Sunder

by Tara Brown

  “What year was that? You are so full of shit. Why are you making this up?”

  He spoke through a clenched jaw, “A long time ago.” He had made a mistake. How could he have thought that showing her something like that would reveal who he was? It didn’t matter how he explained it, she would see the monster. It was all he was—a monster. He didn’t have anything else to show her that proved his heart had existed. He had spent centuries pretending he didn’t have one.

  She jerked her hand free of his. “You are such a weirdo. Why the hell am I even here?” She turned and stomped down the alley.

  He heard her mutter something about fifty shades of cray and all the hotties are always insane. He paused, thinking about how to tell her—just tell her. He had to tell her before they did. All she would see were the scary stories, not the parts of him that were real. He shouted at her, “DON’T LEAVE. I’LL SHOW YOU I GREW UP HERE THEN!”

  She paused, not turning back to look at him but at least she had stopped walking. He could smell the fear. She was scared of him. His brain whispered that she should be. He closed his eyes for a moment, contemplating the proof he would need. His hands vibrated, they had a plan of their own. Take her and make her love him back.

  She turned, her blue eyes almost glowing in the night. She shook her head, speaking so low only he would have caught it. “I can’t do crazy. I don’t have that inside of me. I like normal. I figured you were a billionaire weirdo. You guys always are, but I never imagined you were this level of weird. I have senior year, getting into a good school, dealing with my dad and Judith. I don’t have time for mentally unstable.”

  He clenched his jaw and walked to her, making the only noise around them. The silence of the town had not changed, regardless of the growth. “Give me a chance to explain it all.”

  “Fifteen minutes and no more creepy alleys.”

  He held a hand out for her. Touching her hand might be the only thing that stopped him from breaking something. “I promise no more alleys.” She looked at his hand, like she might take it but kept her arms wrapped around her slim waist. She was so small and fragile, it scared him.

  She scared him.

  How could something so small affect him so greatly? He hated that he couldn’t take her memories. He wished he could start over. Reintroduce himself.

  He brushed past her, going to the street. They strolled in silence until he reached the old museum. He had seen it the other day and was shocked at the things inside of it.

  “I wish I could start over with you.”

  She scowled. “Why? What’s going on?”

  “There is something you need to know about Wolfville. Something you won’t believe without proof.” He walked around the back with her, turning the knob on the locked door so hard the lock broke off in his firm grip. “Shhhhhh.”

  Her eyes widened. “We can’t go in there.” Her whisper made him laugh.

  “We can, but we have to be very quiet.”

  “I’m not going into a dark, creepy museum with you. This back alley is a bad idea, not to mention, you promised. This museum is you murdering me in there or worse.”

  He laughed harder. “Liv, if I wanted you dead, I would have killed you the first night I saw you.” He paused, regretting that sentence instantly.

  She paled, stepping back.

  He winced. “I didn’t mean that like that. I just meant killing people is easy.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Oh God. You’re like Dexter. You’re going to confess to me and then have to kill me but your conscience is going to make you hate yourself. Oh God. Oh God. Judith was right about you.”

  Who was Dexter and why did she know such a man? Damn. He was losing her. He grabbed her hand, pulling her inside of the open door. He closed it and pressed her back against it. What was he doing?

  The smell of her delicious fear lingered around him. His fingers gripped her arms a little too tightly. He could feel her trembling. He savored the moment, fighting his fangs from springing and attacking her. When he had it under control, he leaned down, close to her face and whispered, “Trust me. I would never hurt you.”

  Her blue eyes were actually glowing. It was the strangest thing to see someone’s eyes glow so brightly. A human’s.

  Oh dear God, she wasn’t a human, though was she? No human’s eyes glowed like that. There was only one thing that had eyes like that.

  Everything made sense instantly. Judith warning her to stay away from him. Her father, the doctor moving to this small town.

  He died inside a little bit.

  She muttered, “Could you—hurt me?”

  The question burned in his throat with the smell of her skin stuck there. He wanted so badly to bite her but he didn’t. He would never get the chance to bite her. He could feel something in his chest, something horrid. It choked his words so he nodded his response.

  The trembling of her delicate jaw became noticeable. Her eyes welled slightly. “Please let me go. Please, I won’t tell anyone what happened. I swear. I’m not one of those girls who say that and then call the cops. I know that girl always dies.”

  He slipped his hand around hers, shaking his head. “I can’t. I need you to see one thing. After that you can go.” She would know everything in a week or so anyway. She was so close to the change.

  He turned and pulled her through the museum, gracefully avoiding the furniture and artifacts. She was sobbing. Had she been a normal girl, he would have bit her just to shut her up—at least she would enjoy that. They always liked the bite.

  But not her kind. Besides, he didn't want that to be her last memory of him. When they were forbidden to be together in two weeks, she would only remember the bite.

  He walked to the picture he remembered taking like it had happened the day before, not hundreds of years earlier. He held his free hand up to the picture. “This was shot in the early 1800s. My father Thorlak, my mother Maria, my brothers Simon, Finn, Gunnar, Leif, Ragnar, and me. My name was Nicolai. I was the youngest of six boys.”

  She was shaking in his arms, but he held her tightly and spoke softly, “I was born before Jesus. 976 BC. My father had been a Viking in Naddodd’s expedition to discover Iceland. He was a Norseman from the Faroe Islands. The first year in Iceland something attacked the settlement. They had assumed they were the first to discover Iceland, but no. The stories from the men who survived were unbelievable to be exact. No one understood what had happened to them. But from then on they were different. The men there were cursed, transforming into hideous creatures. Some becoming wolves, attacking everyone they saw, ripping them to shreds, even their own family members. Their changes only occurring on the full moon at first. It was three days of violent hell and they couldn’t be killed—not without the bite of their one enemy.”

  “A werewolf?”

  He was surprised when she whispered; she was actually listening to him. He winced when he saw her brightly glowing eyes. “Yes. But my father changed into something else—something worse. He feasted on people, animals, whatever he could find. He couldn’t sate his thirst. It took him a hundred years to stop the bloody storms he and the few men like him inflicted upon the world. When he met my mother, he fell in love. He felt a part of him—a part he hadn’t thought existed anymore—awaken. His heart beat again for the first time, or so he thought. He loved her instantly, she had saved the small piece of the man inside of him. So he stole her from an Italian man who he had befriended in trade. She had been a slave there. They had children, something he hadn’t realized he was able to do. The children of such a union generally killed the mother in birth. But mine was strong. She lived through six births and then my father changed her to be like him. Only the bitten can never truly be like the born or the cursed. She could never go outside in the light of day again, not without burning to death in the sun’s light.”

  “Vampires?”

  “Yes. I was born this way and I cannot die unless by the bite of their enemy as well. Wooden stakes, holy water, and the s
un have no effect on me. The things that were created on that island were not made by God. It is something older and much worse. The curse comes down from something as old as the world. We have never had it explained to us, no one has ever seen it happen again. Iceland is a normal country now.”

  Her face was completely pale, making the glow of her unlikely eyes fierce. She shook her head. “I can’t believe this.”

  “I know that feeling. When I was eighteen I knew the change would happen. It always does when the born turn eighteen. But I wasn’t prepared for what happened to me.” He pushed on in the story, hoping she would see him eventually. “This town was made in the 1700s, as a haven for the things like me. The wolves and the vampires and the witches naturally dislike one another, but we knew that if we worked together we would have a better chance. Where there are people like me, there are things that would destroy us. The Knights Templar was made by the church to hunt us, killing us off. They are what we fear and hide from. They murdered my family. I have spent the last hundred and fifty years roaming the world aimlessly, trying to forget how to feel their loss. Recently I noticed, there aren’t any like me anymore, bitten yes, but no born or cursed. The hunters are killing us off faster. I came back here to hide. There are witches who are part of the things hiding here. They protect the town with spells. Hunters can’t come here. They can’t see the town, not without help.” He turned and looked down on her, desperate for her to see his truth. “I have never felt what my father described, that type of love you have for someone instantly that changes the course of your life. I have never dated, I never lied. I feed. I live as the monster that I am.”

  Silent tears leaked from her electric-blue eyes, dragging black down her cheeks as if her tears were ink. He hated himself but he said it—what would it matter in two weeks? It wouldn’t, but at least her last memory of him would be of the declaration and not the hate she would feel. “Until I met you—the moment I saw you—I knew what my father had meant. My heart feels like it beats, though I know that’s impossible. My body feels alive, regardless of the change that occurred when I was eighteen. You make me feel like I am a man again.”

  She stood there shaking, her eyes darting from the picture to his face and back. He hoped she was processing, but her face didn’t look like that was what was happening. She backed away slowly, shaking her head in small twitches. “I won’t ever tell anyone. I won’t, I swear. I’ll keep your secret, what you think you are. But please, let me go.” She heaved a bit when she spoke, “Just let me go back home. I won’t ever bother you again. I won’t look at you. You won’t even know we met, I won’t either. I’ll forget you, I swear.”

  Something broke inside of him—snapped. It filled him, with bitterness he couldn’t manage. He burst forward, grabbing her arms. Horror filled her face, fear claiming her completely. Her knees buckled and he held her up in his strong grip. “I don’t want you to forget me, Liv. I want you. I want you to see me! If only you knew what you were becoming, you’d hate me less.” When the words left his lips, he could hear his fangs meddling with his speech. The fear on her face was because she was seeing him. She was seeing the thing he desperately didn’t want to be.

  He searched her electric-blue eyes for some hint of the attraction he had seen earlier. They still glowed more than they should, but he didn't see any of the look he sought. Instead, he saw his own anger-filled face reflecting back at him with glowing red eyes.

  He saw a monster.

  His hands dropped to his sides, as he shook his head. “I’ll never bother you again.”

  She cried, struggling with breath when she spoke, "It was you outside of my house?”

  He didn't move, frightened of what he could do to her. She was so small and fragile, and he feared loving her to death. She wasn’t strong yet, not strong enough to handle him.

  Bravely and unexpectedly, she stepped closer for a moment, lifting his face. Black tears streamed her cheeks, but she looked into his eyes hard.

  It left him, the blood lust. She took it all away, like she sucked it from him instead of him sucking from her. The warmth of her hands on his face soothed the agony burning through him.

  Her face was confusing, conflicted and scared, but there was something else he didn't know how to read.

  Delicately, she ran her hand down his cheek. “I will keep your secret and I won’t forget you. I couldn’t, not even if I wanted to.” She turned and walked from the room, turning her back on him like she trusted what she saw in his eyes.

  He clenched his jaw, his whole body really. He fought the urge to follow her out into the dark night. He hated the look he had seen on her face. He never wanted to force that look again.

  Instead, he stood there, vibrating with anger and self-hatred. Never should he have confessed. He should have spent the time that he had with her, waiting for the Michaels to divulge his little secret—when they finally told her the truth about herself. But even if they had told her, at least he might have had more time with her.

  Even if it meant she would change in front of him and they killed each other.

  A sound caught his attention. He looked down to see droplets of blood falling from his clenched hands to the hardwood floor. He released his grip, turning and looking back at the portrait of his family.

  “They aren’t dead.”

  He spun around, seeing Jamie Michaels standing in the doorway of the museum.

  “Did you follow me here?”

  He nodded. “I was worried. Judith called. She sort of assumed you were after the girl. I guess she was right and wrong. You’re still different than your family, aren’t you? You turned and you didn't hurt her—how do you do that?”

  Briton folded his arms across his chest. “I try not to be the monster I was born to be. I imagine you aren’t much different.”

  Jamie walked into the museum. “We run, but we hunt only animals. If anyone hurts a human, they die. Same as your kind. But we have zones for running, we don't change in town in front of people. You have always been odd though, even when you were here before, I could see it.”

  “I think we both know that girl isn’t what she thinks she is.”

  Jamie laughed. “Yes. That’s a mess. You loving her is even worse. I actually feel sick for you. I knew one of our kind who loved one of yours. Always ends badly.”

  Briton felt sick. He couldn’t shake the feelings inside of him. They owned him until he realized what Jamie had said moments before and frowned. “You said they aren’t dead. Whom are you speaking of?”

  “Your whole family. I think. I found the cave a couple years ago. I had a suspicion they never died in the fire. But if it is them in the cave, they’re frozen in time, wrapped in a spell and locked away in a cave. No one may enter but a witch of the Whitburn family.”

  Rage filled him again, it returned so quickly. He seethed his words in angry breaths, “Take me there.”

  Jamie held a hand out. “We can’t get to them, but I’ll show you where they are.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Liv

  I wasn't shaking by the time I had walked two blocks. I was calm and rational. I had nearly convinced myself it was some sort of lead paint–arsenic leakage–asbestos–shitty accident. He was a normal guy, maybe a bit cuckoo, but not a monster. I shook my head, pausing on the sidewalk, and looked back.

  Suddenly, he left the museum with someone. Seeing him made my heart race. I jumped into the bushes of the house I was in front of.

  “Colliers Caves, you know the place. Meet me there in thirty minutes,” the man next to Briton said and walked away. Briton turned and looked down the road to where I was. I looked around, wondering if I heard someone else talk. How had I heard him speak from two blocks like he was standing next to me?

  I was losing my damned mind. That was how. The night actually couldn’t get worse.

  I crawled, in my damned skirt, to the side of the house and ran down the alley, scrambling to Liz’s house. My knuckles rapped too hard, hurting s
lightly when I knocked. I wiped my face clear of the dried mascara I could feel flaking where it had run. I licked my hand and rubbed under my eyes fast.

  Liz’s mom smiled when she opened the door. “Hi Liv! How are you? Are you all right?”

  I caught my breath, leaning against the house and swallowing the thousand things I might have said. Instead of talking, I decided nodding was a smart move.

  Liz’s mom opened the door wide, “LIZ!”

  The thump on the stairs was loud, like a huge man was coming down them. When Liz rounded the corner, she smiled wide. “Hey! You’re really early.”

  My eyes darted to Liz’s mom, hoping she would leave. She hovered, smiling. So I nodded at the door. “Yeah, the party is earlier than I thought.”