Chapter 11

I chastise myself long before my wings have carried me back to my room.

Jacob is already home and lights are burning in the hallway, in the downstairs rooms. In my bedroom.

I land on the windowsill with trepidation thickly beating beneath my ribs to find Jacob, dark, bloodied and terrible seated in the chair by the window. For a heartbeat I consider taking to the air again, and avoiding the encounter altogether, but I quickly dismiss it. He would catch me easily, and whatever punishment he currently has in store for me would only be increased threefold.

“ Where have you been?” He asks mildly, his long fingers framed in a steeple beneath his chin.

I step onto the floor and settle onto the bed before answering. I need my voice to sound calm and unconcerned and nothing like the trembling I have in my hands. Still my mind is elsewhere and I long to be back beneath the trees with Taylor. I liked her, more than I should and I know part of the reason my heart is pounding so furiously is because of her, but even that is a lie. My heart hasn’t pounded or pumped for years! Why would it? I am dead. The blood in my veins a stagnant pool that flows nowhere. But I was alive once, and breathing, and if my body has forgotten what it was like, my mind remembers and plays back the requisite sensation at the appropriate time.

“ Well?” Jacob is waiting. His anger, I can tell, is beginning to rise like the mercury in a thermometer.

“ I was in Hunters wood.” I say.

“ Hunters wood?” He queries, glancing out of the window. “ What were you doing in that spit of a place?”

“ I needed some air.” I say, running my hand across the bedspread as if our conversation means nothing. “ It is stifling being cooped up in this house and I could not breathe.”

“ You haven’t breathed in years.” Jacob points out. “ And I told you to stay indoors!”

Clearly my explanation has not placated him. “ I know,” I reply struggling to sound sorry. “ But it is not so very far and I was not gone long.”

“ The fact that you were gone at all is bad enough!” He storms, slapping the arm of the chair. “ When I tell you to stay, you stay! Do I make myself clear? You do not go flitting off to the fucking woods!”

I nod, there is no point in arguing. Jacob would beat me before I had formed my second sentence.

Rising from the chair, he paces the room. I pray he paces himself straight out of the door and far away from me, but he doesn’t. Instead he comes to stand beside me and runs his dirty, bloodied fingers through my hair. It is revolting and all I can do not to pull away.

“ You know I must punish you.” He says, his voice once again reasonable. “ I will not tolerate disobedience and I will not tolerate you leaving this house without my permission.”

“ What are you going to do?” I tremble. I hate myself for asking. I sound small and pitiful and I am not proud of myself.

But Jacob does not care how I feel, he merely tightens his hand on my hair and pulls back my head until he has exposed my throat, and he can bite me.

The pain is excruciating! Jacob’s bite burns like a heated wire being pulled through my veins and I feel them emptying, collapsing one after the other as he bleeds whatever is still left in them dry. I wonder if this is how I will finally meet my end and be released from this terrible curse, but the agony goes on and on and I am screaming and writhing beneath him, my body being torn apart in a seething mass of tortured fire, and still he drains me.

***

It is summer when I finally open my eyes and blink at a world I miraculously still inhabit. I am in bed, I am naked and the sun is out, bleaching the colour from my closed curtains. Beside me lies the pale body of a young girl. She has very dark hair and freckles across her nose. She also has an intravenous line running from her jugular vein into my arm, a clear indication that she has been feeding me and replenishing my blood stocks. Clearly she has done a good job for I live. She does not.

Eventually, Rika comes into the room, her red hair hanging loose to her shoulders, her feet bare upon the carpet. She is surprised though pleased to find me awake and after welcoming me back, fusses around disconnecting me from my ‘drip’.

“ She was your twelfth.” She says brightly, rolling the body onto the floor where it lands with a soft thump. “ You needed a lot of subsidence after.. what happened and we had to go out specially to find them. Jacob wanted you to have nice, fat girls with plenty of good, rich blood and they’re not easy to find around here I can tell you, they’re all so scrawny.”

“ It was Jacob that caused this.” I remind her, my voice sounding like well trodden gravel. “ He nearly killed me.”

Rika hands me a glass of water.

“ He spent days afterwards locked away.” She tells me as if this somehow makes up for it. “ He was inconsolable.”

My heart, such as it is, does not go out to him. “ He shouldn’t have done it then.” I say. “ Serves him right if he suffered. Bastard.”

Rika does not agree with my character analysis. “ He loves you.” She tells me. “ More than any of us. He says you are special.”

“ Yes, but he doesn’t say why, does he? Do you know Rika? Do any of you?”

She shakes her head and pulls back the curtains. Sunlight streams in through the thinly spaced bars now crossing the windows. It is a nice touch. Homely. My bedroom is now a prison.

“ For your safety.” Rika tries to tell me. “ Jacob is worried you might fall.”

“ Jacob is worried I might fly away and not come back more like. Where is the sod?”

“ With the others, sleeping. It was my turn to look after you.”

“ And I am grateful.” I say. “ I’m also very hungry.”

Rika glances at the stricken girl on the floor. “ I cannot carry another on my own.” She confesses. “ They are heavy. Can you wait?”

“ I was thinking more of actual food.” I smile. “ Some soup perhaps? Bread?”

Her face breaks into an expression of relief. “ Oh, I see! I can do that!” She beams brightly. “ Be back in a minute.”

And scooping up the dead girl, she slings her over her shoulder. This one is not heavy; she is empty, her blood all in me. There isn’t even a dribble at her neck.

She locks the door behind her.

Of course, as soon as Rika is gone, I am out of bed. My legs feel weak and unsupportive but I hang onto the furniture and stumble my way towards the window, collapsing into the chair Jacob last sat in and pressing my hand to the cold, iron bars. To my dismay, they have been fixed well and so close together that I could not squeeze through even if I were an owl and I curse him before turning my thoughts to Taylor. Where is she, I wonder. What is she doing? Did she wait for me in the woods as we had arranged? Annoyed when I failed to show? Part of me hopes she didn’t, because if she did then she must surely hate me now for letting her down.

I would give anything to see her.

The thought jolts me and I grip the bars harder, alarmed at my own thoughts. She is a Wolf! I remind myself. I cannot have feelings for her. I hardly know her and besides, she is my sworn enemy. The reason we are forced from place to place. The reason we lose members of our beloved family at the hands of their savagery. I must do nothing but hate and despise her and wish her a long, slow, lingering death. She is a Werewolf! She is foul! I must hate her! I must! I must!

But I can’t. There is something about her that has captured my heart and I long to see her again.

Rika returns with my soup. She is astonished to see me out of bed and insists on feeding the soup to me even though there is nothing wrong with my hands. Resigned, I let her do it whilst she relates to me all that I have missed.

The garden is looking fine, she tells me, since Jacob hired a gardener to tend it.

I am surprised anyone has agreed to do such a thing and Rika informs me our new gardener is an old man from a village five miles away and that he has struck a deal. If Jacob does not bite his granddaughter, he will work for free.

“ And Jacob has agreed to this?” I ask in astonishment. I find the offer unbelievable.

“ He has, but he will bite her anyway.” That’s more like it.

“ What else?” I ask around a mouthful of bread. “ What about the Werewolves?”

Still causing trouble, Rika frowns, going on to tell me that despite their best efforts and calling for help from another Vampire clan - that must have hurt Jacob’s fragile ego- they have not been successful in eradicating them. In fact, they have acquired a house of their own, Fern Lee manor, and it looks as though they are here to stay. At least until Jacob kills them all.

“ And what success is he having in that respect?” I enquire. “ Dying in their droves are they?”

“ Not quite.” Rika admits. “ They are quick and secretive. We take down one, two more appear. Jacob is not happy.”

“ I don’t imagine he is. Is their presence having much effect on our food supplies?”

“ That’s the odd thing.” Rika says, spooning the last of the soup into my open mouth. I feel like a fledgling bird. “ They don’t appear to be hunting locally. We hear them, howling at the moon and lord knows what else, but they aren’t eating the villagers. The deer population has certainly decreased somewhat, but they’re welcome to them, deer meat is awful, but they’re not affecting what we eat! Jacob says he is going to follow them one evening to see where they go. He fears we may be missing out on a rich, food source.”

“ That sounds like him. Do you know when he is planning to go?”

Rika shrugs. “ I don’t. Now, is there anything else you would like?”

There isn’t, so she leaves me to sleep off my lunch whilst she clears my plates.

I don’t sleep. I think of Taylor instead and Fern Lee manor. I know it. I have been there, long ago, although I cannot recall exactly when. It was a party if I remember correctly, with everyone dressed in formal suits and gowns and everyone trying to give the impression they were richer, grander, better connected than they actually were. It was a tedious affair but the house was stunning. Pale brick façade, dozens of leaded windows. Rich furnishings, gleaming oak. Flowers in huge, floor standing vases. Indian rugs and fireplaces big enough to roast whole suckling pigs. It had made quite an impression.

And now Taylor was there.

Despite everything, I still ached to see her.

I must have drifted off to sleep, lulled by a full belly and replenished veins, because when I awoke I wasn’t alone. Next to me and tied hand and foot to the bed, was a terrified woman of about twenty, her wrists and bare ankles scrapped raw from where she’d been trying to get away from her bounds. She was also naked, and propping myself up on my elbow I gazed at her firm, small breasts and wild spread of pubic hair and smiled at the note Rika had stuck to her belly with wax.

‘ thought you might enjoy a little treat.’ It read. ‘ bite her when you’ve finished and make sure she’s dead. Prell let one go last week who had started to change and she ate all our chickens!’ R x.

The girl started to cry. I couldn’t blame her. She must have known she was going to die, she was in a household of Vampires after all. Quite simply, for her, there was no hope. The only way out was cold.

I wiped away her tears with my fingertip and waited for her to stop screaming. It took a while. To amuse myself I tugged the note from her belly and tossed it on the floor, but that only made her yell even more so I slapped her until she became subdued and then I told her that if she screamed again I would bite out her tongue.

Then I set about enjoying myself.

Her nipples were delicious and I took my time exploring their circular boundaries with my tongue. I could tell she was fighting not to become aroused, but it did her little good, and soon they were like bullets as I sucked and nibbled and watched her stomach heave with uncontrollable want. I smiled around her mounting lust. I had her now and I was going to enjoy her.

Her stomach was warm and soft as I traced my fingertips across it, pausing to explore the dip of her bellybutton. I kissed her skin, my tongue dragging along the pale plain and leaving a tremble of goose bumps in my wake. I bit her side and heard her hitch her breath when she thought I was going to sink my teeth in. I played with her fluff, threading my fingers through it and with the palm of my hand, applying pressure to her mound. I was going to fuck her, of that there was no doubt, but I wanted it to be good for her. This was, after all, the last pleasure she would ever know and it was only right that she should enjoy it.

Slowly I parted her pussy lips with my fingers. Her pussy was swollen and sticky, her fear not enough to stem the well of desire, and my finger slid in easily. I touched her clit and felt her stiffen as I dipped my head to her breast again and circled her nipple before taking it full in my mouth and sucking hard, at the same time as rubbing her clit in tiny, slow motions. I pressed hard, then softer, as a flood of juices oozed from her cunt and a soft groan escaped her, followed by a muffled sob. To soothe her, I kissed her breast and uttered words of little meaning whilst my finger resumed its irresistible dance.

Her hole beckoned and I moved to fill it, threading two fingers together before sliding them in. Inside she was all molten velvet and warmth and I fucked her back and forth, pleased when she moaned again but without the sob this time. To reward her, my mouth again found her nipple and began to draw on it whilst my fingers followed their unhurried path to her orgasm.

I fucked her at my leisure. Sometimes with my fingers buried in her cunt, other times withdrawing to play with her clit and all the time she squirmed and gasped and produced so much liquid my fingers began to crinkle.

It would, I mused, be a shame to kill this one. She was pretty in her way, her body responsive and I would have liked to have kept her for a while, except I knew Jacob would never allow it. He would have had to approve her being given to me in the first place, and her eventual death would have been his condition. I would have to kill her or risk being thrown into oblivion again myself which left me with no choice, but it was still a terrible shame.

I fingered her clit, knowing this was the route to her eventual orgasm and she writhed beautifully. I rubbed her harder, sucking her tits and telling her just to let go, but she held on, the strong thread of fear that was worming into her brain warning her that the moment she did, she was dead.

Yet I was equally as determined and leaving her breast I maneuvered myself until I was kneeling between her tied and very spread legs. Then I filled her full of fingers, four of them, all sliding in so, so easily into the sopping wet opening of her vagina. I fucked her, harder than I might have done normally, but I didn’t care. I wanted her to really feel it. I wanted her to know she was being thoroughly taken before I lowered my head and lapped my tongue along the full length of her glistening, pink pussy.

She tasted glorious, clean and feminine and I licked her with immense pleasure. My fingers streaming in and out of her cunt, taking her forcefully, turning her insides into a frothing cauldron of lust, whilst my chin sank into liquid. She gasped and I increased my efforts, licking her furiously, the tip of my tongue drilling into her clit, forcing her closer and closer to the ultimate prize.

She was starting to come, I could tell. Her body was a tight core of tension, her hands gripping the sheets as I worked hard to make it happen for her.

She shook, her skin now slick and wet and straining. She threw her head back and the tendons in her neck stood out like cords. I caught sight of the pulsating vein pushing against her skin and licked my lips, certain she would spurt wonderfully after all this activity. My stomach grumbled.

She came moments later. Her cunt gripping my fingers, her mouth sucking in her last breaths as her orgasm ripped through her and she thrashed on the bed, covering my face with warm honey. Coming and coming.

Before bursting into tears.

I am not a cruel Vampire. I do not like to see my victims suffer as Jacob does. He likes to toy with them for hours, bleeding them slowly, allowing them to fully appreciate the awful, last moments of their lives, describing to them, in exquisite detail, which of their vital organs will fail first and how much blood lose it will take before their heart starts to fail.

He is an unmitigated bastard.

And I refuse to be like him.

The girl is still crying, although she has now added begging to the equation. She will do anything I want, she sobs. Serve me, fuck me, tell me which of the villagers are still virgins. That last amuses me. Why would I want a virgin? They don’t taste any better than anyone else and the sex is usually dull. They have no idea what to do.

I climb onto the bed and straddle her. The aroma of sex and fear rise from her in a heady mix. Briefly I contemplate sitting on her face and making her lick me out, but such is her terror at the moment, I doubt she is up to the task.

My hands close round her throat and she screams. It is a heart wrenching sound, the sort rumoured to make the blood run cold and I marvel at the way it echoes round the room. I tell her to be quiet and I squeeze, my fingers finding pressure points just beyond her ears where I exert just enough force to make her eyes roll back and her body go limp. Now she is unconscious. Now she won’t feel a thing. Now I can bite her.

***

Jacob visits as the sun is starting to go down. He is dressed all in black. It makes the paleness of his skin all the more vibrant and all the more terrifying.

I am sitting in the chair he usually occupies, but he doesn’t pass comment. Instead he sits on the bed and gazes at the dead girl still tethered by her hands and feet.

“ You enjoyed?” He asks, running a hand down her cold leg. “ I kept her specially for you.”

“ She was adequate.” I say, damned if I’m giving him the satisfaction of my gratitude. “ Her blood was sweet.”

Jacob raises an eyebrow. “ Only adequate.” He queries, removing his hand. “ What a shame. I was hoping for more. I sacrificed the well being of our rose bushes so you could have her.”

The penny drops with a cold, hard plink. The gardener’s daughter! The bastard has fed me the gardener’s daughter! The bastard cannot even keep his word!

Sickened, I grip the arm of the chair but keep my face carefully blank, refusing to rise to his sick sense of humour as I search for something to say. “ How goes the hunt for the Werewolves food supply?” I eventually enquire. “ Rika tells me it is somewhat evasive.”

I note that as yet, he has not asked after my well being.

“ Indeed.” Jacob concedes, “ it is proving somewhat... difficult, but I shall discover it shortly.”

“ And then?”

“ Then I shall destroy it and the foul dogs will leave.”

“ In that case, I wish you well in your endeavors.” I say. “ Is there anything I can do to help?”

“ You can stay inside.” He says.

There it is again. That simple but suffocating demand. I hear it, I digest it but I struggle to let it go and my thoughts swarm all over it like flies. Perhaps, I think, I should be grateful that I am not required to go out and hunt and risk all in the pursuit of nourishment. Perhaps I should be content with a life of relative ease, content to drift through the nights and days whilst others do all the work, but I am not! I am a Vampire! A child of the night. I need to be outside! To fly and hunt and kill and...live!

“ But why!?” I demand, causing Jacob to glance at me in surprise. “ Why must I be locked away like some pasty faced pink? Am I not worthy in some way? Are my kills not enough? Why do you keep me bound so?”

“ It is not for you to question!” Jacob yells back at me. He is on his feet now, standing over me, trying to quieten me through intimidation. “ You will do as I say!”

I will not! Defiant, I get to my own feet and face him. He is inches taller than I, but I raise my head to meet his gaze. “ You will tell me!” I demand, grabbing his shirt. “ Or I will leave now and never come back!”

He laughs, he actually laughs and the hatred I feel for him rises like acid in my throat.

He thinks he can control me. He thinks I am too weak to carry out my threat. He thinks I will never have the audacity to knee him in the balls and make a break for the door, but I have and I do and whilst he is bent double, hands clasped between his legs and groaning, I am down the stairs and tugging at a front door that refuses to open.

It is never locked and it is never stuck, but it is now and as I pull and tug and shout all manner of profanity at the solid, oak door, Jacob recovers enough to fly down the stairs and hurl me across the tiled floor.

I land in a bone crunching tangle against the far wall and lay there gasping. Beside me, the candlestick on the sideboard wobbles alarmingly but stays upright. The grandfather clock merely ticks in a series of loud tuts, counting off the amount of seconds it takes for my head to stop spinning.

The noise also brings my three sisters running from their haven in the cellar and they hover by the kitchen door like a trio of terrified kittens.

But Jacob hardly spares them a glance. He is too busy administering after me. His long fingers running over my arms and legs, searching for damage before he brushes back my hair and helps me to my feet, turning now to Tilla and insisting she fetch hot, sweet tea.

He guides me into the lounge, insisting I lean on him before seating me in a chair and sliding a stool beneath my feet and draping a blanket over my knees.

His behaviour is strange and unsettling, I have never known anyone turn on a sixpence like Jacob does, and I want nothing more than to throw all this uncalled for sympathy aside and flee outside to acres of fresh, clean air.

When the tea arrives, he holds the cup himself and tips it to my lips. It is strong and sweet and very hot and after the tiniest sip, I cough violently and push it away, my hands rushing to wipe the tears from my eyes.

“ You should not have angered me.” Jacob says once I have stopped spluttering. It isn’t much in the way of an apology but it is clearly all I am getting. “ It is a simple enough request I make of you.”

“It is not simple if it has no reason.” I retort, noticing the other three have crept quietly in to have a good listen. I get the impression they have as much idea of what is going on as I do. Namely none.

“ Why won’t you tell me what this big secret is? What is so awful?”

He sits himself in the chair beside me and stares deep into the fire. I am tempted to make some pithy remark regarding thinking and the smell of wood burning, but decide to hold my tongue. My sisters arrange themselves around me like ladies of the court attending their Queen. Tilla even puts a hand on my shoulder. I can feel its weight, but not its warmth. We have none.

“ As you wish then.”

It is not what I expected to hear and my eyebrows shoot up to the top of my head as Jacob turns to face me. He seems surprised to find the others still there but he does not order them away. Instead he merely nods, takes a deep breath and begins.

“ I have often told you how special you are to me Isabella, and you are, with very good reason because only you can do this for me.”

“ Do what?” I am impatient to know.

“ I will come to that,” he says, “ but first you need to understand who you are and where you came from. I was the first to bite you, a long, long time ago. You were nothing then, just a village girl with a neck ripe for the taking. I thought nothing of it. I needed to feed, you fed me, and you died. Your father, I remember, screamed ‘ Isabella’ as you slumped to the ground and I have thought of you as Isabella ever since though I am certain you have had many other names. My life went on, then, years later, I found you again in another village. It startled me to see you and I thought, perhaps, this ‘other you’ just bore a remarkable resemblance to the first, but you looked so very similar and as I drained you a second time, the taste of your blood was like an old friend upon my tongue. And that is how it continued. Years would pass, and then you would return. Sometimes I thought I saw a flicker of recognition in your eyes, sometimes not, but it was always you.”

“ Did you not pause to question why?” I ask, not believing for a moment this ridiculous tale to be true. If we bite you, you stay dead, unless we turn you, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in this instance. Jacob clearly believes he bit to kill.

His eyes are cold when he looks at me. “ Of course I questioned.” He says emphatically. “ It is no trivial thing to see past victims suddenly spring up before your eyes, as good as new. And of course I searched for answers, for knowledge, but you, you never returned again.”

“ And yet here I am.” I pronounce, spreading my arms wide. “ A miracle!”

Jacob looks at me sourly. “ You would be wiser not to mock.” He warns. “ Especially when you have so little knowledge yourself. Tell me Isabella. How did you get here? How did you arrive at this house? Do you know?”

I open my mouth to speak. A ludicrous question. Of course I know. I...

My mouth clamps shut again and a frown entrenches itself across my brow. I cannot answer the question! I know this house, of course I do, but as to how I got here, I truly cannot say! Confused, I can only stare at him.

At least he has the good grace not to appear smug. “ Your spirit is strong.” He says, taking hold of my hands in his icy ones “ And I believe that’s how you survived. Each time you died, only your body faded, but your spirit, or soul if you like, lived on, searching for another body to inhabit, another breath to use. I never saw you again because, eventually, you far outstretched me. I could only live one year at a time, but you, Isabella, were forging ahead, advancing many years ahead of me, living out of my reach.”

I clutch my head. It is spinning wildly, threatening to pitch me forward into the fire. I can feel Jacob’s hands holding me steady and I suck in air like I actually need it. What is Jacob saying? I cannot fathom it. I need to sit and think and pull my thoughts together to stop them unraveling like wool.

I am a thing of the future? Is that right? Is that what he is implying? How can it be? It is impossible and even if it were true, how did I end up back here? Why did I travel back again instead of continuing forward?

“ Do you have dreams Isabella?” Jacob asks, interrupting my confusion. “ Pictures you can not easily understand? Places you think you have never seen?”

I nod, yes.

“ They are your memories. From the time ahead of us.”

“ Rubbish! It is not possible!”

“ It is.” He insists. “ You are the proof. Ladies,” he addresses my sisters. “ Do any of you dream?”

They all shake their heads ‘no’ in perfect union. It would be funny. If it wasn’t so frightening.

“ But I don’t understand!” I practically scream, my sisters flinching at my sudden outburst. “ How do you know all this?”

“ Because I went looking for answers and because,” he smiles, “ I needed to be sure I was not loosing my mind.”

“ I traveled. To the remotest corners of our kingdom to seek advice. Once there, amid the darkness of the great forests and the deep pools of stagnant water, I sought counsel with the Vampire elder and told him of what I had seen. The elder believed me, much to my surprise and told me I would do well to contact your spirit again. I would have great gifts, the elder said if I was able to breed with you and we could give birth to pure Vampire offspring. Offspring that would be totally impervious to Werewolf savagery, children that would be strong. Unstoppable. The greatest Vampires the world has ever known. I must, he demanded of me, find you at all cost!

Jacob stops there and sits smiling as though he has just lavished the most wondrous gifts upon me.

I merely feel like vomiting.

“Don’t you see?” Jacob grins. “ You and I are destined to have the most terrifying children together. Invincible children! Pure blood vampires! Think of all we can achieve with a dynasty like that! We will have total power, total control! Isabella! Is this not truly amazing?”

Truly nauseating more like. I have NO desire to carry Jacob’s children, or anyone else’s for that matter. Gently, I remind him that I prefer female company.

“Not anymore!” He storms. “From now on, you will prefer only mine!” And he grips my hands tightly. “Do you not understand what a magnificent opportunity this is? We can rule the world! No more hunger, no more skirmishes with filthy Werewolves. We will reign supreme!”

“But I have no desire to do any of this.” I say. And I don’t. My stomach heaves at the thought of lying with Jacob, especially after what I suspect he puts poor Tilla through. I doubt he is a gentle lover.

But Jacob is having none of it.

“I care not for your desires!” He insists. “You will do as I command! From now on I will come to your room each night until you conceive and I strictly forbid you to lie with anyone else, not even your sisters. You will stay in the house. You will have my children! And you will do as you are told!”

I nod dumbly, not because I agree to his ridiculous terms, but because I am tired of his shouting. Yet I have one other question. “How did I arrive at his house?”

“I listened for you.” He says, calm again now he thinks he has got his own way. “The elder showed me how and once I had located your whereabouts, I came to you in dreams, coaxing you gently towards me until I could embrace your soul and hold you firmly in my time.”