by S. M. McCoy
The ground beneath us disappeared into mist and the two moons orbited around us like we were the sun, the center of their universe. Each moon glowed on us lighting the sky with red and blue, where they met was a purple haze that streaked through like a star burst.
A lump was caught in my throat, like I wanted to say something.
“D…”
“Yes.” He pressed for more.
“Damien,” I huffed out, breathless and surprised by the name that escaped me.
“Grace.”
I looked at him confused but before I could ask anything more he leaned his face in close. His nose touching my own, our foreheads mere hairs from contact. His jaw turned and whatever I was about to ask fell from my thoughts. The only thing left was the urge to have him continue. Damien’s lips dangerously close to my own and the distance was killing me.
Take me, I thought.
And like an answer to my prayers those lush lips crushed upon mine and it felt like volcanoes could be exploding behind me and I wouldn’t know. He tasted like Heaven; I couldn’t even explain it in words. It was like the matching element to a very fine recipe, that secret ingredient that no one tells you about, but that you stumble upon. It’s like yourself but with exactly what you needed to feel complete.
As our lips intertwined I breathed in deeply and my heart skipped. The smell of that cinnamon apple warmed my chest and sent a pang vibrating through my core. It was almost painful.
We connected in that moment.
My own hands tangled in his hair and pulled him tighter into me. It wasn’t enough to be touching, I needed to feel him as close as I possibly could and never let go. It felt like we were flying.
He leaned back and I felt a twang of longing to grab him close again.
I looked down and we were flying.
He was still holding me against him and we were hovering above the grass. The grass…we were back in the park. The sky was normal, the moon was full. No bright blues, reds, and purples. The mist was gone. And the old wood stump bench was next to us. We were back from the astral plane.
“Damien.” The magic that clung to me was releasing its grasp and the haze was lifting from my eyes.
“Yes?”
“Who is Grace?” I blushed, not trying to ruin the moment, but completely dulling whatever fuzzy feeling we were having. We thumped back to the ground. He felt it too. I sighed. Feeling like something was ripped from within me that I didn’t realize I had before. Whether that was him or something else, I couldn’t be sure. It was all too strange.
“It is the soul name of who I’m supposed to be Drawn to.”
“So, Damien…?”
“Isn’t my real name.”
“It’s your soul name…” I tried to wrap my head around this. He was expecting me to believe that because I knew a name that we were meant to be bonded together forever. Forever was a long time, and unrealistic considering my current circumstances. He said it himself, he didn’t know if I would survive the transformation.
“Yes.”
“Did you know that was your name?” I felt stupid asking but I didn’t know Grace was my soul name, either.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“It was given to me before.” He’s the truth I was waiting for, the other shoe to drop carrying a seven-ton weight with it, ready to crush my chest.
“Given?” I had to tug on that shoe string, even knowing what was on the other end waiting for me.
“It was a long time ago, only the Drawn can tell you what name your soul speaks.” There is was, I wasn’t the only one who knew his name.
“Sounds like you could just make that up.” I furrowed my eyebrows at him. It all seemed too weird—why wouldn’t I know that Grace was my soul name before him? Shouldn’t it have spoken to me first?
“When I say your name what do you feel?” He released my hands and I could feel like a piece of me was getting farther away.
“What do you mean?”
“Crystal.” I looked at him confused.
“Nothing.” He nodded then looked into my eyes deeply to say, “Grace.” I felt a thump in my chest. Heat rose to the surface of my skin, my cheeks glowed. It was like I was getting heartburn, but it felt different. Like a yearning. My breath caught in my throat and released in a deep sigh I couldn’t hold back. He smiled at me.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I felt embarrassed and turned away. It had nothing to do with the name that made me feel that way. It had everything to do with the way he said it to me as those deep, penetrating eyes tore into my soul.
“Felt different didn’t it?”
“Hmpf.” I ignored him and held a fist to my chest to let the feeling subside. This wasn’t about me, he looked at me through the lens of a girl he used to know. His eyes smoldered for a love named Grace, and all those feelings he felt for her transferred into me when he spoke of her. It wasn’t me. It was her. My body grew heavy. That shoe was more weight than I anticipated.
“Look at me.”
I slowly turned back to gaze at him, hesitating.
“Say my name.”
“Damien.” I watched as his violet eyes warmed and then he grabbed my hand quickly, placing it on his chest. It beat, once…then again. I’d never felt his pulse before.
“You bring my dead body to life.” He closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of just a moment where his blood moved through him of its own will.
I smiled looking at him. His face appeared peaceful. And still I knew this wasn’t because of me, but his renewed sense of getting the woman he loved back in his life. I wasn’t her.
“Someone knew your name before…” I let the words fall out like vomit, I couldn’t stop it. Wincing I saw his features harden again.
“Yes, a long time ago. That doesn’t matter now.”
I pressed my lips together wanting to know more, but seeing his walls building around himself again. I thought better of pressing the issue.
“So, we’re Drawn?” For a moment I would let him have this. If only to know more about the man who made my heart skip and linger in a fantasy land of its own creation. I knew this wouldn’t last, not as it was. My feelings felt so real, but they were merely fabrications of a supernatural world. His feelings were real, but they were not bonded with me.
“Yes.”
“Vague…” I struggled with myself to stop the torrent of emotions scrambling for control. Do I let myself get caught up in the moment? Or do I admit to myself that this is just another lie. I was tired of the lies. He needed to tell me about my mother, or this conversation was over.
“I don’t know how to be more clear and honest without sending you into panic.” In to panic? What did that even mean?
“Would you believe me if I said I won’t?”
“No.” He sounded certain.
I stared at him, my anger slowly burning up to the surface.
“Fine. Vampire 101. Not all of us are Drawn, it’s an attribute only few are born with. The Drawn is a psychic link between two people of the same gene.”
“But I’m not a vampire,” I interrupted him.
“The other link can be human, vampire, witch…it doesn’t matter as long as they have the dormant Drawn gene. But, Crystal…you are a vampire, but also something more.”
That fire popcorned up, rising within me so suddenly, like I was being controlled, because I was. This whole Drawn thing didn’t seem like a choice at all. Everyone was trying to control me, like the Dragon said. What did he need me for? I felt too useless to be helpful to anyone. I was done, done with all of it. Answers were all I was going to accept. And unless he could tell me why he loved me…and not why we were meant to “bond,” then I was not interested. I didn’t have to listen to the moon about who I was going to spend my time with.
“I don’t even know you.” I knew he was trouble. Angelically handsome and dangerous for the heart. Where did I put that warning label? “And I don’t care if I dreamed about you or not. You n
eed to tell me why they have my mother, and what they want with me!”
“We have lifetimes to grow together. When your memories merge from your homin side, you’ll remember everything you’ve lost. Let go of the practicalities of life. Don’t be weighed down by mortality and the ‘not real.’ Human minds are living in the world of the material, the ‘not real.’
“You must have read Plato? He saw the world that I live in. The world of vampires and magic. It’s the realm of the ‘real.’ Our minds are released from mortal bonds and opened to immortality.”
“Stop it!” I pressed my fingers to my temples and concentrated. I needed to think. “My life is not chosen or drawn to me! It’s my life, my decisions! If I was meant for you wouldn’t I be fully transformed already? What would be the point of bonding with a human that would die at any moment?” And successful he changed the subject from my mom to my mortality. I was being torn a part in so many directions and I didn’t know which way was up, which way was down, and which way I needed to go. I focused on what the Dragon told me: I would follow the monsters.
“Bonding with me would ensure your energy merges. Even if you do not change fully to a vampire, which part of you has already done, the other parts would be preserved by our bond. You would live as long as I lived. Bonded by energy forever. You can’t go after your mother—what was done to her is irreversible, and I can’t bear to see them repeat it with you.
“Please, forget about joining that world, we don’t need them.” Before I could protest Damien looked around alert, and in seconds he blurred past me into the open valley of the park. I walked through the trail and cut through the bushes to the park to see where he was going. Typical of a curious sheep tracking a wolf into their own domain, not wise. But I never said I was the wisest person.
“Show yourself,” Damien called out.
I emerged from the bushes, but I wasn’t the only one who walked into the clearing. A shadowy figure approached from the other side.
“You’ve completed the first seal,” a voice I’d heard before said to Damien.
“Stay away from her,” Damien demanded, his stance commanding. He was like a dark warrior standing between me and danger. He almost had a guttural growl to his request. It sent shivers down my spine.
“Funny, I was about to say the same thing.” The shadow stepped closer where the moon shone a little more on his face… Victor. My Victor? He continued, “What lies have you been feeding her lately, Damien?”
I gasped. He said his name. How did he know his name? Was everything I’d been told a lie about soul names?
“Damien…” I softly called out. He turned to me and I could see that he felt it.
“I need you to go home now,” Damien called out behind him.
“Right.” Victor laughed. “Let him tell you what to do, like a good little slave girl. He’s used to that, aren’t you Damien?”
“Enough!” Damien growled.
“Oh right, let’s not tell her the whole truth about the lives of the Drawn being linked along with their energies, that would be bad. I mean, since you’re dying and everything.” Victor gasped and covered his mouth dramatically. “Guess the cat’s out of the bag now. Tsk. Tsk. Your four centuries are almost up.”
“What is he talking about?” I fell to my knees. I could feel my energy draining.
“He’s dying Sweets, and he’s using you to live a little longer. Typical survival stuff, nothing to concern yourself with.” He paused then continued, “Oh, unless he already started performing secret rituals on you. Not seeing any weird moon dreams, are you? It’s not a soul connection, it’s a ritual so he can bond himself with your aura and live a little longer, whether or not you’re actually Drawn to him or not.”
My mouth dropped. Aislin told me my energy was connected with all energy: the Earth, the wind, the water, the fire, the spirit…all of it. I had access to all of it, and if bonding connected our energies, wouldn’t that make him the most powerful vampire around? Would he really want me dead for a one-time high, or bond with me to have access to it forever?
Power…forever.
I had no idea how to access it, but a vampire as old as him would.
How could I be so stupid? I even felt sympathy for his misplaced feelings with Grace and supplanting them on me.
“Hmm, you have…not good.” He shook his head and smiled at the fuming Damien.
Damien dashed to pick me up. “Do you trust me?”
“No,” I admitted but grabbed hold of him despite that, I couldn’t move without him. Someone was draining my energy and I didn’t know which one was doing it. Was it Victor? Was it Damien?
“Sweets, I can’t lose you like this. Bonding with him can kill you,” he called out behind us.
Victor blurred behind Damien as the wind lashed the back of my head, sending my hair in a flurry behind him. He was moving faster than I could even process. The trees passed by us quickly like large lines of dark shadows whipping by and blurring into grays behind us.
“He’s here for you,” Damien said, strained. “He’s the Shifter and only here to feed on you for himself.”
“Feed on me?”
“On your energy,” Victor finished my thought loudly. I could see him chasing us through the trees. “He’ll drain every last drop of your life just to live a little longer. Sweets, he can’t help himself, he doesn’t know truly who you are.”
Victor knew who I was…we used to finish each other’s sentences. How did I not trust him? Unless he wasn’t Victor at all? I gasped. What if the Shifter killed Victor? I pushed back the pain in my chest at even thinking of Victor being gone.
He couldn’t be…
“It’s different,” Damien tried to assure me. “You are different, unique to only a few humans that usually team up with the Council members to keep supernaturals in line. If the Council doesn’t recruit you, then every supernatural being like him will be after you to beat them to the punch. The only way your kind has ever existed was as a pet, a warrior for the Council, or dead.” Damien huffed, trying to outpace Victor, who stopped in the middle of the woods, letting us escape unfollowed.
“What am I, your pet then?”
“No…” Damien stopped and cupped my face in his hands, his eyes serious. Softly he spoke, “Never. Finding you is a one and a billion chance for the Drawn. It sometimes takes centuries for one to find the other.
“I would protect you at the cost of my life. Bonding won’t kill you, both of us would live together forever as long as we both exist. Our bond could save you from the serpent’s kiss.”
If we even lived long enough. The Shifter said he was dying. More importantly, Victor said he was dying. We’d had plenty of conversations about mystical creatures over the last few months. He said some vampires died because of loneliness.
I stared at him and sighed. Forever was a long time. The word repeated in my mind and shivers ran down my back.
“You said you fed from the energy around people, the parts leaking from them unused?”
“We don’t have time for this right now, but yes,” Damien agreed. “Don’t worry, we’re in the forest. Where I have the advantage. I am not sure I can destroy him, but I can wound him enough for us to escape and find help. I know a friend and if we’re lucky she’ll still hang out where she used to. She’ll help, I know she will. She’s the only Shifter I’d trust with my life.”
“Damien…” I felt weaker the more I stayed with him. “If you know what I am, then you know I’m connected with all of it. I don’t know how to keep my energy attached to me alone…”
He stopped suddenly, and looked me over with a pained expression realizing what I was saying. He could have been the very reason Victor bit me to begin with. He could have been feeding off of me unknowingly since he met me.
Pausing that thought process, I remembered the mountain loft, where I actually felt better, but I had his blood, and we were so remote that he could stop himself from feeding. My breath hitched up and I cupped
his cheek in my hand.
“It’s not your fault…” My breathing was ragged, and my muscles twitched under my skin, fighting for air.
“I didn’t…” He trailed off. But the weaker I felt as we climbed through the tree tops, the more I knew for sure. I smiled at him; he didn’t even realize what he did.
“If I am unable to take you, go to Maryland. There are a couple mansions open for viewing during the holidays. Each of them has a secret entrance to an underground living space. She’ll find you. She can help you find your mother, and she can help you recover your memories.”
I smiled weakly, knowing this was what the Dragon was talking about. A sign. A path to follow. A road to my mom. And then I heard Damien’s words again saying he’d wound Victor enough to let me escape. Panic was building inside me, and I had the toughest choice between finding my mom and helping Victor—if it even was Victor. I had to know before I left. Damien was a warrior for the Council, there was no reasoning with him to let Victor go.
“Just drop my name. She shouldn’t need too much more convincing.”
I choked on a laugh, thinking about how he was the opposite, convincing him of anything he didn’t want to do was pointless. I still fumed about how he’d drug me without explaining anything. Take me away without a thought about another option.
“All the entrances are around the staircases so when you’re near a staircase examine the artwork. Let her know the situation; she’ll let you hide out. I’ll join as soon as possible.”
He placed me on a thick branch, leaning against the tree trunk.
“Damien.”
Lifting my chin, his cold nose rubbed against mine. Those violet eyes told me he was deeply sorry; I felt it in my heart before he kissed me passionately. Like velvet, his lips pressed against mine, his cool breath soothing to the heat swelling within me. It wasn’t the same as last time, it was fear and anxiety that filled me. He didn’t want to listen to me. I felt my whole body tense up and I knew the stress sweat wasn’t far off. What was I going to do? I couldn’t say no to him, and the fates tied us together mocking me. Bonding me to a man that wouldn’t let me do anything unless it was his decision.