The Scarlet Drop: The Vampire Legacies Book One

by Sarah Beth James

  With thanks to

  My muses, my friends, my non blood family who always keep me going.

  To Jim for being my editor.

  Ali and Jo for making me publish this.

  Everyone who had bought and supported my writing career.

  I love you all

  The Vampire Legacies Book One:

  The Scarlet Drop

  Prologue

  When I was a small child I had a dream, the same dream every night while I grew up. Everyone thought I was crazy when I talked about it, so I soon learnt not to mention it anymore. Six months in a padded cell having ‘treatments’. Well after that you would tell a doctor anything they wanted to hear just to get out of that living hell. I couldn’t stand anymore shock therapy, any more drug treatments. I was given drugs to take for the rest of my life. I used to fake that I had, attend the counseling sessions, pretend that everything was okay, and that I was fine. Give them all the right answers; let them check their little boxes of what they thought you were. I bought my freedom with lies. Even when I became a teenager, the dreams still haunted me. No, not exactly haunted, that's not the right word at all because I was never frightened by the images I saw, even though a normal person would be. But that was just it; I don't think I was ever normal.

  I just wished so damn badly to be so, to hide behind the mask of a normal life and be something other than the freak which lay beneath my skin. To pretend that the voices I heard were never real, that the gifts I had were all fantasies. The feelings that swept over me, the visions of the future were all just dreams. Denial only lasts so long, and no matter how much you try to fight your inner spirit, sooner or later it breaks through. The more I tried to pretend that everything was in my imagination, the more chaos surrounded me to make me use my gifts to prove myself wrong. The more times I was attacked by unknown terrors to force my hand to defend myself. To try and push me into a grudging acceptance of it all.

  Adulthood hit me all of a sudden and I started college. I tried to start again as a mortal. I met a boy and fell in what I thought was love, later on I would realized it was a shallow imitation of the real thing. The dream finally abated as I tried to lock myself into a normal existence, and tried to forget what I was in a hustle and bustle of a mundane mortal life. For a long while it worked, the voices stopped, the powers waned with lack of use and for the longest time I thought I could be free of it all. I drank away every urge to use my ‘gifts’, every strange feeling, every unusual thing I saw to keep myself ‘safe’.

  My relationship split up suddenly after there was an attack. He wanted me, but I wasn't ready, so he took what he wanted anyway. For months over and over again he forced me to do his bidding, to live in his bed with him, to perform for him, beating me if I did not comply. When I eventually escaped that miserable life, I crawled away into a black pit of self-pity and fear in which I remained for some time. Cutting, drinking, and eating way too much junk food before forcing myself to purge. I don't think I left the house for several months after it all, locking myself away from the world and not one soul even noticed. Not my parents, not my so called friends, not even my teachers, there was no one left to notice me. No one to care if I lived or died anymore, not even myself.

  After a while I grew stronger again, and vowed that no other man would touch me the way that Toby had, and that I would never listen to my heart again. Part of me died that day, and it would take two years before I would feel any emotion again.

  I ran with the bad crowd, drinking and smoking anything that came my way, hoping for oblivion, anything to take away the pain that never stopped eating away at my heart. Nothing ever did. I felt numb and sore inside. No one ever saw my pain, not my family that saw me every day or my 'friends' I ran with at college. I lived in the world, but all the time not really making a mark. Living a shallow life full of busy events that added up to nothing. I stood in the crowd and yet was always alone. Separated somehow by the pain I thought I could never survive. For a while I begged for death, inviting him at every turn. Death never claimed me, and after a long time I gave up trying to kill myself. For a while I even coped in a fashion and in a twisted way I hoped the worst was over. I learned to fight, not just to defend myself, but to strike first, so I could never feel that helpless again. I carried a flick knife with me at all times, sewn into a pocket of my jeans, ready if I needed it. I knew that I would kill to defend myself if I needed to.

  The nightmare wasn't over, one day I walked into class and there was a new member, my attacker had joined my group, entwined himself around my friends. I heard him talking to the others, saying what a slut I was. Crowing over what he'd done to me, vowing to do it again when I least expected. They found it funny, that the prude was secretly a whore underneath. They believed his words, every single one of them. Some even cheered him on to do it all again. My ‘perfect’ life was shattered, hardly surprising as I should have run when I had the chance.

  That night I walked for miles, thinking too much about what to do. I decided in the end I had to die, what other choice did I have? I couldn't live my life now that he was back. Two weeks to live. I gave myself to make my peace and then leave in a blazing fire of glory. I was free and calm for the first time in years. I knew what I had to do, and I didn't fear death. Death meant that I would be free of this pain that burned ever hotter and brighter inside of me.

  But something had changed within me, from the girl who had once allowed herself to be dominated, bullied and raped. In a freak accident I had fallen in love, god knows how, when my heart was blackened by hatred. On the fringes of our group a new member had appeared. Tall and handsome, dear god he was beautiful. A man like no other; he walked like a hunter, his smell, it drove me insane. I wanted him like I'd never wanted anyone before or since. All that night I stared at him, and I had the strangest feeling that I knew him in a way I couldn't understand. I sunk the drinks fast that night, trying to wash away the feeling as my head tried to reason with my heart.

  Something was just beyond my grasp of reasoning. Stupidly, the more I drank, trying to get the feeling out of my head, the worse it got. My muddled brain just couldn't make sense of the data. Or perhaps it just didn't want to, for the mind was too fragile to cope with the answers it was so close to. My memories of him had been blocked too long ago, if I remembered I would fracture. If I fractured I would go out of my mind again. Things had to be taken slowly, for all of our sakes.

  At some point of the evening I remembered that tonight was meant to be my last night on this earth. I had been drinking to make the passing easier. When I returned home that night I was planning to take an overdose and slowly allow my pain to subside. But I couldn't take my eyes off this mystery man, just one more day wouldn't make any difference, right? I could have just one more day, just enough to remember what I almost knew. As I thought it, he turned and looked at me and smiled. He stole my heart in that instance; I wonder if he knew what I'd been thinking. If he hadn't met me that night I would surely have carried out my plan. If he knew what a thief he was to claim me like he had?

  As we left the bar that night (rather intoxicated I might add), he brushed passed me and it set me on fire. As he stood there, his arm around me so I wouldn't fall flat on my face, I leant up to kiss him. He smiled at me, and laid a finger across my lips. "Not yet" he whispered and put me in a taxi home.

  I lay on the bed that night/morning/whatever (it must have been early morning by the time I'd returned) and took the pill bottle into my hand and looked at it. Turning the bottle over and over, his face appeared in my mind, that dazzling smile. I dropped the pills to the floor and drifted into a drug and alcohol i
nduced slumber.

  All of a sudden I was plunged back into my dream and I was five years old again. I saw a room, old paneled and full of racks upon racks of books. Tables littered the small amount of remaining space and each of these was covered in books. They were leather bound and extremely old, the kind normally seen in a museum or on TV. The room was dark and gloomy, lit only by a few candles scattered in the few gaps between book piles.

  I ran my hand over the nearest book. It was bound in tight tan leather, withered with age. A red cross was emblazoned on the front cover made in a red stone I didn't recognize. Gem stones of various kinds littered the spine and I held the book to my nose, breathing in the mustiness of it and waiting for the next part of the dream. I knew the book was mine, though I do not know how or why. I knew I had to find it somehow, that my life depended on that.

  It took longer than normal before a young man walked into the room leading a young woman by the hand. The girl was 22 or maybe a little more, long blonde hair well passed her waist. Almost pretty in a plain kind of way, dressed in a black velvet medieval gown with drooping sleeves lined with purple. A bat necklace adorned her throat. As I had grown older and the dream had kept on appearing, I had realized that the girl was myself, although how I had known what I would look like present day at the age of five I had never worked out.

  The man who held her (my) hand was around the same age, but with eyes that looked like eternity, dressed all in black (a silk shirt that laced up the front and leather trousers) with a long leather coat over the top. He must have been well over six foot in contrast to the girl's 5 foot 4, and had short dark hair, and a well-muscled build.

  The girl smiled at him and waited. He curled back his lips to show elongated canines, I knew now as I had always, that he was a vampire. No costumes, no showmanship, just a real life blood sucker. At five I had become obsessed with the idea of vampires, gathering all the information I could until my parents tried to send me to see a shrink. They hadn't understood how a child so young could know about such things, but then again neither had I totally. I just knew what I knew, and I knew that face meant death.

  Anyway I digress, the man bent to the girl's neck and bit her. My form traded places now; I was not an outsider anymore. I could feel the needle sharp pain in my neck. I wasn't scared; I knew this was how it had to be. I loved the man with all my heart and knew to be with him I had to die. (Another thing a five year old shouldn't have understood) I felt complete as the man slit his own wrist and gave it to me to drink from. As I drank I looked into his eyes and for the first time understood the puzzle that had confused me for 17 years. My constant search for the man, literally, of my dreams.

  I shot awake all of a sudden, the idea still burning in my hung over mind. I knew that man; I'd met him the night before. It was the same man who had put me in a taxi home, the same man that had set my heart on fire. His name was Steven, the man I'd searched for all my life and he was a vampire. Or at least in my mind he was.

  The Vampire Legacies Book One:

  The Scarlet Drop

  Chapter One

  I dressed in a hurry that morning and left the house as quickly as I could, it was already late afternoon. I'd slept through most of the day, hardly an uncommon event for me. I drove around aimlessly, trying to make sense of the things in my head. He couldn't be the man I thought he was, surely? At five years old I couldn't have seen a man that I wouldn't meet for 17 years and the woman that I would become, could I?

  My life was crazy enough already, I couldn’t believe this as well. If it was true, then that would mean everything was pre-ordained, that there was no free will in life; fate controlled every single movement of our lives. That this moment had been picked out and prepared for since I was a small child. That everything I had endured, all my suffering was to gain some kind of experience for this meeting? Or perhaps, he just hadn’t arrived in time to save me from it like he had been meant to? I did believe in guides, guardian spirits, I just had never seen any evidence of any in my short life. I had always been completely alone, used and abused for my powers and everything else. Toby wasn’t the first man to ever beat me, or rape me; I just hoped that he would be the last.

  One thing for sure, I knew in the headache inducing whirl of thoughts in my head, I needed a drink! I parked outside the first bar I found, slammed my money on the counter and demanded a beer. Half of it went down in one gulp, mixing with the alcohol still in my system from the night before; I could feel already a numbness calming my racing thoughts. I sat down alone at a table hidden from view at the back of the bar and consumed several more beers before I felt even the slightest bit normal again and the nerves started to subside. Making sure I was completely out of sight of anyone who could possibly know me. The last thing I wanted was to be spotted by anyone I knew and for all I knew, Toby’s cronies were looking for me already for another attack.

  I decided that I must have been mistaken, too high on drugs to have seen what I thought I had seen last night. I was a writer, I had an over active imagination clearly. I crushed on some weird guy who was kinda cute at a party and the bender I was on must have merged some of his looks with a stupid dream I’d had years ago. There was nothing about it that made sense that I could have foreseen events 17 years before they happened, mediums were good but not THAT good!

  A nagging doubt remained at the back of my mind whispered to me. I had to quiet the noise, did I need another beer I wondered, or did I need a shot just to relax me? The question was answered for me as another beer appeared on my table. I glanced upwards to see who my benefactor was, my heart skipped a beat. It was Steven, he smiled that oh so gorgeous smile at me and spoke so quietly that it was almost like a breath, "Am I interrupting?" That voice made me melt inside, so sensual, so creamy.

  A part of me wanted to run away, not wanting to be anywhere near him at that moment. It was only a small part, the rest of me wanted to jump his bones there and then. I gulped and smiled awkwardly back at him, the only invitation he needed. Steven slid effortlessly into the seat next to me. "All this drinking isn't healthy, you know," he commented, "Trying to forget something? Or just wishing that you could?"

  Shocked at how astute he was being, more so than any of the people meant to know me better, I lashed back at him "Doesn't stop you!" referring to the binge he had also been on the night before. Starting to wonder A. How he had found me so fast? and B. how the hell he had noticed me completely hidden in the back of a bar? My powers usually stopped the mortal eye from noticing me in a crowd. I liked to hide away.

  "It’s different for me, I am not as fragile as you are my angel" he insisted.

  His sudden arrogance annoyed me. I gulped the rest of the beer down and stood head spinning. Drunk on more than just the drink, his presence was like a drug in itself. God I wanted him so badly, I could rip off his clothes and fuck him right on this table in front of everyone. I’d never felt like that about anyone before. I didn’t understand what was happening to me right now. “You don’t get to order me around, you aren’t my father!” Determined to get away from this man who assumed he could tell me what to do, I shoved passed him and through the bar door.

  Big mistake, I had defiantly drunk more than I should have. As I reached the cold evening air, it took all my strength not to pass out straight away, as my legs already started to turn to jelly. As I got to my car door, Steve was already there easing the keys from my numb fingers. "I don't think you should be driving." he stated, “I might be slightly suicidal, but driving in that state… Well. Who knows what would happen.”

  His hands were cold, colder than they should be even in the icy autumn air my mind foggily realized. No human should be that cold; then again my mind was screaming at me he wasn't remotely human. I wished for a long moment that I wasn't so drunk, that I could find my centre and read his soul, see what he really and truly was. And if I was safe to be near him. For alarms bells rang whenever he was near, but also a longing like a moth to a flame to never be apart from
him as well. I'd never experienced anything like it before. I needed to understand what was going on here, who the hell he was or even what!

  I shoved him away, snatching the keys back. "Touch me again, and I will kill you!" I snarled and climbed inside.

  "I'm only thinking of you" he said as I slammed the door.

  "Well don't! I don't need a man for anything!" I snapped and floored the accelerator.

  In the rear view mirror I could see his disappointment clear in his face as I drove away. What I didn't hear was the almost silent reply, "Good thing I'm not a man then!"

  It was several miles away before I realized that I was crying, I stopped the car in a lay by and let the sorrow take me. I had been 17 the last time I cried, the first time I'd been attacked, long before my lover had tried to. That man had been my uncle and I'd never been able to tell anyone. I'd cried just once about it before I'd locked away my pain. When Toby had done it to me again, the tears just wouldn't come. So I'd locked away the pain and started drinking, it had helped for a while. Now all of a sudden I felt a lifetimes worth of pain flooding over me. When I'd seen Steven for the first time it had stirred up emotions I thought I'd never feel again. How could I care for him so much after seeing him just twice? It seemed like if I could feel one little thing I had to feel them all. Every time someone had hurt me in my 22 years, every feeling I'd tried to ignore. It was more than I could bear.

  I half fell and half climbed out of the car, without even locking the door I stumbled off into the country side. I'd stopped near the entrance to the woods, tears still streaming I ran through the trees, trying to leave my pain far behind me. I stumbled and fell, hitting my head on a fallen branch. The tears came even heavier now, the sobs tearing apart my chest. I felt sick, and ill, and so very, very tired. I decided there and then I had to end it all. I couldn't spend one more moment breathing and living in this hell they called life.