I eased from behind the walls of Aare’s crypt to find he was still sleeping with one of his females. When he woke it was his routine to feed on her before he began his night. That way he would become stronger to do the things he needed to do to cause pain and rebellion in the world.
When he opened his eyes and lifted the lid on the coffin, I caught him by surprise. “Are you happy to see me, brother?” I questioned.
He sat up, and then stepped out leaving his snack still asleep inside the crypt, too weak to function. When he cleared the way I could see her. A very young woman with a head of full long blond hair, lying nude, probably a virgin who’s body bore scars of someone who could have been much older.
There were dark incisions covered with splashes of blood along her neck leading down to her hard breasts. Her legs had what looked like cigarette burns to cauterize the wounds after puncturing her veins.
Inch after inch of her body there lay cuts of different sizes and small drips of blood where Aare had pulled out his fangs after feeding, and inserted into another lesion trying to get as much blood as possible.
As thin and pale as she appeared he had to have been feeding on her for months without changing her. That was my fear for Zoey.
“Why don’t you change her instead of making her suffer like that?” I asked with disgust written on my face. My mouth taking a downward turn because of my loathing for him.
“If I change her, then I don’t have the pleasure of her blood, and as you can readily see, that’s what’s so appealing about her.” He shrugged his shoulders. In his arrogance he said, “Just wait until I get a hold of Zoey.”
I didn’t answer him. I wondered how long it would take for him to ask about me. It didn’t take long. “How did you get loose?” He said his eyes full of disapproval at the idea that I could have gotten free from his guards, since they had me incapacitated by a solid silver hammer he had fashioned, especially for me.
“Do you expect me to tell you?” Then he connected the dots and he flew up and stood in front of me. His eyes full with blood.
“Where is Zoey?”
“Where you can’t get to her.”
“There is nowhere I can’t go or find her. You should know that.”
“I’ve hidden her,” I said. He sniffed around.
“Is she here? No. I would have picked up her scent. Her blood is like no other,” he said his nostrils flaring remembering her smell.
“She’s no longer a virgin. I made sure of that. I wanted to keep her away from you,” I said. His eyes grew red, dark angry red. That was how I could tell he was enraged, and when he would lie about not wanting to hurt Zoey. He gave himself away when his eyes glossed over to a crimson color.
“Get out of my way. I’m going to find her. She’s to marry me tomorrow evening. I have the other vampires in our order coming to witness the marriage of a human to a vampire.”
I did not move.” He watched at me with a defeated glare because he didn’t have the strength to command me to do anything.
Not unless he had an abundance of silver to use on me that I couldn’t find, or Terry couldn’t locate. Then his feeble attempt at trying to kill me had been useless. By the expression on his face, a tight jaw and narrow eyes it wasn’t likely that he had other tricks he could play on me.
“She’s gone. Terry and Zoey are gone where you can’t get to them.”
My time with Aare proved to be useless. He no longer had anything that could hurt me and killing him for the sake of killing wasn’t something I was prepared to do at this time. He was beaten and it would take time for him to gain strength.
I needed to strengthen myself to find Zoey and change Terry, so she could be my watchman and protector for Zoey.
“Do you think it’s that simple? You take Zoey and Terry too and leave, especially since you have taken my throne from me? I needed Zoey at my side to convince the humans and vampires that we could live together,” Aare said in an unpersuasive tone.
“You and I know it’s an evasion. You would pretend to want peace with the kings and vampires of Europe, but that’s so you could conquer the world and sit on the throne of my father,” I said to him as he shook violently when he couldn’t get his way. It started when he became a teenager. Then he would go and kill anything that came across his path.
“What were you going to do with all that power? Let me answer that, you would have wasted it on those humans and Zoey,” Aare said. “Do you think she would ever have children for you?” He glanced at me as he walked around me. “Yes, that’s what you’re hoping for.”
I tried not to give myself away. I knew that would be my only chance to create a family of my own, and break the bonds of this murderous house known as Vesper.
“Do you know what you have hidden away in those towers? If even the vampires knew, they would put a stake in your heart,” I said with a hardening of my voice, “and I would help them.”
“And you’re not going to tell them,” Aare said. “But I have a surprise for you. Samantha is waiting and she will not be happy with what you’ve said to me. Last time I remembered you promised to marry her.”
“That was a hundred years ago. I think she knows better now,” I said carelessly.
“It wasn’t that long ago. Just a blink of your eye and a wave of my hand and you will never see Zoey again,” Aare said.
“And who’s going to stop me now? Remember I fed on that beautiful young girl and her blood is potent. I have gained my strength back and you can’t stop me,” I said with a smile.
“But on the contrary, I can.” I turned at the sound of a cool sexy voice. It was that of Samantha.
“Leave us, Aare.”
“Are you taking orders from a witch, Aare? What spell did she put on you that she could order you around?” He glared at me with hooded eyes. His grey eyes had sadness to them. He looked like that little boy who had killed a small animal when he was young, and mother wanted to punish him by taking away his dog. But eventually he killed the dog he claimed he loved.
She must have done something sinister to control the likes of Aare—a cold demonic creature without a soul. That would make her more dangerous than he, I thought.
“It was the same spell I put you under when I first met you. Remember?” she said walking to me and dragging her long painted black nails down the side of my face. I stood glaring into her black eyes. Then she sauntered around me touching me with her finger tips burning my skin, and Aare watching with satisfaction left the room. Maybe he left because he saw what was in his future for making a pact with this she devil.
“Do you remember when we first met? You couldn’t get enough of my body. It was in Spain, remember, when you returned with all that delicious gold from the Incas. You met me at a party with Don Pedro. I was his mistress then, but the minute you saw me you couldn’t resist me.”
I glared at her as if I had eaten tainted blood. The thought of having had sex with her left a bad taste in my mouth that lasted hundreds of years.
“That was before I learned what you were,” I said moving away from her.
“You didn’t care. Your youth, your hard cold manhood and your lust for blood had you bedding every willing young woman from one continent to another.
“You enticed me into your bed and if I had known...”
“But I knew what you were and I didn’t mind. You bed me that night and tried to turn me. I should have let you.”
“You couldn’t stop me. Your blood was contaminated by your evil deeds remember, and that’s how I discovered what you were. You were trying to pass yourself off as a virgin and I was too young to know better.”
“Yet you continued to visit me and fuck me.” I frowned. “What you don’t like that word. It is what you did. Do you want to say you made love to me, well you didn’t. You fucked me that night and the next and the next. You couldn’t get enough of me. Your cold manhood fell into me and I satisfied you. But I made the mistake of falling in love with you,” she said.
“You can’t love me. You can’t love anyone.” I heard her hard breathing and I knew she was upset.
In that second she closed her eyes and a large iron candle stick came rising and falling in my direction. I caught it in midair.
“I can love, but you won’t let me.” I heard the desperation and weakness of her voice. What do you want? To see Zoey. Well I can be her,” she said. Her voice soft and low. I followed the contours of her youthful created body. The gown she wore, red and sheer. She stood looking in my eyes and then she closed her eyes chanting.
“Stop it. You can’t be her,” I shouted. Samantha didn’t listen to me she said over and over words that confound me, but words I had heard the Inca’s chant. Then before my eyes she stood before me as Zoey.
In Zoey’s voice she said, “Why do you want anyone but me. You can have whatever your heart desires. I’m yours and I will never leave you. I can be whomever you want and whomever you’ve ever wanted. Sleep with me and you will never have to worry about Zoey again.”
Smiling, she took my hand, and led me to the bed as she continued chanting. She stood before me naked and I shouted to her, “Stop it. You aren’t Zoey. You will never be her and I will never love you. There will be only one woman for me.”
“I know and that will be me. I will find her, and I will kill her, and you won’t be able to stop me. And I will kill all her babies. You will never have the half human half vampire you seek from her. They will never live long enough to have a soul.”
Rushing to her, I held her face. “What are you saying?”
“She will have your babies, but they will never be born, and if she has another for any human I will kill them also.”
“What other human is there? Zoey loves me and she will never have a baby from anyone but me.” Samantha had gotten to me. She had ignited that lifeless, cold part of me. “What if I kill you now?” I said with her smiling back at me as I held her face in my hands. I could put an end to her now and crush her head, but I stared at her. A face like Zoey. I became lost for a moment, and I didn’t want to hurt her because her eyes were Zoey, her mouth was Zoey. However, my senses took hold of me and I broke from her spell.
“I can crush you with my two hands and you will never worry Zoey again.”
“Go ahead. Try.” And Samantha laughed, a sinister high pitched one, and she disappeared through my hands, beneath her sheer red gown, and all I saw was the fabric of the gown pooling on the floor at my feet, and the only thing remaining were the ashes and smoke she left behind.
Did Samantha know where to find Zoey? She said that she will kill my offspring?” But then she said something about someone else. Who is it person Zoey will love after me. I had to find Zoey and him because my future and my destiny depended on her.