The Vampire Pirate's Daughter (19 page)

Andrew folds his arms around my waist and he
pulls me closer to him. He brings his head down and his hand around
and he lifts my chin with his fingers. Tears are running down my
cheeks – humans cry so easily.

He smiles sadly. “You don’t love me
anymore?”

I smile slowly. “I do. I really do.”

He asks, “But?”

I do not want to explain why there is a
‘but’, so I bring my lips to his. Softly I brush my lips across his
and I kiss him. The familiar feelings I used to have for him, come
rushing back. His kisses were always softer, alluring, whereas
Callum was more certain and knowledgeable, but always tempting.
Andrew pulls me closer to him, and his kisses are different, more
mature, not the tentative nervous kisses of a few years ago.

Claude comes walking into the kitchen and
he clears his throat loudly. He says apologetically, but I can hear
the laughter in his voice, “Do you kids need help in here? It got
very quiet and I thought I would come and see what’s
happening.”

I push away from Andrew hurriedly and
embarrassed I turn back toward the basin. I bang the plate against
the faucet by accident and am relieved when it does not break.

Claude says jokingly, but I can hear from his
tone that he is serious, “Young man, let me just warn you before
you start getting ideas. There is no going all the way until you
get married. We are all very old-fashioned around here. Do you
understand my meaning?”

Andrew answers embarrassed, “Yes, sir.”

Claude says, “Good. I am glad we understand
each other.”

Claude leaves the room and I say softly,
embarrassed, “Ignore him.”

Andrew laughs softly. “No way. You should
have seen the serious look in his face. He means it.”

I change the subject, “What did you mean? It
was difficult for you to get here?”

“I couldn’t get a Visa, because Mr. van
Heerden refused to sign the documents, but luckily I found out that
I have European ancestors.”

“You do?”

“Yes. I traced my family tree with the help
of Mrs. Van Heerden. Although we found definite proof that my mom
is dead, we could find no record of my father.”

“Mrs. Van Heerden was always nice.”

“I think sometimes, I miss her. I am glad
though to be gone from there.”

“I am sure you are. That Mr. van Heerden was
an absolutely intimidating person.”

Andrew laughs. “He sure was.”

We finish the dishes and Andrew convinces
me to go for a walk with him. We walk out into the night, and I
walk him past the graveyard of my mom and Francois. I tell him the
story of how my mom and William fell in love and how Francois
attempted to kill my mother, but then William saved her.

When I finish my story, Andrew sighs softly.
“That must be the most romantic story I have ever heard.”

We walk far and we talk about everything. He
tells me about school at home, about Carmine, and what he had been
up to since the last time I saw him.

When he kisses me goodnight, his dark eyes
look pensively into mine and the feelings I have for him are so
unpredictable, maybe soon I will realize that Andrew is what I
really need. The only thing I need.

We spend every day together and at night, I
lay against his chest while we spend time with my vampire family,
or we would just lay there and stare into the fire. I avoid
Callum’s cellar like the plague.

We bottle our fist harvest and the wine has
been aging in the wooden barrels for a while. The wooden barrels
have pores, which promote some of the chemical process. It is a
delicate process, because too much contact with air will spoil the
wine. Our first harvest is now at its peak of its flavor and
special care needs to be taken when the wine is bottled, so that it
is not exposed to dust or too much oxygen.

After it is bottled, we move it to another
section of the cellar and here it will stay in the cool, darkness
where it will ferment even further.

Andrew and I are perfect for each other, I
convince myself, because we are both human. In the history of my
ancestors, there has not been much luck in love. William’s dad was
a vampire and his mother, my grandmother was human, then to
complicate things even further, William, my dad, was a half-breed
vampire who fell in love with my mortal mother. None of them could
be together, they could not live together or spend their every
living moment with each other. Their relationships were doomed, but
here I now have an opportunity to fix all of that. I can have a
normal relationship. Andrew and I can get married and we can even
have children if we ever wanted them.

Andrew takes me for drives on the empty
streets late at night. I kiss his lips and when we are alone he is
charming and loving. I do not want to be alone as I grow old and my
small family remains young looking. If I was with Andrew, we could
grow old together and experience things together.

One moonless night we go outside after dinner
and we sit on the steps in front of the house. I lean back on my
elbows onto the stair behind me and Andrew joins me. I say
reverently, “I used to do this a lot when I was little.”

“Sit on the stairs?”

I laugh. “No, sit here and look up at the
stars.”

He looks up. “There are a lot of them.”

I smile pleased. “When the moon is new, the
stars do not have to compete with the moon, so you can see them
much better.”

We sit out there for hours just looking up
and later Amanda, Edward, Herman, Claude, Justin and Peter walk
down the stairs past us.

Claude says, “Behave yourself, young man.
I know everything. I have vampy-senses.”

Edward laughs loudly at Andrew’s expense.

I watch them walk across the driveway and
then across the lawn into the line of trees into the forest. They
look formidable and to be honest sometimes I do miss the excitement
and anticipation.

When they disappear into the forest, Andrew
says, “Let’s go in, I am cold and the stars are not that
fascinating.”

I pretend to be offended, but I follow him
into the house.

We go to the den and start watching a movie.
The flickering flames in the fireplace dimly light the den and I am
snuggled closely into him under his arm when I slide my hand in
under his t-shirt. I let my hand drift up and over his lean,
muscular chest and slowly he slides down the chair from his
upright-seated position. He turns toward me and then softly his
lips touch mine. He whispers against my lips, “Susie, I love
you.”

He pulls me toward him and I move closer into
him. He moves his lips to my hair, my forehead, my eyes, the tip of
my nose, before pressing his lips to mine again. When our tongues
touch, I feel my stomach drop. He moves his hands to my waist and
then he slowly pulls my shirt over my head. With his fingers, he
follows the chain he gave me down to the valley between my breasts
where the golden heart still sat snugly. I feel the warmth of his
hand travel with electrifying speed through my body and I moan
softly. He turns my body and I find myself lying half under him. He
pulls his shirt up over his head, his kisses become more demanding
and when his fingers lift the cups of my bra, I welcome them. I
sink deeper and deeper into the warm pool of ecstasy that flows
from my shoulders to the tips of my smallest toe.

Months of kissing and touching, pushing the
boundaries a little more each time has now let me to this point
from where I knew I could never return. This new body of mine feels
everything so much more clearly and every emotion is so much more
controlling over the parts of me that should be rebelling.

When his fingers reach down and slip my
panties down my legs, the realization of my nudity drives my
excitement over the edge. I taste his tongue, his lips and while we
are both whispering “Yes” softly, I open my eyes for a moment and
see the shadows from the fire dance on the ceiling above us. For a
second, I feel as if that very fire is consuming me. For a brief
instant, I want to stop, but I
also want it, I want it very much. I open myself to him and
he lifts himself forward and inward. I hold onto his shoulders,
pulling down on his back and join him in the irresistible wave that
makes me feel as if we are one entity. It becomes a single extended
kiss, a single extended embrace. Then he cries, “I love you, Susie.
I love you,” while I muffle my own cry in his shoulder.

We stop moving and hold onto each other while
we wait for our pounding hearts to slow down.

It all happened so quickly and there was no
time for me to reconsider, and maybe I would not have gone back
once it started. I welcomed him, the feeling of belonging, of love
and tenderness, the feeling of being completely human, so when the
tears run down my cheeks, I cannot understand the sudden
overwhelming sadness that fills me.

The next day Andrew makes breakfast, two
fried eggs and crispy bacon. We eat and then we go for a walk. He
takes my hand in his as we walk away from the château. We do not
talk for the longest time, and when we eventually get to a grouping
of trees on the edge of the river, we sit down next to the
water.

I used to dip my feet into the water, any
season of the year, but now I fold my feet in under my knees, as I
sit down cross-legged. Andrew sits down across from me, and then
leaning over to me, he takes my hands into his. His arms are
resting on his legs.

He smiles warily and he says softly, “You
know I was willing to change to be like you, I love you so
much.”

I smile up at him and we sit looking at each
other.

Andrew asks, “Remember when we were half way
across the world, we promised that we would love each other
always.”

“I remember.” I smile softly and then I
change the subject, “I have always wondered how it would be to
experience the world as mortal and maybe you and I can do that
together now. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

He frowns briefly and then he smiles
thrilled. “That does sound great.”

I smile wistfully. “I would like to
experience everything with another mere human. Someone who would
feel the same fear, when standing on the edge of a cliff, and know
that if you fell down, it would all be over. To feel that overall
exhilaration that you could never get if you knew you would never
die.”

He smiles mischievously. “I could certainly
attempt to give you those thrills. While we become adventure
junkies, we could also look for my father.”

I start to feel excited. There is no use for
me here at the château, because my dysfunctional, extended family
has everything under control, and most of the time I feel like a
hindrance, instead of an asset.

I say, “Let’s leave next summer.”

“It sounds great. Are you paying, though,
because as you know I am just a poor orphan boy?”

“You have been working on the farm haven’t
you and everybody who works here, and becomes part of my family,
gets a share of all the profits, so poor orphan boy, you can very
well pay for yourself.”

He frowns briefly. “I get paid?”

I look indignant, while I laugh. “This is not
a slave farm, you know. The wine you have been working on so hard
to produce is a part of you as well - sweat and toil – literally.
We are not as fortunate as the others not to secrete certain bodily
fluids. Sometimes I consider the farm to be my little treasure
island and we are the pirates. Instead of stealing though, we build
our fortune ourselves.”

“
That is why you want to go and live on the
edge, purposefully look death in the eye and see how far you can
push the grim reaper. It is the pirate in you.”

“
I always knew I could not stay in one
place for too long, but when you do not live in one place long, you
always want to. I always used to think it was my adventurer spirit,
so you could be right.”

The light starts to disappear from the sky,
and the chill settles in my bones. I rub my hands together and then
I push myself up from the ground. He gets up with me and I say,
“Lets race.”

I start running and I hear him call from
behind me, “You are cheating! I had no warning!”

Running even faster, I cannot help laughing
loudly.

I beat him and reach the stairs ahead of him.
It is nice to put in my full effort and to win. I do not hold
myself back anymore. I have to fold over and rest my palms on my
knees though, because my lungs are burning and I can feel the wild
beating of my heart in my temples.

Out of breath, Andrew complains, “You
cheated!”

I laugh. “Whatever.”

Amanda insists on celebrating my birthday.
Everybody conveniently forgets the two hundred or so years
in-between my sixteenth and now my seventeenth birthday.

Embarrassingly I give in and we all go to
Paris, where Herman takes us to a Ballet performance. I enjoy
dressing up again in eveningwear and we stay at the Ritz Hotel for
the night, before driving back to the château again the next
morning.

I cannot really enjoy myself though, because
I feel desperately tired and ill.

Amanda asks me worriedly, “Are you okay,
Susie. You are looking very pale these days?”

I try to smile. “I am fine.” I do not tell
her that I have been vomiting every morning for the last two
months. I do not tell her that I am always tired. I do not tell her
that my breasts feel sensitive or that I feel bloated. I do not
tell her my suspicions.

In the car back to the château, I lean my
head against Andrew’s shoulder and I fall asleep restlessly. He
cradles me gently to him.

When we get home, he walks with me to my room
and when I fall down onto my bed listlessly, he lies down next to
me. He gently draws me into him and when I start crying, he rubs my
back softly. When my sobs slow down, he asks softly, “What’s wrong,
Susie?”