Chapter 20 - Fear
I could see one figure, lying on the pavement, and blood pooling out from his form. The other was stood there above him, facing him, all tensed and breathing heavily. It appeared as though the figure standing had been the cause of the seemingly lifeless body lying in front of them. As I sensed the danger I began to back away. The man who stood there, staring at the apparently lifeless body lying in front of him, immediately sensed my presence and snapped his head around to face me. He was wearing a hood which still shadowed his features, so I still couldn’t quite make out his face.
“Miranda! Miranda, wait!” He screamed, his voice still unrecognisable.
All I knew was that I felt so much pain in the pit of my stomach. I felt loss, fear, anger; I especially felt that I had to escape the murderous scene that lay in front of my eyes. I turned so fast that everything was blurred for a moment, and began sprinting down the path which had led to the ocean. I now knew what I had to do.
I had to do it. I had to do... something. I still didn’t understand what had just happened or what I had to do, but I knew that I had to do something.
I kept running, regardless of the fact that I was choking on the oxygen that I so desperately was trying to engulf into my lungs. As I was sprinting I could hear the man following on after me, calling things out to me that I couldn’t quite make out. All I knew was that I had to keep running, away from his threatening self. I could finally see the water, approaching the snow white sand, and continued to run until I had almost breathlessly reached the coast line. And that’s when I fell to my knees, becoming overtaken and overwhelmed with all of the emotional pain that I was in, letting the tears fall hysterically from my eyes.
Everything around me started to fade then. It was fading into black, into nothing...then I opened my eyes and I was back in the bedroom, Will’s bedroom. Will suddenly caught my eye; he was sitting at the end of the bed, just staring at me with so much pain and concern plastered across that beautiful face of his, needing, and wanting so badly to come and comfort me, yet something was holding him back.
I could feel the wetness on my face, triggering me to realise that I’d had the dream again, and in the presence of Will, as usual. “Will, do you know why you’re always here when I have these nightmares?” I choked out, still trying to push away the agonising emotions which were now slowly subsiding inside of me. He paused for a moment before answering, as if trying to gather the correct thoughts first.
“I think it’s because of what we are Miranda; you being a witch, with stronger brain power than most humans. Your body can sense the predator. You can sense that I’m near you, and it must put some sort of physical stress on your body, triggering your premonitions. Almost like a defence mechanism, a natural warning.”
Oh. Why was Will so smart? Why did he have to have an answer for just about everything, even if I didn’t really want one? That was the last thing that I wanted to hear. I liked Will overwhelmingly and now my body was telling me that he was too much of a threat?
“But Will, I know that’s not how I feel about you. I feel the complete opposite really. If anything, you help the stress to disappear.” I finished meekly, realising the emotions revealed from that mere statement. He began to slowly move closer towards me, and I was finding it difficult to hold back. “And why do you have to stay away from me? Why do you care so much about that? No one has to know every aspect of our personal lives, that’s exclusively our own business...” I trailed off, realising what I was saying, searching his face for some sort of answer. I had basically just given away the fact that I so desperately craved for him, which made me feel incredibly anxious.
“Miranda, it’s not that simple...” He started, running a hand through his hair restlessly. “You don’t understand what will happen if they found out; if the other vampires found out. And I’m not even talking about the rogues here. They will destroy you Miranda. They’ll suck you dry, torture you, and then they will destroy me. It is absolutely forbidden to be associated with witches. Well, unless...” He trailed off; pain now completely having overtaken his expression.
“Unless what, Will?” I cut in, desperate for a solution.
“Never mind. There’s not much else we can do.” I knew he was lying. I knew there was another option. I also knew he wasn’t going to tell me now but I would eventually force it out of him soon enough.
His phone began ringing, startling me slightly and breaking the silent tension between us. Will grabbed it, threw me the slightest sympathy smile, and walked out of the room, proceeding to answer the call. Ok, so basically I wasn’t even allowed to be friends with a guy that I’d had the biggest crush on, because he was a vampire and I was a witch, and vampires and witches were enemies? This was insanity. I don’t think that I could have stayed away from Will again even if I had tried.
Then suddenly Will came rushing back through the door, slamming it open, startling me. He seemed breathless, and so tense that his jaw was tightly clenched and his fists curled into balls. “Miranda, we have to get out of here. Now.” He frantically stated, grabbing me by the arm and beginning to drag me out of the room.
“Ouch, Will, wait...” I grumbled, still in pain from the incident that happened last night. Or was it even last night? I had no idea what the day even was, all I knew was that I’d felt like I’d slept for days. He suddenly spun around, flashing me a sympathetic expression. Then in an instant, he’d swept me up off of my feet, and was now holding me bridal style. My arms predictably wrapped up around his neck, and I clung on for dear life.
Before I knew it, the air around me was whooshing so fast, that it had forced me to close my eyes and bury my head into Will’s gorgeously muscled chest. I had absolutely no idea what was happening. Taking a stab at the dark, I guessed Will was running, at lightning speed, just as he’d told me he could, with his vampire abilities and all. I tried with all of my might to pry my eyes open, and notice that everything around us was a blur. The air was hitting the side of my face so hard that it was almost unbearable, triggering the watering effect in my eyes. I looked up at Will’s face; he looked so concerned, so panicked, and so concentrated. Yet he was so beautiful. His face was so perfect, and no matter what expression was pulled across it, he still would look so damn hot, and he would still distract me from the perils of reality.
“W-Will, what the heck is going on? Where are you taking me?” I pleaded, noticing that he was completely ignoring me. I decided to leave it until we’d reached our destination, and so squeezed my eyes shut once again and nestled my head back safely into his rock hard chest.
After what seemed about twenty minutes, I started to notice the air that was hitting my face and around me begin to lessen its blow, sensing that we were slowing down. I opened my eyes and could ever so slightly make out a blurred green and brown forest surrounding us. I could now smell the dewy air and the ripeness of the nature engulfing us, birds singing and leaves rustling in the slight breeze. Will eventually slowed to a human pace, and it was then that I noticed he was walking towards what looked like a two storey fancy wooden cabin, in the middle of a seemingly deserted forest.
“Will do you wanna tell me what the hell is going on now?” I begged frustratingly, sick and tired of being ignored. He just briskly turned his head down towards me, meeting my eyes, as if he’d only just realised that I had been there the entire time.
“Sorry Miranda, I’ll explain everything when we get inside.” He replied, focusing back up towards the cabin that we had now almost reached. I didn’t think that anything he could have told me right then could have shocked me anymore than all of the previous information I’d taken in these past few weeks. I’d had just about enough ridiculous occurrences in my life recently that I felt like I was fully prepared for what was to come next. Little did I know at the time, that I couldn’t have been more wrong.
He opened the door and walked through, locking it behind us, whilst still somehow holding me in his arms. “Can you put me down already?” I asked as he walked towards the large, soft, comfy looking brown couch which was set out in front of a large fireplace and flat screen TV mounted to the wall above.
I looked around for a moment, noticing just how beautiful this cabin was. It looked as though it was built in the eighties, yet it was enticing and extravagant, like a millionaire’s holiday ski lodge. Everything was in perfect nick; untouched, like a display home, or the set of an eighties movie. The wooden floor in front of me was covered with a large white shag rug, and a rustic wooden coffee table. The walls were made of wooden logs too, and the curtains a deep blood-red, reaching all the way up to the ceiling of the open plan second floor.
Will placed me on the couch, so that I was stretched out across the chaise-lounge side. He sat beside me, slumping back down into its softness, leaning his head back and covering his face with his hands. It was an understatement to say that he looked a mixture of tired, exhausted, and frustrated. He then took in a deep breath and removed his hands to turn his head and lay those enrapturing eyes into mine, as if knowing that I was about to beg for another explanation.
“Miranda they’re already after you; the rogues. Seb and his mates. They knew you were with me. Apparently they were planning an attack on the house, today. I doubt they’d have the power to break past my security guards, but there was no way we could have stayed there if some sort of battle was to happen.”
He took in a deep breath before continuing, “I’m pretty sure we’ll be safe here for now until I get clearance from home. They don’t know about this place. My mate warned me pretty well in advance so I’m hoping your scent would have disappeared by the time their plans were meant to take place. Plus I can sense them a mile away; we’d have time to escape again if we have to.” He explained, breaking his gaze from me and resting his head back on the couch again.
My heart was pounding a million miles an hour, and my mind racing with a million propositions, “I don’t get it Will. Why do they want me? Do they seriously just want to kill me and that’s it? Just to hurt you? What the heck went down between you and Seb for him to hate you so much?” I was getting increasingly infuriated the more I thought about it.
“Seriously Will tell me the truth. I can tell you’re hiding something.” I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest and pulling a silly spoilt little brat face. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut for just a moment as he took in a large deep breath. He opened them again, now staring intently into mine, and shuffled closer towards me on the couch. He was now sitting right up against me, facing me, and gently placed his palms against the couch to either side of my head. Once again, his proximity began to make my palms sweat, as he slowly advanced towards my face, and finally, gently touching his forehead to mine. For a moment there I almost had hope that he was going to kiss me. Pull it together Miranda.
“Close your eyes Miranda, and relax. Clear your mind of everything that is going on. Just think of nothing pretty much. Just plain, black, nothing. Got it?” He whispered, his very touch sending shivers down my spine and causing my heart to continue beating erratically. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what he was trying to do at this moment, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with my abilities.
“Now, think of me. Think of nothing but me. Think of the questions again you had just asked me a moment ago.” He urged, as images of his gorgeous sparkling eyes, perfectly shaped lips and chiselled jaw, toned chest and perfectly sculptured body, began to flood into my mind...
And then suddenly foreign images began to enter my mind. Images that appeared to perhaps be in the form of what you would interpret a memory to be. But they weren’t my ‘memories’, I didn’t recognise them at all. They were his memories. Will’s memories...
I was suddenly taken into what appeared to be a large eighteenth century style mansion; somewhat familiar...I think it was Will’s house. It was like I was in Will’s body, looking through his eyes at the jaded scene which played out in front of me.
He was standing at the kitchen bench, watching a very handsome and muscled man, with his arms flirtatiously wrapped around a strikingly pretty woman, both giggling and playfully pecking at each other’s lips.
The girl was gorgeous. She had light brown long wavy hair, and sparkling blue eyes, the colour of the deep ocean. She had flawlessly smooth skin, was model thin, and looked as though she could have been a Victoria’s Secret model. And the man, he was...oh god. He was Sebastian. I didn’t recognise him at first as he didn’t have the tattoos I’d known him to have, and his hair was much longer. They were dressed in clothes that indicated at that time perhaps tattoos were far from popular - eighteenth century clothes. That made me shudder at the thought of just how old Will really was...
Will suddenly shook his head and turned to walk out of the room. I felt a slight wave of the emotions he was feeling at the time; a bit of frustration, anger, heartache, possibly even jealousy. If I wasn’t wrong, this scene was telling me that Will had known Seb. Perhaps lived with him. Maybe even possibly related to him? And that girl, I’m guessing, was Seb’s girlfriend. But there was something about their relationship that made Will uneasy. Was he jealous? Was Will in love with this woman?
This scene began to fade, and another scene slowly started to paint itself in front of my eyes. This time I was in Will’s bedroom, and I was - or he, was standing against one of his walls, with his ear to it, as if trying to listen in on the events of the adjacent room. I then noticed the beautiful girl was standing next to him, doing the same. Her face appeared shocked, distraught, shattered, upset, and angry, yet she was still stunningly beautiful.
I listened in and could hear what sounded like moans of pleasure, the sound of a man and a woman making love. I heard a woman moan out Seb’s name a few times, and could hear the embarrassingly banging thrusts of the bed against the wall. If I wasn’t wrong, Seb was making love to another woman, he was cheating on his stunning girlfriend. And she’d only just discovered it.
This girl pulled away from the wall. Her distraught expression slowly began to fade as she straightened her face, as if coming to some sort of realisation. She suddenly threw herself at Will, forcing her lips upon his, sending shock waves of emotions throughout my gut. He was overcome with excitement, and eventually engulfed her into his embrace. I further felt lust, love, passion, want and need, all overwhelming the insides of his stomach. And then this scene now started to fade in front of me...
I was now taken to another scene, this time I, or Will, was running through a dark forest, and I could see in the corner of my eye what appeared to be blood staining his white eighteenth century shirt. He was running so fast, and I could feel the emotions of pain, fear, dread, and anxiousness, fuelling his mission. He neared the mansion that I was starting to recognise in the distance, to be his home. As he neared closer, I began to make out a few figures, leaning against a tree that lined the edge of the forest which landscaped the area behind Will’s mansion.
The closer he became, the more intense his emotions were getting, and I could now make out in front of me what had caused these emotions. It was Seb, cornering that beautiful girl against the tree. He was holding her limp body up with his strong arms, and had his face ferociously buried into her neck, sucking her dry. The second he’d sensed Will gaining on him, he pulled away from her neck, and let go of her, dropping her wilted, lifeless looking body to the ground. She was as pale as a ghost, and if I wasn’t wrong, she appeared dead.
Seb turned to face Will, blood dripping from his fangs. A slight smirk started to creep up onto his devilish face, which only made Will’s blood boil more intensely, to the point that I felt like his adrenalin pumping through his veins was going to cause him to explode. Will started sprinting at Seb so fast that I was worried that at the moment they would collide, both of their entire bodies would shatter into a million pieces.
But before he’d reached him, the scene began to black out once more. This time I wasn’t brought to another scene, but instead back to reality. I was breathing heavily as my heart beat raced, and I could feel tears forming at the corners of my eyes. I felt so mad, so devastated, so much pain, but thankfully it was beginning to subside. I had felt what Will had felt, seen what he had seen. I opened my eyes and looked up into his, sympathy written all over my face.
“I-I’m sorry Will, I’m so sorry...” I trailed off, throwing myself at him, wrapping my arms around his neck, engulfing him into a tight embrace. He returned my passionate hug, pressing his hard chest up against mine, and wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling me in even tighter.
I felt tremendously at peace in Will’s arms, I didn’t want to move from his embrace. I’d wished that I could have stayed like this forever, but he ever so slowly, so gently, began to pull his face back so that we were now looking into each other’s eyes, arms still wrapped around each other.
“He is an asshole. My brother, Seb, he had a nasty streak in him since the day he was born a pure blood vampire. He treated her like scum, and I thought she had deserved so much better. The second he found out what was going on between her and I, he wanted nothing more than revenge on me. That’s when he turned rouge, he joined them. My family disowned him as soon as they found out what he’d done, and he knows that if he dares to come near us he will be killed. No hesitation.” The emotions seeping out through Will’s expression were so powerful.
“And I’m so sorry to drag you into this Miranda. He will stop at nothing to have his revenge on me. And what better way to do it than to do to me what I did to him? Take away someone that means the world to me. He didn’t even really love her though. He didn’t deserve her. If he really loved her, he wouldn’t have cheated on her, and repeatedly too.” He spilled, still holding my gaze.
He was still so pained from what had happened, yet it was centuries ago. I wondered then how much she really did mean to him, “Was she the love of your life Will?” I queried boldly, curious to know more about his past.
Will cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Well, yeah, I mean I thought so. I loved her more than anything at the time. But not until I found out that she was only using me. She never really loved me. She’d always loved Seb, she just wanted to hurt him, to get back at him. As far as I’m concerned they probably deserved each other in the end. But he’s a cold hearted demon Miranda, he will stop at nothing to hurt me. He killed the love of his life for it.” This sparked up a rash fear inside of me, realising that my life was now most likely in danger.
I suddenly felt so guilty about pashing Seb, about feeling attracted to him, and about wanting him. But technically that was probably just pure lust, formed from the pheromones that he, as a predator, had targeted me with. There was no way in hell that Will could find out about what had happened that night before he bit me. Unless of course he already knew, that is, if he’d seen us there, in the alley. But I’d doubted it. There was no way he would be here like this with me, trying to protect me, embracing me, if he had known.
Then another irrational thought hit me about that night; Seb had bitten me. Did this mean that I was going to turn into one of them? I’d seen all of those silly vampire movies, and wondered what the truth really was. I began to freak out a little, “Will, that night Seb bit me, does that mean that, you know, I’m going to become, you know, one of y-you?” I stuttered hesitantly, in hope that I didn’t sound too ridiculous. Will’s face was blank for a split second, before letting out a slight chuckle. Okay, maybe I did sound a bit ridiculous. It wasn’t that simple, I was now sure of it.
“It’s a bit more complicated than that. For you to turn, you have to drink the blood of the vampire that had bitten you, almost immediately after. It’s got to do with the toxin from their fangs that’s released into your system when you’re bitten. That toxin also has a kind of paralysis effect, preventing the victim from fighting back. So anyway, when you drink their blood, you’re ingesting another toxin, one that binds to the initial toxin in your system. When these toxin’s combine, they form a molecule which has the ability to mutate your genes. That’s when the turning process happens. The genes which give us all of our predatory characteristics are turned on, you know like I explained to you the other week?”
Will really was smart. I guess that comes from being alive for a few centuries, or how ever old he was. Plus studying something as complicated as biotechnology, for however many times he’d probably studied it by now. This probably explained why he was so good in class, how he knew exactly how to do everything in the lab.
All of this insane information was flooding my brain and making me feel increasingly exhausted. Not only this but I’d probably lost quite a bit of blood from when I was bitten, and my body probably needed an excessive amount of rest and recovery time. As I was zoning out, I had noticed the sun slowly falling on the horizon through the window, indicating that it was late afternoon.
“Will, did I lose much blood? I feel so exhausted. How long had I been sleeping for? I don’t want to miss college on Monday. You realise if you miss another lab prac on Tuesday, you’re going to fail?” I trailed off as Will began giggling at my irrelevant babbling.
“Miranda, we’ve got a lot more important things to worry about now other than college. I don’t think we’ll be going back for a while. It’s not safe.” Ofcourse. Silly me…
“And yeah, he took quite a bit of blood, but my mum helped me give you a blood transfusion back at my house. You’d still be weak but you should be a hell of a lot better. And it’s now Monday night, so we’ve already missed the first day anyway.”
Oh shit. Had I seriously been sleeping for pretty much two whole days? And blood transfusion?! I looked down and saw that a small scab had formed in the shape of a dot, at the vein in the middle of my arm. Oh god.
Before I knew it, Will had whisked me up into his arms, bridal style, once again. He made his way up the stairs and into the main bedroom. He closed the door behind us, and pulled back the blanket layering the bed, before gently placing me down. He moved down towards my feet and started pulling my shoes off. I just mindlessly sat there and let him have his way with me; I was zoned out and kind of enjoying it.
He then moved towards me again, staring into my eyes, and gently pulled his jacket off of my shoulders, which he must have given me while I was unconscious, not daring to break my gaze. I could then see a slight smirk form at the sides of his lips.
“I wouldn’t mind helping you with your dress too, doesn’t seem like you’re going to stop me anytime soon.” He chuckled, still smirking at me. I suddenly came back to reality and slapped his arm while throwing him back a cheeky smile, deep down kind of longing for the day that that would happen, but knowing how unlikely it would probably be. This caused the growing butterflies inside my stomach to immediately subside. I pulled the covers over me, and wriggled my dress off under them, hiding myself from Will. He just sat there watching me intently as if trying to make me feel nervous, and giggling.
“You alright under there?” He asked cockily. I threw him a seductive smile, bringing my arms out from under the covers, pulling out my clothes. I had the blanket wrapped around my torso so that I appeared naked under the covers, and seductively threw my clothes over to the floor. I had a strapless bra on so I wasn’t really naked, but I was enjoying teasing Will, in hope that it would somehow change his mind on the whole ‘we’re forbidden to be together’ thing.
He threw me back some dirty daggers, still managing to smirk, and I could see that he wanted so badly to join me under the covers, I could feel the intense attraction. It was killing him that he couldn’t, and I was enjoying making him feel that way, feeling somewhat like I had the upper hand for a change. He turned around to head for the door, calling over his shoulder, “Night Miranda, try not to dream about me this time.”
Damn him. I really didn’t want him to leave me here. I wanted him to protect me, to spend the night beside me. I knew I had to give in to the stubbornness at some point.
“Wait, Will?” I asked, causing him to pause and turn around, almost as if he was waiting for me to beg for him. “Will, please, don’t go. I don’t feel safe just yet. Stay with me tonight, at least?” I appealed meekly, patting the bed beside me and throwing him my best attempt of puppy dog eyes, knowing that there was no way he would resist them. He just grinned, trying hard to contain the happiness that my desperation had probably caused him. Yep, he had won once again.
He slowly began to walk towards me on the bed. I smiled at him in defeat, because I realised that this time, I had been the one to really have won. He was going to do as I’d asked. I then turned around to face the other wall, my back towards him, ready to be overtaken by sleep, comforted at the thought that he would lie beside me.
I felt the pressure on the bed the second he sat on it. He removed his shoes and lay down next to me on top of the covers, not daring to lift them, probably still thinking that I was naked underneath.
“I’m not naked you know.” I admitted, the uncontrollable smirk probably coming through in my tone.
“It’s called a strapless bra. Now I don’t want you to freeze above the covers there.” I whispered. Satisfied at the way I lured Will into my bed, I closed my now heavy eyelids, knowing that I would feel safe by his side that night.
He just chuckled, and I could feel him shuffle around on the bed, and near closer towards me. He then wrapped his arm around my waist above the blanket, and snuggled right up to me. His chest was pressed against my back, and his head nestled into the back of my neck, his cool breath sending shivers down my spine.
His closeness caused the butterflies to explode in my stomach, and I wanted nothing more than to turn around and start pashing him at that moment. But I knew I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to ruin this sweet moment between the two of us.
He then ever so softly whispered into my ear, “Are you sure you feel more safe with me here? You do realise that this is dangerous, for the both of us.” His alluring voice sent more shivers down my spine, causing my heart beat to erratically pick up its pace. “You don’t understand what this closeness does to me Miranda, it makes me hungry.” He whispered again. All I could do was smile. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. I knew he was just teasing me.
I did feel safe. I felt more safe than I’d ever felt my entire life. I needed Will wrapped around me, and I needed it more than ever. This comforting thought sent me drifting off into dark unconsciousness.