The Deathly Kiss

One

She didn't know how long she lay there. Maybe hours. It hadn't felt that long, but somehow the buzzing in her ears made it feel like only seconds had passed; meanwhile light entered from the crack in the barn door, telling her it was now sunrise.

One minute Jane was trotting in, chasing a small kitten she'd seen dashing through the gap in the wooden doorway and the next she was falling. Her heel met something slick and her bearing became off balanced. The floor was wet. The scaffold above, dripping.

The first thing she noticed was the eyes. Dark. Impossible to see where iris and pupil separated. Then how white the eyes themselves were. Alert and wide. Like he hadn't been expecting to see her, and yet how could he have been waiting there so openly without the purpose of being noticed.

And the rest was red. His mouth and face and hands; coated in thick blood from the horse. The horse who's guts she was laying in. Warm. Terrible. And metallic. She could taste the blood almost from how strongly it smelled. He growled. She...didn't move. She wasn't sure she could. Whatever he was, he'd halted any control she had over herself with one look. She should really scream. She was much weaker than a horse and yet the man in front of her had split the damn thing in half. She'd always disliked horses from a removed perspective. They looked like they shouldn't be real. She hated the teeth. She refused to come to the farm often to visit for a lot of reasons as a child, but one of them was the damn horses being such a focal point. If she survived this, she didn't know how she'd explain the horse to Pops.

"Mine." She heard the words in her head but they weren't hers. Like an overlap in radio frequency, she knew it was his voice. And even as his long white fingers wiped away the blood from his lips she knew it was his words.

"You are mine." In a blink, because eventually she had to blink, he was on her. Red stained and shaking like he could barely stay in place, his lips met hers. Her heart nearly exploded from her ribs. The words still repeated in her head like a chant. Low and dark and husky...threatening in their claiming, brutal like the sickly breath of horse blood and pine needle tea. The stable hand. The one she met just two days prior on her grandfather's porch was a dark shadow of the frozen faced man she'd seen before. He absorbed light. He'd not said a word before but had shook her hand stoically. His hand was cold and large and so strong. He'd held on a smidge too long; looked at her a tad too much without smiling. And now he was bloody, kissing her to death, surely, in the pile of fresh slaughter. Her ears rang and her heart pounded. She couldn't fully grasp what this feeling was. A tug...But it felt like a glass cage had been shattered; as if her lungs were being filled with air for the first time. She was tasting something inhumanly perfect and her body was melting with a strange sense of relief.

Ivan pulled back enough for her to breath, though not very far still. All she could see was the black of his eyes. Jane gasped as he spoke into her head once more.

"You're not afraid?" It was said like a question...or thought as one. And she realized she wasn't and how confusing that was. He was a luminal space...the heat across her skin as they touched like static clinging to the surface; it felt like kissing a power socket. She was transfixed and unable to rationalize her behavior or his for that matter.

"No." She said out loud. She couldn't really tell for certain from here but she was sure his eyes were dilated...they had to be. She remembered before he'd had dark brown eyes, still dark. But his eyes that looked black were just very dilated as they fixated on her.

"You weren't supposed to see this."

...

Jane first arrived at her grandfather's farm around dinner time. It'd been a long drive and she craved a shower. Her dark hair, usually braided, was wild and down her back. She looked at herself in the dash mirror and pinched her pale cheeks til they flushed. She had a soft face, heart shaped and probably considered more romantic in style, but it felt unfamiliar. She'd not been home for three years. Most of her days were spent hunched over a drafting table with a paintbrush or pen nibb. Three years had matured her. She looked tired at the moment, but when she'd left she was a chubby cheeked 18 year old who was practically mute. She had found her voice at school. She was 21, but she had sewn a strong sense of self. She tapped a deep red lip stain on with her finger, blotting the color and using the left over to rouge her cheeks. There. She looked alive again. Her coffee had run out a good two hours into the 8 hour drive so she wanted to at least look somewhat alright when her family saw her. Wanted them to feel like she'd grown and was doing well. Even though their relationship was complicated.

Jane stepped out of her beat up Prius. The place hadn't changed at all. The blue shutters on the house where sun bleached to an almost white. Clover and tall grass overran the landscape with small clusters of dandelions and dead leaves. Her grandfather's truck still rusted away, parked a few yards from the porch as small animals, goats and horses of all types grazed in different spots. She hadn't spent much time here in years. Her mother needed a babysitter for her for a while and would drop her off on her way to her job at the bank as a teller. But even then she barely saw her grandfather. Her grandmother on the other hand flew around the house like a tornado.

She loved her grandmother. And her grandmother showed her love by being extremely attached. They gardened. The front beds used to be overflowing with hills of carnations and rich leafy plants. They'd bake together. They'd sing together. And occasionally they'd write each other notes to find happy little treasure hunts that always led to something sweet.

Jane walked up the path to the front door and noticed something different. A tiny stream of smoke from the little cottage at the far end of the property. She'd never seen it used for a long time. And her grandfather didn't like to go there unless he had to.

She took out her key and unlocked the door. Before she could even open it her grandfather was walking out to meet her on the patio.

"Janey." He hugged her tightly. "Welcome home." She felt eyes drilling a hole into the back of her head and froze. She turned. A very tall man stood 10 feet away. His eyes are dark brown and his hair almost black. Skin unnaturally pale, especially for someone working on a farm, and his features traditionally handsome if not ethereally perfect and sharp.

"This is Ivan. Ivan, my granddaughter Jane. I told you about her. She's been away at school almost 3 years now."

"Hello." Jane said, holding out her hand to shake. Ivan nodded his head in greeting but didn't speak. He leaned forward and his large hand grasped hers. His skin was chilled, his grip gentle, and his face blank. At the contact she felt a shiver go down her spine and the spice of attraction blooming in her chest.

And like that he was gone. A tip of his head and whoosh; his long legs strided off towards the back of the house.

"He seems...unique." She said to her grandfather. Pops. She needed to stop being so formal with him. He liked being called Pops...

"He's the best hand I've ever had. You wouldn't believe the strength of that one...he looks strong but is even stronger than that. Does his duties quick. Minds his own. No funny business. Never really says much."

"What happened to Adam?"

"Oh that POS just up and ran off with his girlfriend without any notice. No respect, that guy. Just a note and a request I forward last month's pay to his mothers address. Gone. I had Major over at the post office asking around and Ivan shows up empty handed."

"Empty handed?"

"Said his stuff all burned up in a fire. Needed to start fresh. Gave him a small advance to buy a toothbrush and some basics and he's already helped me earn double what we made last year this season. The moms love him...or love looking at him. Enrollment in the riding lessons has shot up."

"Huh. Mysterious type, I guess."

"Don't go getting any ideas. I can't have him running off if you started getting sweet on each other and broke up."

"Pops you know me. I don't date."

"You don't but that doesn't mean you won't."

They had already spoken more than they had in months...way more than they ever had before she'd left. He seemed better. Changed.

"And I wonder what brought on this boost in your step?" She raised a brow at him.

"Oh shush." He waved his hand dismissively.

She didn't like the idea of him dating anyone...seeing him with someone other than her grandmother would feel wrong. Completely wrong. But she didn't have to like it to want him to be happy, she reasoned. She wondered if there really was someone.

"Maybe one day you'll tell me your secret." Jane smiled. They walked into the house and she started dinner. Outside the kitchen window she saw Ivan dragging bales of hay to and fro into the barn. She swore she saw him look directly at her a few times...but she played it off as him zoning out while he worked. But all the same she felt sparks dance along her skin. Ivan was a person of intrigue.