I resisted the urge to start begging for my life. Nothing about him had struck me as violent since I met him. The only thing to raise eyebrows was his behavior on my first and so far only day of school.
He was looking down at the ground, rubbing his hands together. Finally after what seemed like an eternity he turned and looked me in the eyes.
Jonathon put his hands on my arms. I resisted the urge to pull away. I was scared and the look in his eyes scared me even more. But I would be strong. I had to conserve my energy if it came to a fight. A fight that I knew I would never win but I would have to try.
The sky around us had turned to sunset. The most beautiful pinks, oranges, and reds. So, much prettier compared to what you see back in the states. Even though, I worried about coming to Italy, it’s turned out to be the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me even if it might have led me to my death. I had needed Italy to begin rediscovering myself. I worried about so many things. Things that seem so silly now when I might be facing my death.
Jonathon let out a deep breath.
“Kylie, what I’m about to tell you, you have to promise to never tell anyone.”
“I promise Jonathon. But you’re frightening me.” I said, hoping to appease him but let him know that I was becoming fearful.
“You should be frightened.” He said. His eyes wandered, he looked like he was ready to have a seizure.
I couldn’t help the little gasp of shock that escaped my lips. This was it. This was how I died.
“You have to understand Kylie this is a hard secret for me to share. I’ve been hiding it for nearly seven-hundred years.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “Seven-hundred years how is that possible?” I managed to ask.
He let out another breath of cool air. It smelt so sweet. I found myself leaning in closer to him.
“Because. . . I am a vampire.”
“What!” I exclaimed. “Is this some kind of sick twisted joke? You psycho! Why would you even joke about something like that! Are you in some kind of cult or something?” I said rushing my words together.
He looked so grave when he said, “Something like that. But it’s true. You have to believe me. I would never lie to you! I love you! More than you can even imagine.”
“I don’t believe you,” I cried out, “You’re asking me to believe the impossible.”
“I’ll just have to prove it to you then,” he said standing up lightening fast. His body actually blurred.
Oh, no. I thought to myself. What if he’s telling the truth?
He strolled over to a cherry blossom tree, the trunk was large, it was wider around than is arms could reach.
He put his hands on it and with what looked like no effort at all pulled the tree from the ground. Roots and all.
I gasped.
But he didn’t stop there.
He picked up a fairly large rock and launched it into the sky. The rock soared high above a few birds scattering them with caws of fright and disappeared what looked like several miles away.
I blinked my eyes rapidly hoping my eyes were messed up. No such luck. I closed them all together hoping this was some stupid twisted dream and I would wake back up at my house in California and everything would be back to normal.
In a soft voice, he said, “What is it going to take for you to believe me?”
He didn’t wait for me to answer.
He picked up a small rock this time. He came towards me holding the rock where I could see it clearly. Stopping in front of me he closed his hand over the rock gently, a moment later he opened his hand. The rock had turned to dust.
“I’m strong,” he said, “Impenetrable,” he added this time holding a knife. He had moved so quick I hadn’t seen where he had gotten it.
He’s going to kill me. I thought panicking
But instead he held the knife out to me, hilt side.
“Take it,” he said.
“No,” I replied. My voice so quiet it was practically non-existent. But he heard me.
“Take it,” he said again, “Cut me, stab me, do whatever you want. I want you to see what I am. I want you to believe!”
I took the knife from him.
I held it awkwardly in my hand. I ran my finger along the blade. It drew blood.
“Come on, do it,” he growled.
“I can’t,” I replied in a small face.
“Fine,” he said taking the knife from me. “Watch,” he demanded.
I brought my eyes up to his. He looked so vulnerable. So, human. What he was saying couldn’t possibly be true. It just couldn’t.
He scraped it across his skin. There wasn’t even a scratch.
I didn’t want to believe what my eyes were telling me.
He still held tightly to the knife and this time he tried to stab himself. The sharp blade did nothing.
I began to cry. “This can’t be real. It just can’t. This is impossible. You’re impossible,” I said motioning to him.
His chest was heaving like he couldn’t get enough air but I guessed he really didn’t need it.
“It is real. I’m standing right in front of you. I’m a vampire. I’m not some myth,” his breathing began to slow.
“You’re real,” I said trying to convince myself, “You’re real,” I said again. I stood up and put my hands on either side of his face. His face, like his whole body, was cold but I couldn’t feel it. Looking in his eyes I knew what he was telling me was the truth. “You’re real,” I said yet again and this time I brought my face up to his and kissed him.
His arms automatically wrapped around me and he held me to him. This, right now, was perfect. I never wanted to stop. But we had to. He pulled away and looked down at me. His silver gray eyes were so trusting.
“You believe me?” he asked, his forehead pressed against mine. His eyes bore into me as his arms held me close so that I couldn’t break the gaze.
I laughed, I couldn’t help it. “You’ve asked me to believe a lot of impossible things but with the proof you provided it’s kind of hard not to believe you.”
He laughed too. “I guess I went a little overboard with the proof.”
“You guess?”
He laughed again.
“I hate to say it, but I probably wouldn’t have believed you otherwise.”
“I don’t care. I’m just glad that you do. But there’s a lot more that I have to tell you,” he said leading me back to the bench.
After my initial shock and fright I thought I would still be scared but I wasn’t.
I wondered briefly if that was strange. I should be scared. But instead I felt content. I should be running around screaming. But this just felt, well, right.
“Do you have any questions?” He asked obviously relieved that I finally believed him.
“Tons.” I choked out.
“Alright ask me anything. I no longer have anything to hide.” He said. Jonathon seemed relaxed and relieved.
“How old are you?”
“I was born in thirteen thirty and was turned into a vampire in thirteen forty-eight. You can do the math,” he said leaning back against the wall of flowers. I was amazed that they didn’t just swallow him up.
“Wow,” was all that I could say.
I decided to ask the inevitable.
“Do you drink human blood?” I asked shaking.
“Yes and no. Sometimes my family and I look to go out hunting, so when we do that we only hunt animals, not people. But most of the time we do drink human blood. Only it’s donated.”
“Donated blood?” I gulped. Picturing some underground cult where humans and vampires co-mingled and gave blood willingly.
“Yes, you know how people can donate blood to the Red Cross. We vampires can buy it.”
“Oh. I thought you meant people willingly sacrificed themselves, for your thirst.”
“No, sciocco,” he said and I could tell he was trying to hide a laugh.
“So, who turned you into a vampire?”
I let this entire explanation sink in.
“So, how come you don’t have red eyes?”
“Myth that humans made up to feel safer. If we get too hungry our eyes turn black. But no matter what we drink they’re always silver.”
I decided to ask a question I had been pondering over.
“I thought your parents were murdered.”
“They were not too long ago,” he said with a haunted look.
“I thought nothing could kill a vampire?”
“A stake of any kind through the heart paralyzes us. Bullets wound but don’t maim us. Fire is the only sure way to kill a vampire and that’s what happened to them.”
“That sounds awful.”
“It was.”
“I know this is a silly question but I have to ask…” I blushed before continuing. “Can you turn into a bat?”
“No, but I can fly, kind of. It’s a really weird way of travel it’s more like jumping really high and really fast. It’s not the most convenient way to travel for risk of being spotted. So, vampires can also run fast and jump from super high places without getting hurt.”
“How come your tattoo means, ‘possessor of fire,’ shouldn’t you be afraid of fire?”
“Yes, all vampires are afraid of fire. But all vampires also have a unique power. Some more extraordinary than others. Your power is determined by a tattoo of sorts it’s really more like a birthmark. The mark doesn’t fully appear until several days after you wake up from being created. To a human the mark looks like a tattoo. I have the power to conjure fire. Some vampires never get a mark. But most do. My sister Diana has the power to control water. My mother, Katherine, had the power to grow things. Joseph has the power of illusions. Patrick has the ability to control technology. That’s probably why he’s become an inventor of sorts. His wife Amelia has the power of severe patience, not one of the most spectacular powers but helpful nonetheless. Mason, one of Patrick and Amelia’s twin sons, has the power of temptation. He can make you do horrible things and pretty much anything he wants. But he’s never tried it to its extent, so we don’t know how potent his power may be. Danny the other of Patrick and Amelia’s twins has the power of enchantment. Similar to temptation but used in a good way instead of bad. He uses his power with almost all the girls at school. They all follow him around like a lost dog. My father, Baron, had the power to control the weather. He didn’t use it much. But if this garden needed rain or sun he’d make it happen. It’s the only time I know of him using his power. My mother grew this very garden with her power.”
“You said Patrick and Amelia had twins. How is that possible?”
“Vampire men can have a child with human women. And that child becomes a vampire-human hybrid also known as a dhampir. However a vampire woman can have a child to. But that only happens every several hundred years. It’s really rare. In all the years I’ve been a vampire it’s never happened.”
“How can you stand sitting next to me? Don’t you want my blood?” I choked out.
“It’s hard to explain. But every vampire has a soul mate. Amelia is Patrick’s soul mate. And you are mine.”
“What?” I said startled. First, vampires and now this? Jonathon and I soul mates? But then again that explained my reactions to his touch, to his kiss, to his very presence. It explained how I could understand this so easy, why I wasn’t freaking out. It also explained why I had been drawn to him from the very beginning. Maybe that day when he held my hand in the car, and I had those visions, maybe they were trying to tell me something.
“Yes, we are.”
“Is that what the spark was about?” I asked referring to our kiss. I couldn’t help putting my fingers to my lips.
“Yes, a conformation so to speak. I was so drawn to you; I’ve never felt like that before, so I was pretty positive that I had found you. My soul mate. After all these years I finally found you,” he said with the happiest expression I had ever seen. His glowed and his smile was blinding.
“I seemed connected to you too. There is something about you I find fascinating,” I said not being able to help myself.
“Yes, well to answer your earlier question, I can’t smell your blood. Therefore I have no desire to suck your blood. It’s a struggle every day of my existence; the smell of blood, that is. It’s hard to learn control. Harder for some more than others. But when the taxi drove by the day you arrived I suspected I had finally found my soul mate. I could clearly see three figures but I could only smell two. Joseph, my brother, was outside with me, he could smell all of you but I couldn’t.”
“So, how come you didn’t tell me in the beginning?”
“I couldn’t risk telling you all of this if it turned out you really weren’t the one. There are several tests, the smell, the attraction, and the kiss. The kiss confirms it. After we kissed and I knew for sure I was free to tell you everything.”
“So what kind of other stuff can you do?” I asked leaning in to him.
“Well, we can predict the weather. Our bodies give us a sense of what the day is to be. After all we can’t risk exposure. We can predict it much better than humans with their silly instruments. We can diagnose sicknesses. That’s why my uncle volunteers at the hospital so much.”
“Can you sleep?” I asked.
“Yes, we can sleep. We don’t necessarily have to but it’s a habit, like breathing.”
“So you could hold your breath forever?”
“Yes, I suppose I could. It would get uncomfortable but I could do it. You can’t smell anything though, not even your prey,” he said.
I jumped at the word prey knowing that he was referring to humans.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I was just giving you the facts.” He looked truly sorry.
I instantly regretted my jumping. “I’m okay. Really, it’s just, you saying prey kind of . . . I don’t know. Frightened me. It’s like watching a lion kill a zebra. Predator vs. Prey.”
“Yes, that’s how it is. You’re catching on fast.” He was so calm telling me all of this. But it must be hard saying all of this. Harder than he’s letting on. He had kept this secret for almost seven hundred years.
I traced the outline of his hand before asking my next question. It was all so much to take in. “How come your hand is always so cold but sometimes it feels a little warmer?” I asked looking up into his eyes.
“We’re so cold because technically we’re dead. Or, I guess undead is a better term. My skin feels a bit, only slightly, warmer after I’ve eaten.” Suddenly serious he said, “Kylie, there’s something you should know about your mom,” he said suddenly. I was surprised by the change of subject.
I gulped. “What?” I said shaking.
“She died.” He said bluntly.
“You can’t be serious? She was fine this morning.” I began gasping for air.
“Yes she still is fine. Except maybe a little thirsty. On our way to the hospital her heart slowed to almost a stop. I knew she was dying. I asked you to park the car to stall for some time. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to lose you. I’ve waited nearly seven hundred years for you. I couldn’t lose you now. I knew if your mom died you’d leave and go home. I feel so selfish Kylie. It was so wrong of me. But we only get one chance with our soul mate. If you left I would literally die. I know that sounds stupid but it’s true. I can’t lose you. I’m so selfish, I love you more than you could possibly know already. It was wrong. I’m sorry. Really sorry. I know I’m rambling and yet again I apologize for everything.”
“This is my home now.”
I said.
“But you’re not eighteen yet your father would take you back and I’d never see you again. Then I’d die. And I wouldn’t have you.” He continued on like I hadn’t interrupted. “So my uncle knew you were probably my soul mate.” He probably saw my eyes go wide at the word. “I already had two signs saying you were my soul mate. So the third, the kiss, would have probably have sparked. Which it did.” He added hastily. “If a vampire loses their soul mate they destroy themselves. My uncle didn’t want that to happen to me and I didn’t want to lose you. So, he helped me turn your mother into a vampire. I’m so sorry Kylie It was so selfish of me.” He looked so ashamed. I wanted to comfort him but I couldn’t get my muscles to move I was too stunned. So, just stood with my mouth hanging open, like an idiot.
“So, you’re telling me she was going to die?” I was able to ask.
“Yes.” He whispered. Suddenly I got my voice back.
“Well, the way I see it you saved her. But how did you get it to look like her heart was beating?”
“Prerecording.”
“How come she didn’t try to kill me?”
“That,” he said in a voice that clearly said he didn’t want to discuss it but he continued anyway, “There’s a vampire, her name is Morgina, she’s a morpher. She controls the vampire blood bank at the hospital so I got her to help me out. If your real mom had been there she would have definitely have tried to kill you.”
“Wouldn’t this Morgina have wanted to kill me too?”
He chuckled, “No, most vampires are very in control of themselves. We’ve had to learn to control our impulses in order to survive. We can’t just be killing humans left and right.”
I felt stupid, “That makes sense,” I conceded. “Am I going to be able to go home?” I knew the answer before he spoke.
“No. You’re going to have to stay at my house or somewhere else. My family is taking turns staying with your mom, so she doesn’t sneak out and kill an innocent.”
“My mom a vampire,” I said testing out the words to see how they felt. It was weird. Until an hour ago I didn’t even know they existed and now my mother was one, “How will I get my clothes, pillow, and anything else? I can’t just leave everything I own behind. I’ve already lost so much.”
Fallen (Fallen Series Book 1) Page 7