Dark Love (8 page)

Sarah turned to
Daniel, who was standing protectively close. She wondered who he
was protecting, her or her family?

‘Daniel, would
you mind explaining to my parents how to communicate on-line on my
computer? It’s in the kitchen. I want to spend a little time with
my kids before they have to go out. I will pack after they leave
for school,’ she said.

‘No problem,
you go ahead,’ he answered.

Sarah followed
Megan and Bea into the living room, painfully aware this was the
last time she would be alone with them for a very long time. She
crouched on the floor next to Bea and helped her put on her shoes
and coat – she was already dressed. Then she helped Megan too, even
though she did not really need it.

‘Mommy’s going
on a trip,’ she told them.

‘Where are you
going Mommy?’ asked Megan.

‘Mommy trip,’
said Bea, as she tried to stick two large bricks together.

‘I’m going on
an adventure all the way to England, and we will still get to see
each other because we can talk on the phone and on the computer,’
Sarah explained.

Sarah looked up
as Daniel entered the room. He approached Megan, who looked up at
him with an intrigued, if a little wary, expression. Sarah watched
as he made eye contact with her and asserted his will, altering her
memories. She felt sad that this was necessary, that Megan had had
to see such violence.

When Daniel had
finished Megan picked up her school bag and came to sit by Sarah’s
knee. Daniel approached Sarah from behind and whispered in her ear
- ‘Your parents are prepared for you to leave as I’ve explained
everything to them, and I’ve made sure Megan doesn’t remember what
happened with Sebastian – and that neither of them will be
distressed by your departure, or their father’s absence.’

Sarah looked
back at him over her shoulder and said, ‘Thank you,’ before
returning her attention to her children.

She opened up
her arms and this time Bea got there first, followed by Megan. She
hugged them both until her parents said it was time they had to go.
Sarah gave them big cheeky kisses as they hurried away, a tear
escaping her eye regardless of Daniel’s power over her.

She said
goodbye to her parents and both thanked and apologized profusely in
one rambling sentence as they hurried out of the door.

Her heart ached
as she watched them leave, Daniel’s arms embracing her from behind.
She leant back against him, letting him take her weight, as he was
already helping with her emotional load. As her parents’ car turned
onto the road and drove out of sight she wriggled around to face
Daniel and felt his control over her blood lust lessen. Tears ran
down her cheeks as she looked into his eyes, and he kissed her
gently.

‘Don’t worry,’
Daniel said. ‘I will try and keep you busy, try to take your mind
off it.’

His lips curled
in that mischievous way that he had, and she laughed a little
through her sobs.

‘I’ll go pack,’
she said reluctantly, breaking his embrace.

Daniel nodded
in return. Sarah glanced back at him as she ran upstairs. He was
looking mightily fine and gentlemanly – standing upright by her
front door, exuding control and charisma.

She grabbed a
backpack of her own from her cupboard. It was the one she had often
taken on escapades in the woods. She filled it in a hurry, stuffing
in any clothes that came to hand - too distracted by her children
leaving to care that much about clothes. She found her passport and
tucked it safely in the inside pocket of her jacket. In the
bathroom she selected her favorite shampoo, along with various
creams, her toothbrush, makeup and other bits she did not want to
do without. Last of all she carefully pushed her favorite photo
album down the back of the rucksack, where it would not be damaged.
It was full of pictures of Megan and Bea. When the bag was full she
selected some clothes of her own to wear to the airport, stripping
off the extremely baggy clothes Daniel had lent her and stuffing
them into the top of the bag, before strapping it tightly shut.

She chose her
favorite panties and fastened her most flattering navy blue bra.
She blushed at the thought of Daniel seeing her wearing just those
later on. She accompanied them with black skinny jeans and the
floaty pre-Raphaelite top she had been wearing the day she first
met Daniel. Over the top she shrugged on her jacket and checked her
passport was still in place. She thought longingly of the makeup
she had already packed, but there was no time for that, she wanted
to be on her way.

Excitement
bubbled inside her at the thought of her trip with Daniel, the
brunt of her sadness at leaving her children masked by Daniel’s
talented mind control.

She lifted her
rucksack onto her back with little effort and looked around her
room, thinking of memories of her past with Jo. She still could not
believe that he was gone.

She had one
final look around upstairs, looking in Megan and Bea’s rooms with
sadness in her heart. She turned, a part of her clutching onto the
memories, but she knew it was time to leave and that she would have
to let them go.

She walked down
the stairs and approached Daniel, who was waiting for her by the
front door.

‘Let’s get out
of here,’ she said. ‘I can’t handle it any longer.’

The pain in her
heart eased a little as Daniel kissed her again, lingering, before
breaking away and taking her bag. She did not need the help but
appreciated the gesture. Sarah opened the door wide and ushered
Daniel out first. She locked up and then walked away, looking back
at her house and thinking of how her parents were going to cope
caring for her children, and what Megan and Bea would be like on
her return – would they still love her?

Daniel took her
hand and led her to his jeep and she let him strap her in, only
half aware as he started the engine and drove off. She continued to
look back at the life she was leaving until it was out of sight and
far behind.

Daniel
shifted in
his seat, getting comfy – moving slowly so as not to
disturb Sarah. He squeezed her shoulder, holding her tightly to his
side. A smirk played at his lips, he could not help it. Here he was
on a plane with a beautiful, amazing, sexy woman who was now his.
She was by his side, thoroughly under his control of course, he did
not want her launching herself at fellow passengers, but she was
here with him and he had her all to himself.

He had
influenced her to relax and she had fallen asleep, and she was
doing so soundly. He looked past her soft blond hair out of the
window. They were seated near the wing on a narrow row of three.
Sarah was by the window and he was in the middle, squashed between
Sarah and a middle aged man who was keeping to himself. They were
currently flying over the sea, but it was obscured by fluffy white
clouds. He caught the occasional glimpse of blue.

Daniel thought
back to their wait at the airport. They had managed to get a flight
relatively quickly and had only had to wait four hours. Luckily for
them someone else had canceled, leaving two seats on the next plane
departing free for them to take. Regardless of their luck the time
had gone slowly as they were both impatient to get away. Sarah had
been very excited, he thought smiling, but she had nearly lost
control and Daniel had had to increase his power over her.

He looked
forward to when they had made it to England and found somewhere
remote to stay. They could either rent a house or stay in a bed and
breakfast. He thought renting a house would be better, as far from
other people as was possible – then he could really let Sarah be
free and she could hunt while he taught her control. If she could
manage to be satisfied with hunting animals the first step would be
to teach her to stop feeding,
before
she killed. This would
be far easier to teach if he did not have to worry about her
stumbling upon humans mid feed.

He saw a large
female air hostess making her way down the central aisle towards
him and summoned her over.

‘Please can I
buy a large glass of red wine?’ he asked, then added - ‘actually,
make that two,’ thinking Sarah might appreciate some wine when she
woke up.

The hostess
blushed and hurried away to fetch the glasses.

He wondered
what dangers they would find to fight, and hoped he really could
help people. So far his main experience had been with fighting
vampires, this recent stuff with Sebastian had been out of his
comfort zone – it had been very challenging to say the least. He
thought the best thing for them to do, if they really wanted to
help people, would be to find an area with a minor vampire problem;
where young vampires were terrorizing the locals. This would be no
problem for him, and it would give Sarah a chance to get some
experience in fighting while he taught her new skills. He would
have to stay by her side non-stop as he could not let her get hurt
again, and could not let her hurt people either.

The air hostess
returned with a couple of plastic glasses and two individual
bottles of red. He thanked her and paid, amused to see her blushing
again.

As she walked
away he rolled his eyes at himself. Really he had no idea how hard
it was going to be to find the kind of challenge he hoped. They
might stumble upon something entirely unexpected, or they might not
find any supernatural presence at all.

He unscrewed
one of the bottles and poured some into the small glass that had
been provided. It was not very elegant.

The plane shook
with turbulence, and he spilt a little wine on the fold down table.
He held Sarah tightly so she would not be disturbed, while he
mopped up the mess with a napkin.

As the plane
steadied he took a long drink of wine, enjoying how it made him
feel.

He would have
to make it up to Sarah - that was for sure. All this time under his
control could not be that great for her. She was constantly being
surrounded by temptations, and he was taking away from her what she
wanted – blood. His mind was constantly connected to hers. It had
to be, for they were surrounded by people and had been for
hours.

Even as she
slept he could tell her mind was searching for something, for a
feed, for power. All her senses were primed to smell the faintest
presence of blood, of life. If he let the connection fade he did
not know what would happen, but he did not imagine it would be
good.

As he took
another sip of wine an idea occurred to him; they could rent a car
at the airport. That would be the quickest way to get them their
own space away from humans.

Unfortunately,
linking his mind to Sarah’s had some unforeseen effects; his own
desire for blood was increasing. It was good he had the wine now as
the alcohol helped suppress his desire for blood. He had three more
hours to cope with the bloodlust before they would land at Gatwick,
London, and they would be free to go where they pleased.

They could
feed.

Daniel smelt
wafts of slightly unpleasant, overcooked food, coming his way. He
felt Sarah stir at his side and looked around to see that her eyes
were open. She gave him a cheeky grin.

‘I hope I
didn’t drool on you,’ she said.

He laughed
lightly, ‘Want to try some, no doubt utterly fantastic, airline
food?’ he asked with sarcasm.

‘Why not?’ said
Sarah. ‘I am hungry, or thirsty, or something. Maybe it will
help?’

‘It might a
little, but this will probably be of more use,’ he said, presenting
her with a full glass of rich red liquid.

‘Umm wine, I
haven’t had that in ages,’ she said.

Daniel watched
as she took it and downed it in one.

‘More?’ he
asked.

‘Yes please,’
she replied, holding out her empty glass as a different air hostess
started to pass over their meals.

Daniel quickly
poured her some as the man to his right was given his meal on a
tray, and then placed the bottle on his table ready to receive food
for himself and Sarah.

As the air
hostess moved off to dispense more meals Sarah wrinkled her nose at
Daniel, and he could not resist - he kissed her hard on the lips.
As he pulled back smiling he was pleased to see her cheeks flushed,
pleased he still had that effect on her.

She took
another sip of wine and peeled back the foil on her tray. He
focused on his and did the same, revealing over-cooked salmon in a
creamy parsley sauce, accompanied by some very uniform looking new
potatoes that looked like they were from a tin.

He started to
force himself to eat it, trying not to draw attention to himself.
The man to his right was tucking in to his, occasionally elbowing
Daniel in the arm.

He glanced at
Sarah and she was pushing her food around with her fork, and he
watched as she tentatively brought some up to her lips and started
to chew.

‘It doesn’t
taste of anything,’ she said.

‘I’m not sure
it would even if we were human,’ he muttered in her ear, and she
smiled wryly back.

As he watched
she ate the rest of her food speedily, downed the rest of her wine,
and then groaned softly, looking out of the window at the fluffy
clouds.

‘You ok?’ he
asked her.

‘My throat is
dry, I’m not sure I’m doing that well,’ she said.

Daniel tried to
increase his influence on her but his power was weakening after
asserting it for so long, and he could sense her desperation. It
was getting hard to mask.

‘I need
something Daniel,’ she said, a panicky edge to her voice as she
resolutely looked out of the window.

Daniel wondered
if her teeth had extended and that she was trying to hide it. What
were they going to do? He tried to think if there was any way he
could get her some blood now. Could he try and get her to feed off
the other man sitting next to him? Is there any way they could
manage without being noticed? No, there really was not, and anyway,
how would he get her to stop feeding without creating a mass scene?
That would not be good and he did not have the strength to
influence all of those people.