by Helen Bright
Then a change came over her and she lay against my chest and licked my throat.
This gave me the most erotic thoughts I think I had ever had, and I stood up quickly, grabbing Julia’s coat from the rack and tugging her towards the door.
The bond was really starting to kick in at this moment and if I didn’t get her home soon I would fuck her right there, over my desk in front of everyone.
I heard Nik chuckle and say, “Get used to this feeling you two. You have days of this left yet.”
I didn’t reply because Julia and I were out the door and home much faster than even I thought possible.
Chapter 30
Alex
Bonding with Julia was exhausting. I drank both from her and the bagged blood we had brought in from our donors, but it never seemed to be enough. The sex we had was phenomenal and I can honestly say that being bonded to the woman I love was the best thing that had ever happened to me.
Humans talk about being tied down in a relationship but when were together in each other’s embrace, I felt like I was soaring high above the clouds and all was good with the world.
We found out that the vampire Brian Vargan had left the UK for France the same night that Julia had seen him. I wish we could have known who it was from her description, but tall, blond and well built wasn’t much to go on. After all, that kind of described me.
But at least he was out of the country for the moment, and Viktor had placed alerts at every UK airport and ferry port so we would know if he came back.
Julia’s parents were having a great time on their holiday, and that meant that they weren’t around to interrupt us in our first few days as a bonded couple.
Freya had done enough of that already. On hearing from Joshua that we had bonded, she immediately left his cottage to come and congratulate us. Unfortunately we hadn’t locked the door in our race to make love, and she caught Julia and I in a very uncompromising position.
After apologising, she hid behind the Kitchen door and congratulated us on our bonding.
You didn’t need to have vampire hearing to know how hard she laughed once she had closed the door behind her though, and the very next morning, after giving us another red faced congratulations, she left for her home in Aldbrough on the rugged East Yorkshire coast.
By Monday the effects of the bond had settled down enough for us to go to work, although we did end up having sex in the conference room, and at home on our midnight break.
In general everything was going great, but I sensed a big mood change in Julia by mid week.
I didn’t seem to be doing anything right and it was like treading on egg shells around her. By Friday the source of all the anger became apparent.
Julia got her period.
I don’t know why I didn’t recognise it before because the office used to be a terrible place in Maggie’s younger years… and then she started the menopause. When she went on HRT we were all so relieved that we sent her doctor a gift.
Now I was just going to have to deal with Julia’s moods when she had PMT. But it was easier said than done.
I came home on Friday to Julia being in a rage because I had eaten all the chocolate chip cookies she had bought from the works canteen. So I went over to the canteen and bought whatever cookies they had left, and four of Moira’s famous cupcakes. I got back home a made her a large mug of tea and brought her a plate of cookies and cupcakes. I thought she would be pleased, but I didn’t expect her to be in tears at my thoughtfulness.
I dried her tears, kissed her on the cheek and went for a shower.
When I came out of the shower I put on my sweatpants and went to sit at the side of her on the sofa, and just happened to mention that she must have enjoyed the cookies and cupcakes because she had eaten them all.
BIG MISTAKE.
The yelling and plate throwing that followed was bloody scary, and the bond didn’t help matters either. It got to the point where I wasn’t sure what words were coming out of her mouth or her head, and when she walked off into the bedroom and slammed the door I felt so relieved.
That is of course until I could hear her tears again.
So off I went to the bedroom after her and asked her what was wrong now.
This time she said she was upset because she felt really fat due to her eating all the cookies and cupcakes in one sitting. So after thinking for a moment, I suggested we go to the works gym together the next day.
ANOTHER BIG MISTAKE.
More tears came because apparently, me suggesting that we went to the gym together meant that I was going off her because I thought she was fat, and that her thighs were too big???
Then she got angry again because, ‘who did I think I was anyway, telling her she was fat?’
After five minutes of defending myself, repeatedly telling her that I didn’t think she was fat and that I loved her more than ever, she finally calmed down.
Then she got up off the bed like nothing had happened, and suggested we go and watch a movie.
So that’s what we did; until Julia fell asleep and I searched my Smartphone for anyone local who could perform an exorcism. Because I’ve seen a lot of things in my years, and what just transpired here tonight couldn’t just have been due to PMT, could it?
Freya called and I spoke to her quietly whilst Julia slept. I explained the situation and Freya (who was the oracle of all things immortal) told me that when a female is newly bonded to an immortal male, everything is heightened. Not only their senses and emotions that link them to their bonded mate, but all senses, and emotions linked to their hormones too. Apparently for the first couple of months she would be this way until her body became fully accustomed to being bonded by blood. I suppose in a way it was similar to when you first become a vampire. When you feel anger it is uncontrollable, and your need for blood sends all rationality out of the window.
Freya told me to remind Julia that this effect was only temporary and at least it meant she would be fertile.
I apologised to Freya for talking to her about this, but she said I was being silly to do so.
As far as we were aware, an immortal female was no longer fertile. Freya had all sorts of information that she had collected over the years, and of course we had met many immortals. But as yet we knew of no immortal vampire female who had gotten pregnant.
Therefore it did not seem fair that an immortal male could impregnate a human female. I often wondered if this was the reason that Freya had not entered into a relationship with anyone. She had enough admirers over the centuries but she chose to remain single.
I hoped that Julia and I would be blessed with children. I know that Freya would make a lovely aunt and will spoil any little ones we did have.
She had in the past looked after children who were orphaned due to the Spanish Flu outbreak. She became like a mother figure to them and has kept an eye on their families ever since. I hope that one day she would become a mother again, in whatever capacity that may be. Freya was a complete natural when it came to motherhood.
I could only hope that I could be a good father, even though, between Brandr and Sebbi I didn’t have the best role models.
I ended the call, telling Freya that I would bring Julia to see her soon.
Julia stirred in her sleep and then moaned something unintelligible. I felt bad that the bond was affecting her this way. It was scaring me so god only knew what she felt like.
I got up and brought the quilt and pillows out of the bedroom to cover us both up. Because although she looked like my sweet Julia, I conceded that I just wasn’t brave enough to wake her up tonight.
Chapter 31
Julia
The fortnight that my parents were away seemed to fly by. It became apparent that the bond with Alex was going to take a while to settle down in my system because it seemed to make my hormones rage, even without the bad case of PMT I had.
In one way I felt sorry for Alex having to put up with me, and I truly believe him when he said he wasn’t aw
are about how this would affect me hormonally. He said he hoped to have me pregnant ASAP anyway so I shouldn’t let the worry of another period bother me???
If I am honest I think I would like to spend some time getting to know Alex one on one before we started a family. We rarely seemed to be on our own much unless we were going to sleep or making love, and this was always because of work and the fact that the cottage was at the end of the lane where the work compound was. When I mentioned this to him he told me that he owned twenty four other houses in the UK and we could move to one of the other houses or buy another if I wanted to.
He then proceeded to tell me about the other houses, and while some were regular three bedroom properties scattered about the UK in various rural areas, there were also four large manor houses and two stately homes.
Alex went to the dresser in the kitchen and took out a photo album, which contained lots of photographs of his larger properties and their surrounding gardens and land.
I have to say that I was extremely impressed with them and wondered why he wouldn’t want to live in the more grander homes. He carried on flipping through the pages not really saying anything, and then he looked around his cosy cottage and said that he felt lonely in those large houses, but here in this cottage he said he had found the best of both worlds. He had his privacy in his cottage, but had Josh and Nik at each side of him if he needed them. He was pretty much on site for work and because you had to drive through the compound to get to the cottages, it meant that the security cameras from work could pick up any threat that came down the lane.
There was another photograph album showing pictures of Freya’s house in Aldbrough. It looked huge and like Alex’s larger properties, it appeared like it had been around for at least two hundred years.
He informed me that he and Freya had the property built around five hundred years ago, and he said it was the only home she had felt truly happy in.
She had human staff that had been with her since 1898, the butler was called Leonard and his wife Millie was the cook. They didn’t age due to them consuming a shot glass of Freya’s blood once a week, and Frank the gardener, along with his wife Sally the housekeeper did the same.
I could tell Alex had a great fondness for these people, and he showed me photographs on his phone that he had taken of them one evening. Alex, Freya and Josh were on a lawn around Freya’s home, playing cricket or something similar. I wondered why he thought he was lonely when he had so many people in his life. I must have sent him my thoughts telepathically because he said, “I was lonely because I didn’t have you Julia, and a property with twenty eight different rooms in it, including an unused ballroom, can take some filling up.”
I assured Alex that I did like it here at the cottage, it had started to feel like my home already and my parents lived nearby.
My mum and dad were due back in the early hours, so we called at their home to drop some fresh bread and milk in for when they got home.
We had visited every other day of my parents two week holiday, to check the house and move the post away from the door. We also made love in my old bedroom which seemed like a really naughty thing to do at the time, and although you couldn’t even tell that we had been in the room, I felt like somehow my parents would know when they saw me.
There were quite a few letters in the post today, but only one addressed to me. It was my decree absolute, which meant that my divorce was now final.
I thought I would feel upset or relieved or something, but I was just numb.
Alex looked at me when he saw what the papers were, as if to gauge my reaction, but he must have been unable to read anything from it because he took my hand and asked, “Are you ok love? You seem to be blocking your thoughts from me because I can’t tell how you feel about this,” he indicated to the papers in my other hand.
“I’m ok Alex. Just feel a bit numb really,” I said truthfully.
He kissed me on the lips and said, “Come on love, let’s go home for a bite to eat before work.”
I nodded my head and we locked up at mums and got into his SUV. It was a Honda CRV executive model with heated leather seats. Alex switched them on as soon as we got in the car as the weather had turned extremely chilly that day.
We drove in silence and didn’t really speak again until we got back into the cottage. I placed my divorce papers on the kitchen table and walked into the bedroom to change my shoes. I must have been there a while because Alex came in and told me he had made us both chicken curry with rice.
We sat and ate our meal, the radio playing with the sound down low in the background. Alex was a great cook and I was really enjoying my meal, until all of a sudden I couldn’t seem to swallow it down.
I looked over at Alex and he came and crouched down in front of me.
Holding both my hands he softly said, “Just let it out Julia. Don’t keep it locked away love.”
I cried silent tears but still couldn’t speak until Alex picked me up out of the chair and sat me on his lap.
“I’m not sad because I wanted to stay married to Gavin,” I said hurriedly.
I didn’t want Alex to think that I was still in love with Gavin, so I continued to speak. “I just feel that I have wasted a lot of time building a life and a home, just to receive a piece of paper a few years later telling you it was all for nothing.”
“It wasn’t for nothing Julia. You had some good times didn’t you? I know you travelled a lot because your dad used to tell me all the places you had been too. I watched you sometimes too, when you were at Uni and you first got engaged. You looked so in love with him and it tore me up inside. But you were having such a good time together. Maybe that got you through your studies so successfully.”
More tears came but a little harder now. I touched my fingers to his chin and I had words that I wanted to say but I couldn’t seem to speak, so I conveyed the words telepathically.
“Oh god Julia, don’t ever doubt my love for you, and don’t ever think that we are not forever. There is no paper that could break our bond. Only death can do that. And even then I would love you. My ghost would find you and stay with you. My spirit would not do that moving on shit that they talk about. When I come back to haunt you, I am staying put. I might do some of that cool floating through walls stuff to get to you too, and I would want to do some weird scary poltergeist stuff to Sergei to freak him out.”
He made me giggle, and then he pulled me closer and stroked my hair.
“Julia, this may be the wrong time to ask you this question, but do you think you would like to get married again. If you didn’t it wouldn’t matter because you are bonded to me now anyway. And legally, since a week ago now, you own half of everything I do. Freya, Josh, Nik and Gregor would take care of you if anything should happen to me and.....”
“Yes, Alex. I think I would like to get married again.”
“You would? So If I get down on one knee right now and proposed to you, you would say yes?”
“Well I don’t want to get off your lap so you can forget about getting down on one knee at the moment. But if you were to ask me, I would say yes.”
He looked at me lovingly and I expected him to ask me to marry him but he didn’t.
Neither did he ask me when we got back in from work the next morning. Even after a wonderfully satisfying session of love making the proposal didn’t come.
I thought about proposing to him instead and the idea really appealed to me. Gavin had proposed to me during a night out to see one of our favourite bands, so he got all the excitement of planning the perfect evening and buying a ring.
I realised that whilst thinking about a proposal from Alex for the last few days, my divorce papers no longer bothered me. Alex had done it again. He had managed to take away my hurt and a replace it with a way to look forward. I will marry this man, this immortal vampire, and I will show him how much he means to me every single day of my life.
Chapter 32
Gina
I had been
one the organisers of the Barrowfield bonfire night party at the Red Lion for a number of years.
Night Movers had sponsored the firework display and the villagers supplied the wood for the bonfire. It was a great night for the community and we held a raffle with lots of prizes, also supplied by Night Movers, which raised money for the Barrowfield youth club.
I called in to the post office to find out if Mr Singh had the raffle ticket books for us. He usually sold quite a few tickets and always attended the bonfire.
There were quite a few people in the queue so I looked around the chilled foods area of the shop. I saw a tub of twelve profiteroles drenched in thick milk chocolate, and I knew that Nik and I could have lots of fun with those later.
I thought I heard my name mentioned and I glanced to the side to see who it was. Sandra Jackson was a real bitch to me whenever she got the opportunity and today wasn’t going to be any different.
“Yes I heard that Gina had been having an affair with that Nik Harding from Night movers for years. I don’t know what he sees in her though, because she’s always been fat.”
That bit stung. I had been on a perpetual diet for years and no matter how much Nick told me that he loved my curves, I would never feel happy with my shape.
Sandra carried on with her gossip. “I feel sorry for her lovely husband Steve. He’s been deceived by her for such a long time, but I think a good woman would help him get over it. Their kids must be so upset and embarrassed by her behaviour I bet that .....”
She could talk about me, Nik and Steve all she wanted but there was no way she was talking about my kids.
“Hello Sandra, still busy sticking your nose into things that don’t concern you I see.”
“Just saying what we’re all thinking Gina. If you didn’t want people talking about you, you shouldn’t have been having an affair for years.”
“For your information Sandra, I wasn’t having an affair, but now I’ve sampled the goods on offer, I wish I had done it sooner. I mean you have to admit Nik is one hell of a man. Oh, and if you want to be the good woman to help Steve get over me then be my guest, I think you deserve each other. But listen up now because I will only tell you this once. If you ever talk about my children again I will beat you all the way to Rothley and back. Do you understand me Sandra, you mean gossiping bitch?” I said with my finger poking her in her flat chest.