I wake with a start and a thirst in the back of my throat.
Why is it so dark?
The next time I blink, I’m standing outside the mausoleum. Why on earth would I be down here in the catacombs? The memory tickles the back of my mind, but I can’t remember. It’s all… blank.
I need to find Atreyu and the others.
He’ll know what to do. He always does.
I think about mother and father, needing to find them and tell them how disgusting it is down here. We need to take care of every inch of our estate if we want to be taken seriously.
The Monreauxs are better than this.
As I walk down the hall, a dreadful feeling sets in my fangs, and I stop.
Something isn’t right.
Someone is here.
Rushing to the top floor, I bypass all the steps and I’m suddenly standing in the middle of my living room.
What the fuck?
“Atreyu!” I shout to figure out how I’m in one place one minute then another the next, but it isn’t the only thing I seek answers for. “Greyson! Uncle Luca?”
Silence replies, mocking my anxiety with tension.
The living room is a wreck.
It’s filled with dust, beams are broken and lying across the floor, some of them scorched. I tilt my head back and see a hole in the roof, moonlight casting down on me. I try to inhale to sift through memories through scent, but I can’t smell a thing.
My home is destroyed.
I run from the living room to the kitchen, to the bedrooms, but they are all the same. Empty and dilapidated. Where is everyone?
Why am I alone?
The sound of something humming outside captures my attention and I head to the window, well, where a window used to be. The porch sags and my heart begins to ache.
Something… bad has happened.
I don’t know what, but I’m all alone and the house is in shambles.
Grief washes over me.
What I’m grieving over, I don’t know. I just know I need to.
I wish I understood.
A vehicle comes to a stop in front of the house. The car is oddly shaped with a bed of some sorts attached to the back.
Hmm.
I try to scent the air again, but my attempt fails. My fangs throb though and my cock aches, filling to the point of pain. I watch from the window as a woman steps out of the weird looking car.
A human.
Immediately, I’m on defense.
Why?
She looks up at the house and smiles, the moon catching the fire in her wild locks of hair.
I hold my breath as I watch this woman walk up the creaking steps to my home. Anyone else, any other human, I’d tear from limb-to-limb, but this one is different. I want… I want…
My thoughts come to a halt when she steps through the doorway, the lantern making her eyes greener than summer grass, and she peers into the living room as if it’s everything she’s ever wanted.
“This is my home,” I speak clearly, ignoring the lust coursing through me. “You are trespassing. Leave.” I point toward the door again, but she pretends she can’t hear me.
Me!
Alexander Monreaux.
No one ignores me.
“Get out of my house at once,” I snarl, pushing aside my want for her.
“I can’t believe it,” she speaks, her voice sounding of honey and an easy flowing river.
Two of my favorite things. I love listening to the calm trickling of water drifting.
She’s a witch. She’s bewitching me with her voice. It makes sense with her odd car and flaming hair.
My talons free and I hiss, preparing to launch.
“It’s finally mine. After so many years, it’s mine. Oh, I have so many ideas. I need blueprints. I need to keep to the original plan. I wish I knew what it looked like before so many years have nearly ruined it. They have to be here.” She runs by me and into the kitchen, then again to bolt into the dining room, the lantern swaying back and forth. Her reckless behavior is on the verge of causing a blaze.
I curl my lip and stomp after the maddening intruder. “This is not your property. I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, but you need to leave!” I watch as she touches the broken chandelier on the floor, rubbing the dust and soot off the crystal. “I don’t know how that got there, but clearly I’ve been gone for too long. You need to stop touching things that aren’t yours.” But all I can think about are her hands touching me, running down my body because I want to be hers.
It’s ridiculous.
“I wonder what happened here,” she mumbles, placing a gentle hand on the wall as she floats to the next room connected to the foyer.
The library.
I follow after her, getting annoyed about the feelings coursing through me. I want her gone, but I want her here. Nothing is making sense. “Maybe you can tell me. Why is my home in shambles? Did you do this?” I want to kill her all over again.
A few books are strung across the floor, open, the pages face down. She lifts one up, the imprint of the book left behind on the dusty hardwood. She puckers her lips, red as a rose petal, and blows, sending debris everywhere. She coughs, then sneezes, her eyes watering.
Humans.
So weak.
I cross my arms as I watch her try to read it. She can’t. It’s in vampire language.
“Wow.” She rubs her fingers down the spine and I swear, I tremble. It’s like she caresses every vertebrae of mine as well. I can almost feel it.
I clear my throat, not liking how intimate this is starting to feel. “Miss, I think there has been a mistake. You need to go. This is my home and while I don’t understand any of this—” I run my fingers through my hair, a part of me worried I’ll never figure it out “—I am still here. Please, respect my wishes and go.” I tuck my hands in my pockets and head to the library door. I glance down, noticing piles of ash on the ground.
So many piles.
I step over one, being careful not to bother it.
“Like I said, there is the door, don’t let it hit you on the way out.” I try not to sound rude, but the bitterness can’t be contained.
This woman is a nuisance, standing there curious about my life and my home, looking as beautiful as the first snowfall in the winter. That doesn’t matter, she needs to get out.
She ignores me once again and I growl, a deep vibrating rumble that has made human men piss themselves in fear.
The woman begins to hum, dragging her fingers along the books lining the wall until she finds one that has the darkness inside me brewing to the surface.
She sits down on the worn chair in the corner, the expensive Victorian lounge I liked to sit on as I wrote in my journal…the same journal she has in her hand. The pages are bound in leather and the strings are tied around its body.
This witch places the lantern on the end table but ends up placing it on top of a book.
“Have you no manners? Who places objects on books?” The audacity.
She wipes the muck off the front cover, and she smiles as if she notices something. “Alexander Monreaux.”
I walk closer to her, kneeling on the floor and stare up at her curious face.
Who is this woman? Why does she call to me? The way she says my name, it’s as if she has known me forever.
“I am Alexander Monreaux. What is it that you want?” I ask gently, hoping my new tone sounds more welcoming.
Yet, she ignores me as if I’m not there.
“I feel like I’ve known you all my life. You have no idea how much I’ve dreamed about this moment.”
“What moment? I have so many questions, please,” I sound desperate as my voice breaks. “Help me understand why you are here.”
Help me understand anything.
She tugs on the strings of my journal to read before pausing. She inhales a shaky breath and looks around. I wave my hands as her green eyes pass right by me. “It doesn’t feel right reading it,” she states, wrapping the strings around the journal. She sets it back on the shelf between two books. “I know you’re dead, but it still feels like an invasion of privacy.”
“Dead? I’m right here! Stop ignoring me. Pay attention to me, damn it. Answer my fucking questions!” I yell, but she stands, wiping the dust off her waist overalls.
They are tight too, scandalous in a way I’ve never seen before. They hug every curve. From her hips to the lean muscle of her calves, I can’t look away.
My eyes fall to the shake of her ass, so round, so succulent. I could sink my fangs into the thickness of her cheeks and drink.
I shut my eyes and inhale, a slight rumble rattling my chest.
But what has me opening my eyes is how I can’t smell her blood. I nervously peer into every corner noticing she’s no longer in the room, but I catch a glimpse of her red hair as she takes a right down the hall.
“You menace. Where are you going now?” I follow the mysterious woman and she stops, cocking her head at a picture on the wall. The only one that is still hanging. The rest are in shambles on the floor. She gently plucks it free and takes the end of her shirt to clean off the glass.
She holds a hand over her mouth as she gasps.
“What is it?” I ask her, then roll my eyes at myself, as if she’ll actually answer me. I peek over her shoulder and grin. “Oh, yeah. That’s me. I graduated the top of my class. Master, my father, was proud. He’s around here somewhere. A human shouldn’t be here, you know. You’ve walked into a vampire den. You’re bound to get feasted on.” In more ways than one if she isn’t careful.
Just the thought of another vampire tasting her sweet blood has me ready to fight.
Why?
“Alexander Monreaux. You were very handsome. Look at that dark hair and your blue eyes… they are piercing. Your skin is so pale, like milk,” she says to me.
Well, to the picture.
Nearly the same.
“Hey, we aren’t all fair skinned. That’s just a myth. I got the pale genes from my mother,” I grumble, displeased that she thinks I’m pale. I’ve happened to enjoy the sun a time or two.
“Beautiful,” she whispers. “Why do I feel like I know you?” The green-eyed beauty asks the picture. “Why do I feel like I’m meant to be here?”
“I don’t know.” I steel myself as I squeeze my jaw tight. “But you don’t. This is no place for a human.” There’s a voice in the back of my head that is telling me she does belong here, that this is her home, but how can I welcome her when I don’t understand anything that is happening?
She holds the picture to her chest and a tear escapes from the corner of her eye. Not liking that she is crying, a woman so gorgeous should only ever smile, I reach up to wipe her tears away when my hand vanishes through her.
Gasping, she takes a step away from me, wide-eyed and fearful as she sets her sights everywhere but me.
I stare at my hand, stunned, and reach for her again, my hand disappearing once more.
“What. The. Fuck!” I scream at the top of my lungs so loud, the house begins to shake. Pieces of glass on the floor tremble, clanking against the ground.
Her red hair flows left and right as she seeks the force causing this, like she can’t believe what she’s witnessing. She traps the photo of me against her breasts as if it is a lifeline.
Nothing can save her from me.
She did this.
She is the reason why my home is ruined and why I am… this.
“Can you see me?” I grit through my fangs.
She doesn’t look at me. Tears continue to spill down the tops of her freckled cheeks.
I want to kiss them away while at the same time tear her to pieces and bathe in the warmth of her blood.
I raise my voice. “Can you hear me?”
The stranger rushes by me, without answering my questions, stepping on the piles of ash along the way.
A well of pure rage ignites inside me. “Do not step on those!” The boom of my voice quakes the house again and she rushes outside, jumping down the steps.
“Don’t ever come back,” I roar, banging my fists against my chest.
The car starts and she speeds away, leaving me aching in my own despair.
I want her to come back.
And I never want to see her again.
My knees become weak and hot searing agony rips me apart, stealing my breath. I fall, catching myself on the floor as I try to breathe.
There’s a pile of ash below me and I try to grab it, but I can’t.
A soul wrenching cry escapes me, one sounding more like a beast than a man. The moment she leaves the property, I succumb to the darkness that I’ve always feared.
