Taint (Formerly Claimed) Dark Midnight 1

Chapter 6

It was a beautiful morning. 

Well, Eliot was willing to admit that it was beautiful to him at least. 

The sky was a dreary shade of gray with the lethal sun safely hidden away behind thick clouds. A wet substance drifted down, that might have been snow if the temperature dropped a little lower.   

If she didn’t hurry, she might have been caught in a mid-morning storm… 

Miriam.

He waited for her this time.  Unashamed, he sat in his car at a curve in the road, sitting patiently for the mortal to walk by. 

His eagerness to see her scared him a little.  Though it was only because of sheer disbelief, he told himself.  Absolute shock that the mortal had passed his path, not once…but twice.

And survived both times. 

How funny, it was, in a sick way. 

It had been a shock to find her there at the hospital, sleeping soundly in Alazzdria’s room, as if the woman was a poor teenage girl and not a powerful witch.  Hell, even he didn’t like to be alone in the same room with Alazzdria.

But the mortal…

He had known who she was, even before he saw the little backpack tucked at her feet.  That hair, and those eyes…

It should have been illegal for anything but a helpless doe to possess those eyes; wide and brown and full of innocence. Just begging to be devoured by something dark and evil. 

Miriam. 

The naïve little mortal with the tiny pink backpack.  A ‘naïve’ mortal who had unknowingly fallen across the paths of one of the most ancient and feared witches in…well, maybe ever and survived, unscathed. 

Worst of all, a naïve little innocent who had fallen across his path…

He was a monster from her deepest, darkest nightmares.  Her very worst nightmare.

And she didn’t even know it.

Poor Miriam. 

He laughed out loud as his foot toyed with the gas pedal, waiting for a flash of light brown hair to turn the corner. 

He didn’t even know why exactly he waited for her.

Boredom maybe?

Or perhaps…a sick, morbid sense of curiosity as to the fear that would cross her face when she noticed that he followed. 

Miriam.

Her name was old—ancient.  As the humans liked to joke, it was as old as dirt.  Though, in a way, it fit her. 

Her eyes were the exact shade of wet, muddy earth.  Though her hair…

It was more like the color of sand.  Wet sand, so thick you could sink your feet into it.

But that wasn’t even the worst irony of her name.  Though the meaning like the change with the years—as did everything, humans were so fickle with their language—he did know one variation of it.

It meant bitter. 

Bitter little Mariam.  His walking blood bag with a name that proclaimed her taste.

How convenient.

He had always liked bitter things.

Bitter like the acidic bite of a lemon.  Or, from a predator’s perspective, bitter like …

The sharp taste of fear. 

Was she always fearful, then, he couldn’t help wondering?  His bitter Miriam?

The soft sound of footsteps cut off the thought.

He almost smiled as his fingers thrummed the wheel, waiting for her to cross his line of vision—before he caught himself. 

It had been so long since the last time he smiled—really smiled.  The motion caught him off guard, but it wasn’t a true smile he told himself sharply. 

Not one of joy, or happiness.

Just one of pure curiosity.  The look he figured a wolf might display in all its brutal glory as it watched a slim deer try to dart away through the shadows.

Silly, little prey, such a wolf might think to itself.  You can never escape me...

He stiffened at a brush of pink. 

The speck of color caught his attention from the corner of his eye, and slowly he turned, as an unknown emotion began to lurch to the back of his throat. 

She was dressed differently today.  Instead of the woolen gray, she wore a dark blue windbreaker with light denim jeans.   Purple rain boots swallowed her legs up to mid-calf.

She didn’t look like a shadow today—more like a bruise.  A dark, mottled bruise against a background of a gray sky.

Her hair was brushed back neatly into a short ponytail that hugged the back of her neck.  That pink backpack dangled from her shoulder.  Just like before, she walked slowly, carefully as though she were taking stock of every single step.

One foot in front of the other, he could picture her coaching herself.  Left foot, right foot...

In an instant, he forgot all thoughts of predator and prey and just watched.  He watched her walk cautiously down the sidewalk as though she were afraid the ground might lurch up beneath her feet and swallow her alive.

She didn’t even notice him. 

Her eyes were down on her purple rain boots, fingers clenching the straps of her pink backpack so tightly he could make out the stark white lines of her knuckles curled against the fabric. 

She looked scared.

Absolutely petrified.  But not of him or the fact that it might snow, or even of the fact that she was alone by herself so early in the morning on an empty road.

She looked terrified of something else.  Eliot couldn’t help wondering what.

His foot pressed on the gap pedal, inching his way closer.  He could make out the slender line of her shoulders now, the pale column of her throat peeking from beneath that thick hair.

The sweetness of her scent tickled his nostrils the closer he got, sliding through the glass of the windows. 

He caught himself breathing deeply before he could help it.  Wild roses…

His foot pressed harder and his sleek black car began to eat up the distance between them.

She froze. 

Eliot sat a little straighter, hitting the brake and wondered if she had notice him, finally, but her eyes were straight ahead. 

He watched as jerkily, she wrenched off her backpack and tossed it aside into a puddle of mud.  Her limbs stiffened awkwardly as if she’d suddenly turned to stone right before his eyes.

Then, she fell.