Authors: DD Prince
She was famished. She ate the food, while watching a chick flick movie on TV, hoping the movie would settle her stress levels. She didn’t know where Tristan was or if he could feel her or not but she was okay and didn’t want to send him a message that said she wasn’t.
So, she got lost in a story about 20 something bridesmaid dresses and finally tasted the brownie. It tasted precisely the same as he’d tasted the other night but it was the perfect accompaniment for such an indulgent romantic comedy and kind of brought closure, in a strange way, from the other night. She wondered if Tristan knew the significance when he baked those brownies. The bridesmaid found her happily ever after at the end and Kyla was hopeful that she’d find a happily ever after, too, but how realistic was that? Life wasn’t usually a chick flick. Life didn’t usually have vampires and magic blood and entrancing. Well, obviously it did, though, for her.
~~~
She woke up feeling Tristan climb into bed. He reached for her and pulled her to his warm naked chest. It felt so good.
“Sorry I was gone so long. Work stuff. Was everything okay?”
“Fine,” she answered and nuzzled in. She felt his muscles relax.
“Sam came in,” she added.
“By himself?”
“No, with Joe. But Joe stayed by the door. But Sam motioned for me to just stare.”
“Good. I levelled with him this afternoon. He knows.”
“You weren’t afraid he’d try to…you know…”
“No. He pressed me for information. At first I tried to deny it but he knew something was off with me, which is unsettling. Then you walked into my office and my hands were tied. He cornered me after we last spoke. To be honest it was an enlightening conversation. He knew more about the legends than I did when he and I talked. He’s been a vampire for 43 years longer than I have. He has some knowledge that I think can help us and has close ties with an elder who could be a huge help.”
“Oh?”
“Don’t worry about any of it tonight. We’ll talk some more about it. Is that okay? Tomorrow. Right now, I just want to block out the world, forget everything but us. I had kind of a bad night. Is that okay?”
“It
so
is…” She reached up and tangled her fingers into his hair, feeling like she was about to come unglued at just the thought of him being inside her. When their lips connected she felt something she could never remember ever feeling. It was like she was totally and completely at home.
He kissed her tenderly all over her face, her arms, her stomach, slowly, every once in a while looking up and saying things with his eyes that felt like a love song, a serenade. She knew she was, to use his words, smitten, totally, and totally seduced and putty in the hands of the gorgeous vampire prince who, whether by chemical reaction or otherwise, had cracked her self-made protective shell.
As he drank she decided she would bleed for him on purpose, gladly. As he kissed her she felt like she existed for him. It was a notion that scared the shit out of her. Did this bond make her weak? It definitely made things dangerous. When he drank from her this time it was akin to warm maple syrup oozing through her veins. She felt protected, safe.
After slow and passionate sex she was exhausted but peckish.
“Any of those chocolate brownies left? They were awesome.”
“Yeah, lots left. I’ll get you some.”
“Wait, there was one thing that could’ve made them better.”
“Really? What?”
“Ice cold milk.”
Tristan smiled, flashing dimples and dashed out of the room at near lightning speed and then returned a moment later with a tray of them and two tall glasses of milk.
Kyla turned on the lamp and they curled up together in bed and snacked on them.
“Did you make these on purpose?” she asked with a sad look on her face.
“What do you mean? You said you love chocolate?”
She shook her head, “Nevermind. I do.” She didn’t want to spoil the moment by reminding him about the other night.
“Tell me more about you,” she said.
“Well…I’m a bloodthirsty vampire. What else do you want to know?” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“I’m serious!” She smacked his arm playfully.
“So am I.” He looked off into space, “That’s all I’ve been… for years.” His eyes looked empty.
Kyla chewed her bottom lip, “What about before?”
“Before?” He brightened a little, “I was driven in the kitchen and had a promising future in the culinary arts. I wanted to open a restaurant. I loved sports. I played rugby and lacrosse. I was a good athlete, good in school, I had lots of friends, plenty of hobbies.”
“Girlfriends?”
“Plenty of girlfriends,” he smirked, then stretched and yawned and then put his arm around her. She laughed at the a-typical teenage boy move.
“So tell me about how you became a vampire.” She dunked her brownie into his glass of milk as hers was gone. He gave her a teasing indignant look and then looked thoughtful for a moment,
“I was at a bar with my buddies for my 25
th
birthday. I got picked up by a girl who offered herself to me as a birthday present and she was gorgeous and I was single so I left with her.”
“You get a lot of female birthday presents, do you?”
He smirked, “Hmm, seems so. Half way through sex she reveals her fangs to me. I was flipped right out, bent on getting the hell outta there but then four guys burst in and held me down. She bit into her hand, and then shoved it into my mouth. It went from feeling like I was ready to puke to devouring it, like it was the best thing I’d ever tasted. ‘Till you,” he reached for her hand.
Kyla wiped chocolate from the corner of her mouth with a tissue, “Wow.”
“I blacked out. When I woke up I was surrounded by vampires and thought I was a dead man. Then they explained to me that I was one of them, that I’d someday be their leader. My grandfather, who I never knew, had been their leader until he died a few months before. I was already part vampire and never knew it; he’d impregnated my maternal grandmother and she died giving birth to my mother; that’s the reason I gave you that shot --- to make damn sure I couldn’t get you pregnant and hurt you,” he took a deep breath, “I’d been watched and tracked up until my 25
th
birthday and then it was time for them to begin grooming me because I was some sort of super vampire. Born part vampire instead of just being turned. I had always been strong, hardly ever got sick, excelled at everything I did. It was the genes, the vampire genes. It’s not what you’d think in terms of the whole royalty thing. More like a guardian. There are appointed vamps in most countries who make decisions, protect everyone. Someone strong, smart, you know?”
She nodded. “Was the transition hard?”
“So hard. Imagine everything you know changing in a heartbeat. I guess you
can
imagine that, huh? Then imagine on top of all of that finding out you aren’t who you thought you were. You’re someone else and you’ve been watched your whole life.”
He got up and looked out the window and was contemplative for a moment, “Enough about me for now. Tell me about you, about growing up. About why you have that personal bubble of steel that your roommate talked about.”
“That’s surrounded by a molten lava moat and protected by a fire-breathing dragon?” She laughed, wondering what else Daisy had said to him.
“That sounds about accurate,” he chuckled and lay back down on the bed and gathered her close.
“Well, I don’t know who I am, really. I’m just a product of my upbringing. I only just barely remember my parents. I remember a few times together more than remember them. I vaguely remember a woman with a kind face on a park bench telling me that they wouldn’t be coming back and that they were going to find me a new Mommy and Daddy. I think I became very withdrawn and maybe that’s why I was never adopted. I moved around a lot in the first few years. I had some bad experiences in the foster care system. I didn’t have anyone looking out for me.
My case kept getting shuffled from social worker to social worker, too. No one stood up for me when I was little and when I got into my teens I rebelled and got into a few clashes with foster parents and other kids in the system so I wound up in group homes instead of foster homes and those were so impersonal and cold. I guess I built a wall.
Every time I trusted someone I got the shaft so trust just doesn’t come easy. When I turned 18 I was out on my ear. They subsidized my income for the first few years so I could be on my own and I did that for a while but then I moved in with my boyfriend.” Kyla started to choke up.
Tristan squeezed her close and rubbed her shoulder.
“Big mistake. Jackson was from the system like me. He sorta got me. But he loved to party. He sold drugs and did b&e’s and stuff and got progressively into harder drugs. He and I went from smoking pot together and giggling in front of the TV every night to me being pissed off all the time and him becoming a full-on addict --- doing pills, crack, whippits, whatever he could get his hands on for a high.
He got in trouble with the police. Like, a lot. I was a mouthy little thing. Shocker, right? He and I used to have awful screaming matches, usually about him coming home with a stolen stereo that he’d bought with grocery money, letting his scuzzy friends sleep on our couch, or spending our rent money on dope.
I broke up with him after a big fight one night when one of his buddies, someone barely a friend, climbed into our bed and started molesting me while Jackson was passed out in his own vomit on the bathroom floor. They’d just broken into a vet clinic and stole drugs together and he let me down by leaving me vulnerable like that. The guy almost raped me. It was horrible. I dumped Jackson for it.” She took a deep breath, “He jumped off a bridge right after that. They said he was brain dead. The plug got pulled. They said they found all kinds of drugs in his system and that he probably tripped out but it felt like my fault. He told me he couldn’t live without me and I laughed in his face and told him to go take a flying fuck and then I left. I never saw him awake again,” she started laughing and crying at the same time, “Who would’ve thought he’d actually take a flying fuck off a bridge? I say terrible things when I’m mad.”
“It’s not your fault he did all those drugs,” he lifted a tear off her cheek with his index finger and tasted it.
“No, but,” she frowned at him and wiped her eyes, “I saw him in the hospital once and when I found out they were going to pull the plug I ran. I decided to start over somewhere new after that. I didn’t want anyone’s pity and our friends…some would blame me. Just decided to get out of there, make sure I make something of my life so I moved here, worked my ass off, kept to myself, and had planned to go to college in another year to get a degree and make something of my ‘not much of a’ life. I was working toward that when I became your birthday present.”
He winced, looking guilty for his careless ‘not much of a life’ comment. “I’m glad you came here. I’m sorry you went through that but it means we got to meet.” he kissed her softly on the temple and wiped another tear from her cheek with his thumb and put his thumb in his mouth.
“Weirdo,” she laughed.
“I want to take your tears away,” he shrugged.
Kyla’s heart warmed, “I’m glad we got to meet, too. But yeah, that’s quite a story too, though, huh? I clearly don’t just have normal hook ups and break ups, Tristan. And that scares me about us, especially with what you’ve told me about the danger we’re in.”
“Let’s not think about that right now. Let’s take a break. It’ll all be there to deal with tomorrow.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me.”
He kissed her and pulled her close. She hadn’t said Jackson’s name out loud since leaving the hospital that day. She couldn’t believe that all those thoughts and feelings had tumbled out of her like that.
“Mmm, peach cobbler,” she mumbled.
“Hmm?” He kissed her again.
“That kiss, tasted like peach cobbler.”
“Not brownies?”
“Nope.”
“That’s weird.”
Kyla smiled, “You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Your kisses. They always taste like dessert. The taste varies but it’s very addicting. You smell like dessert, too.”
“That’s weird,” he said.
“I thought it was part of the mesmerizing thing. Since I’m a sugar junkie you’ve been using that to your advantage.”
“I had no idea. You smell and taste good, too. Like sunshine. And melons. Wait, thousand calories?”
“Yes!”
“Ah, now I get it. What does this one taste like?” he kissed her passionately, his tongue caressing hers and sending tingles all through her body. She felt like she was melting.
“Uhhh, cherries. And cheesecake.”
“And this one?” he kissed her again, sliding his tongue in once again.
“Tiramisu, I think…” she groaned.
“I bet you like Tiramisu, don’t you?” he said huskily and kissed her chin.
“You bet your ass I do. Coffee in your dessert? What could be better?”
“And this one?”
“Still tiramisu. You’re gonna make me fat. And jittery.” She laughed and poked him in the chest accusingly.