Y for Yearning
Today's post for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge continues my vampire short story. It's the 3rd and probably final part.
Part One - Obsession
Part Two - Soul Mate
Part Three - Yearning
For a moment that stretched infinitely long even for someone who knew eternity, there was no answer.
Damian felt his muscles clench in anxiety. Would she bolt now? Was this only happening in his head, delirious with wanting and yearning for a soul mate? Was she a mirage, an obsession strong enough to kill an Undead? A temptation that would remain out of his reach forever and ever?
But then his mysterious Sheila took some more steps forward, graceful and lithe with hidden power underneath just like in all of her gestures.
Who am I?
Did he imagine it or was there a hint of a smile in the tone of her thought voice?
As if to answer the silent question, her luscious lips curved into the smile he had detected simmering beneath the surface.
I am everything you’ve always wanted. I am the one you have been waiting for while the centuries rolled by in a meaningless blur or cut through you like a silver-tipped knife. I am yours – and you are mine.
Damian felt giddy elation and a hundred other emotions he couldn’t even name. Before he could stop himself, he bridged the last feet of distance between them to touch her, to make sure she was as real as a being so unearthly could be. How could he have ever mistaken her for a human when she was much more of a goddess if you looked closer?
He stopped himself just short of touching her, suddenly aware again that he was as cold as ice and as hard as stone. She might think him to be the right one for her, but what if reality would destroy her illusions the way it always happened with every mortal who romanticized vampires?
Her smile brightened, but there was a strange glint in her eyes that were as fathomless and deep as a hole drilled right to the core of the earth, lit with a secret, deeply buried fire.
Why do you always underestimate yourself and everyone else? she asked softly in his mind, and he flinched before composing himself.
How come she knew him so well? Had she been spying on him for centuries much in a way he had been spying on her for the last 65 days?
An infinitesimal nod confirmed his suspicion. He gasped, and suddenly the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. He knew, just like that. He knew who she was. She was the presence he had always sensed beside him, inside him. She was the silent voice in his head that had carried him through his darkest times—and oh, dark they had been, for he wasn’t called Damian the Dark for nothing. She was the being he had yearned for since he had been brought over into the Blood. His better half, his missing piece.
But who was she?!
He reached out and brushed the tips of his marble-like fingers ever so softly over the almost translucent skin at her long, slender neck. A life’s worth of desire and longing was contained in a gesture so seemingly simple, and he could feel himself and her tremble with the minimal contact.
Suddenly everything was a blur. The next thing he knew it, he had crushed her to his steely body in a vice-like embrace that would surely have broken a human’s bones like dry twigs giving way under a boot step. But she wasn’t human, and she held him with equal fervor, one of her hands grasping his jacket lapel like a wild cat sinking her claws into his very skin, the other hand cupping the back of his head. She, delicate yet impossibly strong female, managed what no normal being could have, and pulled his head down firmly.
His lips touched her neck, and they both froze. Inhaling her delectable scent that drove him mad with craving, Damian opened his mouth and sank his fangs into her skin.
It felt nothing like biting into human skin, and neither did it remind him of the countless times he had had to fight one of his own kind off by wounding him fatally.
Closing his eyes, he sank into the very essence of her, willingly giving himself over to oblivion.
The first few drops of blood were manna, an elixir of life and afterlife, impossible to describe in words.
Then information flowed into him like her delicious blood poured into his greedy mouth.
She was not from this world. She had travelled the galaxy to find a planet with beings worth her attention, and devoted herself to vampires whose very springing into existence she had witnessed eons ago.
His Sheila, so bold and beautiful, so mysterious, she had become the alien empress of his species, forever watching, sometimes interfering.
Was she even the maker of his kind? He didn’t know, for just as she seemed to reduce the flow of blood seeping from her body into his, she also cancelled herself off, gradually but firmly, blunting the edge of temporary rejection by murmuring endearments into his ear.
She, who knew every single vampire in existence, had singled him out to be her companion. She had chosen him, long before something in him had consciously chosen her.
He withdrew, although it was the most difficult thing he had ever done. Unwilling to let her go now that she was his—or that he was hers—he licked at the two bite marks on her neck that were already healing and fading. He sucked at the spot, marking her in a way his bite couldn’t and shouldn’t. Then he pressed a hungry kiss to her mouth, and she met his tongue with a readiness that shook him to the core.
You’re mine, she whispered in his mind.
And you’re mine, he answered silently.
Part One - Obsession
Part Two - Soul Mate
Part Three - Yearning
For a moment that stretched infinitely long even for someone who knew eternity, there was no answer.
Damian felt his muscles clench in anxiety. Would she bolt now? Was this only happening in his head, delirious with wanting and yearning for a soul mate? Was she a mirage, an obsession strong enough to kill an Undead? A temptation that would remain out of his reach forever and ever?
But then his mysterious Sheila took some more steps forward, graceful and lithe with hidden power underneath just like in all of her gestures.
Who am I?
Did he imagine it or was there a hint of a smile in the tone of her thought voice?
As if to answer the silent question, her luscious lips curved into the smile he had detected simmering beneath the surface.
I am everything you’ve always wanted. I am the one you have been waiting for while the centuries rolled by in a meaningless blur or cut through you like a silver-tipped knife. I am yours – and you are mine.
Damian felt giddy elation and a hundred other emotions he couldn’t even name. Before he could stop himself, he bridged the last feet of distance between them to touch her, to make sure she was as real as a being so unearthly could be. How could he have ever mistaken her for a human when she was much more of a goddess if you looked closer?
He stopped himself just short of touching her, suddenly aware again that he was as cold as ice and as hard as stone. She might think him to be the right one for her, but what if reality would destroy her illusions the way it always happened with every mortal who romanticized vampires?
Her smile brightened, but there was a strange glint in her eyes that were as fathomless and deep as a hole drilled right to the core of the earth, lit with a secret, deeply buried fire.
Why do you always underestimate yourself and everyone else? she asked softly in his mind, and he flinched before composing himself.
How come she knew him so well? Had she been spying on him for centuries much in a way he had been spying on her for the last 65 days?
An infinitesimal nod confirmed his suspicion. He gasped, and suddenly the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. He knew, just like that. He knew who she was. She was the presence he had always sensed beside him, inside him. She was the silent voice in his head that had carried him through his darkest times—and oh, dark they had been, for he wasn’t called Damian the Dark for nothing. She was the being he had yearned for since he had been brought over into the Blood. His better half, his missing piece.
But who was she?!
He reached out and brushed the tips of his marble-like fingers ever so softly over the almost translucent skin at her long, slender neck. A life’s worth of desire and longing was contained in a gesture so seemingly simple, and he could feel himself and her tremble with the minimal contact.
Suddenly everything was a blur. The next thing he knew it, he had crushed her to his steely body in a vice-like embrace that would surely have broken a human’s bones like dry twigs giving way under a boot step. But she wasn’t human, and she held him with equal fervor, one of her hands grasping his jacket lapel like a wild cat sinking her claws into his very skin, the other hand cupping the back of his head. She, delicate yet impossibly strong female, managed what no normal being could have, and pulled his head down firmly.
His lips touched her neck, and they both froze. Inhaling her delectable scent that drove him mad with craving, Damian opened his mouth and sank his fangs into her skin.
It felt nothing like biting into human skin, and neither did it remind him of the countless times he had had to fight one of his own kind off by wounding him fatally.
Closing his eyes, he sank into the very essence of her, willingly giving himself over to oblivion.
The first few drops of blood were manna, an elixir of life and afterlife, impossible to describe in words.
Then information flowed into him like her delicious blood poured into his greedy mouth.
She was not from this world. She had travelled the galaxy to find a planet with beings worth her attention, and devoted herself to vampires whose very springing into existence she had witnessed eons ago.
His Sheila, so bold and beautiful, so mysterious, she had become the alien empress of his species, forever watching, sometimes interfering.
Was she even the maker of his kind? He didn’t know, for just as she seemed to reduce the flow of blood seeping from her body into his, she also cancelled herself off, gradually but firmly, blunting the edge of temporary rejection by murmuring endearments into his ear.
She, who knew every single vampire in existence, had singled him out to be her companion. She had chosen him, long before something in him had consciously chosen her.
He withdrew, although it was the most difficult thing he had ever done. Unwilling to let her go now that she was his—or that he was hers—he licked at the two bite marks on her neck that were already healing and fading. He sucked at the spot, marking her in a way his bite couldn’t and shouldn’t. Then he pressed a hungry kiss to her mouth, and she met his tongue with a readiness that shook him to the core.
You’re mine, she whispered in his mind.
And you’re mine, he answered silently.
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