Stolen Sun (The Juliana Lucio Series)

by L. C. DeCarlo

  I quickly changed clothes into a pair of black yoga pants and thin blue T-shirt, which I found in the closet. I made my way downstairs to find William and Ana. I found William sitting at the kitchen table; he had a cup of coffee sitting in front of him and a fresh pot still brewing in the kitchen. The smell was intoxicating. I lived off coffee at home; there was nothing better to help wake you up or calm the nerves than a cup of strong black coffee.

  “I wasn’t sure if I’d still be able to drink coffee,” I said with a smile.

  “You can’t, I just love the smell of it,” William replied as he lifted the mug and took in a deep breath of the strong aroma.

  I was unexpectedly taken aback at this and all of my losses were once again flooding back to me. My new strength and newfound sexual appeal was now gone by the wayside. Shoving this aside for later, I brought up the important issue at hand.

  “I need to talk to Ana. Is she back yet?”

  “I haven’t seen her yet. I suppose she’ll show when she’s ready to talk to you.”

  “When she’s ready?” I felt my anger start to simmer.

  “I am tired of waiting around on her. I appreciate the shower and the bed for the night, but I will be going back to my family. I want answers from her; she owes them to me! I did nothing to her, nothing to deserve what she has done to my life, and I am supposed to wait around until she feels like talking about it?” I said incredulously.

  I started feeling caged and angry all over again. I began to pace around the kitchen island in an attempt to calm myself, to find an outlet for my confusion and frustration.

  “Juliana. Juliana, please sit down. Let’s talk about this. I can’t answer your questions about why Ana did what she did, but I can help to explain about what is going on with you. Please, sit down with me. We need to talk about your family,” William was saying as I paced.

  “What about my family?” I said with a barely disguised threat, whether I could back it up didn’t matter; I wouldn’t let them be threatened.

  “You misunderstand me,” he said while holding up his hands placating, “I’m not threatening them.”

  He slowly put his hands back on the table. He knew I wasn’t any sort of threat to him; the gesture was more of one of goodwill. At this, I slowly strode toward him in a slow fluid manner.

  “What of my family?” I tried again in a softer tone.

  “You can’t go back home, and before you start to yell and fight me on this, think about what happened at the park. My intent is not to bring you more pain and anguish than has already been thrust upon you, but if you go back home you will do to them what you did to that man. And that you would never recover from. Please listen to me.”

  I heard his words, and I knew he spoke the truth. If I went home, I could very well lose control and hurt or even worse, kill my children and husband. I knew I would fight to the death to protect those three, even if it were me I was protecting them from.

  “The idea of never seeing them again, of letting them go on not knowing what happened to me; allowing them to think I’d been abducted, having no idea if I was even still alive or what was being done to me; that seems beyond cruel.”

  “It may seem cruel, but it is necessary to ensure their safety.”

  I didn’t like what he was saying, and I still didn’t think that he was telling me everything about why he was so concerned about me. I wasn’t getting the whole story.

  “I have to tell them something! Even if I can’t be with them, they need to know I’m not lying in some abandoned warehouse somewhere! They need to know I’m okay, that I will come to see them when I can. I can’t do this to them!”

  I turned to walk away. I was aware that it was getting near sunrise, but I didn’t have to wait out the day here listening to how cruel I should be to the family I loved. I was going to my room to make a plan of what to do. I was suddenly aware of William coming up behind me, and I could sense his barely checked anger.

  He spun me around and had me pressed up against the wall with his body. He put a forearm on the wall to each side of my head. I was caged in by him. He pressed so close I don’t think a piece of paper could have been slipped between our bodies. I felt like I was trapped in with a caged animal, an incredibly sexy animal, but still one that was completely unpredictable to me as of yet. I didn’t move or say anything, afraid I would provoke him further. I just waited to see what it was he wanted.

  He brushed his face across my cheek and into my hair and inhaled deeply, “You smell like honeysuckle with a hint of vanilla, it’s almost irresistible.”

  “Well, I was standing next to the coffee pot in the kitchen, it must be that.”

  I made an attempt to move and he pressed himself against me tighter, pushing me harder into the wall. At the same time he began to run his mouth along my neck and took in another deep breath. This time I felt myself getting a little lightheaded and had to stop myself from closing my eyes.

  “It was incredible watching you take that man at the park tonight, you’re a natural.” His lips were finding their way down to my collar bone. “All that blood spilling on you, your eyes glowing in the moonlight was such a turn on.”

  His mouth was working its way back up the other side of my throat, and I felt the slight scrape of his fangs as he did. I was shivering listening to him speak, feeling his body pressed against mine, remembering the earlier part of the night.

  “It took all the restraint I had not to tear off your clothes, and take you right there in the park. Why do you think Ana was frozen and couldn’t help you? Why do you think she left? You were mesmerizing.” His voice was husky now. He said the last looking at me with eyes completely black and reflecting the darkness of my own. I could feel the hardness of him under his jeans pressing into my belly. He wouldn’t release my eyes or my body as he continued to speak.

  “You loved the feel of blood pouring down your face and slipping down your throat; the power it gave you, the strength you now have. The images the man showed you.” I caught myself as I began pressing myself into him, he was turning me on, and I didn’t want him to.

  He hesitated a second before finishing what he had to say, knowing it would break the spell, “And if you go home, and see your husband, the one you’ve been missing, the one you love, you will do the same thing to him. You will hear the beating of his heart, smell his desire for you, and you won’t be able to stop yourself from taking him. You will sink your fangs into his neck and take every last drop he has to offer, and he won’t even fight you along the way because he loves and trusts you; but you will kill him.”

  That sobered me up. I knew what his game was. He wasn’t coming on to me; he was just manipulating me. This time I did manage to push past him and made my way back up to my room. I could smell his desire for me as I went, so I knew it wasn’t all a show.

  When I got to my room, I just lay on the bed and thought about how I had gotten in this position. I wondered how I was going to get my family back. Just thinking about them gave me a sense of determination and strength I had almost forgotten I possessed.

  I began to think about them as I waited for the sun to rise and how if I could get through the torture of med school, while raising a family, I could survive anything. I wanted them to learn to fight for what they loved. I believed that if they saw their mother struggle, and learn, and accomplish something then they too would learn how to do the same. Their enthusiasm was my fuel. I’d tell them all about my day, and I’d listen to each of theirs in turn. They were my life. My whole heart, I would tell them.

  My boys are nine-year-old Evan Michael and 16 year-old Christian Loren. I have been married to their father, my husband, for 17 blissful, frustrating, loved-filled years.

  I was beginning to have a harder and harder time concentrating, and I started to hear a deep whirring sound. I pushed myself into a sitting position on the bed and was surprised to feel that my body felt like dead weight, I was exhausted. I began to look around the room for the source of the so
und, when suddenly metal shutters closed over the bedroom windows. They came from inside the frame itself so they wouldn’t have been noticeable from the outside of the house. I lay back down, no longer able to hold myself up, and thought that at least I was safe from the sun if nothing else; then everything went black.

  Chapter Four

  It was two more days before I saw Ana. In that time I saw little of William. We spoke only long enough for me to find that she wasn’t home yet. It had been five days since I had “gone missing.” I decided I was going home that evening whether Ana showed or not. I didn’t owe her anything, and I was beginning to doubt I would find any answers about why she had done this to me anyway. I dressed in dark blue jeans, black DC shoes, and a fitted aqua blue tank. I was on my way out the door, not knowing if I were going to be coming back or not.

  As I made my way toward the kitchen door I felt a hint of anger, but wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t angry-I was nervous, a little scared, but I wasn’t angry. I was still feeling confused about the mixed emotions until I arrived at the kitchen and found Ana sitting at the table by herself; looking for all the world like an avenging angel.

  “Ah, you’re why I feel angry, when I’m not. Why is that exactly?” Her eyes were glowing their usual turquoise and gold; they weren’t black so I knew she was controlling her anger with me at leaving.

  “You’re feeling a hint of my emotions because I am your Sire, just as I can feel yours, but I can sense you more intensely than you do me. It is supposed to let me know when you are in danger, it helps me find you--should you go missing.” She emphasized the last, letting me know that my leaving wasn’t going past her notice, and she could find me if I didn’t come back.

  “Why did you do this to me? What did I do to you to make you hate me so much that you’d want to take everything away from me?” I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe; I silently begged for her to answer me this time.

  “I don’t hate you. I didn’t plan for this to happen, I knew you saw me for more than just a doctor after that first time you noticed me.” She was speaking in a hushed whisper, “that night, I wasn’t going to turn you. I’m sorry, but we can’t let humans know who or what we are. There aren’t many laws of our kind but the few we have are punishable by death if broken. I was ordered to kill you because of your discovery. If you hadn’t figured out what I was or if I would have been able to compel you into forgetting me, I would have left you alone. If I let you live knowing what I was, I was sentencing myself to death, possibly William as well.”

  I didn’t speak, didn’t want to break the spell; there was more to it, and I wanted her to finish it. Why did she change her mind and turn me when her original intent was to just kill me?

  “Earlier that night, I made my way into the security office and put the parking garage cameras on a loop so nothing could be seen. I was planning on killing you and leaving you next to your car to make it look like a mugging that went bad, possibly by an angry patient.”

  There is something incredibly unnerving hearing about the planning of your murder in such a calm, logical reasoning. I wanted to sit down. I wasn’t sure my legs were going to hold out much longer, but I didn’t want to get any closer to Ana either. I stayed standing where I was.

  “You know the images you saw with that old man?”

  “How do you know what I saw?” I was suddenly nervous at this prospect.

  “I don’t know what you saw, but I know you saw something. It doesn’t happen with everyone. I could tell you were seeing something by the reaction that came from you. You were gaining strength from his blood, but you were in control; you would have pulled away when I said stop. Then everything about you shifted, and you had these feelings of over-whelming love just pouring from you. I knew for sure that you were seeing images of something.”

  “His wife, I was seeing his wife. I was feeling his love for her.”

  “Well, it was the same when I was with you. I started seeing images of you when your sons were born, you rocking them to sleep, and I saw you making love to your husband. I physically felt the pain in your heart because you knew you were losing them --”

  “Stop.” I croaked out, I couldn’t take this.

  “I was in awe at the love coming from you, and it distracted me enough that I stopped taking your blood.”

  “Please, stop. I don’t want to hear this anymore.”

  “I need to finish this Juliana, let me finish this. It’s what you’ve wanted to know isn’t it!”

  She came around to stand in front of me and lightly brushed away the tears silently falling down my cheeks.

  “When I looked down at you and saw what I had done, I felt your loss. I couldn’t be the cause of that, the reason for that love to be taken from this world. So I did the only thing I could think to do. Your heart was slowing so much that I wasn’t sure the next beat was going to come. I opened my vein and pressed it to your lips. I forced you to swallow my blood, as much I could get down you. As soon as I knew it was going to stay down, and I heard your heart begin to beat again, I put you in the back of your car and brought you here. William helped me clean you up and we put you in the basement where you would be safe. I watched you for two days, not leaving your side once; just waiting to see if it worked, if you were going to wake up.”

  “Why didn’t you know if it would work?” My voice was cracking from my tears.

  “I am 126 years old Juliana, and you are the only person I have ever turned.”

  This in itself seemed to be a confession all on its own. She had never turned anyone before, until me. I wasn’t sure how I should feel about this.

  “What about the park? You said you would stop me, keep me from killing that man. Instead I found myself standing over a dead body with a stranger to take care of me! I don’t know William, hell I don’t even know you, but I trusted that you would watch my back, and you just left me with a stranger? What kind of person does that?”

  My anguish over what I had done was replaced by anger over Ana abandoning me. If she hadn’t left me I probably wouldn’t have killed that man, not to mention her leaving me with a man I had never seen before.

  Both of our emotions were beginning to cloud together and making me feel over-emotional. William had explained what happened, that she was overcome with bloodlust at seeing me like that as well as the combination of feeling the emotions in me, which she isn’t used to, proved to be too much for her to handle. She froze-up. When William found us he tried to stop me from killing the man. After Ana realized the man was dead, she fled from the guilt and anger she knew I would have toward her.

  “That man is the one person I trust with my life; I trust him with yours as well. Seeing as you’re here and unharmed, stop acting like it was a burden to have him there with you, besides I did come back that night. I know how hard it must have been for you to be all alone with him. You were probably thankful I was gone!”

  I could feel the jealousy and anger pouring from her now, and I had a sinking feeling. Her eyes were starting to ring themselves in black.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked shakily.

  “I came home that night and I could feel the desire coming from you two from the driveway. What were you two ‘strangers’ doing that night to cause such strong want from you anyway?”

  “Ana stop it,” William said firmly.

  I had felt a slight prickling at the back of my neck as Ana was speaking earlier. I thought it might have been him but didn’t want to say anything.

  “I told you earlier nothing happened between the two of us, so curb the jealous lover act and leave Juliana alone.” William was reprimanding Ana further.

  I was incredibly embarrassed now. Not only had William told Ana about what he did to me that night, but also she just confirmed for him that I really had wanted him -- as if he hadn’t already figure that out on his own. I needed to get out of there before I embarrassed myself any further. Clearly there was a lovers’ quarrel about to begin between the two of
them, and I didn’t want to be around to see it.

  I interrupted the two. “Ana, thanks for answering my questions. William, thanks for helping me at the park, but I am clearly intruding on you two. I was already on my way out so I’ll just get going, and let you two kiss and make-up or do whatever it is you need to do.”

  Kiss and make-up, I could have slapped myself on the forehead. How lame could I get?

  “Wait, we aren’t together.”

  William was standing in front of me; he placed his hand lightly on my arm blocking my way. He moved more rapidly than I realized. I hadn’t even seen him before, and then he was standing only six inches in front of me. It felt incredibly close and intimate, especially considering what was making Ana so jealous. I thought it was him she was jealous over, but maybe it was me?

  “William, it makes no difference to me either way, I’m married. I just don’t want to be the cause of problems between the two of you.”

  I could see the disappointment cross his face, and just as quickly, was covered by a smile as he took a step back from me and lowered his hand.

  “Don’t worry about it, we’re friends is all. Ana is just sensitive, right Ana?”

  “Shut up William, I am not. Juliana, where do you think you’re going? You haven’t fed for two nights, and it’s time we went out again. We’ll both be more careful, and I’m sure William will go with us, right William?”