<---VOTE!! COMMENT!! since I was a good girl and finally uploaded :)
Cookie: HI!!! Long time no see...on this story. LOL I finally wrote chap 5 cause well...you guys were hounding me. I had no idea that this story was so popular. LOL But here it is...chap 5!
Pic on the side is of Aurora.
Song link is "Keep Holding On" by Avril Lavigne. It's a really good song, listen to it :)
And I have NOOO idea who should play Mikhail...like...yo... *cries* he's too beautiful to be real! *sobs* But i'll take in suggestions. *sniffs*
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"Monster," Aurora found herself saying.
Mikhail visibly flinched and backed away from her. When he finally raised his head, his eyes were tortured and pained.
Aurora slowly pushed herself up and realized that she had been lain on the couch in the living room, still wearing her night gown. She looked around and found Gage sitting on the sofa across from her, lounging back with his face still deathly pale but at least they had cleaned up the blood off of him.
She glanced at her wrist, the place she had sliced with the dagger and saw that there was no sign of a scar. Not even a little thin line. Her skin was completely healed. Swallowing, she looked up and met Mikhail's eyes. He stared back down at her, looking beautiful and haunted.
"I remember," she finally spoke, breaking the silence. "That night...when I was seven. Mrs. Briggs, our old neighbor."
Mikhail winced. "I had lost control that night and made you see something horrible. I apologize."
"That's it?" Aurora asked in a soft whisper, "you apologize? You took away my memory of that night, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I believed it for the best. You were terrified."
"And after?" Her voice rose. "And after that, Mikhail? Why didn't you guys tell me the truth? Why did you continue to keep things from me? WHY!? Am I just your human plaything? Your doll to dress up? Huh!? HUH!? Tell me Mikhail!"
"Shut up," Gage growled, making her head snap to his direction. He still had his eyes closed but he was definitely wake. "You don't know what you're talking about."
Aurora stood on her feet so fast that she nearly tripped but Mikhail was there to catch and steady her. Aurora pushed herself off him, still feeling the bitterness of betrayal. "I've never questioned anything til now, which was really stupid of me. But now I want the truth. The whole truth. What are you...and who am I?"
Gage opened his eyes and glowered at her. "You are who you are, brat."
"You know what I'm saying," she snapped. "Did you guys take me away from my family?" She reared back with horror at the very thought of the men she had come to love so much doing something like that.
She turned her accusing and horrified eyes to Mikhail. "Did you kill my parents and take me?"
"No," Mikhail shook his head. "Of course not. How can you think of such a thing?"
"I don't know what you're capable of," Aurora said bitterly. "I don't even know you at all, do I?"
"Mikhail adopted you," Gage said calmly, but it was taking all he had to reign in his temper with the foolish girl. "That's all you need to know."
Aurora raised a brow at him. "And you think I'll be satisfied with that? Don't make me laugh."
"We found you in the woods," Mikhail told her, eyes sad. "We found you and took you in, Aurora. Please believe that. Believe that we wanted nothing but the best for you."
"Found me in the woods? Was that before or after you killed my family?"
"Enough!" Gage roared. "Shut up!"
"No!" Aurora screamed back, so close to tears. "I want the truth and I want it now!"
"I'm telling you the truth," Mikhail said. "It is up to you to believe it."
"Really?" Aurora asked mockingly. "You sure you don't want to erase my memory again?"
"You're letting your emotions cloud your judgment," Gage said. "Shut up and think. Do you really think Mikhail would do anything to harm you? He's been your father, your brother for 17 fucking years. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"I don't know what to think anymore," she answered truthfully.
"Well think about this," Gage snapped. "Look at Mikhail. Look at him!"
Aurora swallowed and obeyed, staring straight into Mikhail's eyes.
"Tell me...do you hate him? Is your love for him dead now that you know the truth?"
"I don't even know what the truth is," she told him but didn't take her eyes off Mikhail.
"Answer the question, Aurora. When you look at him, don't look at him as a monster, look at him as the person who raised you and think. Do you love him?"
Her eyes watered. "Yes."
"What?"
"Yes!" She screamed. "I still love him. I still love both of you. God I hate that you lied to me, scared to death what's going to happen between the three of us now but yes, yes I still love you. I love you." She stared at Mikhail, crying now. "I love you."
Mikhail hesitated before taking a step forward and took her into his arms. She stiffened at first then relaxed, sobbing against his chest. "Hush, little one," Mikhail murmured, "do not weep so."
"No," Gage said, "let her cry it out. It's better then her keeping it all bottled up."
Aurora clung to Mikhail and cried her heart out. She wasn't the crying type, she really wasn't but this...crying out all these raging emotions made her feel a little better. Her chest had felt so tight since she had woken up but now it was slowly easing as Mikhail held onto her, brushing his lips against her forehead lovingly, so lovingly that it made he cry even harder.
She broke away from Mikhail's arms and walked over to Gage. She threw herself on him and hugged him tight. "I thought...I thought you were going to die. I thought...I...I."
Gage scowled but didn't push her away. "I'm alive. Thanks to you both."
Mikhail knelt down beside Aurora and placed a gentle hand on her head. "You saved a life tonight, Aurora. Be proud."
She raised her tear streaked face and looked at him. "I'm sorry."
He smiled. "I do not blame you for your hysteria. You were confused and hurt."
But she had hurt him, Aurora thought sadly. She knew she had. She could see it in his eyes. He was blaming himself for her pain.
"Will you tell me what you are?" She asked him, even though she already guessed. Still, she wanted to hear it right from his mouth.
"I am," Mikhail began, "what human calls...Vampire. A creature of the night."
"But you can walk in the day," Aurora said and sniffed. "I know you don't burst into flames in sunlight. And you sure in the hell don't glitter."
Mikhail chuckled. "I am an old, Aurora, very old and was born immune to the sunlight. There are very few of my kind born this way but I was lucky enough to gain such a gift."
She wanted to ask how old but something in her was afraid to find out. Everything still seemed so surreal. "Vampire...and Gage?" She looked at him. "You're a vampire too?"
"I'm a bit different," Gage grinned weakly. "Mikhail turned me, yeah, but..."
"But what?"
"Gage is a hybrid," Mikhail explained, "before I turned him...he had Werewolf genes in him and still does."
Aurora blinked, confused. "So he's...part Werewolf and Vampire?"
Mikhail nodded. "That is why he too can step out in the sunlight. I believe it has something to do with his mutated genes."
"Nice way of calling me a freak of nature," Gage chuckled.
"In our kind you are," Mikhail smiled fondly at him. "But you are OUR freak of nature, wouldn't you agree, Aurora?"
Aurora smiled through her tears. "I've always known that he was a freak."
"Oh yeah," Gage groaned, "I feel the love. Thanks."
"And what about me?" She asked. "I'm human right?"
"Yes," Mikhail confirmed. "We found you 17 year ago in the woods not too far from here actually. You were just a babe."
"Fought off some wolves and a rogue Werewolf," Gage told her, "and Mikhail decided to take you in."
"But why?"
"Because I fell in love with you at first sight," Mikhail confessed, caressing her cheek with a thumb. "I could not bare to let you go."
"So here were are," Gage continued. "With you crushing my bruised ribs, crying all over the place."
"Oh, sorry," Aurora quickly got off of him but stayed on her knees. "God...what a day."
"I'm sorry that you had to find out this way, little one." Mikhail took her hand and squeezed. "This ancient fool only wanted the best for you."
Aurora gazed at him, loving him so much that it hurt. She turned her gaze to Gage and the same love she felt for Mikhail showed in her eyes when she looked at him.
"You were brave," she heard Mikhail say, "very brave to offer your blood to save Gage."
"Of course," she said, "it's not like I had much of a choice. He was dying. Gage, what happened? Why did you come back covered in blood like that?"
Gage growled, remembering his attackers and the blonde bitch. "I was ambushed."
"Ambushed?"
"Yeah and I fell for the trap. I was fucking careless."
"Justice will be served," Mikhail vowed gravely, eyes glittering with promise. "Count on it."
Aurora grabbed Gage's hand. "I don't want you guys going out to get revenge and get hurt...or worse. Promise me you wont do anything stupid. Both of you."
Her words were met with silence.
"Promise me," she stressed desperate. She had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach that something bad was going to happen. The feeling made her skin crawl.
"I promise to not do anything careless," Mikhail gave her his word before standing. He bent down and picked her up in his arms. "I think you had too much excitement for the night. You should go to bed and rest."
"I feel wide awake now," she replied but honestly, she felt tired now that she wasn't hysterical and the bed sounded really good right now.
She peeked over Mikhail's shoulder at Gage. "Will he be all right?" Gage's eyes were closed again and it looked like he had fallen asleep.
"He's in the healing process," Mikhail told her, carrying her in his arms. He took them up the stairs to her bedroom. He placed her on her soft mattress and straightened.
Aurora moaned with pleasure and tucked herself under the cool blankets. Soon she felt warm and sleepy. "Mikhail?"
"Yes, beloved?"
"My parents. Do you think they really abandoned me in the woods?"
"I don't know. Truly I don't."
Aurora closed her eyes. "If they did...I wonder why they'd do it. Why leave me out in the woods to die like that? I was just a baby."
Mikhail reached a hand down and thumbed her forehead gently. "Creatures of the Underworld are not the only things that can be monstrous. There are those who are human who can be called...monsters."
"Monsters..." Aurora mumbled, drifting off to sleep. "Mikhail?"
"Yes?"
"I don't think you're a monster. You and Gage...you saved me. You're my saviors. My angels."
Mikhail stared down at Aurora as sleep claimed her from him. He knelt down beside the bed and gazed at her, heart swelling with love. "And you are my angel, Aurora. My angel of light."
He leaned forward and brushed his lips against her forehead before standing and making sure she was securely tucked in. He hesitated before bending down to whisper in her ears.
"Sleep, my angel, dream of good dreams, not of monsters who hide in the dark."
Mikhail straightened, knowing that his words would reach her and she will have no bad dreams this night. He turned and slowly walked out her room, closing the door behind him. He sighed and pressed his back against Aurora's door, staring into space.
His acute senses told him that Gage too slept soundly on the sofa. His poor Gage...he had almost lost him tonight. Almost lost his precious Gage.
Mikhail's crystal green eyes narrowed, turning darker as he thought of Gage's attackers. They must be Hunters, Hunters who had somehow gotten a hold of a new weapon against his kind. They had made a serum that could kill Vampires and injected it into the human blood stream. From what he had gotten from Gage's memories, the Hunters had used an infected human woman to lure Gage.
The woman had been injected with a serum poisonous to his kind but went undetected until it was too late. Until the bite was taken.
"How clever," Mikhail murmured. But their cleverness will get them killed for they had dared to harm someone precious to him. A member of his very small family.
Mikhail pushed himself off the door and glanced at it, thinking of the slumbering girl inside. "Forgive me," he whispered. "But I must protect my family."
He turned and walked away, murder in his usually gentle eyes.
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Cookie: Oh! And I'd like to thank xerocide for the new cover!!! ^_^ If you sent me a cover I'm going to try to display them on the pictures on the right :)