Millie had let worry fester and had obsessed over if the vampire had told anyone of their encounter. But it didn’t seem like he did. He wasn’t in her class anymore and she didn’t get the feeling that anyone was following her, but yet still she could seem to rid herself of the nagging worry gnawing at her mind that someone was.
This was one of the reasons that she hated small towns. There were fewer places for a person to hide. She liked the anonymity that a big city provided. There were places you could hide in the city, where you could get lost in the crowds; here in small towns like Summit Valley hiding was near impossible, somebody always noticed.
She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in over a week, so that was why at almost one-thirty in the morning she was seated at the counter in Mrs. Burge’s kitchen nibbling on a piece of chocolate cake wrapped in a soft robe. Her violet gaze studied the sheet of snow that blanketed the backyard; it reminded her of the way things looked when it was winter in Austria, it was one of the few places that she frequented.
She had spent months there, pouring over old books and scrolls trying to find a way to free herself, until he had almost found her. All of those searches had been unyielding. She had been a blonde then, she remembered twirling a lock of her naturally darkened strands around her finger, with shoulder length hair and thick bangs. The one thing that didn't change were her eyes - contacts didn't help camouflage the vivid purple of her irises.
It had only been about three years that she had really tried to figure any of this out. Most of her life she had been on the run, hiding, hoping that he wouldn’t find her again.
She rarely stayed in one place for too long or formed attachments with anyone. Millie knew that if he ever found out he would use them to hurt her. Hers was a destitute existence.
Footsteps were picked up in her superior hearing and her body stiffened, immediately going alert. She knew that it was a chance that it was no one dangerous—there were other people who were boarded here—but that still meant that there was a slim chance that it could be.
Footsteps sounded closer now. Her fingers tightened it's hold on the fork and her heart speed up. The doors were carelessly pushed open and Mrs. Burge entered the kitchen, greeting her with a warm smile and a huge yawn.
Millie’s shoulders relaxed as she took her in, she was wearing a fluffy yellow robe with large pastel flowers and very cute bunny slippers, and her silver hair unwound falling between her shoulder blades, her eyes holding a hint of drowsiness.
“You’re up late,” started Millie with a small smile; she was usually in bed by ten, mostly so she would be up at six preparing breakfast. It seemed like everyone did usually take their breakfast here, Mrs. Burge was after all a wonderful cook.
“So are you. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Yeah. Neither can I.”
Connie studied the somber eyed young woman. There was something sad about her and it tugged on her maternal instincts to protect. She seemed so lonely, so solemn. It was as if she had the world of worries placed on her shoulders. Quietly she moved around the room making herself and Millie a cup of hot chocolate. She didn't ask but she knew no one could resist her hot chocolate. She slid the mug across the counter to her and watched as Millie wrapped her fingers around the cup saying a quiet thank you.
“Worried about something?” asked Mrs. Burge.
Millie nodded and quietly said “There are so many things that I worry about.”
"Do you want to talk about it? I've been told I'm a great listener of course I've also been told that I talk to much, mostly by my grandson," she added with a wide smile.
Millie shook her head. She would have loved to unload all her problems on someone. Have them tell her what to do, but there was too much crap in her life to allow that.
“Well you’re young; you still have your entire life ahead of you to worry about things so much. Things always fall into place when it needs to. Just don’t let that stop you from living. The best moments in life are the ones we’re present for.”
“Thanks Mrs. Burge.”
The older woman nodded, and walked over to Millie surrounding her in a warm, fruity scented hug “Don’t worry honey, everything will fine.”
"I hope so," she returned as Mrs. Burge picked up her mug, cradling it in her hand before returning to her room.
She'd said it so honestly that Millie knew that she had believed it, but she wasn’t all that young, even if she did have an endless future to think about. Slowly she sipped the warm liquid her gaze once again casting on the white blanketing the backyard.
* * * * *
The light musky scent of aged paper that surrounded her in the belly of the college library. It was a familiar scent that she had grown very accustomed to and gave her moderate comfort. The pale light filtering in from the stained glass window bathed her in a soft glow. Millie poured over the mountains of books that she was buried among that filled the tabletop, until her eyes felt scratchy and grainy.
Leaning back, she ran her hands down her face and let out a low groan. Her fingers dug into her tense neck muscles, feelings of hunger creeping up on her. With a glance at her watch she realized that it was almost midnight and she had worked through dinner. For two days now she’d been coming here after her classes and searching for the answers to her questions. She didn’t really want to attend her classes, but she needed to blend into the student population and missing classes would have just added suspicion to her.
Yawning deeply, she pressed her fingers into the eyes, rubbing lightly before she resumed her reading.
It was bare ten minutes later when nausea gripped her tightly and refused to let go. She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat, unable to see anything but a blurry mess in front of her. She gripped the edge of the table tightly until her knuckles turned white, inhaling and exhaling deeply hoping to stop the strings from tugging at her mind.
She hated when he called her. Knew what it meant when he did. She could and did usually fight off his call--even if is was a futile effort--but she'd let herself get too tired to do so.
A headache throbbed in her skull and she stumbled away from her table with her eyes still closed, fighting off the sick feeling overcoming her. She wouldn’t risk the vision, not until she was away from anyone—though she hadn’t sensed anyone for hours now. On instinct she maneuvered between towering shelves, hidden in the limited light and let herself succumb to him.
“Hello Milliana,” his voice slithered over her skin draining her of all warmth.
Reluctantly she opened her eyes and was immediately met by his emotionless gaze. There was a smile on his handsome face, and his intense light blue eyes raked her body from head to toe. His dark hair was short and spiky, his face shadowed in the darkness, but no less handsome—he had high cheekbones and a lush mouth—his long limbs and wide shoulders hidden beneath a leather jacket and dark jeans.
Millie took a step back in retreat and a crooked smiled twisted on his lips. He’d brought her here—though she wasn’t exactly sure where here was—not in body but in spirit. It was called Spirit Calling, and it was where she would remain for as long as he decided to hold her. It never lasted long, five minutes at most, but those minutes ticked slowly and painfully by, churning revolt in her stomach.
“Micah,” she whispered hoarsely.
This was part of her torture, seeing him. There was no routine as to when he would call her. Sometimes it would be multiple times a week or she could go an entire month with out seeing him, this time it had only been ten days. One good thing was that even if he could call her, he could never find her. Thanks to Kate she was safe.
She stood with him in an alleyway, darkened by the night. Steam rose from the ground—most likely a manhole cover—and two ugly, blue, rusted dumpsters lined the walls of the towering concrete buildings on either side of them.
“You know I live for these moments,” he started, holding his hand up to her face, mimicking the action of smoothing the back of his fingers along her cheek. Knowing that he could never touch her in this form gave her momentary piece of mind. “Just you and me.”
Bile rose in her throat, a physical response that her real body felt, her fingernails digging into her palms. It was never just the two of them.
“You know you could stop all this. All you have to do is just tell me where you are.”
“Never,” she shook her head.
He clicked his tongue in disapproval. “You know after all these years I thought we were moving past all this hostility.”
She scoffed “Yeah well you thought wrong.”
He heaved a heavy sigh and turned, sauntering away from her. He moved behind a dumpster reaching out his hand, moments later emerging with a woman.
Her dark eyes were glassy and movements robotic. She was slim with dark skin and a wide mouth, her body warpped in a clingly black dress. There was no doubt in Millie’s mind that he had control of her, because she gave no indication that she was aware of anything. It was alarming, the amount of Talents that he had collected over the years, and by collected, Millie meant stole. Killing other Vampires and taking the abilities that they had for himself. Those Talents made him all the more dangerous, all the scarier.
He guided the woman closer to Millie and she stiffened, making his lips tilt into a sinister smile. “Tell me where you are Milliana,” he prodded again, his voice taking on a hard edge. Tears burned in her eyes but she still wouldn’t tell him. “You know it gives me no pleasure hurting you like this.”
A soft disbelieving sound erupted from her. His only real pleasure came from her pain.
He leaned forward, slowly never breaking his eye contact with her and whispered into the woman’s ear. Immediately awareness leaked back into her face and she whimpered trying to move away from him in panicked confusion but she hot no where, her legs wouldn't move. Micah’s hands wrapped around her neck as he brought her to stand in front of him controlling her movements still. Millie could sense the panic in the woman as she wondered what exactly was happening. Millie's eyes burning with hot tears as Micah once again demanded to know where she was.
“You can stop this Milliana. Just tell me where you are and I’ll let her go.”
He said it so simply and she desperately wanted to. Every bone in her body screamed in her body to just tell him everything, but she knew from painful past experiences that he wouldn’t let his captive go. The woman twisted in revolt against Micah, her eyes pleading with Millie for help. Silent tears fell down her cheeks, guilt twisting on her insides and a helplessness settled over Millie making her shiver. I can’t help you, she thought to the woman, hoping that she understood. I can’t.
“Don’t do this,” she pleaded in desperation, hating that she was begging him.
“Tell me where you are.”
Millie watched him quietly. Holding the woman down despite her struggles, he bared his fang with a chilling hiss inching closer to his victim. The woman whimpered in fear and he sank his teeth into the side of her neck, his eyes holding Millie’s the entire time.
He enjoyed the struggle. It made him feel powerful and gave him a high that tasted sweeter than the blood he drew from their veins.
Millie felt the woman’s fear, her pain, felt as the life leaked from her body and it all rested heavily on her conscience. It was another nameless face that she would never be able to save.
Micah thought that it was like sex. The completion that he got from feeding like this, through the pain and the fear made him feel a sense of fulfillment that he rarely got from anything else. Feeling as the life ebbed out of the human and into his veins giving him life and all the while having Milliana with him. Her beautiful face staring at him and only him.
He could still remember the first time he saw her. She had always been so beautiful. She was a maid in his father's household and he wanted her, he would have her. She spurned his advances at first, but that was all part of the game that they played. She could pretend to hate him all she wanted but he knew that she loved him, just as much as he loved her.
Lust resentment curled in his stomach. How he wanted her, there was nothing he desired more and he hated her for it. For making him want her because it was weakness to love her, but soon he would have her again. And then he would have control of this weakness.
It was in these moments he knew that he was the most important thing to her, just as he always wanted to be, just as she always should have been.
Slowly the human stopped moving and he knew that all life had left her. He let the disgusting thing fall from his grip and he stepped over the body, not giving it a second thought. His tongue brushed over his fangs, the sweet taste of blood still staining his mouth.
“You could have stopped it, my love.” He moved closer to her, feeling a rush of desire at the breathless sounds that came from her lips.
She belonged to him. She was his and he would one day have her again. Feel her flesh and taste her blood, because he knew that there was no sweeter taste than that of his Milliana. No one could love her quite like he did. No one had the right to.
He stood directly before her now and the only thing he could think about was how beautiful she was. Her fine features and silky hair, the petite body that he knew was warm and soft. His hold was slipping but he wasn’t ready to let her go just yet. Spirit Calling drained him faster than his other Talents and it didn’t help that she struggled against his hold. He reached forward and grabbed her cheeks between his thumb and index fingers.
Millie gasped, her eyes widening in surprise and Micah’s lips quirked into a smile. He liked that he still could surprise her.
“H-h-how?” she stammered out and the fear in her voice only made his smile broaden, he loved hearing her make those sounds. He loved the fear he saw in her eyes.
He leaned closer and his breath fanned her face adding even more fuel to her confusion. He wasn’t supposed to be able to touch her. Not when she was like this. Her breaths puffed from her lips and her heart was beating wildly, echoing in her ears as he held her face in place. She studied his face, those eyes—bleak and void of emotion—boring into her.
“Because I’m closer than you think.”
He pulled her forward and his lips harshly crashed down on hers. Filled with disgust she struggled against his kiss.
Pushing her hands against his chest she wrenched out of his grip and fell back into her body.
With a gasp, back in the library, Millie fell to her knees sobs raking her body. She slid to the floor, the cold of the surface seeping into her skin, but she felt none of it. Her heart hurt for the woman that he had just killed. The woman that she couldn’t have saved. Maybe she could have, but self-preservation, had forced her not to. She felt like she was a terrible person, worse than even Micah was. She was allowing him to do terrible things to people only because she was afraid to face him.
She scrubbed her fingers hard against her lips hoping that it would scrub away his touch, wipe away his kiss, her pitiful cries echoing in the near empty space.
Somehow she had dragged herself back to her desk on shaky legs, hunger long forgotten with a headache throbbing forcefully behind her eyes. Knowing that she wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on anything again tonight she gathered her things slowly, suddenly more exhausted than before, deciding that it was time to go home.
Her mind was in wreckage for the entire walk home, fear twisting in her mind. At every sound she stopped and waited with baited breath expecting to see him emerge next to her. She jumped at shadows and whispers. Micah said he was close. And while she had no reason to believe him, she didn’t dare doubt him either.
She had checked every corner of her room watching for anything that showed there had been someone in her room, but she found nothing, everything was as she’d left it. She stood in the middle of the room watching, everything and nothing, tears once again burning in her eyes, the feelings of the last hour crashing into her.
She fell to her knees sobs breaking free from her lips He always had the power to shatter her peace of mind in only a few short minutes. She knelt there crying—anguish in each sound that she made—for the woman that she couldn’t save another nameless face to add to her nightmares.
Peeling off her clothing she made her way to the bathroom leaving them in a trail behind her on the floor. She stepped into the shower and turned the water on to scalding hot. She needed to wash away Micah. The feeling of him, the memory of him. The water drummed on her head and ran down her body, tickling her skin.
She and Micah were Blood Bound.
It was a term she had only recently discovered in her research though it gave no further explanation and was really nothing more than a fragmented thought. She was connected to him and him to her. She wasn’t sure why she was given this particular punishment, but his presence had haunted her for over six hundred years. She wasn’t a vampire like he was, in essence she was still a human—she bled and grew tired, needed food to survive—but she knew that she wasn’t quite a human. She had been alive after all for six hundred years, that wasn’t exactly a very mortal thing.
Being bound to Micah also meant that she shared some of his abilities; abilities given to all Newbloods—newly turned vampires. She had the strength, the speed and superior senses but she also didn’t have an escape from him. He wanted her, desired having her and was committed to getting her.
He had tortured her for years, like he did tonight, making her beg for the life of a stranger. It made her feel responsible for their death. At an earlier time before she truly knew what he was, she had told him her location, if only to prevent him from killing but he had just killed anyway, slaughtering an entire village of people before getting to her.
He had kept her locked up for years after that. She was his personal entertainment, his pleasure. His personal blood bank. Her blood she knew was deadly to any vampire that would drink from her, killing them mere minutes after they had fed, but it wasn’t deadly for him. Although she had never stopped wishing that her blood did kill him like it did the others.
Millie had waited, endured and bid her time before she escaped from him. She’d made a vow then that she would never again be his prisoner.
Turning of the water she stepped out of the shower and wrapped a fluffy towel around her body. The water no longer able to ward off the chill setting in her body. Wiping the steam fogged mirror she stared at her reflection. Her hair was limp around her youthful face; her cheeks flush and dusted with freckles, eyes bright in their unusual shade of violet. It was the unnatural beauty gifted to a vampire and she hated herself for it. Because it only served as a reminder of what she was, and what she wasn’t.
Millie had searched for answers to her questions. Had spent years in libraries looking for any snippet of information but was left disappointed when she found nothing. Nothing on how to break her bond with Micah or how to escape him.
Wrapping herself in her warmest pajamas she crawled into bed, her tired limbs sighing, but she knew that sleep wouldn’t come easy to her tonight.
She was so exhausted that she didn’t feel the presence of another close by. She didn’t notice the figure standing in the backyard looking up as the light went off in her room.