Immortal Chocolate (a vampire novel)

Part 10

Chapter 5

A moment later, Ollie came back out with two glasses of dark wine, and instantly I smelt it, that wasn’t wine. In fact, it was so strong that the itch filled my chest and began to travel through my blood way too quickly for comfort. I swore under my breath, wondering what game he was playing at. If he thought I was human, he wouldn’t offer me that, unless he wanted to turn me, that wasn’t just human blood—that was what we called in the vampire world spicati lamia sanguis or in plain English—spiked vampire blood. Apparently, this guy was a nut job who wanted to turn me into a vampire whore.

“Hmm…” I said, accepting the wine glass, my irises were already burning, my venom dripping onto the back of my tongue. I had to drink it—there was no option here—and he knew that! He lifted his glass up to his perfectly shaped lips, his eyes sparkling with dark desire.

“It’s my own recipe, I hope you enjoy it.”

“What the hell are you?” I hissed at him, my hand shaking, my body burning with desire. Fight it, Iva!

“What am I? Just trying to give a beautiful woman the best night of her life.”

“Who do you work for? Is it Claud?” Again, the itch began to scream at me, my mind filling with a one track thought—kill—drink. My hand shook against the glass, the dark liquid rippling with the shock.

“Claud?” he said, perplexed. “No. Drink up Iva,” he said.

“I can’t do this.” Something animal roared through me, and I threw the wine glass at the wall. It sounded like a shot gun, echoing off the walls, and striking my sensitive ears, the glass sliding over the floor like a bag of spilled diamonds.

“Well…that was unexpected, no one resists my spicati lamia sanguis. You must be a whole new breed of whore.”

“Excuse me?” This time I didn’t bother holding my vampire self in check. I was already burning with so much blood lust, at this point, I had to kill something, and he was the only living thing in the room.

“You don’t know who I am, do you, Iva?” he asked, his head tilted just enough for me to see that his neck vein was a different shade than humans.

“A pain in the ass?” My irises began to spark with red, my fangs were no longer concealed, my nails sharpening like a lioness.

“Hmm…this was not how things were supposed to go down, beloved,” he said. At the word beloved my mind snapped into action, the first thing that happened was Ollie threw his own wine glass, the sound barely registering in my mind. The second thing that happened was Ollie’s entire body began to shimmer like a mirage, and a dark veil seemed to coat my eyes for half a second.

“It’s my job to fix what you started," said the voice of not Ollie, but a whole new breed of dark and creepy. Ollie was now all shadows and heat, his body almost invisible to my eyes, but I could still see him there. Like a demon haunting me in this freakish house.

“What are you?”

“What am I?” He laughed, and the sound was utterly hideous, like someone had put rocks and a cat in a blender. “Sometimes things come back to haunt you.”

I racked my brain trying to think of some demon, witch, or werewolf thing I’d pissed off, but I came up blank.

“Are you sure you got the right Iva?” I asked, it was such a stupid question, but it was all I had.

“1935 ring a bell, beloved?” he asked, his creepy form sweeping around me, making me feel physically sick.

“1935…” I was blanking here. He stopped his mad swirling thing and suddenly he was Ollie again.

“You’re telling me you don’t remember killing me?” he said with almost a hint of hurt in his voice.

“I killed you? I don’t kill anything—” I stopped myself because suddenly it hit me like a giant baseball bat across the forehead. “God…” I breathed and turned from him, finally it registered. “Lawrence? You know that wasn’t on purpose, I’m sorry, I lost control of myself.”

He gave a dark laugh, his form shimmering again.

“Luckily for you, or maybe not so lucky, my father knows some messed up people, who made me into this thing.” He became the other form for half a second, before going back to the human ‘Ollie’ once more. How was this Casey’s brother? Was she a freaky thing too?

“Casey?” I asked.

“I’m adopted.” He grinned at me, reaching a hand to brush a hair from my face. “I loved you, you know, then you murdered me in my sleep.”

“I didn’t—”

“Shh…that’s all the past now. I’m not angry, really, I’m not angry. I just wanted to have another chance with you. Just another chance. I figured it had been one colossal mishap, and I wanted to find you again. Luckily, your little boyfriend Claud helped me out when I told him I was an old friend who could be very persuasive.”

“Claud will come after you if you mess with me; he’s obsessed with getting me in his coffin.”

“There is one thing I ask of you…” Ollie transformed into freaky-thing again, and I saw a weird glint in the dim lights. Ugly had a stake.

“Lawrence…” I took a few steps back, wondering how I was going to get out of here. I’m not saying I wasn’t strong enough to fight this guy, but I didn’t even know what he was, let alone if I could win this battle. My dad always told me to pick my battles wisely, so I always had.

“It’s nothing personal, Iva, I just want you to squirm a bit. Well, yes, I guess it is personal when you first stabbed me then drained me. Do you know how that felt? To have this beautiful woman, who you loved, kill you? I begged you…begged you… as I lay dying, Iva. Do you want to beg now?”

This had gotten messed up really quickly. I’d been young, young and not able to control myself around humans very well. When the itch had started Lawrence had been the one in the room, alone with me, lying there sleeping like a helpless baby. I’d felt remorse over that a few times, I had cared for him, but hadn’t been able to stop myself from feasting on him. The stabbing part was confusing, I didn’t remember stabbing the guy—but then again I’d been out of it half the time.

“I want you to beg me, Iva, beg me for your warped life. You pretend that you are just like all the other useless souls that roam the earth. But you’re way worse than that—you’re a soulless bitch.”

That just pissed me off. He lunged at me, and I moved with speed far greater than he had, my immortal instincts were dialed on high, and I could feel out every move this poor guy made. He may be a ghost-dog-thingie or whatever his father had made him into, but I was still much stronger.