Bleeding Hearts: Book One of the Demimonde

by Ash Krafton

  I was damned tired of being used.

  I went out later than usual one night, my hair piled high and my neck shockingly exposed. Only the faintest of scars remained, a myriad of jagged lines streaking my throat like the moonscape. You could only see them if you got close and looked in the right light.

  Personally, I could find them in the dark. They were the first thing I saw every time I passed a mirror.

  I took a cab to the waterfront, where I knew of several DV businesses. Rodrian's new club was three blocks over, and one of the DV who'd written to the column used the address of a microbrewery on the corner. I marched determinedly up the street. My black pinstripe pantsuit was conservative enough for church but I felt like a whole new kind of whore. I wanted someone to look at me, lots of someones.

  Lots of the right kind of someones.

  I stopped the first pair of bright eyes I encountered with a look and told him to have Rodrian contact me.

  The owner of those eyes barely acknowledged me at first. We were two people passing on a city street. He'd tried to slip me a compulsion at the sight of my slender throat; I supposed it was too tempting to pass up. When he saw the scars and their obvious implication, his inner light flared up, causing a cerulean bloom to spill into his irises.

  At the mention of Rodrian's name he pulled back, locked down, and hurried past.

  I smiled without humor, knowing my message would travel quickly.

  I gave my message to every pair of bright eyes I met, speaking to five or six people before catching another cab. I slumped in the seat for the entire ride home, exhausted in the wake of the adrenaline rush.

  Overkill Sophie, that's me. It's not done if it's not done to death.

  Sure enough, after midnight a few nights later, as I sat on the couch under the windows by the fire escape I heard a tap on the thin pane of glass. Of course, he wouldn't knock on the door like a normal person.

  I knelt on the cushions and pushed up the stubborn sash, leaning my elbows on the sill. Rodrian crouched on the metal landing, his coat blending in with the cloak of night.

  "Forgive me, Rode, if I don't invite you in for a drink."

  "As tempting as it might be..." He eyed my pajamas, the corner of his mouth curling as he lifted his chin for a better view. "I would not come in for one."

  I tugged my robe closed and took a deep breath. "I want my memory altered. Erased. I'm too screwed up to go on like this."

  Rodrian said nothing. He simply shook his head.

  I threw my pen at him and it clattered away to the ground. "Why not?"

  Rodrian spoke with low gentle tones as if I were a child. "Sophie, you don't want your memory altered. You want your feelings to stop hurting."

  Those simple words crushed me. I felt so tiny, so worthless. I'd spent weeks denying everything that happened.

  Jared is dead. Marek is gone. I'm alone.

  Despair opened its gaping jaws and swallowed me whole. My hard-pressed veneer of control and strength dissolved and I burst into tears.

  Rodrian grasped my hands and drew me out onto the landing. He pulled me under his coat, into his warmth. I huddled against him and his presence surrounded me. That special touch emphasized how alone I'd been. Encircling me with his arms, Rodrian rested his head upon mine and let me cry.

  "Shh, little sister, shh." Rocking me gently, he whispered into my hair. He hurt because he knew I hurt, and he tried to comfort me as I'd once comforted him. "You were never meant for such pain, not when you ease it in so many. He doesn't wish for you to suffer."

  I knuckled my eyes and hitched my breath. "Then take it away, Rode. Please."

  "Not I, Sophie. I cannot do it. And he will not do it."

  "But why? What have I done?"

  "That's the irony, little love. You've done so much for him, even while you've been apart. You're a value to him. He cannot be with you, Sophie, but he watches. He stays away for fear he'll harm you, yet he protects you from uncounted and unseen dangers. He's been changed in terrible ways but you help him cling to all he can of his former self."

  Rodrian cupped my face and peered deeply into my eyes. "A lesser person would have evolved. You make him fight, Sophie. You keep him from being damned. When you confronted him at the club, you were brave enough to risk pain and rejection, even death. And you did something amazing."

  His eyes glowed with remembered joy and I delighted to see the hazel sparks, gleaming like molten bronze. I'd missed his bright eyes and seeing them made something ache inside, a fist around my heart.

  "You siphoned away his pain, his grief," he whispered. "You removed something that corroded him. Just as you saved me the day I told you about my son. Pain and anger kill the soul, Sophie. You help to protect him... from himself."

  He pressed a tender kiss upon my forehead and dark waves of hair fell loose from behind his ear, slipping past my cheek. "Can you understand, then? You must remember him, his name, even if you must remember the pain. If you are relieved of his memory, he loses you completely. He'd be lost without you to anchor him."

  Rodrian pulled me to his chest for a tight embrace before releasing me.

  "I'm sorry to ask you to pay such a terrible price, Sophie." He wiped the last of my tears away, blinking back a gleam of his own. "But I ask, nonetheless."

  "I'm done," I whispered. "I don't think I can love again."

  Chuckling ruefully, Rodrian turned to leave. "Just as well. Should any man dare come near you, Marek would eat him alive."

  He raised his fingers to his lips, holding them out toward me in a noble farewell. In a flash of overcoat, Rodrian vanished into the darkness, leaving me to ponder my fate.

  When the tax legislation had been passed (in the dead of night, attached to some three-paragraph piece of nonsense, and right before the House went on break, no less) several businesses began to change as if overnight.

  My building went up for sale; I guessed the tax hike had already begun to hurt people. One afternoon I came home and saw men in suits touring the property. By the taste of their power, they knew exactly who I was. I hit Craigslist soon after.

  The neighborhood had changed. The neighbors had changed. Too many new faces suddenly hanging around. Too many pulses of unfamiliar power. Too many things I was afraid to encounter after dark.

  My new strengths emphasized my old fears and old weaknesses. Too many things for a Sophia to feel as she lay awake night after night after sleepless night.

  Plus, I needed a change, right? I wasn't the same person anymore. I was still alone, true—but, like a flash in an otherwise starless night, I had known someone. I'd loved someone. I might be surrounded by empty darkness again but I wasn't lost. Maybe Marek didn't want me but he needed me. I'd find a way to save him. It was my destiny as Sophia.

  I thought of the boxes and the flights of steps down which I'd be carrying them and sighed, wishing that being Sophia came with more practical powers. I hated moving but, like so many things, it was a necessary evil. At least I'd learned one thing over the last few months: when dealing with necessary evils, wear sensible shoes.

  It's that sort of practical suggestion that made me such a popular advice columnist.

  THE END

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction author from the Pennsylvania coal region. If she's not writing, it's probably because she's distracted by all the cool junk on her desk or by the stacks of books that have grown up around it.

  She writes novels, short fiction, and poetry for mostly adult audiences. (She's mostly an adult.). Some of those novel titles include:

  The Books of the Demimonde: urban fantasy trilogy

  Enter the world of the Demimonde.

  Look outside your window. Same old town, same streets, same people, same stories you've lived all your life. Or... are they?

  Sophie Galen is an advice columnist from the suburbs of Philly. Like many sensitive women, she's done her best to create a shelter for herself in order to live in a safe,
predictable world, protecting her vulnerable self: her mind, her heart, her soul.

  Then he came into her life and blew the walls in.

  When Marek Thurzo arrived, he brought with him all the secrets she never wanted to know: the world outside was not what she thought. There were people and creatures and powers she'd never dared to believe exist and at the very center of this humongous supernatural web was one single person.

  Her. The Sophia. The one hope for redemption for the Demivampire race.

  Some days, she still can't wrap her head around the whole thing. Other days...

  ...she's ready to do whatever it takes to protect her Demivamps, no matter the obstacle, no matter the enemy, no matter the personal cost.

  While meeting her deadlines, of course. Who says a girl can't multitask while saving the world?

  Bleeding Hearts (Demimonde #1)

  Blood Rush (Demimonde #2)

  Wolf's Bane (Demimonde #3)

  WORDS THAT BIND: paranormal romance

  Social worker Tam Kerish can’t keep her cool professionalism when steamy client Mr. Burns kindles a desire for more than a client-therapist relationship—so she drops him. However, they discover she’s the talisman to which Burns, an immortal djinn, has been bound since the days of King Solomon…and that makes it difficult to stay away from him.

  Ethical guidelines are unequivocal when it comes to personal relationships with clients. However, the djinn has a thawing effect on the usually non-emotive Tam, who begins to feel true emotion whenever he is near. Tam has to make a difficult choice: to stay on the outside, forever looking in…or to turn her back on her entire world, just for the chance to finally experience what it means to fall in love.

  Words That Bind

  She also writes New Adult spec fic as AJ Krafton. THE HEARTBEAT THIEF (Victorian fantasy) is a little bit Jane Austen, a little bit Edgar Allan Poe, and a whole lot of stealing heartbeats in order to stay young and beautiful forever...

  How far will Senza Fyne go to avoid Death?

  "There was something smart, ominous, and romantic about this strange story..."

  The Heartbeat Thief by AJ Krafton rated 4.5 stars on Amazon

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  Thanks for reading!

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