ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (13 page)

2

“I asked you to stop staring at me,” Charlie said, sounding increasingly irritated now. Fighting back yet another angry retort I turned my eyes from him and stared instead at his hands that gripped the steering wheel tightly.

It would do no good to start a fight now, not while he was driving. We had crashed before thanks to a small argument and while to us it was a mere inconvenience that stalled our journey, the look of shock on the paramedics’ face as we climbed out of the crushed car was one I would rather not see again. Then it had sparked laughter and caused the beginnings of a story we had both enjoyed sharing. However the resulting headlines
‘Miracle couple escapes deadly crash’, “Couple avoid certain death’
and perhaps the most haunting of all
‘Life after death? Couple cheat death itself’
had been the talk of the city for a long time to come.

We had never paid much attention to the outside world before that day; there had never really been a need to do so. Together, when we had needed to, we had fed; moving from our need for each other and instead satisfying our other, once the lesser important need for blood. It had been around thirty years since that day and ever since our coupling had been bitter sweet. Charlie’s hands gripped the wheel tighter now, so much so that his knuckles whitened as we sped forward into the night. Rain hammered against the windscreen, telling us of the cold bitter air outside, both having to be told when neither could feel it themselves.

There wasn’t much need for a vampire in the modern world, in a sense we had been rendered useless. Our once impressive speed could easily be replicated by the tube system, speeding underground, unnoticed. Our telepathy, switched on and off at will had been shadowed by the invention of the mobile phone, an invention I personally thought would never last. Even our shows of strength, years beforehand the talk of every village, was almost pointless with today’s modern machinery. Only our thirst for blood now made us different in a world that had bypassed the need for a being that stood out from the rest.

I still remembered the day when Charlie had found me, a girl of newly found adulthood, confused with the developing world. For the first and only time he had pushed past him own thirst, trembled with the effort of a taste so sweet, so unique and instead made me his own. I had not fought; even in the earliest times when he had courted me I had been able to see beneath his emerald green eyes, the eyes that had forced me to look more closely at him. Now like the rest of him they were dark, cold, and unwelcoming.

He had found me, in all his expensive suited glory, in an alley, just off the main city streets. He had known me before, made it obvious where his intentions had lain, he was to be my suitor. But on the night that needed no memory and no recollection, even with my vivid vision of the world he had decided to keep me and bring me into the darkness. It had been my own fault, I had run away, away from the world I had been bred to look down at, to turn my nose up at. Charlie had been my parents’ choice of suitor, so rich, so elegant and reluctantly, at first at least, I had gone along with it.

When he had followed me into that alley he had promised me a world away from the one I hated and in my innocence I had followed. From that day on we had been a team, a couple to be rivalled in a world where vampires were once looked up to. But it was a different kind of power that pounded through our bodies, not one of jewels or of large balls. We had the power of influence, fuelled in its entirety by our love for one another.

But now forgotten were those days where we would run carefree, no need for money, we would just take each moment as it came, knowing that while it may be laughable to say, we had all the time in the world. In the end the time had torn at our love until we were as distant to each other now as familiar strangers, people you care not about but wave in passing, a polite coupling. All the time in the world can amount to nothing if you take it for granted and we had fallen victim to the human dissolution of a free happy ending.

3

All around us the rain turned white, changing into a beautiful storm of swirling white flakes. It had been too long since I had seen snow first hand. Of course I had seen it many times before, marvelled at how something so small and innocent could cause a world of pain, hurt and damage to a species that at best prided themselves on being prepared for the worst. I had laughed on, with Charlie at my side, at the disaster it had caused. The perfect time to find a meal, I almost licked my lips at the memory. Scared and alone, people running through the snow would ultimately become lost in the night, with only us knowing what had happened to them.

It had been snowing the first time me and Charlie had met, all those years before; if we would have aged with the years we would probably have turned to dust, the idea was humorous in a way. The snow was growing thicker, forming on the sides of the old crumbling road despite the rain that had soaked it only moments before. I thanked my sight, my clear vampire eyes for being able to watch ahead, nobody deserved to miss such beauty. To a human the road would be invisible; to us it danced with the soft yet ferocious flakes.

“Do you remember the first time we met?” I questioned the silent frame of my vampire beside me. While my eyes were set forwards I could tell a smile, however slight, formed on his lips.

“You stole a meal away from me,” he stated bluntly, showing none of the smile in his voice. I frowned, was that how he saw our first meeting? Did he think that I had merely been a missed opportunity at a free meal? I scoffed, unable to keep the sound in, while his face was ever the same, his personality showed his age.

“You didn’t have to keep me alive you know?” I spat back at him. This time he laughed, it wasn’t a carefree sound, the sound I loved on his strong firm voice, instead it was humorous.

“You had so much hope for life, so much young curiosity, I’m not a monster,” he said casually.

“Sure you’re not,” I laughed, he was the darkest of all monsters and he knew it. The car swerved slightly and I knew instantly that he had snuck into my thoughts. I laughed silently; I always knew the funniest times to let him hear what I was really thinking.

“That’s really what you think of me?” he said, only a little venom in the words. I mused the question over in my mind for a second. Did I think he was a monster? To me perhaps no he wasn’t, to others yes, it was the perfect description for the innocent looking handsome man that held a heart of darkness, a heart that was beginning to not belong to me.

“A monster through and through,” I said, deciding to play with him a little. It didn’t work, he didn’t respond.

“We are almost there,” he said after a moment of silence. I nodded, knowing he would sense the small movement; he had never needed to use his eyes. Heightened senses came in handy now and again.

“I still don’t understand why we need to go this far out of the city,” I said, trying to force an answer out of him. Always so evasive even under the simplest of questions, I knew him well; his brow would crease and a teasing look would toy in his otherwise dark eyes, then he would look away and leave me waiting.

“Wolves,” was his one worded answer. I laughed at that, wolf blood was of course his favourite.

“You and your wolves,” I sighed, if there was anything I would have believed I would lose him to then it would be wolves, he had a fixation.

“Not as bad as you and your bears,” he said, oh how well he knew me.

It had been his idea to take a vacation, a break away from our lives, one that had become so uneventful. We had settled; I knew it to be true as much as he did. Whoever heard of a settled vampire? We both still held a special love for the hunt, the hunt of finding fresh food. But in a city so filled with lost people, finding such food had never been a problem. It wasn’t a chase anymore; it was more like a grocery shop. It was obvious the vacation was for us, to find a hunt and to find ourselves. It hadn’t exactly gotten off to the best start.

4

Something flashed beside us, breaking the silence of the forest walls that bordered the small mountain road. My head spun to the side, I could smell the fearful animal, sense it’s urgency as it ran to find shelter from the thickness of the snowy ground. It was the first animal I had smelt close to the road, so close I could feel the accelerated blood pulsing through its neck. I was fixated on it as it ran faster and faster, it’s blood pounding harder and harder. It was only a deer, a young one, but having been in the city so long it was a treat just to smell it.

The car swerved harder, almost colliding with the dense forest. Charlie steadied it and I knew his eyes were on the wild animal, staring just as intently as I was. In a city where even cats and dogs were scarce just the feared scent of such an animal forced my body to react, I was almost drooling. The sleek black car found its rightful position on the road once more and I scowled at Charlie for letting himself get so distracted. It was always the way, he was focused until something worth his attention came along and right now that was the terrified deer who was now running away from the snowy road.

“There will be plenty of animals around when we get to the lodge,” I scolded Charlie. I knew if I wasn’t here he would have abandoned the car and proceeded to chase the frightened animal through the trees, playing with it just long enough to find humour in the game.

“I know,” he said almost sulkily, so much so that it made me laugh, “the bears will be great,” he said, knowing it would get a reaction from me. It wasn’t past him to take the best food for himself; he would do it just to anger me.

I reached out and ruffled his shaggy hair, smiling as he frowned; he hated it when I did that. It fell back against his forehead perfectly again, of course it did. I was still the only person who he wouldn’t kill for touching him like that, it had happened before and I was sure it would again. Ever the perfect gentleman until someone messed with him. He pushed my hand away and purposefully swerved the car through the slushy snow so my back slammed against the backrest.

“You can’t help yourself can you?” I shouted at him. This time he turned to me, fire burning in his black eyes at my outburst. The car slid to the side of the road and back again, faster and faster until my head swum with dizziness. He laughed the whole time, watching as my eyes blinked rapidly trying to contain the nauseous wave that flooded me as the car spun. I glared at him as he lifted his hands in an act of innocence, all the time his eyes danced with unreturned humour.

It was all it needed, the car, no longer under control glided freely on the icy tarmac, completely under the will of the thick snow beneath us. Charlie made no move to stop it, instead allowing it spin rapidly, I reached out, to grab the plastic wheel but it was too late. My eyes widened as a wall of whiteness, so out of place in the dark night descended upon us and then there was nothing. Blackness consumed my vision as everything pure and white disappeared. A snow bank, he had driven us into a snow bank. I couldn’t believe him.

“And you thought that would be funny?” I shouted at the laughing man beside me. His eyes glistened with mischief, the same look you would see on a young boy who had just made off with the last baked treat. 

“Anything that makes you angry is funny, my darling,” Charlie laughed, empathising the last two words, knowing they would anger me further.

The car, well more like pile of broken metal, was mostly under the cover of snow, and almost completely crushed after the impact. I was crouched in my seat as the feeble car roof tried it’s best to support the ton of snow that in such a small space of time had gathered on the side of the road.  Sighing I pushed the car door, in my anger my hand went completely through it. Furious I tore at the metal and threw what was once a door into the trees on the opposite side of the road and climbed out of the car.

“What did the car ever do to you?” Charlie joked as he strode to my side, dusting the snow off his thin shirt. If he wasn’t a vampire I would have killed him.

5

I looked up at the vampire as he looked down at me; his eyes danced with a kind of playful teasing that would make the green orbs look out of place on anyone but him. I smiled for a second as the emerald sparkled with the darkness that lay just beneath the startling colour. The smile didn’t stay in place for long as his mouth twisted into a teasing smirk. I turned away, kicking the snow that lay around my feet; it was already soaking through my shoes. Kicking one piece a little too hard it flew into the forest to meet the crumpled car door, a loud metal clink chimed through the snowy air telling me that it had in fact collided with the ruined metal frame of Charlie’s expensive car. 

“It’s not just the car that’s angered you it seems,” Charlie mussed, it was clear that he was trying to force a reaction out of me and I struggled not to give him what he wanted. I knew that if we got into a fight now then there wouldn’t be much of the forest left standing to tell the tale.

“Do you have to?” I asked instead, looking back up at my vampire in the process. His smile told the story of misplaced mischievousness, like he was planning something he shouldn’t be.

“Isn’t that how monsters are supposed to behave?” Charlie spat back, his voice was as venomous as you would expect a vampire’s to be. Despite the teasing nature of his words, his voice betrayed none of the humour to me. His eyes bore into mine now, neither of us dared to break away first, to give in to the other.

This was how it had been for so long, both giving into the ego that went along with the fangs. All vampires were the same, why I had ever expected Charlie to stay so different I had no idea. Every single vampire we had met along our way had had the same venomous nature but for a short time they could hide it, could blend in with the innocents around them. Charlie had managed it hide it for much longer, he had hidden it from me, the person who could read his mind, who could predict his movements; the veil had been cast over my eyes, but not any-more.

“No monsters have better manners,” shouted back, knowing how immature my words were, knowing they would hurt him more than any other. The perfect English gentleman, Charlie took pride in his manners, in his carefully selected words; it was part of the twisted charm that had drawn me to him.

“And you would know all about that,” Charlie said with the calmness of a simmering anger. They were almost a hiss, a whistle of words on his breath that to any other would have been lost on the wind. The anger of a vampire was unrelenting and unforgiving; it burnt and simmered, growing bigger and darker with every passing second. The anger of a vampire was as timeless as the creature itself, impossible to forget, impossible to forgive.

Snow fell around us, cold crisp white flakes that would surely freeze any human stupid enough to be left outside in such weather. The surroundings; the dense forest and old worn road were almost invisible under the thick layer of whiteness that sheeted the ground. But there we were stood, out of place, stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the perfection of the blanket. Both our shoulders were squared as we stared at each other. Our breathing had thickened as we tensed ready for the fight that was brewing between us; the act of breathing in such as way was a reminiscent of human times more than an actual need.

“I thought we were supposed to be on vacation?” I asked, in a last ditch attempt to not only keep the tree’s around us standing but to avoid the almost certain destruction of my dress if we ended up fighting our way across the forest floor.

“Does this look like a vacation to you,” Charlie snickered as he gestured to the snow covered road and the partially covered remains of our car. Despite his harsh words his face softened and his stance relented just a little, it was just enough to tell me that he was backing down, if only I would agree to do the same.

“I don’t know, it’s not bad looking,” I said as I captured a snowflake on my equally as freezing fingertip and twisted it slowly around, every snow flake was unique after all.

“Of course you would think that, you have always been a sucker for the unusual,” Charlie pondered, more to himself than to me.

“Probably why I fell for you,” I mused, realising too late that I had spoken the words aloud.