Giver of Light

by Nicola Claire

  “I thought I'd educate myself,” Amisi said as though nothing had happened. “Your mum gave me the recipe when I asked her what you would like best.”

  Holy shit. Amisi had talked to my mum? “When did you talk to her?” I asked, shovelling another succulent piece of lamb in my mouth and almost groaning with approval. Michel had started laughing quietly beside me, I shot him a look and he just shrugged. He'd always found my reaction to food amusing.

  “I've been deflecting her calls. They never knew you were missing, just on various bank courses, then a holiday to Vanautu and finally a camping trip with your boyfriend. That one got her attention. I may have mentioned you'd been seeing him for a while. She'll expect an update.”

  My parents, actually my Aunt and Uncle who have raised me since I was a little baby, didn't know about me being a Nosferatin, let alone me being practically married to a Nosferatu. It would not be something I could bring up over the dinner table if I ever visited the farm again. But, I guess I could pull off a story about a boyfriend.

  “Any characteristics this boyfriend have I need to know about?” I asked, moving on to the peas and potatoes, the latter cutting up nicely with the fork on its side.

  “He's sitting right beside you. I described him to perfection, I think your mum thinks you're dating a god. She definitely wants details. I wasn't going to go there, sorry.” She didn't sound sorry.

  I just scoffed. A god, indeed.

  “That's not what you were thinking a few hours ago, ma douce,” Michel teased.

  OK I may have choked a little then, Michel's free hand came out to pat me delicately on the back. He wasn't really concerned, I'm sure he knew how I would react to him reading my mind. I had totally forgotten that he was able to that, I guess the connection had clicked back on.

  “When? I mean, since when have you been able to read my mind again.” I chanced a glance at him, his eyes were watching me intently.

  “Since you woke earlier today.” His voice was soft.

  I wondered when he was going to let me know that was happening and then I wondered if I had thought anything that I would regret.

  I cleared my throat. “Since I woke, or you woke?” It seemed a silly question, surely he couldn't read my mind when still asleep, but then had he been? Maybe it was all an act.

  He glanced at Amisi, but she was looking at her plate and studiously concentrating on her lamb, pretending either we weren't there or she wasn't.

  “The first conscious thought I received of yours was your terror when my fangs scraped your neck and you jumped from the bed.”

  Amisi abruptly stood up and mumbled something about washing needing to be folded and practically ran from the room.

  Michel went on, ignoring Amisi's exit. “You had enough to worry about without that complication, I wanted to spare you a little longer, but I had not intended it to be as long as it was. One thing led to another and before I knew it we were downstairs and again my vampyres set you back and...”

  I put my free hand up to his lips to stop him, I could tell he was frantic to explain, to make it right. I wanted to be angry at him, hell I was pretty much filled with anger right now, a good thing as it kept me focused on Jonathan, but that was where I wanted my anger to go, not at Michel. “It's OK Michel. It's OK. There is a lot to take in, my memories are still coming back at odd times, I get sensations which were normal before, but feel so foreign initially now, but... I need you. Near me, with me, maybe even reading me right now. Some of what I feel and what I went through, I don't know if I will ever be able to say it all aloud.” I paused, thinking it over. “You have my permission to listen in, OK?” I smiled up at him, he visibly relaxed, took my hand he had been holding and softly kissed the back of it with his lips.

  “I would do anything to make this better, anything.” His eyes flashed amethyst and indigo, bright purples across the blue.

  “You already are.”

  He smiled and shifted his seat closer to mine, wrapping an arm around my shoulders he kissed my temple and then rested his head against me. “Use both hands, ma douce. Eat properly and as much as you can, I want you back resting in our bed.”

  I laughed as I let him cuddle me and began eating my beautiful dinner in earnest. “Can you get Amisi back in, she needs to eat too. She looks like she's lost weight.”

  “Both my girls have,” he said, squeezing my shoulder. I kind of liked that he thought of Amisi as one of his girls too. I knew at that moment, that she was so very important to me too. “It is done, Erika will also join us.”

  Amisi slid into her seat a few seconds later, followed by Erika.

  “This is beautiful, Amisi, just like Mum's.” I had almost finished the entire plate and still felt hungry. “Is there more?” I asked hopefully. Amisi beamed at me from across the table, but it was Michel who stood and took my plate, piling it high with food and returning it to me.

  As soon as I started eating again, his arm draped back around me casually and he settled in to watch me eat. It felt familiar, comfortable and very right. Little by little, I felt myself coming back. Not all of my memories, not yet, but enough to make me know with a certainty, that Michel was mine and I was his. And there was nowhere else I'd rather be.

  I seemed just as hungry as when Amisi had piled that first plate high. I knew I shouldn't be eating too much, after having such a long period of time with so little in my stomach, but I couldn't help it. It tasted so good. It tasted of home. Images of my parents' farm flashed through my mind. I embraced them. These were deep seated memories. Hidden away due to the drugs and a part of me wondered, if also due to self preservation. I always felt refreshed when I visited my parents farm, recharged, ready to face the world again. Whether it was in person or in my mind. Or in the dreams Michel created. I smiled to myself as the memories, the make-up of my mind, of me, kept tumbling back in.

  All through these magical flashes of my past, my life, the girls chatted away merrily and Michel simply watched me, a look of utter contentment on his face. A man full of relief and happiness. And just for a moment, the worries of revenge and the politics of vampiredom were absent from his features. In their place was a young man, full of life. In that second of seeing such natural beauty in the man that I loved, I realised Michel was so much closer to the Light than he had ever been. Despite what we had been through, despite what lay ahead. I helped Michel toward the Light. Just as he helped me back from the Dark.

  His fingers started playing softly with my hair on the collar of my robe. I don't think he even realised what he was doing. It wasn't sexual, it was full of comfort and love, but Erika's eyes fixed on the movement and a smirk graced her porcelain face.

  “Oh pur-lease. We don't need to see all of your sordid moves from the bedroom at the dining room table.”

  Playing along with what she thought was just a joke, a moment of lightening the day from the recent memories of such Dark, Amisi added, “She's not been back 24 hours and already we have to deal with them unable to keep their hands off each other. Just wait another day and the heavy petting will have moved to the couch. Again.” I had a sudden memory flash before my eyes which made me blush furiously and caused Michel to enter the banter.

  I think he chose to humour Amisi, but the look he cast Erika, so very quickly it was almost missed, let her know she had overstepped the mark. “Girls, girls, please. You are just jealous that you do not have a kindred as irresistible as mine.” Michel leant over and took my chin in his hand then proceeded to kiss me with a slow, languid brush of his lips.

  “Oh for God's sake, Michel, you're as bad as a teenager, control yourself,” Erika chastised, ignoring the look he had flashed her before. I could remember Erika teasing Michel in the past. I knew she, more than any other vampire in his line, was game enough to push his buttons. I couldn't remember specifics, but maybe this was always how it was.

  “Not likely,” Amisi added. “He's on a roll.”

  I listened to the teasing banter go back and forth
for a while between the three of them. The more it continued and the more Michel entertained it, the calmer I got. The calmer Michel became as well. The only other sound in the house was the whir of the shutters retracting for the night. It turned into gentle ribbing and mock teasing and all of a sudden felt very familiar indeed. This is what they always did. I had misinterpreted Erika's initial remark. It was all a tease and Michel just played along, helping to lighten the moment. He gave as good as he got, if not more. The man had no shame and clearly loved anyone at all knowing how much he loved me. It made me smile, despite the embarrassment of being the centre of everyone's attention. This felt right, it felt like home. Michel relaxed even further next to me, probably receiving all of my thoughts. Even that didn't feel wrong anymore. I felt like I was back to normal, almost. Maybe it would all be OK in the end. Surely there were only a few more memories to come back, nothing too monumental. I could do this. With these guys around me, I could do anything.

  Just then Amisi pushed her plate away and sighed. “Duty calls,” she said, getting up from the table. “You want to come along, Erika?”

  “Sure thing, chica, wouldn't miss it for the world.”

  “What duty?” I asked sitting up straighter in my chair.

  Amisi shot a surprised look at Michel, I didn't catch his response, I was too busy looking at her.

  “The, ah... the pull. I feel it. Don't you?”

  The pull. The evil-lurks-in-my-city pull, the one I was born to feel, born to respond to.

  And I couldn't feel a thing.

  Chapter 13

  24 Hours

  “24 hours, ma douce. That is all.” Michel was consoling me at the dining table. Erika and Amisi had just headed out the door towards that pull. The pull I couldn't feel.

  “The drugs are almost out of your system, I could only taste a trace before, by tomorrow you will remember more. I am sure.”

  He was sure. I wasn't. The pull was part of my make-up, a gift from Nut. It wasn't just a skill I had learnt or acquired, it was in me, a part of me since birth. There should have been no way I wasn't connected to it. Never before had I failed to recognise when an innocent was being threatened by the Dark. Part of me knew the logical explanation was the drugs, or what was still left of them inside me, but a more petulant part, a more angry and disillusioned part, thought perhaps Nut had forsaken me. Perhaps this was not reversible, correctable, or fix-able.

  I stood up and started pacing across the tiled floor of the kitchen, thankfully it's fairly large, so I got a good three or four paces in before having to turn around and go back the way I came. A round trip lasted about four seconds, I was pacing pretty quickly. Michel just leaned back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, legs crossed at the ankles, watching me. He didn't say anything else, he could hear my thoughts just fine.

  If I didn't get a handle on this anger I thought I might just explode. It felt as though my skin was stretched tight all over me and that everything inside was expanding and expanding and soon there would be nowhere left for the anger and hurt and fear and disillusionment to go, but out. I clenched my fists and kept on pacing. I needed a plan. I was good at plans. A plan had got me out of that house. OK, it had got derailed along the way, but when I was ready to come back to it, it was there and it got me out. So, I just needed to think of a way to end this constant tightness in my chest, tightness in my head, tightness in my heart. Everything was so tight I could hardly breathe. I was smothering myself, I was going to drown in all this negative emotion. Drown in all the blood.

  “Ma douce, you are glowing. Take a breath.” Michel's soft voice sounded so far away, although he was just standing not six feet across the room from me.

  I looked down at my body and noticed it was indeed glowing, a bright, stunning white light. Shit. I couldn't even control my Light, another example of how fucked up I was.

  Michel walked over to where I had stopped pacing, slap bang in the middle of the kitchen, which now was bathed in an ever increasing bright, white light. We didn't need the overheads on, I was providing enough illumination for the whole friggin' house. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me against his chest. At first I resisted, I was too wound up to relax in his hold, but he was strong and persistent, he wasn't going to take no for an answer.

  We struggled together for a moment, him trying to pull me closer, but also not hurt me in the process, me trying to pull away and remain rigid in my anger and fear. Michel won. As soon as I capitulated and collapsed against his chest my glow slowly began to ebb away. It took several seconds, Michel constantly stroking my back, rubbing circles in a slow methodical manner, almost in time to his heartbeat, which hadn't risen at all, unlike mine.

  After a while the room returned to its normal night time light levels; halogen assisted, not Nosferatin.

  “You do not have to do this alone, Lucinda. I can help, if you will let me.”

  I didn't say anything, I felt so tired again. I may have recovered remarkably well in such a short amount of time, no more bruises or scratches on the outside, but on the inside I was still so run down. One meal, albeit an extremely large one and several hours with my kindred, was not enough to fully replenish my energy levels. I needed rest, even though all I really wanted to do was chase that bastard vampire down and run my stake right through his heart.

  Michel sighed. “We have not been able to locate the house, although I have my and Enrique's men searching. From your description,” - I hadn't actually given a description, but I was guessing Michel had managed to get one from my thoughts - “it should have been relatively easy to find, but it must be warded significantly and beyond our detection. We will find it, or he will make a move to come here. Sooner or later, he will suspect that we have you back with us. I cannot imagine he will give you up so easily. He will retaliate. And we are ready.”

  We are ready. I'd like to think I was too, but until I had full use of my powers, all my memories back where they should be, I was more a liability than an asset. And didn't I just love that thought?

  “There is time. By tomorrow, you may well be... whole again.” I was guessing he was having trouble picking his words, even the use of whole made me cringe. “In the meantime, there is nothing to be done, even I am not meeting with my kin today. One more day and we will plan and then execute our revenge.”

  He spoke so calmly of revenge and I had the feeling that previously I may not have been so comfortable with the notion, but now, I needed to hear his resolve, his determination to do just that. Avenge the wrong against me. I didn't want karmic discussions on how Jonathan would get his comeuppance eventually, I wanted Michel to use his formidable strength and power to back me on this, without question, without pause.

  I thought again, what have I become? Who am I? If there was a way to talk to Nut I would have, a little divine guidance right now wouldn't go astray. But, I was on my own, well, not entirely, I had a very pissed off and powerful kindred vampire on my side. Things could be worse.

  I pulled back and managed a small smile at Michel. He leaned down and kissed my forehead softly, then rested his head against the same spot. The feeling of familiarity washed over me again, this was one of Michel's favourite positions, arms wrapped around me, forehead to forehead, his warm breath washing over my face. He inhaled deeply and I knew he was taking in my scent, savouring the candied apples, sunshine, honey and spring that is my signature. To a vampire there can be nothing more personal than someone's scent.

  “I have missed you so much, ma douce.” There was an ache so deep within his voice it broke my heart to hear.

  I reached up and stroked his face, pulling back to look him in the eyes. That beautiful mix of violet, amethyst and indigo had taken up residence again, I didn't think I could ever get enough of seeing that colour combination. I stood up on the tip of my toes and kissed him lightly on the lips, just once, then pulled away. His mouth had opened slightly, his eyelids becoming heavy, I couldn't help it, I had to kiss him again. This time I didn'
t stop, letting my tongue slide in between his open teeth, working it around his own tongue and receiving a satisfying groan in response.

  He responded, for a moment, maybe two, then pulled the kiss back from the brink and made it more delicate, more gentle, no hint of what else could occur if we let our bodies take over. Part of me was surprised and a little annoyed. I couldn't help feeling attracted to this man. But a bigger part of me was just so relieved. I was tired, exhausted, and right now what I needed was his support and care and love, with no pressure of having to give anything else in return.

  It was selfish and normally I wouldn't have tolerated it, I think. But right now I allowed myself the luxury of thinking of only me. My needs, my road to recovery. Michel had said he would get stronger simply by being near me, that was true also for me. Sure, he would need to feed off me again and probably sooner rather than later. But already he was looking almost healed, whole. Me, not so much. I needed his arms around my body, his face resting against my hair and neck, his breath coating me in warmth and love. I needed him this way. And although Michel was still in the throes of battling his vampire's need to claim me, he was winning, because his arms gently enfolded me, his face nestled into my neck and he sighed, a contented sound, hot against my flesh.

  His strength at being able to battle his vampire-within astounded me. Right now when he was not at his best physically, emotionally and psychologically, he was still able to control the claiming. There were times when I was so very glad to see him lose control and succumb to the claiming, but now was not one of them. And once again, Michel was showing me how very much he was in tune with me, with my needs and wants and desires.

  Michel was perfect. There was no other word for it. He completed me in every possible way.