Love and Bloodlust: The Sacred Objects

by Melinda Clark

  Avery was the type of person to act cool when she was conflicted inside. Talon knew it took a lot for her to confess her feelings, even if she had to get drunk to say them. He wanted to put her mind at ease.

  "I wouldn't do that to you."

  "How do I believe that?"

  Talon had to further come clean with who he was, to assure her. "Because I've learned my lesson with Isabel." He looked into Avery's eyes and studied her face, to gauge whether or not he should continue. "She was my fiancée."

  "It was a few months after I had been turned. I was trying to live off of deer blood and anything I could get from the butcher shop. I was trying to fight my nature the best I could. Anyway, I was brooding by the pond just outside of my hometown, and she came up to me and cracked a joke; made me smile. We talked every day after that, for many days, always meeting at that pond. We…” Talon paused to look at Avery. “Well, we hit it off. Next thing I know, my dumbass proposes to her. I knew I couldn’t keep my secret forever, so not long after proposing, I had finally told Isabel what I was. I thought she would run scared. Maybe even have a town mob try to kill me, but I intrigued her more than scared her. She told me that she wanted to spend eternity with me, and my siring her was the only way to do that. She didn't want me to see her grow old, as if I wouldn't still love her in the same way when she became elderly. She had me convinced..." Talon paused.

  "So you bit her...but where is she now?"

  "I drained her. You see, you have to be dying in order to make the change. You also have to have vampire DNA in your body before death overcomes you. At least, that’s what I was told by the one who changed me. I laid her down in her bed after I bit her and fed her some of my blood. From what I had seen before, it takes only hours for the transformation. I was by her side all night, but she never woke up. By morning she was just a pale, stiffened, lifeless shell of what she once was. I don’t know what went wrong. I feared that I must have taken too much blood from her, that she was far too gone before I could put my own blood into her system. Maybe the blood just wouldn’t take…either way, I killed her. It made me insane. I had rage against myself, and it drove me to do some things that I’m not proud of...." He took Avery's slender hands in his own, surprised that she did not pull away from his touch. Her skin felt like fire compared to his ice. "Her life was cut short because I was selfish. I haven’t tried to sire anyone since. I will never try to take your life, Avery. I promise you that."

  Avery was speechless. He had been hurt because of love before like she had. But was there a chance they could both love again and not regret it? That thought spurred curiosity in her. She slipped her hands out from under his and caressed his freshly shaven, smooth cheek. His hand lay on top of hers a moment, enjoying the tenderness she showed him. His icy blue eyes stared fiercely at her to a point where she felt hypnotized by them. Avery closed her eyes and leaned forward until her lips met his. At first, she got Goosebumps, but he overcame her with such passion in their kiss she had forgotten everything but the tingling of his touch. His hands grasped the back of her head, fingers in her hair. Avery became dizzy, and Talon stopped to study her swaying.

  He laughed at her and stroked her head. “Come on, you can sleep here tonight.”

  “No sleep. Let’s kiss some more…” Avery whispered as her eyes fluttered closed.

  He could smell her desire strongly, and it was hard for him to reject, “Not like this, tequila girl.”

  “Ohhh…a good superhero name….” she mumbled, grinning widely at him. Talon smiled back and scooped her up in his arms, carrying her upstairs. He laid her on his bed and pulled the covers up around her. He turned to leave, which for some reason pained her, so she pleaded,

  “Can you, just stay…until I fall asleep?” she patted next to her and turned over to face the nightstand of candles, gazing dreamily at their flame. Talon climbed up next to her and placed his body up against hers, putting his hand slowly over her hip.

  Avery thought back to the events of the day. Yawning, she noted, “Today we held a ceremony for the fallen. We had a party afterward.”

  “Ah. That explains the alcohol so early in the night,” Talon lightly whispered.

  Avery barely registered his words before the flames became blurry light, and the darkness overcame her.

  When Talon heard Avery’s breathing even out, he dared to peer at her sleeping face. She was so vulnerable at the moment, like a sleeping beauty waiting to be kissed awake. It made him instinctually want to claim her as his own. Talon stroked the side of her arm and carefully placed a kiss on the back of her bare shoulder, forcing to memory the feel of her skin as if he would never experience it again. Beneath that soft exterior, was the spirit of a fighter. He feared his growing urges to protect this woman would end up smothering her, and that she would run from him in the end. He couldn’t let that happen. He needed her. How could he give her freedom to be who she was, but keep her safe at the same time?

  CHAPTER 11

  Avery walked amongst the debris of the vampire mansion, watching as a man slowly arose from the burning ashes and turned to face her. In a flash, she found herself in a white temple. Tall, staggered columns lined the room that had a pond in the middle of the floor. Like a pool. Green oaks and other foliage surrounded the pond, growing out from the floor. There was the face of a huge broken statue jutting out of the water, with a stone throne upon the side of it. She drew closer and realized the reflection of the trees and plants in the water were wilting with the colors of fall. Pink flower petals spiraled down from the sky to land on the surface. Avery was suddenly wearing white silk garb and looked back to the throne to see a young man sitting there, head down. She felt drawn to him like he had his own gravity against her. Avery walked across the water on stepping stones to get a closer look at the man's face. When he looked up at her, she jumped back. Fire engulfed his eyes, and the colorful world turned gray. The pillars and ceiling crumbled, collapsing into the water around them. One of the columns fell on top of her, forcing her down and pinning her under the water. Avery looked up and struggled to get free, reaching toward the surface that was just beyond the reach of her fingertips. She saw the wavering figure of the man with long jet-black hair and onyx eyes on a stepping stone above her. She could tell that he was a vampire by the paleness of his complexion. Still, she reached toward him in the hope that he would help, her lungs burning, pleading for much-needed air. The man continued to study her face until tribal tattoos emerged over his torso and ran up the side of his face. Black feathered wings unfurled from his back. After a mixture of terror and amazement at his features, Avery became calm as she wavered into unconsciousness.

  Talon couldn't bring himself to join Avery in resting. For one thing, he just woke up when she had arrived. He had slept all day. Secondly, he thought that maybe he would have to wake up and find her being in his bed was just another one of his dreams. So he just laid there beside her, memorizing all her features until she would awake from her nap. His hunger emerged again when he thought about the things they could do together, so he went downstairs to have a drink and watch some television. He had just sat down and gotten comfortable on the couch when something didn't feel right. Avery's heartbeat that he had been listening to, to assure himself that she was really here, had fastened. He then heard her gasping for air and jolted up off the couch. He was instantly by her side. He briefly considered that something was wrong with her physically, but her cries told him that she suffered from a nightmare. He shook her awake by her cold, sweaty shoulders.

  Avery didn't speak; she just stared at him, shaking. "It's okay,” he cooed and pulled her like a child into his arms, cradling her against his chest. Her rapidly beating heart slowed down after a few moments of his embrace. He carried her down and set her on the couch, thinking the well-lit downstairs would wake her better. When he was convinced she was fully conscious, he asked her about her nightmare.

  "I don’t know if he was a man or vampire or…some kind of dark, terrifyi
ngly beautiful… angel. I feel like I know who he is, but…” she trailed off.

  “Beautiful angel? Well, he got to be in your dreams, so I’m a bit envious.”

  Avery gave him a serious look, “Don’t be. It wasn’t a good thing.”

  Talon put his arm around her shoulders. “It’s just a dream. Let’s take your mind off of it for a bit. At least until the sun comes up.” Talon flicked through channels, trying to find one that would appease her. This is what normal couples would do, right?

  Avery fell back asleep on his shoulder after a short time. Talon savored the moment. He had an overwhelming urge to do something for her, something special. He slowly moved her head onto a couch pillow and covered her with his throw blanket. He decided that he was going to go get some food from the twenty-four-hour grocery store and make her breakfast before the sun would rise. It had been centuries since he had cooked human food, but he would give it his best shot. He didn’t want her to wake and find herself alone, so he ran to the store as fast as possible.

  Avery felt movement next to her. She opened her eyes to see that glowing face of her sister, sitting down on Talon’s couch next to her. Avery smiled and wondered if this was going to be an often occurrence. “I got the revenge I was looking for. For you and our parents. I hope you can be at peace knowing that because I am.”

  Kyrie looked worried and whispered to her sister, “Avery, it’s not over.”

  Avery sat up slowly. “What do you mean?”

  “I came to warn you. A great evil has awakened because of the spell the witch started.”

  “What kind of evil?” Avery questioned.

  The front door ripped off its hinges. In stepped the dark-winged man from her previous dream. Kyrie had disappeared, leaving Avery alone with him in the room, which seemed to be getting hotter every second she stared at this creature. Sweat beaded up and dripped down her face, and the leather on the couch beneath her started to bubble. She felt the skin on her arms and face began to sizzle.

  Avery screamed herself awake. She gasped for air and looked around the living room frantically, finding that she was completely alone. She got up and wandered around the house, calling for Talon, but he was nowhere to be found. Avery had sobered up between both her night terrors and wondered why, when in a moment of drunken weakness, she had come here anyway. Then again, deep down she knew the answer to that.

  Avery put on her shoes and jacket, then left. She knew they were just dreams, but why couldn’t she convince herself of it? She needed to figure out what all this meant. Was there something conjured by the spell the witch had done the other night? She should go back to Rose and Caleb’s to see if they have noticed anything weird lately.

  Thirty minutes later, Talon opened his front door, knowing before he was fully inside that Avery had left. If only the cashier hadn’t been a seventy-year-old woman, who aged as he watched her scan each item.

  It was then that he detected a faint trace of adrenaline left in the air. He dropped the grocery bag at his front door and sniffed the air again. The scent in the room was hers and hers alone, so no one had attacked her, at least from what he could smell. He must have passed her on the way…but wouldn’t he have noticed? Did she purposely take an alternate route? Dawn would be here soon. Perhaps sooner than the time, it could take to find her. He should just let her go, but he couldn’t help but be concerned for her. She may still be somewhat vulnerable and drunk.

  Avery walked down the pothole-laden road on the outskirts of town, the chill of the air numbed her fingers, forcing her to put her hands in her pockets. It felt like it could snow any day now. She pulled out her sister’s cross necklace and studied it. The clasp was broken from the witch yanking it off her. She could kill that bitch all over again. She rubbed the cross between her finger and thumb and realized there was an indentation on the back. She examined it further and found a crest on the back of the center of the cross. A wolf inside a fleur-de-lis. She had never seen the symbol before and wondered what it could mean.

  Something caught the corner of her eye, and she whipped around to catch a glimpse of a shirtless and shoeless man wander into an alley between apartment buildings. Her gut told her it was a vampire, though she wondered why any would be out so close to sunrise and half naked. She went down the alley, cautiously tailing him until he turned around to face her. Avery fell into an instantaneous state of shock.

  His onyx eyes entranced her, and his dark long hair waved around his chiseled features past his shoulders and down his chest, leading her eyes to a hardened pale body scrolled with tattoos she couldn’t recognize. Is this another dream? She felt her muscles tighten, coiling as if to run, but she couldn’t move them. When her eyes met his again, he was right in front of her face. His dilating eyes studied her; beckoning her. He raised his hand to stroke a stray strand of Avery’s hair and smelled her. He backed away a bit and looked at her with more intense interest as if he recognized something about her.

  This can’t be real. Avery tried to speak, but the words did not form sound from her throat, only panicked thoughts in her brain. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the deepening darkness of the eyes boring into her soul, and became dazed as they promised something sinister. Was he truly a vampire? Or was he a witch? Or both? She knew he had to be old to do this kind of thing.

  “Avery!”

  The voice calling her snapped her out of the trance. The vampire looked disappointed before he seemed to disappear into thin air. Her limbs twitched back to life, and she whipped around to find Talon behind her.

  “Are you okay?”

  Avery’s adrenaline gave way as she collapsed herself into his arms. Talon held her as she tried her hardest not to freak out and cry on the outside as she felt she was doing on the inside. Was it an illusion? Am I going crazy? Her panicking thoughts were relentless. However, Talon had found her in this alley, she was grateful for it.

  “Avery, what are you doing here?” he demanded, sounding upset.

  She managed to hug her savior quickly before backing away, not looking at his face, afraid that it would not be Talon that she saw. “He was here. I looked into his eyes, and I couldn’t move. I thought he was going to kill me….”

  Talon lifted her chin up to him and kissed her forehead, “Let me take you home.”

  Avery nodded.

  After dropping Avery off at her apartment, Talon did a lot of pondering about what she had explained to him. A vampire that could make her freeze on the spot and be in her dreams was few and far between. The reason for that is because only Ancient vampires were able to do those things. But the remaining of the Ancients were last seen in Europe over a hundred years ago. He didn’t think there were any left after The Purge, let alone that there could be one in this little town. And what would an ancient want with Avery? He needed to do his own investigating. He went back to the alley to try and pick up on a scent to follow, but strangely enough, he couldn’t find one. Stronger scents tended to mark the area for at least an hour before dissipating when it wasn’t windy or raining. He had nothing to go on. It angered and devastated him that he may not be able to protect Avery from an Ancient, though he would certainly die trying.

  Avery had spent the entire blustery day in the apartment. She was surfing the internet, and Rose was reading her Dark Hunter novel, “Kiss of the Night.” Rose poked her head up from the book and blatantly stated, “If I met a vampire this hot, I would submit to his will.”

  Avery giggled to herself, the first thing close to feeling like herself in days. Rose had a way of making her laugh. In their daytime lives, you would see them as two friends just being goofy with each other and having fun. They each had their own sense of humor, but they seemed very similar at times. It was a pleasant retreat from what they faced each night. Avery wondered why she had waited until recently to bond this way with her long-time friend. This friendship could have potentially saved her sanity much sooner, had she been more willingly social.

  Caleb came out of his ro
om, finally waking from his all-day sleep-athon. Neither Caleb nor Rose had or needed jobs to support themselves, as their parents were filthy rich and sent them rent checks and extra cash often. They were free to do what they wanted every day and hunt every night, with no worries. Avery was jealous of this, of course. She had to work hard for everything she had ever had.

  Caleb yawned and stretched, “Rosie, you ask her yet?”

  “Ask me what?” Avery was curious. Were they going to ask her to start paying rent or something?

  She knew she’d have to get back on the job search soon, but she was hoping for more time to straighten her life out.

  “We want you to join our slayer faction. In fact, I want you to be my third in command,” Rose smiled widely at her. “I know you’ve said no before, but I figured after everything we’ve been through…”

  Avery thought about it a moment. All the times they had backed her up had helped: the night at the train station, the ritual…she kind of owed them. “Why not,” she answered.

  Rose hissed in excitement. “Awesome! I’ll get you your own cell phone with the necessary numbers programmed in, and then we’ll set you up with…” Rose rambled to herself as she walked into her room and disappeared, her voice muffled through the wall.

  Caleb sat down next to Avery and gave her a look of appeasement. “Welcome to The Order.”

  “The what?” Avery half-laughed at the ‘club’ name.

  “The Order. People who have been secretly slaying vampires and the like for the last few thousand years,” he lifted his sleeve to show her a tattoo on his bicep. “This is the symbol of The Order. All the knowledge has been passed down through my and Rose’s families for generations.”

  Avery paused at the sight of the tattoo. A wolf inside a fleur-de-lis crest. “I’ve seen that before,” Avery commented before running over to the coat closet. She came out with her sister’s necklace and handed it to Caleb. He examined it. “Where did you get this?”