Beyond Death

Chapter II: Adrian

A/N: This is a rewrite from the original chapter released in 2013. Please consider this when surveying the comments, as some material in the original chapter is not included in this! Enjoy! 

CHAPTER II: ADRIAN

London, November 1887:

I couldn't hear her.

And I meant not in the literal sense—I had heard her lightly trail one of the manservants down the hallway long before I set my eyes upon her figure as she entered the dining room. Her thoughts... they weren't there. When I reached out to her all I could hear was silent static over the barrage of everyone else's voices. It was like the buzzing of the empty countryside before your ears adjusted. There was unvarying silence. Vacuity. Nothing at all.

I felt a moment of unease trying to rake through my mind with confusion. I asserted to myself desperately that it was impossible. I washed my eyes over her delicate frame, eating her image and wanting so incessantly to dive into the privacy of her mind. Listening to the thoughts of others had become a constant akin to breathing; it was irrevocable and unchanging. Had I an ailment? Was I finally losing my final shred of sanity? I stared deeply into the violet of her eyes, causing her to stir uncomfortably in her seat. She set her gaze downward from my devouring stare, as I tried a final time to push through. I was met with the same mystifying, vacuous buzz of failure.

The girl tucked a vibrant cantaloupe coloured strand of hair behind her flushed ears. The same blush sat across her soft features. Her plush bottom lip trembled ever so slightly as she reluctantly plucked cutlery from the table, eying her company for reassurance. Every movement was unsure and miniscule, as not to draw attention to herself. I could imagine her worries as thoughts streaming into my mind and interrupting the normal cacophony of familiar voices. The relief of such a thought was only momentary however and the same sense of discomfort entered me again. Instead of entertaining it, I indulged in everyone else's musings.

She smells delicious.

Why must that lucky bastard Adrian have his play toy while we are stuck with those feeders? Henry is being unjust in giving him such a beautiful woman—who knows what he'll do to her when he's not around!

She would be a much better accompaniment to dinner—

—how she would taste when—

She is much prettier than I thought a simple orphan to be... But Adrian only accepts the pretty ones. Henry is no better.

The woman sitting opposite to me, Florence—an older lady whose presence my Father had grown fond of—always had such bitter, jealous thoughts. I believed it a product of her inadequacy and her knowledge that my Mother had been much more beautiful than she. She thought herself to be superior to anyone she met, but she had well passed her prime. Wrinkles had begun to set against her eyes and her Auburn hair was streaked silver. Her nasty demeanour only emphasised her ugliness. I could never fathom what Father saw in her.

I continued to mull on the room's monologue, picking up on the jealousy which was flitting through the air. The men were thinking of sneaking into her room in the middle of the night to steal a taste of her. Even I grew hungrier as I continued to inhale her heady, alluring scent. Their desire for her blood was pouring into me, magnifying my already consuming hunger. The blood lust of every predator in the room was flowing into me like cigarette smoke. My muscles clenched hard; jaw tightening reflexively. A hollow yearning grew in me watching her. Her grace, her poise, her undeniable shyness—it all made me want her more.