Authors: Claire C Riley
“Then please, please Queen, let me die,” I sob, tears breaking free from my eyes and trailing down my cheeks. I cover them with the palms of my hands.
“Is this really what you want, Mia?” She moves forward as she speaks, until her shadow falls over me.
I nod numbly. “Yes. Please, just let me die…” I weep, my eyes closed tight. “Yes. I don’t know why you saved me in the first place. Just end this misery, please.”
“Very well then. If that is really what you want.” Her footsteps come closer.
“Is there anything else that you want to say, Mia?”
I shake my head in a no and she continues. “Keep still now. This will only hurt for a moment.” She reaches out a pale hand to me, her nails long and dangerous.I stiffen at the sound of her voice so close to me, both grateful and frightened.
“No, don’t. Please, my Queen, please don’t take her from me!” Mr Breckt’s voice shouts out, and my head looks up sharply.
I feel a prick on the back of my neck and realise that it is the Queen’s fingernail. She looks down at me with a twisted smile.
“I said keep still.” Her eyes shimmer with dark glee as she watches the emotions pass over my face. The horror as I realise that he is still alive.
I push away from her and climb up from my knees and look to where I had heard his voice. “Why is he still alive?” It’s Mr Breckt, but not as I know him. His face is twisted, melted away in parts, bone showing through. His hair flakes away from his skull in chunks, blood and gore drip down what is left of his face. My breath catches in my throat and my eyes widen. “How is he alive?”
His eyes widen in brazen lust at the sight of my naked and blood covered body and I reach for the blanket once more, covering myself from him.
“Don’t look at me like that, Mia.” He pleads and looks away, lowering his chin to his chest. Skin slides from his cheek, exposing more bone underneath.
“Why? I don’t care what you look like. I just want you dead.” My hands clench and un-clench by my sides.
“Don’t say that. I only ever wanted you to love me.” His voice cracks and his eyes stray to the floor, unwilling to look me in the face.
“Love you? Love you? I hate you…Mr Breckt!” I bite my words out. I hope that he feels every painful word. I charge at him, but am grabbed just short of reaching him. “I hate you, do you understand that?” I spit at his feet, and his face cracks in anguish.
“Well, it seems that we have a problem, doesn’t it? You want to die, Mia, but Robert wants you to live. You want him to die, but I need him to live. Quite the conundrum.” The Queen steps between us, eyeing Robert up. “You see, Mia, Robert is very important to me. He’s a very powerful member of my army. However…” She turns to look at me. “He has been very bad. Perhaps we can come to some agreement on his life?”
My eyes stay glued to the nightmare before me. Even now, my hatred grows for him, building up into a volcano of rage.
“If it means he dies then I’ll do it. Whatever it is.”
Mr Breckt looks up sharply to me. One eye is cloudy and hanging out of its correct place, the bone that holds it in position exposed. His good eye fills with blood whilst his lips turn up in a snarl.
The Queen eyes us both up. “He dies…”
I nod eagerly. “Yes…”
“But you live…”
My shoulders slump. Will I never get to be with Oliver?
“And you work for me…forever.”
“No!” Both Mr Breckt and I shout in unison. Our eyes meet.
Why doesn’t he want me to work for her? My eyes narrow at him. He’s still trying to control me, control my life. I swallow, my throat parched from the fire and fear, and I turn to the Queen. “Fine,” I reply. The word comes out a whisper.
I would rather work for the Queen—and whatever that entails—than let him think that he has any control over me. That he has any hand in the choices that I make. I know that the Queen is evil and I feel something leave—the final piece of my humanity slipping away as a darkness builds within me.
What else can I do? I want him to die. I want him to pay for what he’s done.
“No, Mia. You don’t know what you’re saying.” He pulls his arms from Ava’s grasp. Even with his injuries, he’s still stronger than she is. He comes towards me in a rush, his aura swirling around him angrily. The Queen holds out her arm, gracefully pushing it against his chest and sending him flying to the floor. He lands in a heap, crying out as he clutches an arm to his side. The sound of bones breaking is unmistakable.
“She has chosen, Robert.”
The Queen turns to me with a smile. If I thought Mr Breckt was depraved and merciless, he is nothing compared to her. Pure evil emanates from her.
I look her in the eyes, my stare deadpan. “You don’t scare me.” My body is feeling stronger by the second—from adrenalin, anger, or a blood buzz I don’t know.
A smile spreads slowly across her hard porcelain face. She knows me, who I am becoming, and she likes it.
“I have one condition.” My words come out flat.
A fingernail rubs along her plump bottom lip, and I see for the first time her teeth. They all seem to be fangs, a mouthful of tiny terrifying teeth. Every one of them is sharp and dangerous.
“What is it?” Her eyes gleam.
I look at Mr Breckt. He’s watching me pitifully from the floor. He isn’t healing; the gore and bone still protrude from his face and body. His eyes are a sad, painful reminder of everything that he has taken and destroyed for his own selfish benefit.
There is nothing left of the former me to stop the hatred that free-flows through my veins now. Mr Breckt has taken it all from me and destroyed the Mia that I was. All I have left is the shell of the person I used to be.
“Make him suffer.” My voice is cold and heartless and the blackness explodes inside me. A new me being born.
She smiles slyly, each tiny pointed tooth glinting under the bright lights. “With pleasure, Mia.”
You know that scene in a movie, where the incredibly hot-looking girl walks into the coffee shop, bar, or whatever setting it is. She is beautiful. So, so beautiful. Her legs go all the way up to her armpits, her hair like a long black mane of silk down her back. It shines like a deep black ocean as she sweeps it off her shoulder. She has eyes that sparkle as they scan the room, looking for what she wants. For whom she wants.
Her chest moves from the swell of her breasts, and her hips sway with every graceful step that she takes. Someone even drops a cup, and it smashes unceremoniously in the background. For this woman—this goddess—has beauty that is so unparalleled to anything that they have seen before.
And she knows it. I mean she really knows it. She knows that everyone is looking at her, and she doesn’t care. She’s so badass that it doesn’t even blip on her radar.
Well, that’s me. I am that girl.
Mia Lawrence.
Trapped forever in time by my now deceased maker, Robert Breckt. What should I do with my life? My Un-life? Re-life? I’m not sure what to call it. I don’t know much anymore. Everything I thought I knew has gone.
My old life has been stolen, destroyed. My family, my friends—they can never know of me. Of what has become of me. I’ve had to let that life go. My future died the night that Mr Breckt killed Oliver. My soul was crushed and my heart broken. My mortality has left me. I’ve had to let that side of me die. My past is gone, it’s nonexistent to me now. It has to be.
So what now? Now what do I do? I have an eternity to figure it out. But do I want to figure it out? Do I want to carry on as if everything is okay, as if everything is going to be okay? Can things ever be good again?
I’m a blood-sucking vampire for crying out loud—of course it can. And if it isn’t okay, I’m going to kill whoever tries to ruin it for me.
Because I can do that now.
I’m a vampire.
A hunter.
A temptress.
I’m not going to be the good girl any longer.
She is an absorber vampire. She uses the strength of other vampires to make herself stronger. She only keeps the strongest around her for protection and to use their strength.
Vampires with powers. They are used to protect the Queen.
Average vampires, with your standard vampire abilities: strength, attractiveness, speed, etc.
Vampires that refuse to be enslaved by the Queen and so have escaped and attempt to free other vampires from her clutches.
Humans wanting to be vampires.
Claire C Riley is a Best Selling British Horror writer.
Her work is best described as the modernization of classic, old-school horror. She fuses multi-genre elements to develop storylines that pay homage to cult-classics while still feeling fresh and cutting-edge. She writes characters that are realistic, and kills them without mercy.
Claire lives in the UK with her husband, three daughters, and one scruffy dog.
Her works namely include, old school vampires and apocalyptic zombie ridden worlds, with several full-length books, and short stories to her name, with plenty more coming up in 2014.
Awards and Accreditations.
Odium. The Dead Saga
is a top
#100 dystopian
selling book on Amazon.com for 2013, ‘Indie book of the day’ winner December 2013 and ‘Indie Author Land 50 best self-published books worth reading 2013/14’
Limerence
featured book in the ‘Guardian newspaper for best Indie novel 2013’ and is currently a finalist for the eFestival of Words ‘best novel’ category.
Odium II The Dead Saga
is a
#1 Best Selling British Horror
book.
She is also a very proud contributor to the ‘Let’s Scare Cancer to Death’ charity anthology.
She can be stalked at any of the following
https://www.facebook.com/ClaireCRileyAuthor
http://bit.ly/clairecrileyamazon/
https://twitter.com/ClaireCRiley
https://www.google.com/+ClaireCRiley
By Claire C Riley
Best Selling British Horror Writer
(Sneak peak)
“Don’t play this
game with me, Evan. You know you’re going to lose this time.” I smirk and give him a playful wink.
“Oh, Little Mia,” Evan scoffs with a deep laugh. “Your confidence will be your downfall, pretty girl.”
Rocking back on my heels, my knees bent and ready to pounce, I laugh at his patronising name for me. I can’t stop the gleam in my eye no matter how much I want to.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
I roll my eyes at him. “Please, I was born ready—”
He jumps, his legs wrapping around my waist, and suddenly I’m beneath him, pinned to the floor by his hard body, my shoulders digging painfully into the crude stone flooring. His arm muscles twitch as they hold me in place and I try to fight him off, but he doesn’t budge and I scream in frustration.
“I wasn’t ready, damn it!”
Evan laughs again and I squirm even more. “You said you were born ready, did you not?”
I scream out loudly. “You cheated!” I kick my legs as hard as I can, my hands flailing out and beating against his rock-hard stomach as he releases them.
He leans over me, his chest pressing against mine as he battles to control my body.
“Get off me,” I scream in his face, my temper tantrum getting the better of me.
“Not until you say sorry.” It’s his turn to smirk now, which only infuriates me more.
“Sorry? For what?”
“For accusing me of cheating. I never cheat, Mia. Now if you won’t apologise, then I really must insist,” he pauses, “upon a kiss.” He smiles, knowing that I won’t be happy with either option.
“Just get off me, Evan, and we can start again. This time with no cheating.” I glare up at him, feeling hot under his gaze. His face is close to mine, making us almost nose to nose.
“Now, now, don’t be such a sore loser. A kiss or an apology, that’s all I want, then I’ll let you up and we can be in this same position in less than five minutes.” Evan roars with laughter.
Granted, my fighting skills don’t match his, but I’ve been training constantly for the past year, give or take, and I can kick some serious arse now. Evan has skilled me in various weapons, but for the most part it is hand to hand combat, though you wouldn’t want to hand me some knives without the fear of losing a hand. Even older, stronger vampires struggle fighting me, which is damn near impossible in this world, and Evan says that I am one of the best students he has ever had.
Considering Evan is my trainer, he’s obviously been holding back some moves—because no matter what, I can never beat him. I look up into his face, his skin tanned a golden brown, his dark brown eyes reminding me of melted chocolate. His dark hair is pulled back into a low ponytail and is hanging over one of his very large muscled shoulders, making him look every bit the sexy warrior that he is. I feel a pull in my stomach, a tightening and release, a flutter of butterfly wings, and heat rising to my cheeks. His face softens as he sees and probably senses the reaction I’m having. His tongue darts across his lower lip, all smiles gone now, leaving only a dark hunger on his face—a primal, sexual look.
I swallow, though I don’t need to; instincts are still there, and nervous instincts even more so. “Get off me, Evan.” The words leave my mouth with little to no conviction.
We are face to face, our eyes watching each other’s apprehensively. His body covers mine, smothering me to him like a sexual blanket, his grip on my arms never loosening. Breath from his mouth escapes through the gap between his lips and passes over my face. A tremor runs through me and I finally pull my hands free, breaking his intense stare. I wonder if he did it on purpose, or if it is still just a habit with him—to breathe.
He looks like he is about to kiss me and then I can feel his vampiric-self withdraw from me, closely followed by his body as he rolls away and stands in one swift movement. He holds a hand out for me to take, but I ignore it and stand without help, a little embarrassed by my reaction to him once again. It’s been like this for months: enjoying each other’s company, but being uncomfortable together at the same time. We are both tainted by our pasts and unwilling to move forward into the present, as if frozen in the final moments that we died. It doesn’t help that every emotion and feeling is heightened and exaggerated constantly.
“You are getting better, Mia.” Evan looks away from me, clearly embarrassed too.
“Thanks.” I wipe my brow with the back of my hand and smile sincerely. “It’s all to do with your amazing training.”
Yeah, that’ll help the situation: flattery.
He smiles and raises an eyebrow. “Amazing, eh?” The slight accent in his voice always makes me pause.
We have trained together for over nine months now, yet I still know nothing about him—not really. Vampire covens aren’t big on gossip, it seems. Or maybe I’m still too new to all this and am not included. I don’t know and I don’t really care, though I would like to know where he was originally from. He fascinates me: his strength, his size, his smile, his accent. The vampire in me uncurls with a lazy smile and I realise that I’m hungry.
“Amazing might be a stretch of the truth.” I roll my eyes at him with a small grin.
“You are a cruel woman when you want to be, Little Mia.” He smirks as he calls me by yet another pet name, and pushes my shoulder with one of his large rough hands. It stays on my skin for too long. We both pause and look to his hand on my flesh, the ghost of a frown eclipsing both of our expressions.
“I must leave. I have other things to be doing.” He frowns harder but doesn’t remove his hand. Though his voice has turned cold, his aura has not. I can see his confusion for the way I make him feel, whether he speaks it or not. The sexual desire between us is clear, yet we continue to fight it, guilt betraying us both.
“Me too.” I step back from him and his hand falls away, making the loss of his touch leave me cold. His hand was warm, like the breath leaving his mouth; it’s another trait that he has the power to control. He likes to pretend that he is human with his heat and breath; that is all I have learnt from him from our time together. His other powers still elude me, and he refuses to talk about what they may or may not be. The mystery surrounding him is deeply fascinating to me for some reason.
He looks uncomfortable, and begins to crack his knuckles noisily before averting his gaze from mine with what seems like embarrassment. The image would look strange on any grown man, but it looks stranger still on a man of his size: over six feet tall, with wide shoulders, tanned skin, and long dark hair.
My thoughts become muddled when I think of Evan, and my inner vampire loves it—
she
is desperate to be free and in total control. I turn on my heel without another word, grab my towel from the floor of the training room, and walk away, feeling suddenly so very tired and drained.
“I’ve told you to stop calling me Little Mia, Evan. There will be a day that I’ll have you on your back and you’ll remember that I’m not so little and weak after all,” I yell on my way out.
I hear his sharp intake of breath at my double meaning.
The vampire in me is harder to rein in when I’m tired. She wants to be let loose, to be free and wild. I swallow her back down and fight against her, willing her to go back to sleep. My eyes sting with blood-red tears as I dash to the showers.
She’s growing stronger.