Cherishing Destiny (A Dangerous Destiny) (14 page)

“Flower?” Ryan asked her when they first left the barn.

The mare was black with a narrow white blaze striped down
her face and white socks on three of her legs.  “She looks like a skunk with
that white stripe,” Sara countered. He just gave her a blank stare and she
said, “You know, Flower… the skunk…from Bambi?” she insisted.  He still looked
blank.  “Never mind!” she said, disgusted. 

He lifted his hands in the air in a surrendering motion and
gave her a look like
What did I do
before he started laughing.  She just
trotted ahead to ride next to Aurora giving Ryan her back. 

She did the same thing, now as they got underway again, but
this time she was not just pretending to be upset with him.   And, this time,
Ryan was not chuckling at her, but was sulking and silent as he brought up the
rear of the group. 

By late afternoon, they reached the turnoff where Highway
30 headed North along the shore of the lake.  Ryan was to part with them here
and continue West to his cache of supplies.

“What good are weapons if they won’t fire?” Alex asked
Ryan, breaking the silence that had held ever since they left the campsite.

“I didn’t say I only had guns,” Ryan responded. “I have two
compound hunting bows in that stash, and we’re going to want them if you intend
on keeping us in the wilderness for long.”  Alex only nodded.

“Also,” Ryan went on. “I’m going to leave you the crossbow
for a little extra protection.” He caught the expression on Alex’s face and
held up a hand to stop the protest.  “I know you are a Vampire and perfectly
capable of defending yourself, but those guys knew what they were up against,
even if they did seem a little dim.  If it is true that they are the ones who
killed those
Weres
, then we have to be a little cautious around here, I
think.  Besides, you have my little sister with you.” 

“You know that I would never let anything happen to Sara,
don’t you?” Alex met Ryan’s serious eyes with his own, challenging him to see
anything other than sincerity there.

Ryan handed over the crossbow that was attached loosely to
his saddle for easy access and asked Alex if he knew how to use it. Alex took
the weapon and in a few swift motions, checked all of the actions and
components and was sighted in on a tree several yards away.

“Okay,” Ryan said quickly. “No need to waste the bolt.”  

Alex lowered the weapon and nodded to Ryan.  There was
nothing more to say.

Ryan rode up to Sara’s side and tried to look into her
face, but she would not acknowledge him.

“I love you, baby,” he said softly as he turned his horse
and trotted down the road that continued West. 

Aurora gave Alex a look that said
Wait for me,
and
she spurred her horse after Ryan.  When she caught up to him a short distance
down the road, he stopped, and she rode her horse in a circle around him,
coming up next to him but facing in the opposite direction so that they could
talk face to face. 

She reached out and put a hand on his leg.  He didn’t move
away, but his only reaction was to glare at her. 

“I’m sorry. I know this is hard for you, Ryan,” she offered
sympathetically.

“I’ll just bet you are,” he snapped back. “Sara’s all under
your sweet spell, now, isn’t she.  She’ll never listen to me again, she thinks
I’m some kind of freakish monster.  Yet, the funny thing is she’ll be perfectly
happy to let you sink your fangs into her any time you like, after this.”

Aurora felt a little resentment at the comment, and she
removed her hand from Ryan’s leg, but leaned in close to him.  “Sara doesn’t
think you’re a monster, Ryan.  She thinks you’re a
Liar
.” She closed her
mouth abruptly, sat back, and stopped talking. She hadn’t meant to be spiteful,
and she wanted to see Ryan and Sara reconcile. 

Ryan looked stricken.  He faced Aurora with a sad
realization in his eyes.  “I only ever wanted to protect her.” He seemed to be
pleading with Aurora to understand.

“I know you did what you thought was right,” Aurora said.
“And she will realize that, too. Just give her a little time.”  Aurora touched
Ryan’s leg again and leaned close enough to give him a soft, dry kiss on the
cheek. “Ryan…” She looked at him meaningfully. “Be sure you catch up to us
tomorrow.”

He nodded and then rode on, calling over his shoulder. “I’m
not going to disappear, Aurora.”

Aurora rejoined Alex and Sara, neither of which asked her
about her conversation with Ryan and they turned and headed to the North. 

Eighteen

Destiny awoke again to darkness.  It was night outside the
cave.  Her eyes needed very little adjustment to see remarkably well in the
dark, a perk of being a Vamphyr.  She had still been dreaming of her parents
including her second mother, Sara, and of Ryan too.  She tried not to dwell on
thoughts of Ryan.  She and Ryan had always been virtually inseparable and
sometimes Ryan seemed like all men to Destiny, father, brother, lover,
friend.   But she knew that he could not be all of those things to her and that
she should be happy with friend.  She fought with him loudly the last time they
had been together, hardly the first time for that, they were both so opinionated
and strong minded.  This time she knew it was her fault, and she put her guilty
thoughts aside for the time being.

She took stock of her injuries and found them to be healing
nicely.  She still had some pain, but she felt that she could chance moving a
little to a more comfortable spot.  She pushed herself out from under the steep
shaft above her.  Her fall had dislodged a lot of small rocks and debris that
she had been laying on for some time now.  She found a smoother area to rest
on.  Tomorrow she would try to rise and walk a little she promised herself. 
Dreams of her family made her realize how worried they must be, and she was
determined to get back to them as soon as possible.  She drifted back to sleep.

Nineteen

As the light was fading, Alex spotted a sign indicating a
recreation area down a side road off of the highway.   They turned and found
the area less than half a mile down the dirt road toward the lake.  Just as
they approached, the whipping wind brought a smattering of rain with it, blowing
horizontally into their faces.

The recreation area was a boat ramp that was destroyed by
the earthquakes, a dock that had fared no better and a picnic area that had
once boasted several covered shelters full of picnic tables, each with its own brick
barbeque pit.  Only two of them remained standing, and one of those had a
cracked concrete floor that had heaved up in the center leaving the floor
slanting at a severe angle on both sides of the crack. The other seemed like a
good place to take shelter for the night. 

Because of the wind, some of the rain blew into the shelter
wetting the concrete floor and chilling Sara. “It’s been getting so cold the
last few days. I’m freezing. This weather is crazy,” she said.

Alex righted a picnic table that was flipped over and made
a soft bed of blankets on it to keep them off the wet floor.  He pulled the table
close to the barbeque and built a small fire in the pit with the dry wood that
was left there for that purpose.  A small handwritten note card was taped to
the brick, above the wood pile, with duct tape that was starting to peel.  It
read, FEEL FREE TO TAKE WHAT YOU NEED OR LEAVE WHAT YOU CAN.  The people that
used to picnic there must have taken the sentiment to heart as the wood pile
was well stocked and even had plenty of kindling. 

“I think we can risk a fire tonight,” Alex said.   He was a
little concerned about  alerting someone to their presence, but Sara was damp
and shivering, and he felt that the wind and rain significantly lessened the
risk of somebody noticing.  He tented the kindling and lit it with Greasy
Hair’s Zippo, which he had confiscated. He added the logs until he had a nice
little blaze going. 
Should have been a boy scout. 

After a while, Sara stopped shivering and then spoke up for
the first time since the excitement earlier. “Do you think Ryan will be able to
find us this far off the main road?”  She tried to make the question sound
casual, but it was clear that she was worried about it.

Alex poked at the fire with a stick and thought about his
answer.  He didn’t want to create a bigger rift between the siblings. 
Carefully, he said, “Ryan is smarter than he likes others to think, and I
believe he has a lot more special skills than he has let on to us.”  The last
thing that he wanted to suggest was that Ryan was still hiding who he was, but
it was becoming clear that Ryan had some training, experience, and resources
that he had yet to share.  “Sara, I don’t want you to worry. I am positive that
Ryan will find us here, and if he doesn’t show up by noon tomorrow I promise to
go look for him.”

Sara seemed to relax after that, and she and Aurora curled
up together in the blankets and fell into an exhausted sleep.  Alex fed the
fire all night long and kept watch.  The women were sleeping so peacefully that
he didn’t wake Aurora to take a turn as she had asked him too. At dawn, when
she awoke, she scolded him for it. 

“Don’t worry about me,” he told her. “I can get a few hours
now that you two are up.”  He figured that they had until noon before Ryan was
likely to catch up to them, if he stopped and slept at all. The daylight made
him less nervous about falling asleep, and he took his turn in the blankets
while the women walked down to the shoreline and around the picnic grounds,
exploring a little before the wind and rain came back in the afternoon as it
had every day since the Solar Storm.  That’s how they had come to think of it,
The Solar Storm in caps.  It sounded like a B movie title, but it seemed to
fit. 

Aurora and Sara found a concrete pad in the middle of the
picnic area with two hand pumps for water sticking up from it.  A metal plaque
in front of one said, Do Not Drink and the tag on the other said Potable. 

“It’s worth a shot.” Aurora tried the hand pump on the
potable water and had to crank it up and down for some time before fresh, cold
water poured from the spigot and splashed at their feet. 

They laughed, and Sara drank her fill. “Lord, that’s good.”

 They watered the horses with a small bucket. It was the
only one Alex had found to pack for that purpose.  It took a while to accomplish
the task, one at a time, but the women found the walk back and forth to be therapeutic
by filling their morning with something other than anxious waiting. 

Sara also found it helpful in working out her stiff
muscles.  After riding all day and sleeping on a table, she was extremely stiff
and sore, and she had started out riding yesterday already sore from the time
she spent experimenting with Alex’s sadistic nature and her own dark desires.

Sara made an innocent comment about the saddle rubbing the
bruises on her bottom and Aurora immediately picked up on the situation.  She
laughed a little out loud as she recalled wondering at Alex’s satisfied mood on
the previous night in the loft.  She knew he sometimes liked to play cruel
Vampire games with women who were willing.  She even indulged him, herself,
when the mood was on her, but she also knew that he only liked to play that way
when the women liked it too.  It excited him to have them beg for it and then beg
him to stop.  If he gave Sara pain after Aurora asked him to pleasure her, then
Sara had asked for it and enjoyed it.  Aurora was sure of it. 

As tactfully as she could, she broached the subject with
Sara when they had taken a blanket down to the water’s edge to sit and talk
while they waited for Ryan, and Alex slept.  “You realize that it’s okay for
you to ask Alex to heal you when you both have had your fill of his games,
don’t you?” she asked carefully.  Sara’s color began to rise, and Aurora
continued softly. “Or I could do it if you like.”

Sara blushed hotly, not knowing what to say. “I don’t want
him to think I am weak. I never said anything because I don’t want him to be
afraid of hurting me.”

“You don’t have to tell him if you don’t want too,” Aurora
said, reaching out to touch Sara’s face. 

Sara’s lip trembled, and Aurora could hear her heart
racing.  She let her hand slide around to the back of Sara’s neck, her fingers
buried in the soft tresses of Sara’s silky hair.  She pulled Sara’s face close
to hers and hesitated, looking into Sara’s eyes and giving her the opportunity
to withdraw if she chose to.  Sara’s lips parted slightly as her breath came more
quickly and Aurora brushed her own soft lips over Sara’s, touching ever so lightly. 
Sara’s eyes closed and her lips relaxed further apart.  Aurora let her tongue
explore gently between Sara’s parted lips.  She felt the tension leave Sara as
she began to let her tongue respond to Aurora, and they kissed deeply until
Sara had to break the seal of the kiss for lack of air.  Aurora’s mouth played
lightly over Sara’s lips, jaw and smooth throat while Sara tried to catch her
breath.

Sara reached out and buried her own fingers in Aurora’s
wine colored locks.  She held Aurora’s face to her as Aurora explored her silky
skin.  Aurora let her hand slide from Sara’s neck, tracing her collar bone,
finger tips brushing over Sara’s dress until she was gently cupping Sara’s breast. 
Sara wasn’t wearing her bra, Aurora noticed, when Sara’s nipple hardened,
pushing against the cloth under Aurora’s hand.  She discovered why when she
squeezed the breast softly, but Sara still let out a small hiss of pain. 
Aurora quickly released her and decided that it was time to heal Sara of Alex’s
lingering torments.