A Bride Worth Billions (5 page)

In the few days that followed, they both got to know each other, especially on Lara’s days off from the County Hospital. Dembe was also always afraid that his secret would come out and she would no longer want to be anywhere near him.

As much as he detested the self that he became in each and every full moon Dembe could never bring himself to seek sanctuary from his humanity. He remembered the first days when realized he was more than a human. The mornings which he would wake up on the frosty leaf mess of the thick forest, sultry with fresh blood and the unnerving taste of raw flesh inside his mouth. He was not in control of his other self, the werewolf part. After these episodes, Dembe would always retreat to his remote cabin full of guilt, remorse and regret. Inside there, he would always turn to prayer, for forgiveness and absolution, clean and put on his cassock. In such days, there would always be a number of bodies that would need to be buried, his soft tones would be needed so that he would appease his flock. Dembe had always wished with all the entirety of his being that there would be an alternative way. However, with every single year that passed on, he would bury his guilt a little deeper than before in a bid to absolve his human form and self from the sins of the darker form, the werewolf.

Things were always difficult until one day he was approached by a member of the Black Ops agency. His name was Wanga, also a werewolf. He had been observing him for quite a while and he knew that he was going through a tough time. He taught Dembe and nurtured him to be the impressive agent that he was today. Apart from that he was the one who taught him how to take control of his supernatural self. It was one of the most excruciating experiences of his life. He had to find a way turning painfully to a werewolf and back to his human self severally. He had to keep going through the pain of his bones breaking piece by piece as he transformed until it no longer felt painful anymore, especially during the full moon. Wanga trained him to embrace his werewolf self in order to have control and sooner than later things were different for him, he rarely lost himself in his alter ego, the werewolf.

He learnt to channel his super human senses to perfect his occupation as an agent and his thirst for blood by taking down bad guys for the agency. The last time Dembe lost control was when Wanga was killed in action.

The grief that he felt for his loss surged with every single breath that he expelled, always getting to higher peaks, by no means being adequately soothed by his rather long inhales of the clammy spring air at that time. Dembe remembered how his tears began to cascade despondently from his washed up eyes onto the fresh growing grass. In that moment the sure knowledge that life had to move on without him, that time was only stopped for him completely undid him.

That very night, he was sent on a solo mission and he was unable to keep it together, he not only brutally took down his targets but he also did a number on a few unsuspecting civilians, which had never happened to him before. And this, at the back of his mind was why he was afraid of getting too close to another human.

It was a rupture in his brain he had become more proficient at dealing with, the remorse which almost crippled him because of his past was becoming dulled, more or less mundane. At such horrific times in thought, he rationalized with ideologies of a predator prey relationship which was in God's natural order of things, despite his human intellect which always kept him from completely believing that. Sometimes he felt that his life was cursed, but that was all he had, and he feared harming Lara, which was completely unlikely but his alter ego made him doubt that, that is why at first he was afraid of staying at first.

Lara would sometimes find him deep in thought and hoped that one day he would share that burden and ease his poor soul.

All through, they struggled within themselves trying to fight off their desire for one another. One night when they were having dinner, they had such an intimate chat…each of them opened up about life’s prospects and their connection grew stronger. That evening, Lara could not get herself to sleep, she did not know why but she felt a deep urge which she could not comprehend.

“Hey,” Lara said as she knocked the guest room, which was now Dembe’s room

“No need to knock. Come in.” Dembe said.

‘‘I can’t sleep…’’ she said

‘‘Are you having nightmares?’’ Dembe asked

‘‘No not really…’’ she responded

Dembe looked at her seraph’s ears as she strolled in, they were pierced by golden studs that were slightly obscured by mustard coloured flaxen waves, accentuated by highlights of pink and sapphire.

‘‘She even looks more beautiful in the night.’’ Dembe thought.

He felt some sort of electricity in the air the moment she stepped through the entrance. It was like a sensual crackling in the air. Lara could feel it too, and she could not remember feeling this type of way with any other man she had ever met in her life.

‘‘Maybe this is what it’s like when people say they feel like fireworks are going off.’’ She thought to herself. She emits a tiny gasp when she noted Dembe’s familiar veneering over in his eyes. It was like Dembe had just entranced her, entangling her with his gaze. Lara tosses her hair onto her slender back and then rests his hands on the bottle of wine that Dembe held out to her.

‘‘This will help with your sleep’’ he said in a teasing tone.

Dembe sensed her writhing with desire from there and then the scent of her cologne drifts in through his nostrils, it was a scent he was nippily becoming addicted to. A prickling sensation disrupted his ruse and in an instant, the tables turn. Dembe was now ensnared in her web. The game of desire was quite intoxicating. It had never gotten this intense!

Dembe whispered, ‘’Lara..’’ and their lips touched, they gradually became entwined and their hearts fused into a single entity. Their frames moved to the rhythm of the sounds of the mumbles and whispers of sweet nothings in their ears…Dembe’s tongue carved out every single inch of Lara’s body like a chisel. He deeply and gently showered her with long kisses and she gasped for air. They moaned as he kept thrusting deeper and they moved faster, lost in time, indulging in every single moment of their passion.

Without control or prior warning, their bodies burst out in an explosive climax, leaving them limp as they lay still, their arms and legs intertwined, in pin-drop silence, they listened to the fulfilled sounds of the pounding of their hearts, deep into the stillness and peacefulness of the night-time…. Red-hot, Sizzling….

* * * * * * * * * * *

As days and weeks passed by, the two kept growing closer and they even adopted activities like hiking and evening walks together, this made their connection stronger, but Dembe still kept his secret. Apart from that, there were some things he was still not able to explain to Lara but she was okay with it..she would sometimes say.. ‘‘Don’t worry dear, we all have done things in the past that we are not proud of..’’ or ‘‘We all have our chequered pasts..’’ and sometimes.. ‘‘You will tell me when you are ready, don’t beat yourself up about it’’

Dembe had never met anyone this understanding and he sometimes felt like it was just a vivid dream. However, he always knew that one day, he will have to reveal his true self and he hoped that it wouldn’t change anything between them.

Some of their best moments were spent during hikes in the woods. One afternoon, Lara took him to one of her sacred places, at a lake where both her parents had drowned in a horrific accident. The lake mirrored the vivid sky above them, both of them had a shade of blue which was almost identical. Lara closed her watery eyes, she always let out a tear whenever she went there. The gentle breeze that ran unconstrained over the undulated surface puffed her long bangs from her eyes and gave some sort colour to her ordinarily pale cheeks. Short of the disruption of the view of the lake, Lara could detect the fragrance. The humid early seasonal air was scented with the pine trees which had grown in a circle around the lake. They had grown so close that some of them had tipped over in the inside and some hang down cobra-thick roots into the lake water. She held some stones in her hands, one for each of her parents. With her eyelids wide open, Lara moved like a cricketer to and sent the stones hovering into the water of the lake one after another. With every single splash of the water she shouted the names of each of her parents, her heart was still aching for them. After she finished, she handed Dembe some stones and urged him to do the same. He also threw two each for his most recent losses, Tunde and Wanga. Aft that, they sat on the sand at the edge of the lake, their legs crossed and their backs straight, they sat in silence, contemplating, as they waited for the long-away dusk to swallow the day...

The night crept in like a spell cast by an enchantress, earth to iron, water to stone emerald grass to frosty white. The hints of afternoon warmth slipped away, no traces of the kiss of the bested sun upon the earth. The hours pledged to pass gradually yet steadily steal away their body heat with lustful speed.

Dembe and Lara stayed by the lake a little more as the night came whispering sweet nonsense, persuading heat from their tired muscles until they could not keep resting anymore. It cuddled their skin stealing the pink blush and replacing it with a bluish tone. They stared above the magnificence of the stars, the vibrant night giving chance for the scanty heat of the day to take off unobstructed. The only notion of illumination came from a full moon, and even so her light was more of an ice-cold silver beam.

On the nights of the full moon, it was the hardest for Dembe to keep it together. It felt like someone or a strange power was pulling the werewolf out from within him and it also fought to come out, but thanks to the late Wanga, he was able to do it, sometimes Lara would notice his discomfort under the moon and wondered what was wrong.

‘‘It’s getting late..’’ Dembe said when he felt the full moon overwhelming him..

‘‘We should go..’’ he added as he held out his hand for her to take and Lara complied. They walked strolled into the woods for quite a distance and out of nowhere, Dembe brought her to his lips and placed a tender kiss upon her soft lips. Lara felt her entire visage flush warm and the hairs on her neck stood. Something quivered inside her stomach, his kisses always swept her off her feet and she always thought it a bizarre sensation, however, she always liked it. Dembe was fond of these types of surprises. In moments like this Lara knew that if she spoke, her words would definitely be inaudible fumbles and she would not be have the ability to make her regular amusing comments. Right there and then, both of them were at a loss for everything around them; no thoughts, no words, no breath. The only thing that came out of Lara’s frail lips at that moment was Dembe’s name, and even then it came out rather wobbly and quiet. For once in their lives, each of then had been taken away by a better half and it felt perfect. Dembe had never even dreamt of something like this...

All of a sudden, Dembe could hear a rustling of leaves from afar and at first he thought it was just an animal…The shadows were already dissolved into the darkness of the night when they heard a footfall only two metres behind them and it dawned to Dembe that it must be an agent sent to confirm if he had died with Tunde in the crash. At the back of his mind, he had always felt that this day would come…It was the Black Ops agency’s routine to send someone.

In the woods, the only person who could get that close to Dembe without detection would be an exceptionally adept agent who would possibly want him dead. But even so, he couldn’t fathom how close he had got before detection! Dembe held Lara, looked at her eyes and said

‘‘Run….run as first as you can’’ Lara looked at him with a startled expression and just nodded, then she took off…

‘‘I have to admit, you are quite resourceful’’ the agent said as he appeared from the shadows.

‘‘How the hell did you survive?’’ he asked.

‘‘You know that only one of us will walk away from this, right?’’ the agent continued, letting out a sneer.

‘‘I will give you a fair fight, your death will be honourable’’ he said as he tucked in his nine millimetre pistol with a silenced barrel and clenched his fists in attack mode.

"Trust me, I am the one getting out of this alive" Dembe bellowed in a voice tight with rage and his eyes glowed. Dembe let out his primordial self and he roared…

‘‘I will tear you to pieces’’ he snarled as his clothes tore off, his body rapidly becoming larger, much hairier and his hands turned to tough paws.

His nasal area was already a snout and the growled threateningly at his assailant with his razor sharp teeth, ready to pounce.

To his surprise, his assailant also instantly started transforming, he was also a werewolf. The howled at each other for a few seconds and then they eased down, gradually transforming back to humans.

‘‘Is it you Dembe?’’ the agent asked in awe…

‘‘Wanga told me that there was someone else like me after he trained me!’’

‘‘Oh God!…I can’t believe this is how we finally meet!’’ he continued.

‘‘You knew, Wanga!?’’ Dembe asked in utter disbelief

‘‘Yes, I was his last recruit before he passed on…’’ the agent said

‘‘I am Batian’’ he said as he stretched out his hand to Dembe.

‘‘Why did they want us dead?’’ Dembe asked

‘‘Something about your partner showing signs of wanting to defect, they couldn’t risk that because you knew too much. Your partner was the target and you were unfortunate collateral’’

Now Dembe understood how the agent managed to get too close to him without him knowing, his excellent tracking senses were not human!

They both felt like they met with a long lost brother, first because they belonged to the same supernatural species and second because although Wanga was their handler, he was like a father to them. They even chatted for a short while about and made some jokes about him. Dembe was glad that the agency had sent a cleaner who was a werewolf like him. If not, he would have been forced to take his life, something he would not have wanted to do and the agency would send many more after him if an agent failed get back with a confirmation of his death. This would mean that he would have to live the rest of his life on the run, being hunted and sought after.

Batian also said that he was warned by the late Wanga that he was not supposed to look for Dembe, the fellow werewolf, for there was a great risk in exposing them, that would mean immediate execution for the agency thought them (werewolves) to be an abomination. Some agents were even sent on missions to hunt down werewolves especially after rumours of repeated animal killings in a location.

‘‘Looks like you have a lot to explain..’’ Batian said, ‘‘I will cook up something to tell my superiors’’ he said as he disappeared into the darkness as fast as he appeared.

Dembe looked to the left and saw Lara holding his coat for him, her mouth and eyes wide open in shock. She suddenly realized what Dembe meant when he told him his partner was not like him and that was the reason he did not survive, she figured out why his life threatening wounds healed too fast, and why the first time he insisted that he was a danger to her..she had known all this time there was something he was unable to tell her but it never came to her that it would be something this uncanny…

When she was told to run, she instead hid in the bushes since she thought Dembe might need her help, she did not know how but she stayed anyway.

‘‘I didn’t know how to start, and I feared that you would stop feeling the same way once I told you..’’ Dembe said as he took his overcoat, his heart pounding fast waiting for Lara’s response. They walked home in silence, it was too much for Lara to take in, despite what he felt for him.

Dembe on the other hand felt like his whole life was crumbling down around him like dilapidated walls and he did not know what to do!

He wrapped his huge arms tighter around himself and he pulled his coat closed. He tucked his chin downwards into the collar of his coat and his breath was now only noticeable under the sporadic penetrations of the moonlight through the scattered branches of the trees. The air had a scent of overdue rain, and they both quickened their pace.