The Undead Heart (#1 in the Blood Thirst Series)

by Stephanie Jackson

  Beck asked incredulously, “He wanted to eat me when I was on my period?”

  Potter laughed, “Not at all. We’re all animals, Beck. When you’re on your period, you’re in heat. He could smell it from over a mile away, further if the wind is right.”

  “But, he has to have been around thousands of women in ‘heat’. Why didn’t he jump on them?”

  “They weren’t his mate,” Jenny explained. “You are.”

  “Regardless, you’d think he’d at least want to hear my idea, especially if we can kill Elderson,” Beck said.

  Potter smiled. “He can hear you. I think he’s just trying to not start another fight with you.”

  “Well, come on. We’ll talk about it when we get to wherever it is you’re taking us,” Beck said a little louder.

  Richard stood up, kicked over the big tree he had almost hit, and got back in the car.

  They were back on the road when Beck took his hand, “Richard…,” she had started to say.

  Richard kept hold of her hand but said firmly, “No. Don’t talk to me. Not yet.”

  Twenty minutes later, they pulled up to a house about a mile back in the woods. It was a gorgeous, huge log house.

  “How did you find this?” Beck asked in amazement.

  “We didn’t find it,” Richard said. “We built it.”

  “How? I thought you’ve been with me all this time.”

  “I have been. We built this house when you were still a little girl,” he said, smiling at her.

  “Are you serious?” she asked, looking up at the beautiful home. “Yes, that’s what Leso and I used to do; build things. So, we built you this. Do you like it?”

  Awestruck, she replied, “You built this for me?”

  “Yes, Little One. We built it for you.”

  “Thank you so much,” she said, and hugged him. “I love it!”

  “Hey! I built it too,” Leso said from behind her. She turned to hug Leso too, but Richard grabbed her and jumped. “Mine!” he yelled as they sailed through the air and landed on the chimney of the house.

  She screamed and clung to his arm for dear life. “Don’t drop me!”

  “Never,” he whispered. “Are you frightened of heights?”

  “Just a little,” she admitted.

  “I’m sorry for getting mad earlier.” +

  Smiling, she told him, “Don’t tell me, tell that to the tree you murdered.”

  “It was either the tree or the car, and you were in the car.”

  “How are you planning to get us down from here?”

  “Unless you want to slide down the chimney like Santa Clause, we’re going to have to jump.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  Scooping her up like a baby, he asked, “Are you ready?”

  “No,” she answered truthfully, and squeezed her eyes shut. He laughed and jumped. She could feel them dropping, but instead of crashing like she had expected, she didn’t even feel it when he touched the ground. “How long does it take to get used to that?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the only human I’ve done that with,” he told her. “Would you like to go see your house now?”

  She nodded, and he carried her in the front door. The house was beautiful inside, too. It had two staircases, on either end of the house, that led upstairs. The downstairs had a big living room, a dining room, a huge kitchen, two bathrooms, and two bedrooms. Upstairs, there were six bedrooms and two more bathrooms. She knew who all the extra bedrooms were for and hoped she could fill them.

  “It’s perfect. But if you built it a long time ago, where did all the new furniture and stuff come from?”

  “We built it when you were little, but we didn’t fill it up until a couple of months ago.”

  They went back downstairs and found everyone sprawled out in the living room.

  “Now, can we hear about the plan?” Potter asked. “Only if he promises not to kick down any of my walls. He already owes me a silver vase and a quarter,” Beck said, pointing at Richard.

  “I’ll be good,” Richard promised. “Okay, I need to ask something first. If a vampyre drank my blood, how long would it take to kill them?”

  “A few minutes, maybe less,” Richard said. “It would depend on how much blood was already in their stomach to mix with, but no more than a few minutes.”

  “How about if it was injected into one of their muscles?” she asked. “Nearly instantaneous,” Jenny said. “But you’d still want to take their heads, just to be sure.”

  “How are you planning to get the blood from here to the past? I don’t think they’re going to let you go back in time holding a bag of frozen blood,” Richard asked smugly, obviously thinking he’d stumped her. “I’m going to get the blood through in my body. Let me show you something,” she told him, and walked out the front door with Richard right behind her.

  “I’m just going to the truck.”

  “You’re not even going that far alone.”

  She got the big box out of the back of the truck. Richard took it from her and followed her back into the house. When he sat the box on the floor, Beck opened it, pulled out ten dresses, and dumped what had been under them onto the floor. There were two I.V. needles, two tubes, two one-pint blood bags, one small bottle of anticoagulant, and twenty-nine silver-tipped syringes.

  “I don’t think they’re going to let you go back with that in your arms either,” he teased, but sounding a little more impressed about how well thought out her plan was.

  “I’m not going to be holding it,” she explained grabbing one of the dresses and flipping the hem up to show the pockets that had been made into it. “The tubes go around my waist, and the bags and anticoagulant will go in the hem. Even if they pat me down, they won’t be able to feel anything.”

  “True, but they will feel twenty-nine needles,” Richard said, sounding a little distressed now.

  “I’m only taking three, but they only made them in batches of thirty, and I already used one on Potter.”

  Now moving to mad, Richard said, “They’ll feel three.”

  “They would, but they won’t be in the dress?” she told him. Now fully pissed off, Richard asked, “Then how are you getting them there?”

  Before she could answer, both the other women in the room laughed as they caught on before any of the men.

  “She’s going to take them through inside of her, Richard,” Bev explained. “You know, like a woman taking drugs into jail when visiting an inmate.” As he absorbed what they had just said, his eyes widened with shock. and he finally snapped.

  “Christ, Beck! You came up with all of this because I jokingly told you that no vampyre would bite you!?”

  “Actually, I came up with all this the night told me that I was going back in time. It just took awhile to pull all the pieces together.”

  Richard turned and walked out of the house.

  ***

  When he reached the front yard he broke into a run. He didn’t know how far he ran, but he ran until the woods ran into a cliff. He jumped up onto it and looked down upon a big field that ended at the Cumberland River. He could strongly smell the zinc coming from the zinc plant a good five miles away.

  “You know, her idea has a good chance of working,” Leso said from behind him.

  “Yes, my woman is going to bleed for us. She’s going to drain her blood to save us. That’s wonderful,” he said sarcastically. “Not all of it,” Leso reminded him. “That’s hardly the point. After she drains her blood, she’s going to become a hunter.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I really like Potter. He’s made Jenny very happy.”

  Richard sighed. “I like Potter too, but again, that isn’t the point. His blood could kill her. I’m sure you heard her infection theory.”

  “Yeah, I could hear Jenny and Potter talking about it at the hotel. It makes sense.”

  “It does, but what if the part of the infection that’s in us, is in Potte
r, too? She could die.”

  “I know you don’t want to, but hear me out before you try to kill me. I don’t think he carries that part of the infection. The part of the infection we were given did kill us. What he was given didn’t kill him. I’d be willing to bet my everlasting life that his heart never stopped beating. I really don’t think his infection will kill her.”

  “Would you bet Bev’s life on it?” Richard asked, knowing Leso wouldn’t.

  “I would…I will. I’m willing to risk anything to be with Bev forever. If she has to take on a little hunter blood to make that happen, then so be it.”

  Richard looked at Leso in shock. He had truly expected him to say no.

  “Richard, I know you believe that she’ll live. You’ve already thought of my theory of her not dying. You want to tell me what’s really bothering you?”

  Had it been any other person in the world besides Leso asking, he would have said no. But it was Leso, so he told him what he was afraid of, his worries of how her feelings might change after she changed.

  “You really think that could happen? And here I’ve spent all these years thinking you were intelligent and sane. She’s risking her life to save your family, to make you a happier man. She knows she died the last time, and still she wants to go. She just got attacked by a vampyre, and did she even put her foot in your ass about it? No, she didn’t even get mad.

  “Look at all the planning she did. Everything she put together. You left her over and over while she was in college, for good reason, but she always took you back. She ran with you here, not forgetting her box of plans. She did it for you. She did it because she loves you. And how did you thank her? You ran out on her.

  “Well, I’m going back. I’m going to thank her. You can sit here and sulk for as long as you like,” Leso said before he jumped from the cliff.

  Richard sat in stunned silence. Leso was right. He had spent so much time watching over her, that he’d never given any thought to what she was doing for all those years. He was so worried what it would do to him to lose her again, that his only priority had been to keep her safe, but he’d wasted the eight years he could have been with her. She loved him, and he had run away. He streaked back through the woods, back to her. He ran towards Leso, who was leaning against the truck smiling. “Your brain finally catch up, did it?” Leso teased. He didn’t stop to answer him. He ripped the door off the hinges getting into the house and broke three logs on an interior wall when he crashed into it, but he got there. She was on the couch next to Bev. He walked over and dropped to his knees in front of her.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll never run out on you again. We’ll do whatever you want. You can change into a hunter, or a witch, or the Tooth Fairy. I don’t care. I love you. I’ve always love you. I will always love you. Stay with me in the past, the present, and the future. Marry me. Be with me forever. Please.”

  She looked at him with tears in her eyes, but also with a smile.

  She looked at the front door laying on the floor and the cracked logs, and then back to him. “Is there anything you don’t break?”

  He nodded. “Your heart, ever again. I promise,”

  Then she was in his arms and his heaven was back in its place. His world was right again.

  After a very forgiving night in their new bedroom, he nudged her foot with his.“So will you?”

  “Will I what?”

  “Marry me tomorrow?”

  “Yes, on one condition.”

  “Anything.”

  “You have to fix my house,” she smiled. “I’ll get right on that,” he promised, but it was nearly daylight before he pulled himself out of the bed.

  ***

  He and Leso went hunting, hung the door back up, and were just finishing putting the logs back into place when Beck came downstairs. “Why are you two making so much noise?” she asked through half-opened eyes.

  Richard’s smile covered his face as he answered her. “The sun’s up, the house is fixed, and you said you’d marry me. Are you ready?”

  “It’s not even 8:00 a.m. We still have to get a marriage license and find a preacher willing to marry us today.”

  “We just have to get the license. I already have the preacher, your preacher actually, Rev. Joseph Bryce. It’s all setup. He’s thrilled to do it. We’re supposed to meet him at his church at 11:00 a.m..”

  “Richard, he’ll tell my parents,” she gasped. “So what, they won’t show up,” he said. “Yes, they will. They would look bad if they didn’t.”

  Repentantly, he said, “Sorry, it’s too late now, though.” She fixed her hair, threw her makeup on, and was ready to go in thirty minutes. They stopped at McDonald’s to get her some breakfast, and then went to get their marriage license at the clerk’s office. They were done in plenty of time to go to Wal-Mart to get something besides her old clothes to wear. She picked a long, light orange sundress and white sandals. Richard chose khaki colored dress pants, a nice short-sleeved shirt, and dress shoes.

  He also bought six disposable cameras.

  “That’s just a waste. You know those are going to disappear when I do.”

  “I know, but you’re going to look at every picture and remember them for me,” he said, smiling.

  He grabbed flowers next. He picked orange and white roses for her to use as a bouquet.

  “These stems are way too long. Do you have a knife with you?” she asked as they were driving to the church.

  They were at a stop sign, and he took the roses from her. “How long do you want them?”

  “About five inches,” she told him.

  He turned the roses sideways and bit the stems clean through. He handed them back to her, and threw the leftover stems out the window.

  “Hey, don’t litter.”

  “It’s not litter. It’s rose stems.”

  They got to the church with five minutes to spare. Just as she had predicted, her parents were sitting in a car out front.

  “Told you so,” she moaned as they began walking toward the church. Her parents jumped out of their car and walked quickly over to her, wearing their best Sunday church clothes.

  “Rebecca, why didn’t you tell us you were getting married today?” her mother asked.

  “You might have said something, young lady,” her father added. She couldn’t believe it. They were actually trying to act normal to impress Richard!

  “When would I have said anything? I haven’t seen or spoken to either of you in nearly eight years,” she said icily. “Yes, sorry about that. e’ve been really busy, dear,” her mother said, still smiling, but Beck could feel her parents were mad and embarrassed by what she’d said.

  Coming closer to her back, Richard inquired, “I’m sorry, I must have missed something. Did you say you’ve been busy?”

  “Hello. It’s so nice to meet you. We’re Rebecca’s pare…,” her mother started, but Richard cut her off.

  “I know who you are. I know you’re here for your preacher’s sake. You couldn’t have him telling the parish that Beck got married without you here, could you?”

  “I see Rebecca’s been telling stories again. If you met our other daughter…,” her father started to say.

  Richard pointed to the church steps. They swung their heads, and their faces took on a look of shock and horror that matched the expression Bev’s when she saw them. “That daughter?”

  They swung their heads back toward Richard with their mouths hanging open.

  “Yes, that’s what I thought. Pay attention to me, folks, because I’m only going to say this once. You can go into the church. You can go home. You can go straight to hell for all I care, but what you will not do is disrupt this day for us. Do you understand me?”

  Beck reached out and touched the tip of her father’s nose, giving it a loud static electric shock. He made a move toward her, just a tiny twitch, but Richard was already in front of her.

  “I really wish you would, sir.” Showing them no concern, he turned his back on them
and directed his next question to Beck, “Can you put them out of your mind, Little One?”

  “I always have.”

  He took her hand and led her toward the church. “That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Can you do that whenever you want?”

  “No, only when I’m emotionally overexcited, or there’s an electrical charge in the air, but I’ve been wanting to do since I was a kid,” she laughed.

  They walked into the church followed close behind by her parents who were all smiles again. Well, appearances had to be upheld, didn’t they? Even if they had known that they would be surrounded by vampyres that didn’t like them, they still would have come. Bev was her bridesmaid, Leso was the best man, Potter sat on the opposite side of the church from Beck’s parents, and Jenny was assigned picture duty. She went through two cameras during the short ten minute ceremony. It was hard not to smile though Rev. Bryce’s praying when she could hear Jenny back there just clicking away. Richard was looking at her with a curious expression on his face. Obviously, he wasn’t seeing the humor present here.

  After it was over, they rushed out of the church, leaving the others to deal with Beck and Bev’s parents.

  Richard turned to her as soon as they were in the car. “What had you smiling through the ceremony?” She told him about her reaction to Jenny’s picture taking, and he smiled. “So, that was the reason for the smiles?”

  “Most of it,” she told him. “There’s more?” he asked. “Just one other thing…and I’m not making fun of you, but I was hoping that neither you, Leso, or Jenny would be overcome and moved to tears. When that crossed my mind, I had to fight the urge to laugh so hard that I nearly peed myself. I think I may have actually let a little go. I don’t think I could have explained to Rev. Bryce why my new family cries tears of blood,” she said, laughing.

  This made him laugh so hard that he had to pull the car over and wait it out. Good thing he had a handkerchief in his pocket.