A Destined Death

by Rayns, Lisa

  Too bruised and too scared to think or do anything on my own, my inner survival instincts kicked in and urged me to my feet. I took off again with one thing on my mind: I wanted to see Draven again before I died.

  The vampire stayed two paces behind me, and his face held the same grin. I had the suspicion he was playing with me. The chase didn’t seem to be wearing him down but my legs ached and my lungs burned. I knew I wouldn’t be able to outrun him. I almost collapsed from hopelessness, but I pictured Draven’s face and pushed my body to outdo itself.

  Draven, I love you with all my heart. I’m so sorry!

  I gasped, out of breath, when I tripped over a rock and fell to the ground. I flipped over to see the vampire’s progress. His fangs were out, and he hissed at me. His eyes were a brighter red than they’d been before, and he held out his hands suggestively, as though he planned to use his long fingernails as knives.

  Frozen with fear, I stared at the monster who would take me away from Draven. He stood two feet away when someone stepped in front of me and punched him. The vampire flew into the air where a small spear sliced through his chest, and he disintegrated into ashes. I turned toward the spot where the missile had come from and saw Ben load another quarrel into his crossbow. Then I looked up to see the man above me.

  Draven!

  “No!” I screamed at Ben, my heart instantly gripped by a horror far worse than a thousand vampires.

  Draven faced Ben while he stood in front of me protectively. I scrambled to my feet and shouted again for Ben to stop. When I saw the crossbow fire, I screamed at the top of my lungs. I wanted to close my eyes but I couldn’t. Draven caught the shaft in his fist and threw it aside. Ben tried again with the same result. I didn’t stop screaming until Ben ran out of ammunition.

  Draven must have seen it too because he turned and took me into his arms. Relief filled me. Then I heard the shots and felt the impact of bullets hitting his body. My hands slowly moved up his torso, horrified, bracing myself for what would happen next. My heart raced when I pulled away and saw the blood that covered my hands.

  “No!” I shrieked, throwing myself into his arms.

  I guessed I was in shock and disorientated because I thought we were back in the attic of my house in South Dakota. Light filtered in through the curtains from an afternoon sky, but it was just midnight in Paris. When he pulled away from me, I let go of him for a second, and he fell backward onto the squeaky, old bedframe. I shook my head, fighting for the clarity to focus on his wounds.

  “Oh my God! Draven! You’ve been shot! Let me help you!” I frantically undid the buttons on his blood stained shirt and rolled him over. I didn’t find any wounds. Four bullets lay on top of his bloody flesh but there were no bullet holes.

  “I’m fine,” he said, rolling onto his back, “but I need to rest. No blood, but I can rest. You shouldn’t be here now. I’m weak.” His eyes were no longer chocolaty, but his pupils were larger and black.

  “No,” I said defiantly, daring him to make me leave him after we’d been apart for so long. “I need to know the truth.”

  Anger flashed in his dark eyes. “You do? You need to know? You need to see what I am? You want me to show you? You want me to ruin you?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “What?” he asked incredulously.

  “Yes. Ruin me. Do whatever you must. Whatever you are, I want you. When you’re gone, I feel empty. I love you, Draven. I was so afraid I wouldn’t get to tell you in person.”

  In one swift movement, he grabbed me and pulled me on top of him until I straddled him. Then he sat up and kissed me once slowly. I responded by tearing at his shirt until it no longer inhibited my hungry hands that raced across his cool skin. He didn’t seem to mind that my hands were everywhere but his kisses remained gentle as his mouth slowly moved south to my throat and then east to the curve of my neck.

  My breathing became erratic and my body felt on fire with pure need for him. His hand moved up to hold me possessively, and then he bit me. I gasped when I realized he’d pierced the skin. A moan of pleasure fell out of my mouth as I felt my blood flowing into his body.

  I didn’t know how much time had passed when he released me and flipped me over onto my backside. He straddled me and narrowed his eyes down on me. “Do you still want me? Choose now!”

  My heart beat madly in my chest, and my breaths were hot, labored. “Crazy, unbelievable things have been happening to me, and the only thing I know is that I want you. I want you so badly it hurts.”

  His touch was magic, his teeth divine. He disrobed me and then lay me down on the bed, inching his way down my body with soft kisses. Even though his lips were cool, each touch left my body searing. My excitement mounted and peaked when his tongue traced me, found me, explored me. I soaked in every feeling, every twinge, and the flutter of every tiny wing in my stomach.

  I jumped when he bit me again on the very top of my thigh in between my legs. The pain felt excruciating at first but dulled when he moaned with pleasure. His excited reaction left me feeling nothing but pure ecstasy. My blood left my body and ran into his mouth which felt like a raging fire. I found it thrilling to look down at him, sucking on me like a baby from a breast. His desire had increased with the taste of my blood, and I didn’t want to stop him, even though I grew light-headed. When I thought I would pass out I finally grabbed a lock of his hair and pulled on it.

  “Stop,” I said in between her gasps for air.

  He released his fangs from my body and looked up at me with a smile that suggested a state of bliss. A line of blood ran down his chin from one fang, and he looked dizzy, drunk.

  And then he gave me a look that nearly stopped my heart all together. Intense and carnal. He removed his jeans and made his way back up to my mouth. His fangs had disappeared by the time he kissed me, and I licked the remnants of my own blood off his chin. I found anything on his body tasted delicious.

  Lowering my hands, I felt what he was about to give me. The hardness of it, the length and width of it had my eyes popping open from their relaxed, closed state. For a moment, I feared it would hurt, but the want in his eyes calmed me and then sent another wave of excitement through my body. I spread my legs and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, offering myself to him as I had no one else.

  Strong and muscular as he was, he was gentle, easing inside of me slowly. I distracted myself by running my fingers through his hair, but I gasped when he broke through my virginity and made me a woman, his woman.

  Pain lingered for only moments before the tingling turned into delight and need as he rocked his powerful body into mine. He kissed my lips, my face, my neck, fully exposing a tenderness I’d never experienced. His hands caressed my breasts and curled into my hair. As our passion rose, he thrust harder and my first orgasm overpowered me, filling me with ecstasy until my toes curled.

  We connected on a level that words couldn’t explain, and our passion overwhelmed me. Moisture touched my eyes, and when he finally gave himself to me, I knew I would be his forever. He lay down beside me, and I felt complete for the first time in my life, reunited at last.

  When my breathing returned to normal, I basked in the feeling for an hour before I turned to face him. “So, you’re really a vampire?”

  “Yes.” He watched my reaction carefully.

  “Wow, a vampire in South Dakota, that’s interesting. You’re supposed to be rich and living like a king, stalking your prey in city alleys.”

  “You are the only prey I stalk.” His intense stare was…sexy.

  I frowned. “Why do you keep saving my life if you only want to take it?”

  Countering my frustration, he growled, “Why do you keep running around the world, putting yourself in dangerous situations?”

  “You could have just apologized!”

  “Apologized?”

  “Yes. If you would have apologized…oh, I don’t know anymore. Look, I know I love you. I know I want to be with you. And guess what, it’s
someday, so what the hell is the problem now?”

  He smiled and stroked my face, calming me instantly. “There’s no problem now, Elizabeth. I won’t ever leave you again unless you tell me to.”

  The words I’d been longing to hear came melodiously attached to a solemn vow that I could feel. I hugged him, willing it to be true. I pulled away to look into his eyes but when he resisted letting me go, I knew something had changed. I knew he meant what he said.

  “How did you get to Paris so fast?”

  “I was in Paris,” he said, like I should have known.

  “Oh…that’s why you didn’t stay in South Dakota when I wished for it?”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have stayed anyway. I don’t abide by your wishes when your life is in danger.”

  “Well, I’m glad you didn’t,” I declared, “but how did we get back here so fast?”

  “Magic travel.”

  At the thought, I sucked in my breath. “Hecate!” I tried to sit up, but he held me tightly in his arms, and I almost melted.

  “Relax, she’s in the garage.” He smiled a sexy smile that made my pulse quicken.

  I tried to ignore it. “So you can go anywhere in the world?”

  “Not really, unless I’ve spent a lot of time there. The more time I spend in a place, the easier it is to teleport there. It takes me only seconds to go home, for instance.”

  “That explains your fresh clothing all the time. So, do you eat?” When he turned a seductive grin on me, I restated the question. “Food! I mean, do you eat food?”

  “No.”

  Suddenly alarmed, I stopped and ran my fingers across my smooth neck. “You bit me, and now my wound is gone. Does that mean I’m a vampire too?”

  “No. My bite isn’t venomous or anything. You have to be dying and drink my blood before your last heartbeat.”

  “But where is the wound?”

  “Healed. With enough concentration, I can transfer my regeneration onto you. It only works for small scrapes and bruises though, a bite. I can’t fix broken bones or fractures….yet.”

  “You regenerate too?”

  He only smiled.

  “How do you make me sleep? And by the way, I hate that, you know.”

  “Concentrated will,” he said intently.

  I rolled my eyes. “Tell me the rest.”

  He captured my lips for long moment, and then gazed into my eyes. “We are soul mates, Elizabeth. We’ve been together for many of your lifetimes.”

  A sudden pang hit my stomach as everything suddenly became clear. He loved them so much that he followed their souls, my soul. He wanted to save me before I died again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You had a plan, Elizabeth. It was my gift to you.”

  “Screw the plan!” I yelled, suddenly pummeled with a slew of regret when I realized that I could have been with him sooner. “If you would have told me…”

  “That’s why I didn’t.”

  I sighed and cooled my face on his chest. “How do you keep finding me?”

  “I use the three minute rule,” he said, perking up as though it was something he was proud of. “Three minutes after your last body dies, you are born into a new human body. So, all I had to do was find you and wait an excruciating eighteen years for you to come of age again.”

  “But how did you know so early? I must have looked like every other child. How did you know it was me?”

  “I can feel you, smell you, and hear you.”

  I looked up at him curiously. “And it’s the same for me? Why haven’t I heard you before?”

  Closing his eyes, he pulled me closer and ran his fingers through my hair in a loving caress. “I’m sure you have in a dream or something you thought you were imagining but it probably wasn’t as vivid. Our bond doesn’t realign fully until we actually meet, and sometimes there’s an adjustment period.”

  “It’s like we were meant to be,” I whispered.

  His fingers curled under my chin. “We are meant to be. That is why our bond reaches beyond death.”

  I sucked in my breath and put a hand over my mouth. “I died and you…you were left behind so many times. You couldn’t save me. How awful! I’m so sorry, Draven!”

  “I’m sorry I let it happen.” His eyes held a strong regret.

  “No. I saw it all. There was nothing you could have done. They…I loved you more than life. I still do.”

  His lips touched my neck before he gazed at me intently. “Now you understand what I couldn’t tell you. My eternal life has been excruciating without you, and because of that, I make this vow to you now: If I lose you again, I will die with you.”

  The conviction he put behind the oath was so intense it scared me. “I won’t die then.”

  He smiled and rubbed his cool hand over my cheek. “Yes, you will, but…let me kill you, Elizabeth.”

  I felt silly giggling when he spoke so seriously but it was such an odd request. “So when you say that, you’re really asking me to become a vampire?”

  “Yes,” he breathed. “I cannot make love to you again until we are one. Spend eternity with me.”

  The softness in his eyes made me want to say that I would gladly spend three eternities with him but dying and becoming something else scared me. It was too serious of a question to answer him on the spot. I found myself unable to say yes, but still unable to say no. “I…I couldn’t kill anyone. If I were a vampire, I mean. I couldn’t take someone’s life, even for my own survival.”

  “There’ll never be a need.”

  Perplexed, I widened my eyes. “What do you mean? Don’t vampires––”

  “Relax, Elizabeth. There’ll be plenty of time for you to understand everything.”

  “You’re so different from those vampires in Paris.”

  He rubbed his finger over the cross around my neck. “There’s good and evil in every species. When we’re turned, a madness takes over and many succumb to the darkness. Your cross may have actually slowed them down. I’m not evil.”

  “Why didn’t you succumb?”

  He laughed easily. “Because I was in love.”

  “And you’re sure I won’t succumb?”

  “I swear it. Our bond has strengthened, and we are one again. With that much love in your heart, evil cannot exist.”

  Feeling reassured, I propped my head on my fist. “Can those vampires do what you do?”

  “No. Most vampires spend their existence hunting. I’ve met very few that care about humans at all. They stick together in groups, raising hell and moving around a lot. They particularly enjoy human disasters, plagues that offer easy feeding and little chance of being caught.”

  “And you don’t?” I asked awkwardly.

  “A few of us, who enjoy a life of solitude, find out how far we can stretch our abilities. Teleportation, for example, is an attainable goal if one takes the time to channel their concentration properly. I’ve mastered it,” he said, placing a kiss on the back of my hand. “I’ve actually spent lifetimes trying to find ways to impress you.”

  I flushed, and my heart melted into a little puddle under the bed. I snuggled in close to him, enjoying the feeling of his cool flesh. “I’m so glad you’re not a ghost.”

  He laughed but I heard the surprise in his voice, “I suck your blood until you can hardly stand and it’s fine but if I were a ghost that would be worse?”

  “Definitely,” I told his chest. “If I couldn’t touch you…”

  He hugged me as if to concede.

  “Tell me how you became a vampire.”

  He sat up in the bed and leaned against the headboard, pulling me with him. His eyes darkened as he gazed toward the window. “It was January 15th, 1944 in San Juan, Argentina. We were scheduled to be married in a small church. You were the most beautiful bride I’d ever seen. I’d snuck in to see you that day before the wedding, and we almost made love beforehand but you sent me away to wait until the time of the ceremony. It was hard for me to leave you b
ut in that day, sex before marriage wasn’t acceptable, especially for prominent couples. We were both looking forward to the wedding night…but it never came.

  “An earthquake hit and collapsed every building in the area. Beams from the bar fell on me, instantly trapping me underneath the rubble. My ribs were crushed, and a metal rod stabbed through my heart. I heard my best man calling to me but the life was rushing away from me so fast, I barely had the chance to call your name… ‘Alicia.’

  “It was my final word before I awoke, drinking blood from my best man’s wrist. I thought I was dreaming when I watched him pull the rod out of my chest and throw the beams off me like they were made of cardboard. The transformation took nearly fifteen minutes, all of which I spent in agonizing pain. I had no idea Armando was a vampire but he saved my life that day. He made me immortal. As soon as I was able to forge any kind of thought, only one thing crossed my mind––you, my beautiful bride. Armando helped me. He tried to get me to your side in time. He did everything he could…” A sad remorseful look passed across his face.

  “It was unbearable when I found you. You had died instantly from the impact of the ceiling. I begged him to help you too but he couldn’t. He said it was too late. Rage struck me, and I blamed him for my life. I didn’t want to…I couldn’t live without you so I sent him away. I was so angry, I told him I never wanted to see him again.”

  I sighed and closed my eyes when a tear ran down my cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I blame myself.”

  “Where is he now?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. France, I think.”

  I could see the pain in his eyes so I tried to calm him with a light mood and a subject change. “You’ve waited four lifetimes for me? That is so sweet!”

  Happiness returned to his eyes when he looked at me. “Yes.”

  “What else? What about coffins?”

  “I don’t sleep in a coffin. I don’t really need to sleep at all unless I use too much energy or don’t take any blood. I sleep mostly when I’m missing you or waiting for you to grow of age.”