Limerence II (12 page)

Evan presses his forehead against mine, our noses touching, and he looks at me before looking back down the hallway. And then he is gone, sliding me down until I am back on unsteady feet. I feel his fingers on my buttons and then he moves away from me. Once again he leaves me feeling cold and unwanted; the heated man he was a moment ago has once more been obliterated, and I am left with nothing.

“You need to go,” he says, his voice sounding heady with desire yet his eyes looking pained. No matter how much he tries to hide the fact, he’s struggling to regain his composure—and that’s all I need to confirm his feelings for me. He’s being unfair, yet I can see that it’s killing him to do so.

I step forward and reach for him, my neck cold where he has left damp kisses. “But,” I start, but he backs away. “Don’t do this to me again, please,” I plead. “I can’t let you do this to me again, Evan. I
know
you care about me.”

The auburn-haired vampire comes into view and Evan steps further away from me. She looks at us, and I know that my mouth is red raw and bruised from the strength of his kisses. My hair is dishevelled and I want to straighten it, but another part of me doesn’t. Another part of me wants this vampire to know that Evan is mine, not hers. I want her to know that I love him, and that he loves me.

I gasp at my revelation, and she smiles. Evan looks from her to me, and clears his throat before speaking. “Mia, you can’t be here. You need to go, now.” He grabs the top of my arm and turns me from her.

I pull my arm free from his grip and stare hard at him. “Don’t do this to me,” I whine pathetically, losing all my will to stand firm against this other woman.

“Go now, woman!” he yells in my face, anger contorting his rugged features, and all determination to stand my ground and claim my man is lost, and I turn and leave, a sob leaving my throat.

As I exit the door at the end of the hallway, I turn and see him walking away with her, her arm draped around him, and humiliation burns in my veins. He chose her over me. I need to get out of here; I can’t think as hot red tears blur my eyes. My fangs release and I can’t get them to go away no matter how hard I try, and to make matters ten times worse, I feel
her
laughing at me.

I can see her walking towards me, her head held high, her cruel smile bearing down on me. Her laugh makes my ears hurt, and I hold my hands against them to try and make the sound go away, but there is no escape from her—from the sound of my own humiliation.

She stretches her arms wide and stares at me, and I can’t shake the grip she has. Two sets of eyes—both hers and mine—staring at one another, her talons wrapping around my brain as she pulls herself forth, humming and whispering my name almost sing-songy.

Mia.

Mia.

Mia.

I try to control my breathing, thinking of all the tricks that Evan has taught me to control my emotions, but then I think of Evan and it hurts again. He didn’t want me. When it came down to it, he kissed me—used me, abused my trust in him, used his power to take what he wanted and then pushed me to one side.

I gasp as I feel her pulling into my skin, knowing these aren’t my thoughts but unable to shake the grip she has on me—the way she uses my own feelings as my weakness.

Panic threatens to overflow from me, and I don’t know what to do.
She’s here she’s here she’s here,
my brain chants manically. And as if sensing my panic and my flailing control, she laughs harder, throwing her head back and laughing up to the sky, the force of it unnerving me until the laughter is not within me anymore, but echoing out of my mouth, even as the tears pour from my eyes.

She’s here.
I want to cry out loudly and call for help. But no one will hear me. I’m alone. I’m always alone.

“And you will always be alone.” She speaks from my mouth, and I clamp a hand over my lips to seal in the rest of the words.

Evan chose the other woman over me. He’s gone back inside to be with her. He’ll hold her and touch her, he’ll kiss her and make love to her: all the things that he cannot do with me, things that I thought didn’t matter—that he told me didn’t matter. But they do, and he has gone into the arms of someone who can give him what I cannot. I scream and clutch at my head, willing the images to go away. Images of their bodies entwined, their limbs wrapped around each other, bodies sweaty and slick as they move together, dragging desire from each other’s bodies, mouths leaving sloppy kisses across each other’s flesh.

This shouldn’t be happening. This shouldn’t hurt.

I’m not supposed to feel love if I’m a vampire. Surely I’m a soulless, godless creature that cannot feel such emotions? Yet here they are, killing me not softly, but painfully—as if ripping my dead, black heart out from my body.

“Such pain we endure for love,” she says—I say.

Oh God, help me!

And then I’m running, my feet pounding the hallways as I run from her, run from him, run from myself. And she’s coming. I can feel her hot breath on my neck like a lover leaving their mark. I run in the hopes of escape, but there is no escape from her—for she is me and I am her, and she will destroy me to be free.

“Darling, you
know that you shouldn’t be touching her,” Amora purrs as she waggles a red-nailed finger at me. “She is not yours to play with.”

I huff out my annoyance as we continue back to the Commons. I lick my tongue across my bottom lip, still tasting Mia on my mouth. My body pangs for her in a way no woman has ever made me feel. Not since my human life—since my wife.

“I know,” I snap, and push open the door, holding it open for Amora to come in. As it slams shut and we are enclosed back in the dark space of writhing bodies, I swear I hear a scream. I turn back to the door, placing a hand upon it, but Amora tsks and pulls me away.

“What is it about her that you find so enchanting?” She leads me away from the door, and I go, needing to put some distance between me and Mia. I crossed a line tonight with her, and it’s a line that I cannot just draw back in the sand and pretend that it was never erased. We kissed—no, it was more than that. Much more. But Amora has it right in some respects…though enchanting is too strong a word. I would prefer…

“Bewitching?” She laughs.

I turn to her with a scowl. “Get out of my head. It’s off bounds to you,” I say in irritation to her. “And I was going to say ‘interesting’.” I lie easily, though not convincingly. I crack my knuckles as I feel her staring at the side of my face, judging. “Shut up, Amora. I don’t wish to discuss it, or her, anymore. As you said, she is not mine too touch and it won’t happen again.”

We arrive at some black leather sofas and I slouch into one of the seats with deep purple pillows.

“You have it bad for her,” she teases, and I scowl again.

She’s right though: I do. I can’t help it. There is something intoxicating about Mia’s presence, but she is dangerous beyond her knowledge. And she is important to our queen’s plot against her nemesis. Mia is a problem—or rather, my affection for her is a problem, and one I need to stop before it starts. A pale human man comes over on the arm of Demetri, one of the feeder vampires in charge of him. Demetri is calm as he places the human at the ground between Amora and me, and offers us a wrist apiece with a seductive smile.

Demetri is broad-shouldered, with muscles upon muscles. His dark, floppy hair hangs over his eyes as he watches Amora take his offering with gratitude and drink from the human. I on the other hand am not thirsty—not for blood anyway. I feel on edge, nervous for some unknown reason, and can’t settle.

I stand abruptly, though it doesn’t disrupt Amora and Demetri’s staring contest as she stares at him while drinking greedily from the human. Every once in a while she pulls away from the man’s wrist to lick the holes and seal the wounds before plunging her fangs back in. It’s cruel and unnecessary, but that is how she works, and once upon a time, I had enjoyed that dark side of her in my bed. But those nights had ended when I was put in charge of Mia.

She pulls out again, and without looking up at me she speaks. “Then go to her.” She laps at the wound like a kitten as Demetri leans over the human and grips her head in his hand before pulling her forwards to kiss her mouth eagerly.

I scowl and wonder why this doesn’t excite me anymore. Why the image of her mouth wrapped around a bloody wrist is not a turn-on, and why I do not feel possessive like I once did. I scowl harder and turn away.

“It’s not as simple as that.” I say.

“The best desires never are.” She still doesn’t look at me, but she doesn’t need to. She’s right, though I don’t want her to be.

I stand to leave; I need to find Mia, at least to calm her. I should never have left her in such a state.

“Evan?” Amora shouts my name as I walk away, and I know what she is saying without her speaking it, her words invading my mind:
“Be careful, for a true death would be the sickliest colour for you.”
Her power to read my mind—anyone’s mind, for that matter—is one of the most irritating powers a vampire could acquire, but also one of the most useful to our queen.

I close my eyes and open them back up before following after Mia. I just need to put her straight. I just need to let her know that she has done nothing wrong, that it is I that did wrong. I had felt her pain, the sting she had felt at my rejection. After months of her feelings growing for me, this—tonight—would have happened sooner or later, but I have just made things worse for her. Because we can never be, and instead of her believing that it is against the Queen’s wishes, she believes that she has done something wrong—that I rejected her—when that is the opposite of everything that I feel.

In that one fleeting touch of her arm before she left, I felt all of that. All of her pain and anguish, her confusion and feel of betrayal. And I let her go regardless of her weakened state of mind, without trying to help her. What kind of protector am I? What kind of trainer am I?

If she loses control tonight, if she loses herself to her inner demon, it will be my fault, and not only will that be a burden I will have to bear for all eternity—to have destroyed someone so beautiful—but the Queen will make my pain never-ending.

I grit my teeth and chase after her, following her sweet scent that is altogether Mia.

*

The rain hits my skin, drenching me within seconds as I push through the main entrance and down the large concrete steps, my heavy footsteps and the noise of the rain the only sounds to be heard. Nighttime has fallen, the temperature dropping as the moon rises higher in the sky. My shirt clings to my arms and chest, making it difficult to move. I tear the fabric from me as I run, and throw it to the ground without a second thought. It’s not like I need it to keep me warm, anyway, though it was a favourite.

Bare-chested I run, the rain cooling against my rampant thoughts and worry. I attempt to calm myself, but I remember how I had dismissed her after we kissed, taking her mouth with mine as though it and she belonged to me, and then pushing her away as if I didn’t care. The hurt in her eyes, the anger and confusion coursing through her had physically hurt me, and it had taken all my willpower to walk away. To turn my back on her. But I had done it, and I had thought it was for the best. Amora had convinced me it was for the best. I shake my head in frustration at my own stupidity. Or maybe I just needed space between us, if only for just a minute, so that I could regain control of my faculties again before I made the biggest mistake of all.

I reach out with my mind, feeling pain and torment in the distance, and speed up to find her. I know it is her pain and her torment: her emotions are always so clear and coherent to me. Of course that is my torture, my torment—that I know her more than she knows herself. I hear her, both past and present. While she sees people’s true feelings, I hear them, feel them, and right now I feel in agony with my decision to abandon her when she needed me.

My loyalty has always been to my queen, but perhaps ninety years is enough servitude to only her. Perhaps she will understand that this thing between me and Mia is not something we can fight. Guilt and worry war within me.

I have always chosen her—our queen—and yet now I doubt those thoughts. She will get rid of Mia when the time comes, but I don’t know if I can be loyal to her anymore. I love Mia, love her like I loved my wife those many years ago. Perhaps that is what I’ve been fighting all along: not my loyalty to our queen, but my loyalty to my wife.

Such tragedy has struck me through life.

Such loneliness in death.

There seemed no end to my torment. Until Mia.

And like rain on a hot summer’s day, Mia is something that I need—my life-giver—yet I have been too stubborn to let go of my anchor and move forwards. For nearly a hundred years I have carried with me the guilt of my wife’s death—the fact that I lived and she died—burying those feelings under the guise of loyalty to our queen.

But I see clearly now.

The farther I run, the more I fear for her. The scent of her pain is so strong it makes me feel nauseous. But I’m getting close, I know it. The mud is almost ankle deep, the rain still beating down almost obnoxiously. Trees whip past my face as I run, branches slapping at my cheeks and splashing them with blood, the cuts healing before I’ve even taken the next step.

I can hear her. She is close, her tears coming fast and furious, her pain thick in the air.

I see her through the trees; she has stopped and is on her knees, clutching at her head. I crash through and into the clearing, her eyes not looking up at me until my arms are around her. Her body shivers, her muscles taut, her face finally looks up to mine and her eyes are pools of pain.

“I’m so sorry, Mia. I’m so sorry.” I kiss her forehead, smoothing her sopping hair away from her face.

Her lips tremble but she does not speak, but continues to stare up at me with those innocent eyes, and her pain—her agony—washes over me in tidal waves. So much pain, I can’t believe it is all coming from just her. I scoop her lithe body up into my arms, and she rests her head against my bare chest.

“Forgive me,” I beg, still looking down at her.

She nods slowly and closes her eyes, and I pull her closer to me, promising myself that I will fight for her no matter what.

I will not let anything harm her—not me, not our queen, nothing. I will be her protector from now on.

I will be her warrior.