by Anastasia,P.
“But you are, whether you believe it or not. You always are.” She pulled the hood down off her head. A pile of curly blond tresses framed her face and tumbled down past her shoulders. The heavy gold bangles at her wrists clinked together as her hands came back down to her sides.
“Humidity does such wonders to one’s complexion.” She grinned sarcastically, dragging her thin, craggy fingers through her hair. She paced as she spoke. “It’s been many years, and you are still as naive as you have ever been.”
“I have learned many things,” I muttered through my teeth. “And I have grown in many ways.” My fingers twitched and pulsed in anticipation of a fight. She had always hated me for my physical advantages because I was much stronger than her.
The DNA in my blood allowed mutations to occur in only a few decades, mutations beyond what some vampires achieve only after a dozen centuries. Ve’tani’s jealousy seethed through her every pore, but she knew better than to anger me. She knew I was a powerful ally. I tried to distance myself from her, but she challenged me periodically in hopes that I would someday, again, take her side.
“Why are you here?” I snarled, baring my fangs to her. She never came around without some foul purpose.
“Your heartstrings have been resounding as of late,” she answered. “The ambience of your dilemma has left me with little peace and quiet.”
Our souls were forever entwined by an unbreakable chain of psychic energy. Thousands of miles apart—even whole countries away—she could feel my agony… my frustration. It was a treacherous bond I had endured because it was impossible to escape without one of us dying, or my maker severing the tie. Neither choice was a viable option for Ve’tani, as she would rather have me suffer in her wake than choose another companion in my place.
This unshakable side effect of vampirism allowed each pair of blood-linked hunters to keep tabs on the status and territory of one another. It was meant to help companions survive eternity. Ve’tani—driven by little more than vanity and greed—exploited the link between us to stalk me wherever I went.
When she had decided to take me, Ve’tani had sought a companion, and instead found herself an adversary. We were still connected, but she had lost full control over me centuries ago, a fact she refused to acknowledge.
“Do something with the girl, Matthaya. I am tired of this woeful brooding you carry. I will not allow you to jeopardize our existence by allowing such knowledge to roam amongst mortals.”
If I had been able to take Kathera as my own, I would have lost all connection with Ve’tani and become telepathically bound to Kathera instead, but this scenario clashed with the reality of my condition. Only the oldest vampires are able to sire. Changing her had never been an option.
“She is no threat to us,” I replied, raising my voice. “She doesn’t know what we are and, even if she did, she wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Kill her, or I will do it for you. Those are your choices.” Her head cocked to the side and she brought a finger to her lip in thought. “Although,” she began, “her scent is impressive. She would make a powerful addition to our kind. It would seem a waste to kill one with such great potential.” Her eyes met mine fiercely and she shrugged. “It’s a shame you don’t have the siring gift, but I like you too much to choose another in your place. Then again, fewer Sires means cleaner bloodlines.” She took another step toward me and stretched out her fingers to touch my shoulder. I shrugged away from her touch and my jaw clamped down tightly in a snarl.
“What? Do you think you’re in love with her?” She laughed dryly through her teeth. “Vampires cannot love. The only sense of attachment we have is for the sake and preservation of our kind. The weaknesses of your mortality haunt you with the illusion of emotion, but you cannot love another.”
If we were truly unable to love, then we were surely as unable to hate, but there was a plume of anger billowing within me toward Ve’tani.
“Why don’t you let me go?” My eyes flickered with rage. “Why don’t you find another more suitable to your cause?”
Ve’tani bent over, shook the edge of her cloak just above her ankles, and smoothed a hand down across the fabric. “I like you,” she said, simply and matter-of-factly as she stood up and brushed a stretch of her sash. “I value your strength… your youth and your beauty. You know this.”
“I am merely a jewel in your crown.” It was obvious she kept ties with me because I was a trophy in her eyes—a symbol of her capabilities as a maker.
As much as I tried to push the thoughts of Kathera from my mind, they lingered strongly enough for Ve’tani to sense.
“Your judgment is impaired by guilt,” she croaked. “You need me. And now, you need to get rid of her. I demand you kill her or I will see to it that it happens.”
I clenched my teeth and growled. “I will not steal her life from her.”
“Perhaps you should have considered that before you got involved,” Ve’tani spoke; her cold stare held me captive. “You have been given a chance to redeem yourself of your mistake. Don’t make me do it for you.”
Arguing with her was pointless, so I kept quiet as she absorbed her false sense of victory.
“Good boy.” She beamed and then tucked her thick hair back behind her neck and tossed her hood over her head. “You still know your place.”
She turned away from me and disappeared into the night.
I was glad to see her go.
What was I to do about Kathera?
I thought long and hard and came across a solution that could keep her alive. If I could find a way to put her out of my mind, it would put her out of Ve’tani’s, as well. She would forget about her if I could keep my feelings contained. But that would mean letting go and forgetting about Kathera myself.
Forget her smell.
Forget her taste.
Forget her friendship.
Her friendship… and the words that had struck me as tragic and yet heart-stoppingly familiar. Age was playing tricks on me for sure. The memory of Kathera kneeling mournfully on the ground, her hands in her lap and her eyes swollen with tears, began to remind me of Kathryn.
In the end, I had not walked away from Kathryn. I should have. My star-crossed arrogance had brought me to my sorry fate without her.
I lifted my face toward the brightly lit moon. Kathera was lucky she had someone to hold her close in my absence. I had tasted their attraction vividly in the scent of her skin and there was no doubt in my mind that Derek would quickly earn her devotion with me gone from her life.
Yes. That was the answer to the riddle that plagued me.
Stay out of her life…
I HAD ALWAYS BEEN AFRAID to die. I feared that unstoppable moment when my heart would beat its last.
But what was I going to do without him? Would I waste away after my last chance for a new life had turned his back on me? I was fragile, and Matthaya’s refusal to take me with him had been more than enough to push me over the edge. He could have saved me from this end. He could have taken me with him.
Twinkling lights flashed below as the streetlamps shuddered from the storm. Wind gusts taunted me with snickers of ridicule, nipping at my cheeks with icy jaws while the unforgiving rain splashed against my face. Frustration choked every last tear from my eyes and, for once, the darkness had become uninviting.
With my last inhibitions tossed aside, I considered the worst.
No one would notice me gone.
No one would mourn my end—my scattered remains beneath the dying city lights. Some people do crazy things when they reach their breaking point. I had begun to understand why. My body lacked the strength to go on without Matthaya, but in truth, I was too afraid to die alone.
I stood and looked around the city rooftop, staring into the darkness of the clouds. There was so much solitude in the inky blackness above. So alone.
“So this is insanity?” I said to the sky. “This is the feeling of the end before de
ath?” My tiny world crumbled in my hands and the storm was washing away any hopes of starting over.
I watched hundreds of busy lives darting along the streets to and fro, oblivious to the chaos all around. Thousands of people were building their lives, starting fresh, living, dying, growing, and fading. There I was, throwing it all away because I was afraid of life. In the short time Matthaya and I had been together, I had felt an extraordinary connection forming. He wouldn’t admit it himself, but I saw it in the way our eyes met, his gaze no longer quick to break away from mine.
Perhaps I had taken it for granted that he would always be there.
Now he wasn’t.
Loneliness taunted me, daring me to make my nightmares of suicide a reality.
I wished there was another way. I tried not to visualize what I would look like after the fall.
Once you enter a roller coaster car, strap yourself in, pull down the lap bar, and start moving, you have no choice but to hold your breath and wait for the fall you know is coming.
Once you reach it, however, you’re never prepared. No matter how hard you try or how much you anticipate it, you never know the feeling until it hits you. It comes at you fast at first, and then you catch a glance of the hill leading toward the decline. Once you reach it, go over, and start to fall, your life seems to break into frames. You spiral down against your will. You hold your breath for what seems like forever and your heart skips a beat.
You’re still shaking when it’s over and you start to regret, but it’s too late. Days pass and you forget how frightened you were. Later, you’re willing to do it again, ignorant of the bullet your body took once already.
It didn’t work like that.
In life, there’s no lap bar.
All we can do is fall…
My infatuation with Matthaya planted new and different nightmares in my sleep. For weeks after our separation, I suffered through them and hesitated to discuss them with another living soul.
They pushed me into darkness. Depression. Thoughts of death and worthlessness plagued me, but I fought back the only way I knew how. I remembered him. I remembered Matthaya and knew my blood needed to serve a higher purpose than staining a sidewalk. I knew he wouldn’t want me to die.
It had been weeks since I had paid my mother’s grave a visit, and I despised myself for allowing such selfishness to keep us apart. She deserved better, but then, so did Derek.
Derek’s embrace helped to soothe the pain… in time. Eventually, my heart had finally stopped aching. He cared for me much more than he should have, offering me a room to myself in his house while I recovered so I could get away from the bad influences of my stepmother. I was hurt and confused, and in that state of impaired judgment, I had accepted his help. With Aldréa out of the picture, my life had become less hectic and I was finally able to put my future in better perspective.
I don’t know how Derek put up with me, or what possessed him to give himself so fully, but he used his patience to earn my trust. In return, I eventually found my heart growing fonder of him. Being beside him began to feel natural.
Still, when he wasn’t around, I often lost myself in tears of remorse and anger. Tears that I hid from the world.
What had I done to make Matthaya push me away?
I awoke unexpectedly in the night, painful memories stealing the breath from my lungs. I wiped a damp trail from my cheek and then slipped my feet off the bed and onto the floor.
My room was down the hall from Derek’s. He had been honest about his honorable intentions and I trusted him more than I had imagined I could ever trust any man. It was nice being alone in the cozy guest room of his house. I had it all to myself, and sometimes even the entire house when he was out.
Aldréa’s concern for me had withered after I had gone away and my father was resting assured by my faith in Derek.
After waking from yet another horrible nightmare, I decided to tell Derek the truth. I stood up from the bed, tugged my robe off the bedpost, and then slung it across my shoulders, tying the sash loosely around my waist. It was usually comfortable in the house, but my tank top did little to keep my arms warm on this frigid winter night.
The hardwood floor was cold against my feet as I crept quietly down the hallway toward Derek’s room. I listened at his door, which was open a few inches, and heard nothing, so I knocked lightly.
“I’m not asleep either, Kathera. You can come in.”
We were both so accustomed to working late and odd shifts that sleep never really came easily for either of us.
“Why don’t you sit down?” he said, patting a hand on the edge of his bed and then reaching to his side to switch on a small lamp. A yellow glow filled the room. He sat up, put his hands behind his head, and lay back against his pillow. “What’s up?”
I took a seat beside him and pulled my knees up onto the velvety comforter. I knew there was tension in him as he struggled to keep his feelings locked down while my broken heart recovered. I also knew how much he wanted to be a part of my life and how he had given everything in hopes of eventually convincing me to return the affection.
It had all been overlooked so easily in the past—before tonight. In the warm light and shadow, he looked… different. I moved closer to him and rested my hand against his bare chest. The feel of his smooth, warm skin calmed my restless fingers.
Even in the dim light, I could make out the brief smile that came across his lips.
He was always so patient with me. Too patient, maybe.
“Derek, I don’t understand what’s happening to me. I keep having terrible dreams over and over again.” I closed my eyes and sighed. “I’m scared. I-I don’t want to be alone…” I felt his chest rise and fall beneath my hand.
“You don’t have to be.” He sat up and bent a knee for balance as he lifted a hand to cup my cheek. Then he leaned in and kissed my neck without asking.
A gasp caught in my throat.
No. I didn’t want to—
His other hand slid across the collar of my robe, teasing the strap of my camisole.
“You’ll never be alone, Kathera,” he whispered. The heat of his breath on my skin made me lightheaded.
Derek, I… The words didn’t come out.
My skin tingled and I flinched at first, wanting to revolt against his actions, but… his touch was gentle. He pulled back from my throat and looked me in the eye. Butterflies made my body shake.
“Kathera?” He held my face lovingly. “If you don’t want me to leave you, I never will.”
He pulled me into his arms and, in an outpour of organic passion, kissed my lips.
Again, I let him.
I let him take my breath away with his heated whispers, and I stopped worrying about the things I couldn’t control.
I relaxed my shoulders into his embrace and my robe slid down my forearms. I climbed completely up onto the bed and he lay back, cautiously bringing me with him. My hands slipped out of my sleeves and the fleece robe fell to a pile on the floor beside the bed.
Persuaded by a primitive, instinctual force, I climbed on top of him, straddling his hips with my legs. I was tense at first, shaking with anxiety and uncertainty because I’d never done such a thing before. Then my muscles eased into Derek’s arms as he pulled me down into another kiss. I was so close, the beat of his heart resounded through my fingertips.
His hands trailed down my sides and came around to my lower waist where they remained, although it seemed painfully difficult for him to keep them there.
His chest was sensationally hot and taut beneath my palms. I didn’t even know what I wanted from him anymore. Or did I?
My mind could barely fathom the rawness of the emotions crashing through me. I felt the muscles in his arms flex as he held me on top of him, gently but with absolutely no intention of letting go.
Then his fingers sunk an inch lower, his thumbs caressing the jut of my hipbones, pressing my hips deeper into his un
til desire raged inside me.
The heat of our bodies so close together made the room uncomfortably hot. I gasped faintly as a bead of sweat dripped down my forehead. His lips pressed into my throat. Our curves complimented each other and it became clear—we were meant to fit together. The room blurred and all I could see was him. All I could feel was Derek’s insatiable hunger infecting me like a virus—blinding me with the sudden wants of my body.
He knew exactly what he was doing, and his skillful touch and the way he boldly wrinkled up my shirt to get to my bare skin made me pine for him. The trail his fingers made across my ribs had been firm but gentle—passionate and careful—a perfect combination. And now his fingertips remained just below my waist, lighting a fuse of sexual desire, which made me writhe. The sensation charmed my senses, clouding my mind. Making me vulnerable to his needs.
Or were they our needs?
Right then and there, Derek wanted me and only me. I felt it in my blood.
I wanted to let go completely.
I wanted to forget everything and be his.
His lips lingered on the hypersensitive flesh of my throat and an involuntary groan slipped out of me as I trembled. Derek’s grasp tightened in response, his abdomen tensing and unconsciously pressing closer against me.
The rhythm of our breaths grew heavier. A hand cupped the back of my neck and pulled me into another kiss, even more impassioned than the last. He tasted powerful. Real.
His lips slowly explored my jawbone, until I felt a heated breath and a fiery stroke of his tongue behind my ear.
His hardened body pressed against me had me yearning. I found myself imagining things I hadn’t before…
Our bare skin sliding together.
“Kathera,” he whispered in a labored breath. “Say you want me.” His fingers traced my hips. “Because I need you right now, more than anything.” My mind went blank and my body flinched at the sound of his words. The sexual impulses were driving out all reason and conscience.