Nathaniel held Abbi to his lips as their mouths delved into each other. She wasn't allowed to think with the way his tongue moved along her bottom lip, or the amatory kiss that made both their bodies shape together.
He lifted her into a state of divinity with each slow, sweet kiss. Nate's hand in her hair was moving now, down to the base of her neck - bringing Abbi nearer. She was drowning in every palpable sensation, the inevitable passion she felt in these seconds was the ardent fire of their love. Her hands braced at either sides of his chest, pulling at the material to tightly enfold him in her own rein. Abbi pushed herself forward, making Nate fall back onto the plush ground while she remained above, not breaking the kiss as they went.
This time, she did not feel guilty for deceiving such a beautiful person.
It was her turn to be conceited; Abbi wasn't thinking of any crinkle in her life, she wasn't caught kissing him, while worrying about something else. All Abigail could think of was how Nathaniel's mouth tasted, and how his hands felt at her hips.
Her fingers knead the end of his thin shirt, pulling it up to get some glimpse of what was underneath. Nathaniel, all to eager, quickly discarded his shirt without a second thought. It was surprising, how fast he had caught on, but in their own defense, every instant together was rash and fervent. Plus, anyone with common sense would want to get a look at Mr. Fang's abdominal muscles.
As Abbi pulled back, she tried not to stare too long, but failed altogether.
"You have a tattoo?" Abbi asked, surprised.
Her eyes were focused directly on the left side of his body. Positioned like an inky scrawl was a jargon of words, not exactly a tattoo, but more a permanent statement against ones' skin (so, pretty much a tattoo). She was honestly bewildered; Nate didn't seem to be a tattoo kind of guy, if you could even call the markings a tattoo.
"Somewhat; I like to refer to it as a blessing." Nathaniel said slowly.
"I'm giving you the chance to explain ..." She said, looking at him from underneath her lashes.
His smile was faint, but at least he didn't seem to be reluctant. "My father's dad wasn't a vampire, but he was a very religious man. Eventually he found out what Alexander had become and was horrified, he then decided to put a blessing on his skin so he should not be damned. I'm not sure if it changed anything, though. A vampire is a demon, meant to be in the pits of hell."
She refrained from gaping at him. How could he say such things about himself? Abbi, for one, thought Nathaniel a very redeemable person, even if he did have to consent to ... sucking the life from people. "What does it say? It's obviously not English ..."
Nate nodded knowingly and pointed to the first foreign word against his skin. "It's Latin. Ad vitam aeternam deo vindice," He paused, meeting her confused gaze. "Meaning; To Eternal Life, protected by God."
She cocked her head to the side, and moved off from on top him. "Hm."
"Does it bother you?" Nathaniel asked. He looked almost afraid of her answer (something she wasn't sure why he would feel) and Abigail had the sudden urge to comfort him.
"No," She said quickly. "I'm just curious. What did you mean by being convicted to hell?"
Nate laughed loudly, and he sat up. After rolling off him, obviously distracted, she'd forgotten that just moments ago, they'd shared twenty-seven seconds of intimacy. And while she appeared unaffected by it all, Nathaniel's hair was disheveled, he bore a naked chest, and was looking somewhat frustrated at her leaving.
Abbi tried to reproach her presuppositions and smiled timidly. Nate only chuckled again and settled down next to Abbi, his hand brushing her own.
"I'm a Vampire, Love. By being what I am, I have given up my chances in the clouds. Cameal knew this when he drank from Lilith's cup, he knew that for his eternity of living, he would give up his mortality. We are sentenced to a torment in the afterlife for the sins we've made in life."
Abbi turned her head to the side to stare at him. "That's not fair."
He chortled again. "Life isn't fair, Love. Nothing is ever fair ..." For some reason, she felt as if he was no longer speaking about being damned.
Abbi explored his eyes; their blue muddled with mixed emotions she could not place. This wasn't something she wished to excavate, it was bad enough that she knew she was lying to him, it would be even more torment if he knew as well.
"How exactly does being born a vampire work?" She suddenly asked, attempting to change the subject before things got awkward in the silence.
Nate twisted his head towards the expanse of sun. Even though they sat in a fair amount of shade, he still looked weak by the large igneous ball of fire hanging above.
"I'm born like any other person was born." Nathaniel started thoughtfully. "Although, even humans seem to refer to us as Immortal Children; contrary to any of those speculations, we aren't immortal until we've tasted human blood. And even then, we still grow. It's an extremely slow process, obviously, because I was born in the nineteenth century, and this is my fifth year of being seventeen."
She cleared her throat, trying not to make a fool out of herself as she rubbed the bottom of her chin and frowned, eyebrows scrunching together. "What would you say, if I told you ... that, that made absolutely no sense; at all?"
His expression went from calm show of deliberation, to jovial in a tick. Nate examined her with light eyes as he spoke.
"Well, an Immortal Child grows at an immensely slow rate. Once we've tasted the first drop of human blood, it is at that point that we keep getting older, until suddenly ... the growing stops, and we're stuck at whatever age nature has chosen to leave us at.
"Then you have an impure vampire, such as my father, who - once they are bitten - are left at the age for which they were as a human; my dad was thirty when he was bitten. My mother stopped aging at twenty-four, and as for me, I stopped at seventeen."
Abbi stared down the grass, her hands pawing at loose dirt. "Those concepts contradict everything anyone knows about vampires, my friend. I'm fairly bored with whole modernized idea, now."
"The legends chose to focus on Vampirism in an impure form, and I can't understand why you would ever lose interest in such a topic."
She regarded him steadily. "How so?"
"Those unforgiving rumors and legends did get one thing right, darling Abigail," Nate said, his voice suddenly becoming rich and velvet smooth. When she tilted her head up, expecting him to be the two feet away that he just was, Nathaniel leaned in, his lips caressing the corner of her mouth.
Abbi's breath caught, becoming so still and immobile that she appeared to be a statue. Nate moved his lips down, caressing the delicate sensitivity of her skin until he halted at the inconvenient pulse of her throat.
"I like to bite," Nathaniel grinned.
She gasped, slapping his shoulder and snapping her head away. "You're disgusting." Abbi frowned as he continued to laugh. She desperately urged her heart to stop it's spluttering; the last thing Abbi wanted was to appear this affected by the guffawing boy.
Nate gave her an irresistible smile. "I'm sorry, Love. I couldn't resist."
Her lips set in a thin line as she studied him with frustrated eyes (more at herself, than Nate) "Resisting is definitely not one of your redeeming qualities."
"That, I have to agree with," He admitted. "I would kill myself at the thought of resisting some things."
Abbi regarded his words by rolling her eyes. "Speaking of killing yourself, if there are Vampires, are there Vampire Slayers?" She asked.
Nathaniel's face became hard, and his eyes stony. "No. That's why the Council overreacts in any form of relationship with humans or Subjugates. Say, if prey were to get away from a vampire, or a Subjugate to escape," He was suddenly looking at her, "then they would most likely go around screaming vampires are real. It's an unspoken law that all of the other rules circle around; don't let the truth get out."
"But you broke the law." Abbi said. "Twice."
He looked sharply at her. "The first one was inevitable; I had to have you, but if only I knew how much trouble those feelings would lead me to, I wouldn't have forced you into being my Subjugate."
Guilt started stabbing Abbi in the chest, again. She shouldn't sit here, pretending to be so innocent herself. She had to give him some sort of explanation.
"Nathaniel - I need to say something-"
Abbi was interrupted by the sudden crunching off footsteps against grass. She turned her head towards the sound, while Nate's focus was lost when Jeffery stepped around a mound of shapely trees. He looked relieved in seeing them, and Abbi could guess why, for following his heels was a sparky Evie and her huge smile.
When she spotted Nathaniel and Abbi, somehow, her grin got bigger, and Abbi could've sworn the other girl's body blurred she moved so fast. Evie stood above them in seconds.
While Abigail looked up to her face, but Nathaniel was admiring something glittering on one of the girl's slim fingers.
"Why are you wearing your ring?" He asked suddenly.
Evie payed no attention to his question, and was giddily patting Abbi's head - also ignoring her constant protests. Evangeline was laughing, and smiling, beyond anyone's belief of one person being this happy. She even wore a springy yellow sundress.
Abigail felt like a moody spider, comfortable in the shade, until someone flipped the light switch and blinded her. Then crushed Abbi with a shoe - only, in this case, it was the hand of a girl with superhuman strength and a happy attitude.
"Mm, hello, you two love birds!" Evie cheered.
Nate gave her a strange face and sighed, standing from his position on the ground and offering to Abbi his hand. "Even in the sun, you're 'cheerfulness' has yet to be subdued." He complained, squinting into the light.
Jeffery was there in a second, reaching into his coat and pulling out what appeared to be a thin stick with a curved handle. It wasn't until he opened it, that Abbi realized it was a parasol. A pink parasol, at that, in which the little old man put over Nathaniel's head.
She put a hand over her mouth to hide the snicker trying to escape. Nate shot her a dark look before throwing his head back and gesturing to Jeffery to start walking (obviously, he was still going to use the very emasculating pink umbrella).
Evie threw an arm around Abbi's shoulders, offering her friend a loud laugh. She returned the giggle with a small smirk. "So, why exactly are you so happy?"
No one answered, and once Abbi started to get curious and turned her head towards the other girl, she received a smack to the back of her head. "Ow! What was that for?" Abbi exclaimed angrily, rubbing the backside of her hair.
"I cannot believe you didn't get my invitations! I specifically ordered Jeffery to deliver them to you and to you personally; Nathaniel would never go, unless you agreed to, as well."
"Go to what?"
"Our rehearsal dinner, of course, silly!"
Abbi blinked, then met Evie's zealous gaze. It took her a moment to register what she was actually talking about, but when she did, Abigail still stared. "Wait - do you mean: you and me, having a - a 'rehearsal dinner'?"
Evie burst into a fit of laughter, throwing a skinny arm over her shoulder before trying to regain control of her composure. "No! God, what is wrong with your head?" Evie claimed.
"Um - Well, you see, I just assumed-"
"I was talking about Patten and I. The rehearsal dinner; as it being that we are engaged, for the longest time, actually."
Evie eyed Abbi, a smile still behind her lips as they continued back towards the house. "I thought you guys were already married?" Abbi asked, her eyebrows lowering in confusion.
Jeffery opened the back door of the mansion, allowing Nathaniel to enter first before regarding Abigail and Evangeline with soft eyes. Evie skipped inside the doorway, her hair swishing side to side as she looked back to Abbi with another glowing expression.
"Not at all, dearest friend. We've merely been taking some time." Evie said.
"Time?"
"Should I tell her the story, Nate?" Evie grinned.
Nate, giving the pink umbrella back to Jeffery, shrugged, a smirk lifting his lips.
"You see," Evie started, sitting down on the sofa, as if preparing to launch right into her full-length story. "When I first met Patten, I hated him. To be honest, I hated everybody at the time. My parents were strict people - and they still are - but they only wanted the best for me, so, technically I can't blame for the present, because I really do love Patten now - with my life.
"But it wasn't always that way. When my father informed me that there would be an arranged marriage between me, and some - some unknown vampire with a name that sounded like 'Pat Them'. I was extremely angry, and for a vampire that's not good; there was even this one point where I tried putting a fork in my hand, which wasn't such a good idea, only because I ended up ruining, like - a ton of forks-"
"Evangeline ..." Nathaniel warned, one eyebrow going up in frustration.
"Oh, Yeah," Evie smiled timidly, "sorry, I was rambling - again. Anyways, well, I was forced into a life with Pat Them, and the first days few days were absolutely awful - he kept making all of these stupid jokes, and stories about being caught naked in some random place -"
"It was Switzerland." Abigail piped up, looking almost sheepish. Evie was starting to look angry - as if she would finish her story whether it killed her or not.
She cleared her throat loudly and gave Abbi a very pointed look. "As I was saying," the girl hissed through her clenched teeth. "It was around the third week that I really started to look forward to those stories of his "naked situations", and the stupid way he twiddles his thumbs when nervous, or when he chews his thumbnail because he's hungry ..." Her voice droned off, taking on a dreamy tone as she looked off into a distance.
Abbi caught Nathaniel's tired gaze. His expression mirrored someone who'd heard that story about forty times. "Patten chews his thumb when he's hungry?" Abbi asked him.
Nate smiled, hooding his eyes with his hand as he rubbed his forehead. "Surprisingly, yes ... yes he does."
Evie wasn't paying attention to defend her fiance, instead she mindlessly hummed a tune to herself, picking at the material on the couch. "So will you two go?" She asked.
"The rehearsal dinner?" Nathaniel asked.
A pillow was unexpectedly thrown across the room to slap him in the face. Evie stood at the other end, her hand in the air, as she gazed upon him with angered eyes. "Do not make me smite you with the cushions too, Nathaniel Drake." She warned.
Abbi raised her eyebrows and tried to hide the laugh rising up. "Please," she hushed, "Let's not do any more smiting; we'll be there, Evie."
In just a second, her face changed, and then she was gleaming. "Oh, I knew you'd say yes!" With that, Evangeline skipped into the air and was rushing away in a flash of red hair, leaving Nathaniel and Abbi alone in the room.
"Are you sure you can handle a wedding rehearsal with her?" He asked, grinning.
She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. "No; not at all, but I guess we really don't have a choice, do we?" Abbi mumbled.
Nathaniel's smile got bigger. "Not at all, Love."
"Then we'd best start getting ready; I have a feeling it's going to be a long night."