My lips molded to his perfectly, like they were made for him.
I found myself leaning into Cain, pressing my comparatively small frame against his broad, muscular one.
My hands were cold and placing them on his bare skin that was still warm from a hot shower, I could've sworn literal steam danced from underneath my fingertips.
Cain's hand moved around my neck so his thumb could lift my jaw, allowing him leverage to deepen this kiss.
The moment my mouth opened and his tongue slipped between my lips, I had to keep myself from falling to the floor.
The taste of his kiss was euphoric.
Between the feeling in my stomach that was similar to a drop on a rollercoaster, and the fireworks that were going off in my brain, the adrenaline rush I got from the kiss was like nothing I'd ever experienced.
I was light-headed yet hyper-aware all at once.
I felt his other hand fall from my arm where he had initially pulled me into the kiss and it slid around my waist and pulled me flush against his chest.
I was on my tiptoes to help accommodate the height difference between us, but it didn't help much and left me wanting to jump into his arms.
Cain's lips left mine, leaving me to immediately mourn the loss of his kiss. His mouth, however, began to kiss along my jaw and down my neck.
By the time I had closed my eyes, enjoying the feeling, he backed away and I found myself leaning against the bedpost to support my weak knees.
Cain let out a noise that sounded somewhat like a frustrated growl as he turned around to face away from me.
"I'm sorry," he said through clenched teeth.
"For what?" I asked breathlessly.
I, for one, was extremely impressed with his kiss so I couldn't understand why he felt the need to apologize.
"Nothing, it's—" he stopped abruptly and shook his head as he began to rub his eyes with the palm of his hands.
"I need you to leave," he said.
Despite his request, I steadied myself on my feet and walked towards him cautiously.
"Please go," Cain pleaded, walking further away from me, although his back was still turned.
I again ignored his plea and slowly continued to step forward as he walked over to the fireplace.
He put a hand on the mantle and I saw the muscle in his back flex as he did so.
I walked up behind him and placed my hand on his arm.
"Turn around," I said gently.
"I'm asking you to leave—"
"Turn around."
He remained turned away and I removed my hand from his arm. Stepping next to him, I reached out to grab his jaw quickly and turned him to face me.
What I saw will forever be engrained in my memory.
His eyes were dark, but the firelight allowed me to notice that his irises and pupils were the same size. It looked as if the white parts of his eyes had been bleeding as they had been replaced by a deep red color that had spread to make the lavender in his eyes a dark shade of burgundy.
The veins and arteries around his eyes, especially underneath them, held a prominence like none I had ever seen before. They stood out against his skin like a web of roads on a map.
The way I held his jaw caused his lips to part slightly, allowing me a glimpse of the extended canine teeth in his mouth.
As hard as it was to keep myself from gasping, I refused to let myself do so. As ghastly as the sight was, I refused to let him know that I thought so.
Cain hadn't wanted me to know and he hadn't wanted me to see.
He couldn't be held responsible for what happened when I did.
"You weren't lying about the vampire part," I breathed out, trying my hardest not to stare at the fangs in his mouth.
"I wasn't lying about any of it," he said as he reached up to pull my hand away from his jaw.
I let go, his hand now having a gentle, but firm, hold on my wrist.
"Why does that happen?" I asked him, referring to his eyes.
He didn't answer me, only stared at me intently trying to gauge my reaction.
"Did I do that to you?" I asked slowly.
"Yes," he answered, breathing out.
"Why?" I asked.
I was having a hard time looking at Cain while his eyes looked the way they did. I instead focused on his teeth, marveling at how they had extended out of his gum line. I knew it had to hurt when they did.
"There's a lot you don't know," he said. "I'll explain it to you, but I can't do it right now. I really need you to leave."
His hand slid down my arm as he let go of my wrist, allowing me to reach up to touch his face again.
My thumb pushed his top lip up gently so I could have a better view of his teeth.
"You're fangs aren't as long as I expected them to be," I said truthfully.
When I heard 'Vampire', I immediately thought of two inch fangs that were pointed like toothpicks and couldn't be hidden by lips.
But his weren't very noticeable.
Cain took my hand in his and pulled it away from his mouth.
"Go," he said again.
His hand let go of mine and I backed away, looking at his darkened eyes and extended fangs in disbelief.
He hadn't lied to me.
I turned to leave and Cain stopped me.
"Ella."
I turned back around and he sighed.
"We'll talk in the morning."
I nodded, giving him the smallest smile I could muster.
I walked out of the room, dragging my suitcase behind me.
Closing Cain's bedroom door, I felt a wave of emotions rush over me. It was so powerful I had to lean against the wall for a moment to gather myself.
I couldn't tell if I wanted to cry or laugh. I was thrilled and in awe but I wanted to scream and run at the same time.
I placed a hand against my chest and felt my heart racing a hundred miles an hour.
One thing I did know for sure was that I couldn't wait to talk in the morning.
- - -
Narrative P.O.V.
Daniel and Jai walked in a drowsy daze down the stairs to the basement.
Earlier, at around three in the morning, each of their phones lit up on their nightstands, summoning then down to the basement.
They walked into the cold autopsy room where Cain stood between two metal examination tables.
The two men on the examination tables had been cut into, their chests open and ventral sections of their rib cages removed to reveal dead organs.
Daniel and Jai both recognized the men as the one Jai had killed at Otto Müller's funeral and the other as the man who had broken into the castle, nearly killing Ella.
"What do you want, Cain?" Daniel sighed, rubbing his eyes.
"What do you see when you look at these men?" Cain asked them.
Cain speaking in a normal speaking voice in the small, metal room made an echo that rung in Jai and Daniel's tired ears.
"I see corpses who are getting more sleep than I am," Jai muttered.
"You're looking at Vampires who had once been human," Cain said crossing his arms.
Daniel and Jai were suddenly very intrigued.
"Did you do this?" Daniel asked, gesturing to the bodies.
"Zosak helped," Cain said.
"How do you know they were human?" Jai asked, walking up to examine the bodies himself.
Cain pointed inside the open chest cavity.
"Look at the decaying organs."
Jai and Daniel each leaned in and saw that the organs were indeed shriveled and dead.
"You don't think that it's because they've been dead for nearly a month?" Daniel asked, pulling the collar of his t-shirt to cover his nose.
"No, this is years of damage," Cain said. "Whenever people are infected with Vampirism, their bodies die. The only thing that keeps them functioning is blood, but their body doesn't process it properly and their organs decay."
"So what's the point in drinking blood?" Daniel asked.
"Your body only needs red blood cells to survive."
"So what's the difference between a human who is infected and an infected Lycanthrope?" Jai asked.
"Vampirism eats away at the Lycanthrope gene. You lose the ability to shift when you're turned. But, your body's ability to regenerate cells and heal quickly means that your body doesn't die, it just doesn't operate normally."
"So the organs don't decay," Jai said, crossing his arms.
Cain nodded.
"How do you know they were turned and weren't born with Vampirism like you were?" Daniel asked.
"Vampirism shuts down the reproductive system," Cain said. "If their mothers were Vampires, they wouldn't have been able to conceive children."
Daniel's eyebrows knit together.
"Then how were you born half Vampire?"
Cain sighed.
"The virus was dormant in my mother's body because someone had tried to turn her years earlier. It didn't quite take away her ability to have children, but the virus attached itself to her DNA and was transferred to me. The virus was somehow activated in me when I was born."
Jai's jaw dropped, having never heard the explanation for why Cain was the way he was.
"So that's why you're somehow pure blooded and a Vampire?" He asked.
Cain nodded.
"But you can still shift?" Daniel pointed out.
"Lycanthropy is still my dominant gene," Cain said.
"I still don't follow," Daniel said shrugging. "But I'll take your word for it."
Cain rolled his eyes, wishing he had saved his breath.
"No matter how these men were infected with Vampirism, we still have an issue of humans being turned."
Cain grabbed a steel scalpel from the tray beside the examination table and used it to turn the corpse's head.
On the side of his neck were two small, round scars.
"So the real questions are: why was a human-turned Vampire in Otto Müller's casket? And why was one trying to kill Ella?" Daniel asked.
"He was trying to kill me," Cain objected. "He didn't know she was there."
Daniel rolled his eyes.
"Fine... why was a human-turned Vampire trying to kill you?" Daniel corrected.
"There weren't any other Vampires in the other missing men's caskets," Jai pointed out. "So that means we have two distinct differences between Otto Müller and the other men: he only went for one transfusion and one of these was waiting in the casket for his family."
The whole room was silent as the three men stood in thought.
"Are we telling Ella?" Daniel asked hesitantly.
Cain sighed, running a hand along his jaw.
"I think it's time you start being honest with her," Jai said. "She deserves the transparency and she needs to know what to expect if we find her grandfather."
"You're suggesting he's been turned," Daniel said.
Jai nodded.
"Fine," Cain said. "I told her I'd talk to her this morning. I'll bring it up."
"You're welcome for bringing her back by the way," Daniel said, patting Cain on the back.
"What do you mean? I brought her back," Jai said incredulously. "I drove."
"Who's idea was it to stay at the airport and wait for her to change her mind?" Daniel asked rhetorically.
"We agreed on that mutually," Jai argued.
Cain rolled his eyes.
"Tell Zosak we can burn these bodies tomorrow. Until then, I want you and Priya to take their DNA samples and see if we can get a rush on those identity matches for each of them."
"Now?" Jai asked in disbelief.
"It's four in the morning," Daniel reminded Cain.
"And?" Cain asked.
"Priya is probably asleep," Daniel said.
"So? Wake her up," Cain said. "I woke you up."
Jai sighed.
"Wake her up," Cain reiterated, walking out of the room. "You can sleep when you're dead."
Jai and Daniel both looked at the corpses next to them.
Wonderful.
- - -
Ella's P.O.V.
I woke up the next morning feeling like a giddy high schooler.
After barely getting five hours of sleep, I had expected to be sleepy the next morning but I woke up bright-eyed and ready to go.
After changing and brushing my hair and teeth, I went upstairs to Cain's office.
I felt my heart pounding in my chest as I walked up the staircase and heard him talking in his office.
As I entered the office I noticed that things had been cleaned up and organized since I'd last been up there.
All of the lamps were on, offering ample light to read and look around.
Cain heard me coming and turned around before ending the conversation with whoever he'd been talking to on the phone.
"Good morning," he said, turning his attention back to what was on his desk.
"You cleaned up here," I said. "It looks nice."
"Perks of not sleeping," he said. "You get to stay up and do important things."
"Have you been having trouble sleeping?" I asked him.
I saw a corner of Cain's mouth perk up slightly in a sexy smirk and I thought my heart was going to explode.
"I don't ever sleep, Ella."
Oh my God, I thought.
The way my name sounded coming out of his mouth made me want to drool.
"Why don't you sleep?" I asked him, trying to remain calm and collected. "It's not very good for you to stay up all night, all the time."
"I don't need to sleep," he said.
Suddenly I got the point he was trying to get across.
"Oh, because you're a..."
I trailed off.
What was I supposed to call him?
He wasn't a human, but he wasn't entirely a Lycanthrope or a Vampire either.
Was there even a politically correct term for him other than mythical creature?
I had a feeling he wouldn't have necessarily appreciated being called that, seeing as it would have put him in the same category as unicorns and the Tooth Fairy.
He certainly wasn't delicate enough to be marginalized with fairy tales.
"Hybrid," he said. "Or, at least, that's what I call it."
I nodded.
"Hybrid," I said, repeating the term. "So you don't sleep because you're a hybrid."
Cain nodded.
"My body doesn't need to rest, so I don't think there's a point in trying to make myself sleep when I don't have to."
"So you weren't asleep when I came up here that night?" I asked him.
He shook his head.
"Well, that's the smallest lie you've told me, so I guess that one can slide," I muttered, turning to look at my desk with papers piled up on top of it.
"I'm sorry," he said.
I turned to look at him.
"You're sorry for lying or sorry that I found out?" I asked.
I tried to ask it gently, not wanting to come across as argumentative to someone who could kill me without putting any effort into it. Although, I took comfort in the gut feeling I had that he would never do that.
"Both," he answered. "I never technically lied about anything, but I didn't tell the whole truth and I understand that it hurt you. But, you have to know that I had my reasons. We don't typically go around telling outsiders that we're part of an underground elite society made of super-human creatures that morph into wolves."
"Point taken," I said. "But you could've told me weeks ago, especially since I've been living here."
"No one here would've ever hurt you," he said.
"That's not the point," I said. "I wasn't an outsider. I lived here. I made friends in Daniel, Jai, and Priya. You could've trusted me with that information. That's what hurts, Cain."
Cain's eyebrows furrowed as he crossed his arms and looked at me intently.
"You and I aren't friends?" He asked.
This stopped me in my tracks.
Of everything I just said, that's all you got out of it? I thought.
"I mean..." I trailed off awkwardly.
To hell with it, I thought. Just say it.
"We made out last night, I was hoping we were a bit more than just friends," I said.
Cain surprised me by laughing softly at my bold words. He ran a hand along his jaw.
"We are."
I had no words.
I had never expected him to agree with me, especially since he had told me nearly a week earlier that kissing me would have been a mistake.
"Was there a part in the Lycanthrope book your grandfather had that explained mates?" He asked.
I laughed nervously.
"Mates? No, not that I read."
He drew in a deep breath, making me believe he was apprehensive to explain.
"Why?" I asked.
He cleared his throat awkwardly before speaking.
"You and I..."
He trailed off before shaking his head.
"Ella, we're soulmates."
- - -