Vampiric Interdiction

[17] He Speaks True

The mortal shook even more as she retold earlier events and became even shiftier as if she expected him to come barging through the door at any moment; to grab her forcefully and yank her by the hair away from prying eyes.

“I was… surprised… to find the bed empty beside me. He …he must have locked up… in the celler for the day. But… he’s always so… hungry… before he goes down. He usually stays long enough to…to feed once I regain consciousness. Sometimes I pretend to still be sleeping when I awake and feel him hovering over me. But he always hears my heart beat faster and …he just knows.”

Katrinn paused as a blonde woman next to her let a yawn escape. Karolinna wasn’t quite sure if the shaky girl would continue, assuming she would soon begin to feel like she had over-shared, but surprisingly she started up again.

“He loves me. He does. He’s said so himself.”

Another lady rolled her eyes, which Karolinna caught as she was scanning the room. Although the group was predominately made up of humans, there was the odd Vici among them. This faelna, not unlike their snow-white counsellor, obviously held very little sympathy for the words of a mortal. Had Karolinna been in her place she likely would have done the very same thing, but seeing as she was meant to be helping these women, she had to learn to be void of any expression of amusement or lack of pity.

“I don’t mean to prod, but I must ask. Do you love him?” Karolinna scratched out a few words on her paper.

“Of course,” she replied.

“Do you want to stay with him?”

Katrinn nodded, but her movement was rather rigid and it looked almost as if there was someone behind her pushing and pulling her skull forward and back against her will. 

It was not uncommon for women to come in here with a similar situation. No matter how hard the  flaxen goddess pushed to get a true answer from them, they all claimed the same. Their eyes, whenever they were brave enough to meet Karolinna’s, held pure terror and fear, but what fell from their mouths was nothing but words of defence.

Pulling the clipboard closer and leaning forward, pinching the rectangular piece of  masonite between her abdomen and thighs, Karolinna pushed back a strand of her hair. The pen, that had been wedged tightly between her index and middle finger, lay to rest atop her ear as she had ran her finger tips around the curve of the rounded helix.

“But do you really love him, Katrinn?” Karolinna urged for veracity, “Or are you simply afraid of what he will do to you if you walk out on him?”

It wasn’t exactly a question in typical rhetorical format, but clearly it held that intent. Karolinna knew the answer, as this was not the first woman she had encountered being kept against her will by a night-walker and brain-washed into thinking she wanted it.

Katrinn didn’t say a word, and looked immediately back down at her feet making patterns on the dusty dirt-coloured flooring. Taking the mortal’s actions into account and the several beats of silence that followed, Karolinna acted on the assumption that the tawny female would not carry on and nodded towards the maiden next to her.

The lady started without need of prompting. She talked about her day and how she’d just barely made it out of her apartment in one piece to get to this session after witnessing her blood-sucking lover burst into a fit of rage for no apparent reason. 

The day was dragging on, and admittedly Karolinna wasn’t paying attention as well as she should be for a therapist. After fifteen minutes of blathering she opted to just turn off her auditory abilities altogether, shaking her head in approval now and again to assure the current sharer that it was incredibly brave of her to do so, even though she hadn’t a clue what she was validating or if doing so would prove an effect favourable or contrary.