First Sin (Sin Series Book 1) *First Draft* Editing

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

"It was a long time ago. I was still living with my parents, though they were trying to find work for me. It was nearly the harvest and we had plenty of crop. We were preparing for the harvest days. My mother and sister were caring for the animals and putting together acks of the remainder of our seeds. This is when he chose to attack –"

I sit quietly and stare into his dark eyes, the pain he had felt evident on his face and the light I usually see in his eyes having, for the moment, blown out.

"It was late, we were all working by the light of the fire. We often worked late into the night around the days of the harvest. We were all tired and very near retiring for the night. My father and I were in the field with my brother when we heard the door break off. We hurried back to the house. My mother and sister were bloody, bruised, broken, and lying unconscious on the ground just outside the house at the intruder's feet. But he was holding my youngest brother, he was the baby of the family, he had just started walking and talking."

My heart breaks and I feel each of the pieces float from my chest to him, but I hold my breath not wanting to disturb or interrupt him.

"My father tried to reason with him, but the stranger wanted neither gold, nor food, there was no reasoning to be had. I was nineteen. He saw the pain and sorrow in our eyes. He broke my brother's neck then threw him to the floor of our house. My mother and sister were starting to gain consciousness, he dragged them by their hair into the house and boarded the door back into place. He lit several spots of the house on fire. But he was smart, he had spilt water on the floor in spots so it would not burn as quickly. He tied me to my father and he sat us there in front of the house. For hours we heard them scream and the harder we tried to help, the tighter he bound us. |I remember it feeling like years. We listened to the screaming and when the screams stopped we could hear the crackle of their flesh and smell their burning bodies. My father was balling his eyes out and with each scream my heart broke, over and over. It was only after the house was reduced to smoldering embers that he released my father, stabbed him in the stomach. I got to hear him choke on his own blood until hi heart finally stopped. Then he turned to me –"

I wipe my eyes, feeling his pain seep into my very soul and curl up, prepared to hide there forever.

"I expected the same fate as my father, or something worse like torture then finally my impending death. But for a long time, he just looked at me, calculating perhaps, or imagining a better way to kill me. Then he smiled and said, "run, run kid. Find a new home and when you do I will find you," he gestured around him, "and I will do this all over again, over and over, until your dying breath." I got up and walks away from the only home I had ever known, scared and alone. But, I did not do what he told me to di. I did not find nor even seek out another family. I may have been unable to protect or save my family, but I was going to save every family I may have gone to by not going. I did find family eventually, though, actually, more accurately, they found me. A group of vampires, a few years later, the woman, Marielyn, she took pity on me at age twenty-five. And promised to guide and care for me at least until we found the man who slaughtered my family and taught him better. We did, I killed him myself. I eventually made my way here. This used to be owned by Emerson Rakesh, a bachelor duke. He never married, but he passed it to me as his heir."

"But why did you not just change him? He must have known about you, or figured it out somehow."

"He knew, yes, but it was not his wish to live longer than his natural life. It was difficult watching him die, he was the last bit of family I had left."