The Moderate [a Vampire/Slave story]

~26~ The Moderate [a Vampire/Slave story]

Chapter 26

Another place, a new one. This time I was on a bridge, and below the bridge, was a huge river that was flowing very fast noisily. I saw someone I didn't know waiting for me on the other side of the river. He had dark, curly hair and deep green eyes. I seemed to know him, but when I really thought about it, I knew nothing about him. Not his name, his background, his species. Everything was a muddled mess in my brain, and I could barely remember my own name. What was my own name anyway? Ivy? Ivory? Isabelle? Nothing came to mind that ever sounded right.

"What's my name?" I asked the man that was now standing in front of me. "Who are you?"

"That is for you to guess and me to know," he said, and disappeared.

Anxiety was the only feeling left in my heart. At first I was hopeful that the man who had disappeared would tell me who I was, who he was, what I was doing in this new place that I wasn't familiar with. Something cringed at the back of my mind.

"Imperia? Who's that?" I asked myself as the odd name appeared out of nowhere into my brain. It felt like somebody had intentionally slipped that weird name into my mind. I had no idea where the name came from....it sounded like a name fit for a queen!

Perhaps it's my name? I thought to myself.

The veil was lifted from my eyes.

"Imperia?" the same man who had been in my latest dream asked. "You're awake?"

"Who are you?" I asked. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"What do you mean? I'm your boyfriend...."

"You are? Who am I? Tell me, please, I don't know anything about myself. Help me!" I squeaked out.

"You don't know who I am, do you?" he said, and even though I didn't know him, I immediately sensed a hurt expression in his emerald pupils. I reached out for his arm, but he pulled away from me before I could touch him.

"I'll just tell you from here, do you know you're a vampire?"

"Yes, obviously," I answered, even though I hadn't realized it until this moment. "Go on, please."

"Well, your name is Imperia, which you might have figured out, but I don't know. Err, you have two younger brothers, Chaos and Milton. They're in California right now, Milton's looking for his girlfriend. Do you remember her? Chaos told me her name was Hayden or something similar to that."

He jumped a little when my eyes widened and I tugged on his sleeve of his collared shirt, asking him with my eyes to tell me more about Hayden. "Who is Hayden? Why does she seem so familiar? Is she blonde?"

"No, she's a brunette."

"What do you mean? The girl I saw..."

"What girl....?"

"The girl I saw in my dream....I had a bunch of dreams before I actually woke up, and I saw you too, in the second dream that I had. What's your name?"

"Tom."

"Tom? That's a good name," I murmured, savoring the way his name tasted rolling off my tongue smoothly.

"What were you talking about before, the girl with the blonde hair that you saw in your dream. Was her name Hayden?"

"It was instinct, I don't remember her face anymore, but I remember that she had silver-like blonde hair. I called out her name, but she didn't respond."

"Maybe that wasn't her name, and that's the reason she didn't reply. She could have been someone else that you know, and you mistook her for Hayden. I clearly remember that Milton told me his girlfriend had dark brown hair."