Taint (Formerly Claimed) Dark Midnight 1

Chapter 13

            *This is the real update--haha.  I know it's short, but the next one will be longer. --Nikki*

She wasn’t there. 

            Miriam.

            Today, in her usual spot by that little curve in the road, she wasn’t there, walking steadily on the sidewalk. 

            He had been waiting in his car for nearly an hour—only because he had nothing at all better to do.  Or so he told himself.

And still…there was no sign of her. 

            The snow still fell in thick clumps to blanket the earth, but there was no dreary mortal dressed in gray to trudge her way through it. 

            If he wasn’t so utterly annoyed, Eliot figured that he might have been…worried. 

            He didn’t like it when things didn’t go his way—and while, he may not have liked her, the odd mortal with the sad, empty eyes, she had certainly caught his attention. 

Enough for him to turn his car around and drive down the narrow driveway that led to her house—a house that was coincidentally mere yards from the one Alazzdria had bought.

            Which was just damn ironic to say the least. 

He’d been so preoccupied with keeping the twins in line, that he hadn’t even realized until that morning, when he left the gloomy black house—with Sage and Hazel sleeping cryptically in the basement—that her white house was directly across the way. 

            If the witch hadn’t been in a fake coma for the past few days, Eliot might have suspected that she had done it on purpose. 

            Almost as if she knew of his…obsession, he might call it, with the mortal girl. 

            But, Alazzdria did happen to know him better than anyone…

And she had a sick sense of humor, to boot. 

Shaking off his suspicion, he left the safety of his car for the icy, wintry landscape of the falling snow.  His boots crunched over the thick white as he stalked casually from the driveway, and up the porch steps to stand before the front door. 

He thought about knocking, he really did.  Only breaking in was so much easier.  Especially when he’d already broken the lock. 

He pushed the door open, only to hear a startling smash as something heavy toppled over on the other side.  He glanced through the doorway to find a box of meaningless junk scattered all over the floor. 

Almost as if she had tried to barricade herself in—keeping any unwanted visitors from breaking through the broken door unnoticed.    

How…mortal of her.  As if a silly stack of boxes could keep out anyone—or anything—that wanted to cause her real harm. 

Like Sage.

The other vampire’s scent assaulted him the instant he stepped over the threshold.  Eliot went rigid, even as his nostrils flared, catching Miriam’s scent as well.

'A brunette,' the other vampire had said, the night before, in reference to his "breakfast.” 'Young and lovely...’

He couldn’t have meant Miriam. 

Eliot tried to stamp out the irrational fear—even a fool like Sage knew better than to feed so close to where they stayed.  

But, he couldn’t sense her moving anywhere throughout the house—or anyone else for that matter. 

The place seemed as silent and empty as a crypt. As far as he could tell—even with his inhuman senses—there was no one there besides him.  No one living at least. 

He barreled his way through the doorway without thinking, taking wide steps into the hall that led to a narrow staircase. 

He could smell her—the scent was faint and crisp, but still there.  It lingered over the wooden floors, leading up the stairs in an invisible trail to a small room just off the end of the hall, where it flared the strongest. 

Eliot reached out.  His hand automatically twisted the knob of the door, and he shoved it open so hard that it smashed off the opposite wall with a loud crack…

And barely missed the tiny figure waiting at the other side of it, hefting a baseball bat in her fists. 

She was icy pale—a few shades lighter than she’d seemed before, even—but her voice was steady as she spoke with only the slightest hitch of fear.

“What are you doing in my house?”

Eliot stared. 

Miriam stared, even more shocked, at him. Those brown eyes were so wide, one might have thought that he wielded a bloody knife in his hand.  

It was only when he glanced down that he realized he still held the doorknob…broken off in his fist. 

The round ball of metal clunked to the floor as he let it go and fixed her with a critical stare. 

“Why aren’t you on your way to school?”

It didn’t matter that he had absolutely no business asking her that—or, being in her house at all. 

Her safety should have been of no concern of his. 

Why should he care if the mortal happened to fall into harm’s way?

She wasn’t his problem. 

But that didn’t erase the intense relief at seeing her unharmed that nearly barreled him over. 

Though, it shouldn’t have. 

The sound of her heartbeat shouldn’t have comforted him the way that it did. 

The absence of blood on her clothes shouldn’t have made his cold, dead heart twitch the way that it did in his chest. 

Most of all, the sight of her neck—and the smooth pale skin without even a hint of a vampire’s bite—shouldn’t have relieved him at all.

Let alone made him sigh and release the tension in his muscles he hadn’t even been aware of. 

It wasn’t until she repeated herself that he realized she had already answered his question. 

“It’s a blizzard,” she said, with barely a tremor of fear.  “School’s canceled today.”

At the same moment, his ears perked to finally catch the faint whispers of a tiny pink radio that sat in the corner, from which a bored newscaster was listing off several school closings in the area. 

Oh.  It was such a mortal emotion—embarrassment.  Eliot would never admit that he felt it, not even to himself.

Let alone in front of a mortal.

So he tried his best to eliminate it with some good old rage and indignation. 

“Why are you alone?”

She flinched at the acid in his tone, but to her credit she met his gaze without flinching. 

Even Eliot was impressed against his will—the look he gave her was one that would have made even Sage or Hazel tremble in their boots. 

She just swallowed and forced those wide, doe eyes to meet his.  

They were so wide…like pools of innocence, he couldn’t help thinking. 

Sucking him whole.

“Why are you,” she repeated in a soft whisper,“…in my house?”