The blood from joseph had cleared his mind and calmed down the effects the alcohol had had on him. He was enjoying the taste of blood in his mouth when he started to feel uneasy, like someone was watching him. Opening his eyes he saw to his horror that Lily was there. Damn it he was trying to protect her from this reality for a little while longer.
Her eyes were wide and terrified and she backed up a step intending to run from him, “No, Lily!” He shouted but it was too late, she was off sprinting down the corridor. He sighed and pulled away from Joseph who was already tending to the puncture marks on his necks. “Go after your woman, I will clean myself up.”
“Sorry.” Perttu said before taking off after his Bride.
He was vampire, she was mortal, he would catch her in seconds but he was reluctant to do so, it would only scare her more. But he would not let her leave him. He would not go back to living alone and a wreak, not when his Bride was here. Not when he could dedicate his life to doing something useful; like making her happy. He had learned to cook food especially for her.
Seconds went by and his hands clasped around her thin waist.
“Let go of me!” She screamed and failed her fists around. She tried to kick at him and struggled to break his grip on her but he did not let go.
“Calm down. Joseph is my cousin, he is unharmed. I take blood but I do not kill.”
“Let go.” She whimpered then. Her fear and her tears finally gave way as he held her.
“You are to stay here with me. It will take a little time but you will get use to me and this way of living. Come on; let me get you back to bed.”
“No!” She screamed it and renewed her struggled but he was already walking upstairs with her.
“I heard you.”
He stopped walking. His face turned to her; stern and angry, like how she had woken up to him in the first place. She cowered from him and started to shake in her fear of him and what he would do to her now she had told him she had eavesdropped.
“What did you hear?” She shook her head and kept silent. “What did you hear?!” He shouted it at her, demanding an answer and more tears leaked from her eyes. Terrified of him, but he needed to know just how much explaining he had to do. He himself was starting to worry at what she had heard and how her frightened mind had interpreted it.
“You said you’ll punish the village, that you will do something to me. That time was running out.”
He only looked more anger at her confession. “Please, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I walked there, I didn’t mean to, I felt like I had to walk to you. I’m sorry.”
“Hush, I am not angry. I should have known that had you woken up that would happen. As my Bride, your instinct is to feed me when I am hungry, as I would you. You felt my hunger, and you must have felt I was about to give into it and feed and by nature’s law you went to find me, to give me what I needed.”
She cringed from that explanation. She didn’t want to feed him and she certainly didn’t want to end up wandering around trying to find him in the future just so he could drink her blood.
“I will not take from you until you are ready.” He tried reassuring her but her eyes were far too wide to be normal. She wasn’t taking any comfort in his words. “The village needs punishing for their treatment of you. You are my Bride and I did not expect to find you injured and ill cared for! They need to know that when I ask for something I mean to see it in perfect condition.”
“What will you do to them?”
Her voice was barely audible. “I will scare them. Joseph will explain to them how displeased I am, and he can be a very scary man. He is not one to cross. I will also be speaking to them, but I will let Joseph go first, just to make them even more afraid.”
“They gave me to you because they were afraid.”
“They gave you to me, so that they could be protected by me; because they are too weak to protect themselves!” He spat in disgust. His father had started something off he had no choice but to see through with it. And until they had harmed his Bride, he had never been bothered by a little fight here and there. It barely took any strength from him. He had fought vampire wars so a mere human battle of only a few hundred was like playing with plastic figurines to him - they fell at the slightest touch.
He got her back into her room laying her on the bed but the minute he took his arms from around her waist she scrambled away from him, as far from him as she was able to while still being on the bed.
“You despicable! A monster. I don’t want to be your Bride! I won’t. I won’t come to you again when you are hungry!” She wanted to turn her back on him but she was not that brave. Shouting at him and denying him her blood she was sure would earn her some sort of punishment already. As it was his features darkened and she huddled further up, making herself as small as she was able to.
“You are my Bride, there is no changing that. I will give you time, but I can not give you as much as I wanted to. Get used quickly Lily, I will take you by force if time runs down.”
With that he left the room, her sobbing could be heard by him all three floors down as he made his way back to Joseph. He felt awful, but it was true.
“You should just take her by force, she’ll see sense in the long run.”
“No Joseph. You have no Bride, you can’t understand.” Joseph did not look too happy about being told that to his face. His eyes narrowed but they were cousins, where Joseph would have struck out at someone else, to Perttu he kept his fist and claws to himself but he would not let him get away without knowing he had offended him.
“I’m sorry Joseph - I should not have said that.”
“I will find a Bride soon enough. Here.”
His features brightened, getting over the insult and letting Perttu off the hook. He took from his pocket an hourglass about ten inches long and filled with sand. “It counts down the moon. This is how much time you have left, as of today.” He placed the hourglass on the table, turned, so the sand started to seep through the little gap and fill up the bottom part of the glass. “I must be going. Keep an eye on the sand. At the end of that, Lily must be turned, you must be at full strength and prepared for what is coming. Don’t let it run out before you are ready.”
Tapping his head, Joseph started to leave. “Oh, I’ll be taking a detour back through the village, you’ll be pleased to know.”
“Thank you.” The quiet of the house was lonely, so much so that Perttu took a seat at the table and watched the sand, grain by grain fall from the top and into the bottom. Dread started to fill him, he had a countdown, and he worried that he would not fill it. He had to woo Lily in that time. He had to feed from her, and change her. He didn’t want to see her face when he told her everything.
Her sobbing had stopped so he took that for a good sign that she had gone back to sleep. So he heaved himself from his chair and went upstairs himself. Back into her room and placed the hourglass on the floor by the chair. He would show it to her in the morning hoping it helped her get used to the idea of him. He wriggled a bit in the chair but then got comfortable and tried to get some sleep himself; one day when she accepted him he would sleep on the bed with her, but not yet. He couldn’t do that yet.
The sun dawned and they both slept, the sun set and they started to open their eyes. By instinct he was pleased to see his Bride was following his sleeping pattern.
“Ah, your awake, Lily, would you like some breakfast?”
She didn’t answer him, she simply turned her back on him, rolling onto her side.
“I’m going to be frank with you Lily. I need to change you. You are my Bride and I can not have my Bride die before me. It’s that simple. So as much as I hate to do this, I also can not have a mortal when the full moon comes. We all have to be prepared and I will not lose you. I will change you, and I have here an hourglass. You will be changed before the last grain of sand runs out. I advise you to come to terms with that.”
He placed the hourglass on the bedside table; the little ‘clunk’ of it hitting the wooden table had her finally turning around. Back on her side she looked at the trickling sand, not at him. A hand on her head made her flinch but her eyes were captivated by the sand that was running out fast.
“Lily, I will never hurt you. You have this impression of me, but I am not a monster. I am not a bad person. I am a man who is very much falling in love with you. To me you are beautiful. Maybe to many other men as well, but you are hypnotising to me. I can not take my eyes off your beauty even for a second when I am with you. I exercise such control around you.”
“Leave me.” She said. How had her life come down to this.
“I will get you some breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I will weep Lily as I turn you, if I have to turn you by force. You will break my heart if I have to be a monster in the end. That is not who I am. Circumstance, Lily, has changed this and I will change with it. I am no monster yet. Try your hardest to get to know me Lily, see who I am and when I change you it can be a beautiful thing, as you are a beautiful woman. Ignore me and my attempts and for the sake of your safety, I will be a monster. And it will not be beautiful and it will break my heart. I’ll go and get some breakfast now.”
He left her. Alone. With his words echoing in her head. She had no tears left, she had barely any breath left. She stared at the sand falling. Time was dwindling away and she had no control anymore. None at all. She had no choice but to stay here for the sake of a village. She had decided to stay and not run, so now she had to do what was required of her; change into a vampire as well. She didn’t want that, but she also didn’t want to be changed by force. She wanted to prepared for it. See it coming, the day and the time. She glanced once more at the sand glass and finally sat up in bed. If he was bringing breakfast, she had to try to eat it at least. She had to embrace this life she was forced to live.
She cast one more hurried glance in the direction of the hourglass when she heard him coming back. She almost screamed that he had come back too soon but the sand was telling her, he had come back just in time. She looked away from the countdown and he entered her room with a tray that smelled delicious. Time to get to know the vampire.