Cherishing Destiny (A Dangerous Destiny)

by Blakely, Noelle

  Alex picked up one of the hand guns and inserted the magazine, charged it and fired at a distant tree. The gun made the same fizzle noise as the rifles, and it failed to eject the cartridge which had undoubtedly not fired.

  “If that thing had worked,” Ryan said. “You might just have announced us to all of these guys’ buddies.”

  Alex ignored him and unloaded the pistol, returning it to the pile. “Do you think that this might have been something you could have shared with us before we left the barn?” he sounded exasperated.

  “I wasn’t sure about anything,” Ryan defended.

  “Whatever…Let’s get moving,” Alex countered shaking his head and standing. “I say we throw those in the lake when we get there,” he said indicating the guns.

  Alex debated on taking the extra four horses, but in the end decided it would be too hard to care for them all. He kept only one and loaded it with the guns and a few things they were able to scavenge from the men’s supplies. The men were travelling very light, and Alex was concerned that it might mean that they had a base of operation, and maybe some of those friends Ryan mentioned, somewhere in the area. He unbridled the other three horses and slapped them sending them on their way.

  Sara had stopped crying, but looked miserable and was not speaking to anyone as she waited, on the mare she had named Flower, for them to get on their way again.

  “Flower?” Ryan asked her when they first left the barn.

  The mare was black with a narrow white blaze striped down her face and white socks on three of her legs. “She looks like a skunk with that white stripe,” Sara countered. He just gave her a blank stare and she said, “You know, Flower… the skunk…from Bambi?” she insisted. He still looked blank. “Never mind!” she said, disgusted.

  He lifted his hands in the air in a surrendering motion and gave her a look like What did I do before he started laughing. She just trotted ahead to ride next to Aurora giving Ryan her back.

  She did the same thing, now as they got underway again, but this time she was not just pretending to be upset with him. And, this time, Ryan was not chuckling at her, but was sulking and silent as he brought up the rear of the group.

  By late afternoon, they reached the turnoff where Highway 30 headed North along the shore of the lake. Ryan was to part with them here and continue West to his cache of supplies.

  “What good are weapons if they won’t fire?” Alex asked Ryan, breaking the silence that had held ever since they left the campsite.

  “I didn’t say I only had guns,” Ryan responded. “I have two compound hunting bows in that stash, and we’re going to want them if you intend on keeping us in the wilderness for long.” Alex only nodded.

  “Also,” Ryan went on. “I’m going to leave you the crossbow for a little extra protection.” He caught the expression on Alex’s face and held up a hand to stop the protest. “I know you are a Vampire and perfectly capable of defending yourself, but those guys knew what they were up against, even if they did seem a little dim. If it is true that they are the ones who killed those Weres, then we have to be a little cautious around here, I think. Besides, you have my little sister with you.”

  “You know that I would never let anything happen to Sara, don’t you?” Alex met Ryan’s serious eyes with his own, challenging him to see anything other than sincerity there.

  Ryan handed over the crossbow that was attached loosely to his saddle for easy access and asked Alex if he knew how to use it. Alex took the weapon and in a few swift motions, checked all of the actions and components and was sighted in on a tree several yards away.

  “Okay,” Ryan said quickly. “No need to waste the bolt.”

  Alex lowered the weapon and nodded to Ryan. There was nothing more to say.

  Ryan rode up to Sara’s side and tried to look into her face, but she would not acknowledge him.

  “I love you, baby,” he said softly as he turned his horse and trotted down the road that continued West.

  Aurora gave Alex a look that said Wait for me, and she spurred her horse after Ryan. When she caught up to him a short distance down the road, he stopped, and she rode her horse in a circle around him, coming up next to him but facing in the opposite direction so that they could talk face to face.

  She reached out and put a hand on his leg. He didn’t move away, but his only reaction was to glare at her.

  “I’m sorry. I know this is hard for you, Ryan,” she offered sympathetically.

  “I’ll just bet you are,” he snapped back. “Sara’s all under your sweet spell, now, isn’t she. She’ll never listen to me again, she thinks I’m some kind of freakish monster. Yet, the funny thing is she’ll be perfectly happy to let you sink your fangs into her any time you like, after this.”

  Aurora felt a little resentment at the comment, and she removed her hand from Ryan’s leg, but leaned in close to him. “Sara doesn’t think you’re a monster, Ryan. She thinks you’re a Liar.” She closed her mouth abruptly, sat back, and stopped talking. She hadn’t meant to be spiteful, and she wanted to see Ryan and Sara reconcile.

  Ryan looked stricken. He faced Aurora with a sad realization in his eyes. “I only ever wanted to protect her.” He seemed to be pleading with Aurora to understand.

  “I know you did what you thought was right,” Aurora said. “And she will realize that, too. Just give her a little time.” Aurora touched Ryan’s leg again and leaned close enough to give him a soft, dry kiss on the cheek. “Ryan…” She looked at him meaningfully. “Be sure you catch up to us tomorrow.”

  He nodded and then rode on, calling over his shoulder. “I’m not going to disappear, Aurora.”

  Aurora rejoined Alex and Sara, neither of which asked her about her conversation with Ryan and they turned and headed to the North.

  Eighteen

  Destiny awoke again to darkness. It was night outside the cave. Her eyes needed very little adjustment to see remarkably well in the dark, a perk of being a Vamphyr. She had still been dreaming of her parents including her second mother, Sara, and of Ryan too. She tried not to dwell on thoughts of Ryan. She and Ryan had always been virtually inseparable and sometimes Ryan seemed like all men to Destiny, father, brother, lover, friend. But she knew that he could not be all of those things to her and that she should be happy with friend. She fought with him loudly the last time they had been together, hardly the first time for that, they were both so opinionated and strong minded. This time she knew it was her fault, and she put her guilty thoughts aside for the time being.

  She took stock of her injuries and found them to be healing nicely. She still had some pain, but she felt that she could chance moving a little to a more comfortable spot. She pushed herself out from under the steep shaft above her. Her fall had dislodged a lot of small rocks and debris that she had been laying on for some time now. She found a smoother area to rest on. Tomorrow she would try to rise and walk a little she promised herself. Dreams of her family made her realize how worried they must be, and she was determined to get back to them as soon as possible. She drifted back to sleep.

  Nineteen

  As the light was fading, Alex spotted a sign indicating a recreation area down a side road off of the highway. They turned and found the area less than half a mile down the dirt road toward the lake. Just as they approached, the whipping wind brought a smattering of rain with it, blowing horizontally into their faces.

  The recreation area was a boat ramp that was destroyed by the earthquakes, a dock that had fared no better and a picnic area that had once boasted several covered shelters full of picnic tables, each with its own brick barbeque pit. Only two of them remained standing, and one of those had a cracked concrete floor that had heaved up in the center leaving the floor slanting at a severe angle on both sides of the crack. The other seemed like a good place to take shelter for the night.

  Because of the wind, some of the rain blew into the shelter wetting the concrete floor and chilling Sara. “It’s been getting so cold the last fe
w days. I’m freezing. This weather is crazy,” she said.

  Alex righted a picnic table that was flipped over and made a soft bed of blankets on it to keep them off the wet floor. He pulled the table close to the barbeque and built a small fire in the pit with the dry wood that was left there for that purpose. A small handwritten note card was taped to the brick, above the wood pile, with duct tape that was starting to peel. It read, FEEL FREE TO TAKE WHAT YOU NEED OR LEAVE WHAT YOU CAN. The people that used to picnic there must have taken the sentiment to heart as the wood pile was well stocked and even had plenty of kindling.

  “I think we can risk a fire tonight,” Alex said. He was a little concerned about alerting someone to their presence, but Sara was damp and shivering, and he felt that the wind and rain significantly lessened the risk of somebody noticing. He tented the kindling and lit it with Greasy Hair’s Zippo, which he had confiscated. He added the logs until he had a nice little blaze going. Should have been a boy scout.

  After a while, Sara stopped shivering and then spoke up for the first time since the excitement earlier. “Do you think Ryan will be able to find us this far off the main road?” She tried to make the question sound casual, but it was clear that she was worried about it.

  Alex poked at the fire with a stick and thought about his answer. He didn’t want to create a bigger rift between the siblings. Carefully, he said, “Ryan is smarter than he likes others to think, and I believe he has a lot more special skills than he has let on to us.” The last thing that he wanted to suggest was that Ryan was still hiding who he was, but it was becoming clear that Ryan had some training, experience, and resources that he had yet to share. “Sara, I don’t want you to worry. I am positive that Ryan will find us here, and if he doesn’t show up by noon tomorrow I promise to go look for him.”

  Sara seemed to relax after that, and she and Aurora curled up together in the blankets and fell into an exhausted sleep. Alex fed the fire all night long and kept watch. The women were sleeping so peacefully that he didn’t wake Aurora to take a turn as she had asked him too. At dawn, when she awoke, she scolded him for it.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he told her. “I can get a few hours now that you two are up.” He figured that they had until noon before Ryan was likely to catch up to them, if he stopped and slept at all. The daylight made him less nervous about falling asleep, and he took his turn in the blankets while the women walked down to the shoreline and around the picnic grounds, exploring a little before the wind and rain came back in the afternoon as it had every day since the Solar Storm. That’s how they had come to think of it, The Solar Storm in caps. It sounded like a B movie title, but it seemed to fit.

  Aurora and Sara found a concrete pad in the middle of the picnic area with two hand pumps for water sticking up from it. A metal plaque in front of one said, Do Not Drink and the tag on the other said Potable.

  “It’s worth a shot.” Aurora tried the hand pump on the potable water and had to crank it up and down for some time before fresh, cold water poured from the spigot and splashed at their feet.

  They laughed, and Sara drank her fill. “Lord, that’s good.”

  They watered the horses with a small bucket. It was the only one Alex had found to pack for that purpose. It took a while to accomplish the task, one at a time, but the women found the walk back and forth to be therapeutic by filling their morning with something other than anxious waiting.

  Sara also found it helpful in working out her stiff muscles. After riding all day and sleeping on a table, she was extremely stiff and sore, and she had started out riding yesterday already sore from the time she spent experimenting with Alex’s sadistic nature and her own dark desires.

  Sara made an innocent comment about the saddle rubbing the bruises on her bottom and Aurora immediately picked up on the situation. She laughed a little out loud as she recalled wondering at Alex’s satisfied mood on the previous night in the loft. She knew he sometimes liked to play cruel Vampire games with women who were willing. She even indulged him, herself, when the mood was on her, but she also knew that he only liked to play that way when the women liked it too. It excited him to have them beg for it and then beg him to stop. If he gave Sara pain after Aurora asked him to pleasure her, then Sara had asked for it and enjoyed it. Aurora was sure of it.

  As tactfully as she could, she broached the subject with Sara when they had taken a blanket down to the water’s edge to sit and talk while they waited for Ryan, and Alex slept. “You realize that it’s okay for you to ask Alex to heal you when you both have had your fill of his games, don’t you?” she asked carefully. Sara’s color began to rise, and Aurora continued softly. “Or I could do it if you like.”

  Sara blushed hotly, not knowing what to say. “I don’t want him to think I am weak. I never said anything because I don’t want him to be afraid of hurting me.”

  “You don’t have to tell him if you don’t want too,” Aurora said, reaching out to touch Sara’s face.

  Sara’s lip trembled, and Aurora could hear her heart racing. She let her hand slide around to the back of Sara’s neck, her fingers buried in the soft tresses of Sara’s silky hair. She pulled Sara’s face close to hers and hesitated, looking into Sara’s eyes and giving her the opportunity to withdraw if she chose to. Sara’s lips parted slightly as her breath came more quickly and Aurora brushed her own soft lips over Sara’s, touching ever so lightly. Sara’s eyes closed and her lips relaxed further apart. Aurora let her tongue explore gently between Sara’s parted lips. She felt the tension leave Sara as she began to let her tongue respond to Aurora, and they kissed deeply until Sara had to break the seal of the kiss for lack of air. Aurora’s mouth played lightly over Sara’s lips, jaw and smooth throat while Sara tried to catch her breath.

  Sara reached out and buried her own fingers in Aurora’s wine colored locks. She held Aurora’s face to her as Aurora explored her silky skin. Aurora let her hand slide from Sara’s neck, tracing her collar bone, finger tips brushing over Sara’s dress until she was gently cupping Sara’s breast. Sara wasn’t wearing her bra, Aurora noticed, when Sara’s nipple hardened, pushing against the cloth under Aurora’s hand. She discovered why when she squeezed the breast softly, but Sara still let out a small hiss of pain. Aurora quickly released her and decided that it was time to heal Sara of Alex’s lingering torments.

  She asked Sara to trust her as she moved around to unzip Sara’s dress. She saw a few bruises in the shape of bite marks around Sara’s shoulders and upper back. She maneuvered Sara’s dress all the way off, slipping it under her hips and all the way down over her feet. Sara sat on the blanket in only her panties, but she was far from cold as Aurora had her blood heated and flowing.

  Aurora extended her fangs and punctured her wrist holding the wound open for a moment to keep it from closing. She let a small amount of blood pool on her arm and used her fingers to paint the blood onto Sara’s damaged skin. After a moment, she began to, slowly and methodically, lick the blood back off. Leaving Sara’s skin smooth and creamy where the blood had healed her marks.

  She lowered Sara to the blanket on her back and proceeded to finger-paint Sara’s breasts, especially her red, swollen nipples. She let the healing properties of her Vampire blood work its magic on Sara, noting that it seemed to be taking a little longer than it should have for minor bruises and scraped skin to heal. But the injuries weren’t serious, and it wasn’t a long wait before Aurora was lapping the blood from Sara’s firm, pretty breasts. She sucked the hard little nipples, happy to see that they were back to a healthy pink and puckering at the pleasure of Aurora’s suckling mouth and delicate tongue. By the time Aurora had rolled Sara over, removed her panties, and repeated the healing process with Sara’s sore and tender buttocks, Sara was moist and squirming under Aurora’s attentions. Aurora was kneeling between Sara’s legs, licking the last of the blood from Sara’s round bottom and she slid her fingers underneath Sara, cupping Sara’s hot sex in her hand. She pulled back until she could
feel the little rosebud between Sara’s soft, wet folds, hard against her finger. She flicked across it, then rubbed it with her fingertips until Sara was pushing against her hand and crying out in a trembling climax.

  Aurora let her fingers slide along the crevice that opened into Sara’s tight wet depths. She was only teasing a little because she was done firing up the little woman for the time being. She smiled. She had her own small cruelties, and one was to leave Sara wanting more every time she touched her. Sara moaned her disappointment and reluctantly pulled her cloths back on. Aurora had noted and healed rub marks on Sara’s inner thighs from riding her horse in a dress. We need to find her some pants before we leave, she thought.

  Sara let her head rest in Aurora’s lap while they looked out over the water and talked some more. Sara talked about Ryan and her anger at him for hiding so much of himself from her. “I don’t understand why he felt that he couldn’t confide in me. We were so close when we were younger.”

  Aurora was unsure if she should interfere, but in the end she felt compelled to pass on the story of Ryan’s disappearance to Sara. She hoped it would help Sara to see that Ryan, in his way, was trying to protect her and in the early years did not have many options that could have included Sara.

  “I guess I can understand that part, but what about later after he came home? Why couldn’t he tell me then?” she wanted to know.

  “Little dove, he loves you and is worried that you think he’s a monster,” Aurora soothed.

  “I love him too, but he can’t lie to me about something as important as this.”

  “He will do whatever he thinks he needs to in order to protect you, even if it means keeping things from you. That’s what big brother’s do,” Aurora said ruffling Sara’s hair and trying to lighten the mood.