think you're underestimating yourself piccolina. You're an excellent student." I turned and saw Roberto standing behind us with a ferocious look on his face. Roberto looked at Andy lying on the ground and said, "Will you excuse us Andy? I need to speak with Olivia for a moment."

  "Of course, I'll see you back at the house." Andy said easily.

  When he sauntered off, Roberto grabbed my hand and just about dragged me across the meadow to the thicker tree line. Roberto seemed upset over something.

  "Roberto is everything okay? We were just training." I stammered.

  Roberto didn't say anything. When we got into the woods he turned and with a low growl, pulled me up against him and slanted his mouth across mine.

  He backed us up against a tree and while still kissing me, ran his hand up the inside of my thigh.

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  I moaned at the sensations of fire that leapt through my veins at his touch.

  "I need to be inside you now cara. Watching you battle made me so hot for you." He panted. He quickly undid my jeans and yanked them and my panties down. He slid a finger into my slickness and I went wild, thrashing my head back and forth, moaning with my pleasure. When he inserted two fingers, I began to ride his hand thrusting myself up and down until the friction was going to drive me mad.

  "ROBERTO! Please!" I shouted and as he began to circle my engorged clit with his thumb, I came with a scream that he captured with his mouth. He roughly lowered me to the ground and fumbled with his zipper and freed his erection and found my slick opening and thrust inside me, hard. He pumped into me again and again so hard that we were moving across the damp earth. As he was thrusting into me, he was shouting things in Italian I could not understand. I felt my climax begin to build and I wrapped my legs around him and began to buck against him to increase the pressure on my core.

  The climax ripped through my entire being until I was screaming from the intense pleasure I thought would surely kill me.

  As my muscles pulled and clenched around Roberto's rock hard cock, I could feel his own climax was seconds away, so I reached down and cupped his sac and gave it a little squeeze and Roberto shouted, "God help me, Olivia I love you!" And he spurted his hot seed into me as he continued to thrust against me all the while kissing me and murmuring, "I love you, can't help myself. I'm sorry, I love you." When at last his body stilled, he rolled over until I was lying on top of him. He kissed me and kissed me again. He was still inside me and began to rock his hips slightly. I sucked in a deep breath as sensations of pleasure caused goose bumps to break out on my arms. Still kissing me he said, "I will never have enough of you Olivia. My need for you is greater than anything I've encountered in all my long life." He rolled us over so he was on top again. He slid his cock almost all of the way out and when just the throbbing head was inside me, he circled his hips to apply the right amount of pressure to make me begin to shake with need. My legs felt weak but I tried to squirm to take more of him inside me. He smiled a sly little sexy smile before he pulled all of the way out and sat back on his hunches and lifted my legs onto his shoulders. The way we were positioned I was able to watch the fire in his eyes as he bent his head to start licking at my slick folds. The pleasure was so intense I began to thrash and dug my hands into the damp earth.

  "Look at me." Roberto commanded. I watched as he used his talented tongue to lick me. When his mouth closed over my clitoris and began to suck on it, I came in a hot rush. I began to cry from the sheer joy the potent pleasure brought me. Roberto gathered me in his arms and let me cry for a while. We rolled onto our sides and laid there with goofy smiles on our faces.

  "I'm sorry piccolina." Roberto said.

  "For what?"

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  "For taking you out here in the woods. I hope you're not sore or that I hurt you. I was out of control." He smiled at me; that sexy little smile that always made me want him.

  "I like you out of control. You said you loved me." I marveled.

  "I do love you. I can't but help love you. You are so beautiful and courageous and you have a goodness inside you I haven't seen in anyone else."

  I needed to tell Roberto about my worries. "I need to tell you something. I've been seeing things and last night I had a strange dream and woke up with mud on my feet. I'm really scared I may have some neurological disorder. Maybe I have a brain tumor or something."

  Roberto grabbed me by the shoulders a bit roughly, "What have you been seeing?"

  I was startled by his roughness, "I've seen a silver wolf. Out here in the woods and in my dreams." Roberto let go of me as if I were on fire. And straightened his clothes "What is it Roberto? Do you know something about all of this?" I pleaded with him. If he knew something I wanted to hear it, even if it was a bad thing. Maybe Sensay's were really some sort of neurological defect because of a disease and they didn't live long because of it. I think I even watched a movie one time about something similar. If this was the case I wanted to know. I had a right to know. Roberto pulled himself together, "I don't know a lot Olivia, just legend and stories that have passed down between the evolved. But I think you walk with the great wolf spirit."

  I almost laughed except for the serious look on his face,

  "Okay. I walk with the great wolf spirit. So what does that mean?"

  "The silver wolf is an agent of the Great Spirit. And its appearance confirms the prophecy that you will be the most powerful evolved one to ever walk the earth."

  Chapter 25

  I started laughing. Not a chuckle, but one of those out of control laughs that eventually made your stomach hurt. When I finally got some control over myself, I looked at Roberto who was standing there with his arms crossed over his chest waiting for me to stop.

  "Are you quite finished?" he asked.

  "Hahahah, yeah, hahah." I gasped. "Prophecy? I am no one's prophecy. I'm pretty sure about that. I am your average almost thirty insecure woman. You could meet a dozen women like me at your local bar."

  "Okay, Ms. Average woman. How do you explain your sense of smell? Or that you see and dream of wolves? Or how about the fact that you can stand your own against a professionally Scent of a Vampire – Jude Stephens

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  trained guard after one lesson?" I hadn't even considered that one. I did do pretty well against Andy. And he had to be close to six feet tall and probably two hundred pounds.

  Roberto stepped close to me and bent to whisper in my ear, "How do you explain the electricity that runs through your body every time I touch you?"

  "You're a love machine?" I answered, even while I was shivering with pleasure as his li
ps brushed my ear lobe. Roberto laughed, "Well that is true, but cara, you have to admit to me and yourself there is something different about you."

  I thought about the fact that for all of my life I have always felt a step out of sync with the rest of the world.

  "Maybe I will at least try to be open to the idea. I know the things that have been happening to me are not exactly normal. But you'll also have to understand if I find it a little bit difficult to listen to things about prophets and great Sensay powers. Or people waiting for me to be born."

  "What do you mean by that? Who has been waiting for you to be born?" Roberto asked sharply.

  "The Guardian guy I shot. Evan. He told me when he and the troll kidnapped me they had been waiting a long time for me to be born and that they found me through birth records with my real name."

  Roberto snapped his head up, "Real name? Your name isn't Olivia?"

  "Well not technically, my birth name is Orenda, which I hate and that's why I go by Olivia. I have since I was a teenager. Evan told me my last name was Seneca and not Sherman which is bull."

  "Why didn't you tell me this?"

  "I honestly forgot. There has been too much happening lately."

  "Did he tell you anything else?"

  "Ummm, he told me something about my great grandmother. She was a tribal elder and her name meant magic power or something like that."

  "Merda." Roberto swore. "I guess it would be safe to say they know about the prophecy too."

  "So what?" I asked. "What does it matter if they know all about me? It doesn't change anything.

  You can still train me and tomorrow we can go get Alex and see what happens after that."

  Roberto shook his head, "I don't know how much I can train you. You will eventually need to train with your clansmen."

  "What??? I thought you would train me." Roberto put his arm around me, "Let's get back to the Scent of a Vampire – Jude Stephens

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  house and feed. Then we can make some solid plans." We started walking back to the house.