Authors: Samantha Towle
Then I feel it. The electric force that I always feel when I touch him. canourse I But now it’s in the air, all around me. And it’s powerful. Controlling everything in its reach, moving, shifting.
It stops as quickly as it started, and it’s like all my senses have just been switched back on with full force, and I just know. I know what Zeff is.
All the blood drains from my head. Dropping the knife, I stumble backwards, stunned. I feel like I’ve just been punched in the face.
“H-how did you hide this from me? How did I not know?”
“I know you’ve got questions,” he placates, raising his hands in that way he does.
I’ve got questions? No fucking kidding.
“Just tell me who are you – really?” I cry at him, breathless.
He sighs a slight sound, then takes a step forward, lifting his chin, his dark eyes meet with mine. “My real name is Matthias Demetrius Vélez. But you’d know me better as an Original.”
Chapter 18: Broken
I come alert to the sound of an engine and being in a car.
The night’s events smash into my head with full brunt force. My eyes flick open.
I’m in Zeff’s car and he’s driving.
Well, Zeff or Matthias, or whatever the hell he’s called. He’s kidnapping me. He knocked me out and he’s kidnapping me.
Fuck!
This is it.
My worst nightmare has finally happened. I’m trapped in a car with an Original and he’s going to force me to have sex with him and make evil babies and … oh God, oh God, I can’t breathe.
“Are you okay?” he asks in a low voice, sensing I’m awake.
I sit myself up, straighter.
“You’re asking me if I’m okay?” my voice comes out reedy.
“Yes. I’m asking you if you’re okay.” He makes it sound like a dumb question.
Shifting sideways in my seat, I push my hair roughly off my face, putting my back flush with the car door, basically putting as much space between him and me as possible.
“I’ve been attacked by vampires for the second time in a week, and then–” I catch my breath, disbelieving the words I’m about to say. “Find out you are one half of the–the …”
I can barely even bring myself to say it. “ ...
Original’s
– and then you knock me out and kidnap me!”
I’m panting for breath, my voice hitched up in pitch. “So I’d say – no! I’m not fucking okay!”
Well if I’m going down, I’m going down fighting, just like he taught me.
Taking his eyes off the road he casts a glance at me, “I didn’t knock you out.”
He’s laughing. He finds this funny. I clench my hands into fists in my lap. His laugh ceases the second he sees my look of contempt and complete and utter hatred.
He clears his throat. “You fainted, right after I told you who I was. So rather than leave you lying there in the alley, I thought the gentlemanly thing to do would be to pick you up and bring you to my car.”
“But you’re not a gentleman, are you?” I bite.
“I’ve never given you any reason to think other, Bunny.”
“Stop calling me that!” I cry. “You have no right to call me that!”
He stares at me for a long moment. I hold his stare. My chest, heaving up and down.
Finally, he looks back to the road ahead. I see his grip tighten on the steering wheel.
“I’m sorry you had to find out that way.” His voice is low.
“Sorry I found out at all more like! Before you got to have your wicked way with me under the guise of being someone else!”
I feel cheated and betrayed. Humiliation burns through me.
I can’t believe I let myself feel that way for him for more than a second. I’m a complete fool.
He looks at me again, his eyes harder now. “I said I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did and I mean it. That aside, I wasn’t trying to trick you into anything.”
I wrap my arms tight, around my cold chest. “Yeah, sure you weren’t.”
“So you did want to kiss me then, back at the club when we were dancing?”
“What?! No!” I look at him, flabbergasted.
Rage and embarrassment are burning up my cheeks. He stares back at me steadily.
What I really want him to do is stop looking at me and put his eyes back on the road. But it doesn’t seem to be of any consequence to him. Then, he is a powerful creature. His powers go way and above mine. He could probably drive this car with his eyes closed.
“I wanted to kiss you … ” He pauses. “I
want
to kiss you.” His voice is steady.
“Are you bloody insane! Stop talking to me and look at the fucking road!”
I don’t want his burning eyes on me. I feel confused and flustered every single time he looks at me. And right now I just need balance, and to see logic. Tonsanytt and tons of logic.
He pulls his eyes from mine to the road. I hear a slight chuckle escape him. “God, I love you.”
My head whips around. I stare at him, dumbfounded.
I don’t know if that was one of those things he didn’t mean to say, but did. Well whatever it was, he said it and now it’s out there.
“Love me?! You don’t even know me!”
“Yes I do. Better than you care to admit.” That’s it, end of, apparently. Well not for me.
“Have you lost your mind completely?!” I yell at him.
“Over you, yes.” He looks at me steadily again.
My heart drops off the radar.
“We’re not talking with about this!”
I grip my head in frustration. I feel like I’ve stepped out of reality and straight into the fucking Twilight Zone.
“Yes, we are.” Pause. “I know you feel the same. I know you love me.”
“No!” I cry, rounding on him. “I don’t love you! I’ve only ever loved one person, really and truly, and you are not him and never will be!”
I know I’ve wounded him. I can see it on his face. Good.
“I’m just sorry I ever fucking met you! Tragically fucking sorry!”
He says nothing.
My heart is raging a storm in my chest. I know I should be panicking right now, but anger is crippling all my other senses, blinding me to anything else. And his declaration of love has done little to help the situation.
I can’t believe him. I just can’t bloody believe him! What the hell is going on? My mind is reaming with possibilities of what’s going to happen to me, but I just can’t get it all to configure properly.
He’s an Original. The one who is out to hurt me. But he’s had ample opportunity to do just that, to do anything to me – a full week's worth. I’ve slept in his house. But he hasn’t once done anything to hurt me. If anything he’s helped me. Endlessly. He saved my life. And now he’s telling me he loves me.
Nothing about any of this is making sense.
But then he’s been around for four hundred years, he’s one half of the most powerful creatures on this planet. I’m sure he’s learnt a trick or two about deceiving people and getting them to do exactly what he wants.
He could just be saying these things to trick me. Get me to do what he wants in the easiest way possible. No fights. Just a clueless, lonely Alex, so desperate to fill the void that Nathan left in me.
But it doesn’t feel like Zeff. It doesn’t seem his style. But then really, what do I know about his style. Because he’s not Zeff, the guy I thought I knew. He’ ask>
And I need to be afraid of him.
Very afraid.
Then it kind of thuds into my head.
He is four hundred years old. Four-bloody-hundred-years-old.
I slide nervous eyes over to him. His face is calm, eyes on the road.
It’s so strange; he looks no older than thirty. But to have lived that long … I can’t even imagine the things he’s seen, or done. Actually, I don’t want to imagine any of what he’s done; I can’t see any of it being good.
Well, apart from helping me that is.
He’s Zeff. The nice guy who cooks me dinner and teaches me to fight, and shows me how to shoot guns. He helped me shift. He’s helped me to become a better version of what this life had left me with.
No. He’s not Zeff.
I have to stop thinking of him that way. That’s how he’ll trick me into doing what he wants.
He is Matthias. An Original. A monster.
And then all my anger and confusion shrinks as the reality of my situation finally sinks in.
I start to panic.
Complete and utter fear ripples through my blood.
“What are you going to do with me?”
My words are weak, my voice small. I know I sound like a victim but I don’t stand a chance against him. I just saw him take out four vampire’s single-handed, in a matter of seconds. My life is in his hands now. And whatever he chooses to do with it, will happen, that I know for sure.
He slides me a look. “Are you asking what I want to do with you, or what I am going to do with you?”
Is he joking? I’m not sure. I can’t get anything from his even tone or blank expression.
No, he’s not joking. He can’t be. He means it in the worst way possible. That’s the only thing it can be.
Fear ripples through me like a quick shot of adrenaline, straight to the heart.
I need to get out of this car.
Now.
I spin in my seat and pull on the door handle. It’s locked. I yank hard, but it won’t open. In blind panic, I start banging on the door with my hands, but it won’t budge. Is it iron plated or something?
“Calm down,” he says.
I’m not calming down for all the tea in fucking china. I need out of this car. Then I realise my only option is the window. If I smash through it, I can dive out. I’ll make the fall, but it’ll cut me up pretty badly with the speed he’s driving.
The injuries will slow me down until I heal, but I still might be able to outrun him. Anything’s better than staying put and enduring what I’m sure he and his brother have planned for me.
And, well, if he catches me, then at the very least I’ll know I tried to get away.
I clench my fist and pull my hand back. Closing my eyes for the inevitable shattering of glass. I punch it hard.
“Fuuuuck!!” I cry out, holding my hand to my chest with my other hand. I’m pretty sure it’s broken, which is the only thing that is. The glass is still intact.
“It’s bulletproof glass, Bunny. You can’t break it.”
“Arggh!” I cry out in pain and frustration. Tears squeezing out of the corners of my wincing eyes.
“Let me look at your hand.” He reaches out to me.
“Don’t touch me!” I cry, moving away. “Don’t you dare
touch
me. Ever again.”
“Bunny…” he placates softly.
“No! I won’t be what you want me to be! I won’t be your baby maker! I’d rather die than become that – so just fucking kill me now, because if you don’t, then I’ll do it the second I get a chance!”
He slams the breaks on the car. The force brings my head forward. I have to drive my feet down in the foot well to keep the rest of me on my seat.
Then it’s suddenly eerily silent. Only the rumble of the engine ticking over can be heard. That, and the sound of my ragged breath pumping my chest up and down, and my heart that’s setting a battering ram against my ribcage.
I’m not sure what is about to happen next. Either way, I know it’s not going to be good.
For one, or both, of us.
Chapter 19: The Truth
I lift my heavy head. Keeping a hold of my painful hand against my chest, I try to steady my breathing.
I don’t know if my hand is broken or fractured, but I do know I’m going to have to ride the pain out until it heals. Which shouldn’t be too long. Hopefully.
“How’s your hand?” he asks. His voice sounding ridiculously gentle for his size.
I look at him through my veil of hair. His eyes are set, with complete focus on me.
“Fine,” I reply, gruf anytt up and df.
“I don’t want to fight with you.” He pauses, blowing out a resigned breath. “And I don’t want you to be afraid of me. I thought it was plainly obvious what I want from you. And it isn’t for you to become my ‘baby maker’. I just want to keep you safe. Nothing more.”
I open my mouth but nothing comes out. Just the breath I feel like I’ve been holding forever.
He takes his eyes off me, looking past, he stares out of the window screening the night.
“I’m not here for that. I never was. And I never intended to fall in love with you, either,” he adds quietly. “I just–” Shaking his head, he exhales heavily and brings his dark eyes back to my light ones. “I just want to protect you, keep you safe from the ones who do mean you harm. I thought you would see that. I’ve been with you a week and I haven’t touched you, once. I’ve done nothing to hurt you. All I’ve done is try to help you become a stronger, more equipped Vârcolac – doesn’t
that
tell you everything you need to know?”