by Dawn Gray
“I have no hatred.” He whispered.
“So, why won’t you let yourself feel love?” I asked and touched his cheek. “I swear to you, Justin, you can’t hurt me. I’m prepared for anything.”
“Anything?” He said softly and pulled me to him, quickly. “Like this?” He kissed me hard and passionately on. The lips and I could feel myself resist for only a moment, then I gave into him. I put my hands on his hips and held him there. When he broke away, he placed his forehead against mine. “I don’t know how much more of you I can take before I can’t hold out anymore.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I smiled at him and closed my eyes. He kissed my forehead and sighed. “You don’t have to hold back with me.”
“I have to control at least some part of me, Sage. I can’t be totally open.”
“The darkness around you is fading.” I whispered, and looked up at his eyes. Justin looked at me as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. “When we met, I told you that you were darker than anything I had ever met, but its fading. The darkness is going away.”
“I don’t feel it.” He said softly. “Maybe it’s fading around you, but you don’t realize what effect you have on my nature. The vampire in me is darker than night, but it’s slowly moving back as the man slips forward when you’re near, but the vampire comes out in force after you leave. I have a hard time controlling the bloodlust after you go home. It’s like my body craves you, and when you’re not here, the only way to satisfy it, is with blood.”
“You’re not the only one with fears, you know.” I whispered noticing we hadn’t moved from the corner. Justin still had the upper hand. He touched my cheek and kissed me lightly on the lips. “I have a fear about you.”
“You’ve finally figured out that I’m dangerous?” He asked and smiled.
“I have this fear that sooner or later I’m going to totally give into you and once that happens I’ll never want to let go.” I said softly. Justin looked at me oddly then smiled. I looked around as he walked over to the bed with me and sat down.
“Well, the witch has a fear after all.” He smiled and moved towards so that I lay back on the bed. “I can’t believe that you have that fear.” He moved down on the bed next to me and watched me close my eyes. “I thought you’d at least have a fear of bugs.”
I opened eyes and moved closer to him. Justin didn’t like the look in my eyes, or what I had asked him. “Show me your dark side.”
“You’re not serious?” He asked and sat up. I watched him move away, then get up and walked over to the empty fireplace. I sat up and watched him. “I can’t show you that. Why would you ever want to know about that? Why would you want to see what kind of monster I am?”
“I want to know all of you, Justin.” I whispered noticing his change, “Forget I asked.”
“I could show you, but I’m not sure I could control myself after I do.” He walked back over to me and sat facing me. “If you really want to see it, I’ll show you.” He took my face in his hands and held me there as he stared into my eyes. His eyes filmed over to a black color, and then he sent his memories to me. I suddenly fought him, got out of his hands and away from him, and his eyes. “I told you that I was darker than anything you’ll ever meet.”
“Why did you do those things?”
“Hatred.”
“Hatred for what? I thought you didn’t have any.”
“For Michael, for Cristian and for me.” He whispered, and then looked away from me as his fangs started to grow. “I hated it all. After our transformation, I wasn’t the same. The vampire had tainted my blood, blackened my heart. I didn’t want anything but power and to bring death upon others.” He suddenly covered his face with his hands. “Leave the room now!”
“What?” I asked.
“Do it! Now!” He yelled. I went to run by him, but he leaped up at me and grabbed my arm. I was turned, forcefully, and looked at his red eyes, then all I saw was the white of his fangs and I closed eyes as my body shook with fear.
Chapter 5
August
Michael closed his eyes, and ears, and let the sounds of the day escape. He relaxed in the sunlight, while lying out on the large green lawn, and tried to think of nothing. That never worked. His eyes scanned the room in his mind and it took him a few minutes to think of where he was, and then it clicked. He was at a hospital. Once this realization hit him, he heard the small sound of a baby crying. Michael turned and looked to his right, there beside him, was a bassinette. He looked down into the small glass rectangle and was greeted by the bright blue eyes of a newborn. The instant their eyes met, the small child stopped its cry.
“Look, Michael, she likes you.” A masculine voice whispered at him and he looked up at the young man in front of him. His name was Douglas Owens, a young man that he had befriended five years before. Douglas smiled at him, then scooped the bundled little girl up and handed her to Michael. “Here, hold her.”
“She’s so small.” Michael said softly as he held the child close to him, then walked over and sat in the chair. He looked over at Yvette, the child’s mother, who was sleeping peacefully in the bed beside him. “And, she all ready has her mother’s eyes.”
“Yes and her mother’s power.” Douglas laughed. “Did you see those lights?”
“Douglas, lights flickering on and off at the time of your child’s birth doesn’t mean anything but coincidence.” Michael smiled at him, then down at the little girl. He took that statement back later. “So, what’s her name? We can’t call her little girl forever.”
“It’s Sage Marie.” Yvette whispered as she slowly rolled over in the bed and looked at them. She smiled at Michael and then laughed aloud when the baby cooed at him. “She knows who you are."
“She ought to.” Douglas said. “Without Michael, this day would have never come about.”
Michael looked up at Douglas quickly, then back at the baby and checked for any signs of vampirism. “She’s fine, Mike.”
“It’s just that I want to make sure.” Michael said softly.
“You’re blood is her blood, Mike.” Yvette smiled. “You’ll always be part of her.”
“I just wish it wouldn’t put her in so much danger,” Michael sighed.
“It was just a blood transfusion, what harm could it cause her?” Douglas asked. Michael looked at his friend, knowing that Douglas knew what might become of it. He knew that his friend was just happy to have the little girl alive, no matter what the cost. “Besides we know you’ll keep her safe.”
“Sage, say hello to your Uncle Mike.” Yvette smiled and watched the baby catch Michael’s eyes. Michael sighed and closed his eyes, bringing the baby up to hug her.
When he opened them again, he was laying on the carpeted floor in the living room of a house he had spent about ten years in. He turned on his side and looked at the little girl, about four years old that sat only about five feet away. She was holding a teddy bear and looking at him with narrowed blue eyes. Her long brown hair fell in natural waves down below her shoulders. She watched him with an intensity that almost made Michael uneasy, but he knew her nature was to be protective.
“Sage.” Douglas yelled and looked in the room. He looked at Michael then at his daughter. Sage looked up at her father then quickly back at Michael. “What did she do to you?”
“Oh just a little bit of Ah-boo-tay, this and To-wha that.” Michael smiled and got up. “Then she knocked me over with a pretty impressive shock wave of power.”
“What have we told you about that, young lady.” Douglas scolded.
“Ah, no harm has done Doug.” Michael said and stood up by his friend. “She’s only exploring it.”
“How are we going to teach her the right way to use her powers if you keep egging her on to knock you over?” Douglas asked as the two men walked out of the room, leaving Sage to watch television. “When are you going to bring Julian and Quinn over to see her? It’s been four years since we’ve seen them.”
&n
bsp; “They’re out of town still; something about France is keeping them away. David’s running the house, so I don’t really know what’s going on.’
What Michael had been afraid of was that they would find out about Sage. Her link to vampirism and her ties to Michael would be exposed as soon as Julian looked at her. He wanted to keep her away from that kind of influence. Michael looked back at Sage and she glanced back at him, her eyes still narrowed, but then her lips curled up in a smile at him. He smiled back at her and she turned away.
When he turned back around, he was standing in front of the house he had just been in. The fire seemed to reach out from every window. He scanned the house for life as the sirens neared. There was one in the house, one out of three. Michael pin pointed the person and ran for the house. He ran up the burning stairway, towards Sage’s room and flung open the door. The little seven-year-old sat in the middle of her bed, as the flames erupted around her, and looked at him. A blazing blue light surrounded her body and nothing seemed to be touching her.
“Sage, we have to leave now.” Michael yelled at her. Sage looked at her room, and as if just coming out of a trance, she started to scream. The blue light faded and Michael grabbed her off the bed. He ran down the stairs and out passed the dining room. There, as he quickly glanced at the table, sat two charred corpses. He looked at them, the odd way they just slumped there and then he felt the child that wiggled in his arms. This broke him out of the trance and he headed for the door, clearing the threshold and most of the lawn before the house exploded into a giant ball of flames.
He picked his head up, after being flung to the ground by the blast, and was sitting on a chair at the burial of his two closest mortal friends. Their small, but powerful child, holding his hand tightly as she sat to his left. She looked over the two mahogany coffins with a straight face, and then she looked up at Michael.
“Are you going to be my daddy, now?” She whispered to him. Michael looked at her and hugged her close to him as they watched the caskets being lowered, he wished he could, but from what the police had told him, Sage’s parents were dead before the fire started and that meant that Sage would be in trouble. Sage’s aunt and uncle agreed to take her, care for her as long as they could. Michael agreed to help them with the expenses and sent them money for her clothing and school, and paid them some for living expenses.
He visited her often, but mostly at night and away from her family. She knew who he was and what he meant to her, and her to him, but it had been six years ago that he stopped talking to her, verbally, because there was a threat to her existence if he didn’t leave her be. Now, he needed her there so that he could protect her, and he prayed that she returned to him, safely.
Michael rolled over on the grass and looked at bare toes, dirty bare toes. He looked up and smiled at Jack, who smiled down at him. The two year old seemed full of mischief and touched Michael on the head, then ran off to chase the small birds that lived off the land there. Michael sat up and looked at Ashley as she walked towards him. She smiled and sat down on the grass beside him, then looked over the water.
“Thinking about her?” She asked. Michael nodded.
“She’s all I have left of Douglas and Yvette.” Michael sighed. He looked up at the sky and sighed.
“So, why would they be after her if she’s just a normal girl?” Ashley questioned.
“She’s not normal.” Michael smiled and thought of how she used to overpower him, just by a look. “She’s part of me.”
“In what way?” Ashley asked. Michael looked at her and shook his head. “What did you do?”
“The doctor called it a blood interlace.” Michael sighed. “And, it was the only way to save her life.”
“How?”
“When Yvette, her mother, was 33 weeks pregnant, they were in a massive car crash, involving a tracker trailer and a bus. Yvette was in a coma, Douglas, her husband, was almost in a complete body cast. They weren’t sure if either of them was going to live, but Sage’s heart was beating normally, so they kept Yvette alive for the baby’s sake. I had legal custody of Sage if either of them should die, so she wasn’t without a family. When Yvette woke up, two weeks later, Sage’s heart rate dropped, and the doctor knew that there was internal bleeding in the womb.”
“Why didn’t they just take her out?”
“It wasn’t that easy, because Sage was the one that was bleeding. Michael closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. “The doctor wasn’t easy to convince when I told him that I could save her. He thought I was nuts, but I showed him just what I was. He was very professional about it. He’d never done it before, any kind of procedure that involved a blood transfusion in the uterus. He told Douglas and Yvette what would be involved and explained the risks and I explained the risks to them of tying their daughter to me that closely.
“They didn’t seem to care about the dangers. This child meant everything to them and whatever had to be done was going to be done.” Michael looked at Ashley and smiled. “The whole procedure took almost seven hours, but we watched as the bleeding stopped, and the doctor kept me up to date about how the transfusion worked. It seemed that when my blood was introduced to Sage’s, they didn’t want to work together, so what happened was that my blood cells wove together with hers, creating something very powerful. A mortal with vampire blood unlike anything that anyone’s ever seen. She had the power to heal herself the way we do, without even knowing it.
“I waited another six weeks to see that little girl. They didn’t induce Yvette, thinking that the longer Sage stayed in that blood enriched atmosphere the better. Her weight went up quickly after the procedure, and she arrived perfectly healthy and without one shred of vampire evidence on her. Her blood, if looked at closely would give her away. The doctor was kind enough to destroy all of the samples taken from Sage and myself during this.”
“So, if you think about it, she’s like a daughter.” Ashley smiled. Michael looked at her and nodded. “She’s your daughter, Mike.”
“I know and that blood tie itself could get her killed.” Michael sighed and shook his head, then turned and looked at Jack who was holding a small bird in his hand. “How has Jack been for you?”
“The effects of Victor’s tinkering with his blood seem to have worn off; they started too shortly after we left. It’s just good to be home. I can’t tell you just how much I missed this place while I was gone.” Ashley smiled and took his hand. “Did you ever tell Julian about our visits?”
“No, there was so much that happened. Angel. Jason and Issac, the triangle that the three of them created was almost too much for Julian to keep up with. Quinn’s granddaughter has a lot of fire in her, just like you did when you came back to us.” Michael said and smiled.
“So, where are they now?”
“Oh, last I heard Jason and Angel were just about to leave for Egypt. Apparently, Louis invited them to stay for a bit.” Michael smiled. “Imagine seeing a family that you thought you never had, meeting blood relatives after so long. She thought she was the last.”
“So, who are you thinking about?”
“Justin.” Michael sighed. “I was wondering where he might be, what kind of trouble he was causing and for whom.”
“IS he really that bad?”
“Cristian thinks so, but, I think something went wrong with him during the transformation.” Michael shook his head. “If I knew where he was, I’d ask him to come here too, not that he would.”
“So, ask Cristian when he gets here, maybe he’s seen him.” Ashley smiled and lay back on the grass. Michael looked down at her and then lay down beside her.
“There’s going to be trouble, isn’t there?” Michael questioned as he looked up at the clouds. “So many different people in this house once again.
“They’ll learn to get along.” Ashley said and glanced at him. “You worry too much.”
“Ah, I always have. Old habits die hard.” He smiled and closed his eyes.
“This isn’t going
to hurt that much, right?” Cristian’s voice invaded his thoughts, as memories rose to the surface. He saw himself, Cristian, and Justin all sitting on the roof of Charles’s home, looking over the forest, listening to the sounds of the war that wasn’t so far off.
“Don’t be such a baby.” Justin said as he pulled out his knife from his boot. “You’re such a child. Be a man, take the pain.”
“Let him be, Justin.” Michael smiled at the two of them. “Come on, let’s get on with it. Charles will be here soon.”
“So, how do we do this?” Cristian asked. Justin rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Well, I’ve never done this before, have you?”
“You cut your hand, like this.” Justin said and slid the knife across his palm, slicing it open. He watched the blood bubble out then handed the knife to Michael, who did the same. Michael looked at Cristian, who hesitated, then took the knife and cut his own palm. “Now.” Justin instructed. “We have to shake hands.”
“That’s easy.” Michael said and shook his hand, suddenly feeling the overwhelming pulsating feeling as their blood mingled. When Michael pulled away, Justin turned and grabbed Cristian’s hand and shook it. He watched the expression on Cristian’s face as he too felt the strange feeling that Justin seemed to be passing to them. Cristian let go of Justin’s hand then turned and looked at Michael. Slowly, cautiously, their hands connected and they looked at each other as the pulse passed between them also. Michael let him go, and then looked at Justin. “My blood is your blood.”
“And mine is yours.”
“And mine to both of you.” Cristian added. Justin looked at him and smiled “So, now it is done. We’re blood brothers, linked for the rest of our lives.”
“Our blood ties us to one another.” Justin said and smiled. He got up, grabbed the knife and walked away. Michael looked at Cristian, and then at his own blood stained hand.
“Did you feel it?” Cristian asked.
“I thought it was Justin.” Michael said and looked away.