The Embrace (40 page)

To my surprise Aiden chuckled. I was a little taken aback. There was nothing funny in what I had said, but he was laughing aloud.

“I didn’t come here to kill you. I’m on your side, I swear. I didn’t expect you to notice me so soon but I guess while I’m here I might as well tell you the truth. It’s not as if I’m going anywhere.” He glanced down at the arm I was using to pin him to the wall and his smirk appeared again.

For some reason I trusted him. I was becoming more sensitive to liars around me and Aiden seemed to be telling the truth. I decided to let him go so that he could tell me his story. If I had made a mistake then I still had Robert’s powerful blood to back me up if it came down to a fight.

I backed away and pressed myself against the adjacent wall. Aiden rolled his shoulders out of their tense position and cracked his knuckles. I had always hated that sound as a human and now it was no different. It always struck me as a display of male bravado.

“Ok then. Tell me the truth. All I ever seem to hear these days are lies. If you have some truth to add to the mix then I’d love to hear it.” My voice was coated with sarcasm and it restored the smirk to Aiden’s face.

“ It’s Gabriel I came to see. I’ve been tracking him for some time.  I haven’t seen him for years and we still have some issues we really need to talk about.”

I felt myself shaking. Aiden could provide some real answers for me and I might finally found out the truth.

“Have you followed me before?” I asked. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar, and I hoped his answer would help me place him.

“I’ve only been in town for a week now. I’ve been tracking Gabriel for years but this is the first time I’ve see you as a vampire.” He didn’t seem surprised by my question. Maybe there was something more going on.

“Then why do I recognise you?” I asked, still unsatisfied by his answer.

“We have met before but you were a human, then. 8 years ago I killed your family.”

I certainly hadn’t expected that. The mystery of who had murdered my family had haunted me for the last few years of my human life, and now he was right there in front of me. I had spent so long fearing this creature, but now I could kill him in a moment.

“You do realise that if I had even a shred of humanity left I would have killed you already?” I asked him.

“Luckily for me you don’t have any left.” He quipped, that same empty smirk on his face.

“So are you going to tell me why you’re here or do I have to beat it out of you?”

Aiden took a deep breath, probably prolonging the hold he had over me to get a little more pleasure. He was truly enjoying having the upper hand, although I suppose that’s a universal vampire characteristic. We only compromise when it comes to our mate, and even that is often a reluctant act.

“I was living in Germany when it happened. It was around the mid 1600s or so and I was part of a sect, the Germanitas Order we called ourselves. I was still quite young, probably only a fraction past 50 years old. I drifted towards the Order not long after it’s creation. I was an orphan, and I liked the idea of the companionship it offered.

I was turned in Scotland by a male vampire. We travelled for 7 or 8 years and then he abandoned me. I barely knew anything about being a vampire and I craved a father figure. So, when I heard about the Order I sought it out and made myself part of it.

The leader and founder was a vampire named Lucius. He ruled over us with his mate Diego. They promoted fraternity and brotherhood, all members were equal and shared in all misfortunes and victories. I saw Lucius as the father figure I had always wanted, and I think Diego saw me as a threat. He thought I wanted to take over his position but I never wanted that. It was very uncomfortable between us, to say the least.

Then I found Gabriel. We bumped in to each other one night while we were hunting. He was an orphan, practically rabid. He was obviously a newborn and he seemed like he needed someone, just like I once had. I started to think maybe I could create someone to be my companion, if Lucius didn’t need me.

Gabriel was 50 years younger than me but he was perfect for our ranks. He showed himself to be manipulative and charismatic, as soon as his wildness wore off. He became the leader I had always wanted and I followed him dutifully.

We killed women who came across our path. I had been killing men, mostly, but Gabriel was turned by a woman so he had issues with females. As I’m sure you know, the vampire who sires us leaves a stronger impression than we’d like to think.

Over time, our hunting became more elaborate. We started to make plans, stalking the women for days at a time. He played with them like a cat plays with a mouse before it strikes, and Gabriel was a master of the art.”

That was certainly familiar. I had seen Gabriel tease many victims over the past few months, as if they were his toys. Obviously he had been like that for a very long time and it wasn’t me who dragged it out of him as I had started to think.

“When Diego took over after Lucius decided to leave, it was Gabriel’s opportunity to seize control. Looking back I should have known Diego was no threat to me, but at the time I was under Gabriel’s control so I didn’t need any convincing. We overthrew Diego and seized control of the Order. To us vampires were made to kill, and this brotherhood nonsense got in the way of that. We were designed to be predators, not servants or friends.

Around 300 years ago we started massacring families. I would kill the family and leave one survivor, and then Gabriel would swoop in as the protector. He would spend years with the survivors and then, when he gained their trust, he would kill them. It was all an elaborate game for him.

We moved east around 1713, settling in Central Europe. I don’t remember the details now but it was pleasant enough. We stayed there for a while and then after a while we moved to the Baltic region. In the early 1770s we relocated to Asia, returning to Europe nearly 60 years later. We eventually decided to try the new world in 1840 when we went to South America.”

Bells rang in my memory. I had seen Gabriel reading books written in Spanish and I knew he had picked the language up during a visit to South America. Now I knew when and why Gabriel had visited that corner of the world. It felt as if every piece of Gabriel’s secretive puzzle was falling in to place.

“We moved to North America after a few decades, and then in 1888 we decided that the Order should disband. Gabriel was fed up of having these followers around him. They weren’t of use to him anymore; he felt they were holding him back.

I stayed with Gabriel. I had been with him for 240 years, and I considered us to be friends. We weren’t mates in the same way we would have been if he had sired me, but I had taken him in when he was a newborn. We were as close as we could be to mates without a real blood bond.

We travelled around America together, making the most of the world and continuing our schemes. Gabriel always wanted to make our plans bigger. He was always looking for new ways to get pleasure out of the kill.

In 1920 we were in New York City and we stumbled upon a club. There was a girl there, a singer. Her name was Emma. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen and I knew instantly that I wanted her to join us. I had been a vampire for over 400 years and I hadn’t sired a single being. Most vampires feel ready to sire after 2 or 3 centuries at the most, but I had never felt the need as I had Gabriel by my side. When I saw Emma I knew she was the one I had been waiting for.”

Emma. She had been on my mind ever since I had first heard her name. Gabriel had told me that she was his mate. He had loved her, turned her and then had to watch her disintegrate in front of him. She had started to fall apart before disappearing for 10 years. When she returned she had said goodbye and then killed herself in front of him. I had seen the heartbreak in his eyes when he thought about her, but he had never mentioned another vampire being involved in their story.

“I told Gabriel that I was going to sire her. Then we were going to leave town and become a family together, just the two of us. Gabriel could go on with his plans without me. He didn’t like that idea, of course. He didn’t need me, but he didn’t want me to leave unless he told me I could. Everything he did was a big game of power.

So he killed her before I could. I went to the club to find her and she was dead in her dressing room. There was a bite mark on her thigh and her neck and she was transitioning, right in front of me.

When she turned she was Gabriel’s property. I truly loved her but she belonged to him so there was nothing I could do. She did as he said and until he gave us his blessing we could never be together. It meant that I had to stay with him until he gave his permission for her to leave.

We went to Europe in 1925. I told Emma I loved her and she told me she loved me too. I couldn’t live without her but I knew she would be in immense pain if she tried to leave him, so we chose to travel Europe together as a warped little family.

In 1970 we came to England. We had spent 50 years in this strange arrangement and I was growing tired of it. After a while, Gabriel promised me that if I did one last thing for him then he would let her go. He would give me his blessing to become her sire in his place. It seems foolish now, but I believed him. I had been with him for over 500 years, a long time for any vampire companionship. I still had a strong connection to him, despite everything.

He told me that he had a new plan to enhance the kill. Most of the plan was familiar to me: I would kill the family, and Gabriel would befriend the female survivor. But now he had a new twist on his game.

After befriending the girl he would develop a relationship. Then he would turn her in to one of us and he would slowly destroy her, making her go mad. He didn’t specify how he would do it and to be honest I didn’t care. I needed Emma to be mine and so she was the only thing on my mind.

He took me to the home and I killed the family. I left the girl. She was just 13 years old, a beautiful creature with so much promise for the future. I could see exactly why Gabriel had chosen her.”

I didn’t need to hear anymore. I knew I had to listen but this was the final nail in the coffin.

“That girl was me, wasn’t it?” I didn’t really need an answer. Aiden nodded but he didn’t have to say a word either way. I knew what his response would be already.

“I’m sorry.” I believed him, although I knew he couldn’t feel remorse for the kill itself.

“After he killed your family I expected our debt to be squared. I expected him to free Emma and transfer ownership of her to me. I would become her rightful sire and we would finally be together.

I’m sure you can guess what’s coming. He didn’t keep his promise. When I returned to the place we had used as our nest I found him holding her. He told me that I would never have true peace, and that I would never have something he owned.

Then he stabbed her in the heart. She died in my arms. Gabriel stood there, watching us, and he laughed. God, that laugh almost drove me insane. He killed another vampire, the cardinal sin for our kind, and he laughed about it. She was only 82 years old. I lost the only thing I had ever loved, all because of him.

Gabriel left our nest. My grief would have given me enough strength to kill him, and he knew that, so he got out before I could hurt him. I tried to track him down but he had disappeared. I visited your home a few times but he was never there when I was. Eventually I gave up and started looking elsewhere.

A few months ago I stumbled across a young attorney, Dahlia Elton. She told me Gabriel was her client and her lover. I compelled her, and she told me he was in town. I’ve been searching but I was still waiting to find a lead, until now.”

I needed to lie down for a while. I couldn’t cope with all of these devastating revelations rattling around my head. I wanted everything to stay still and give me a moment to think about my next move. If Aiden was telling the truth then everything Gabriel had ever told me was a lie. He had manipulated me for his own perverted pleasure. I was just a toy to him. He had never loved me. I had been fully aware of his ability to lie, in fact I had been expecting a few more to come crawling out of the woodwork, but nothing as elaborate as this.

The noise started to settle and my head cleared for a moment. I had to ask Gabriel to tell me the truth in his own words. If Aiden’s story was true then my entire life as a vampire, and 8 of my human years, had been a lie. I could have done so much with these months if I had known the truth from the start. 

If it turned out that Gabriel had fed me these lies then I was going to end it once and for all. I would have to kill him, even if it meant risking my life in the process.

“Are you alright?” Aiden asked. There was real concern in his voice. After what he had just told me I saw him in a completely new light. He was cold because he had lost his true love to a sadist, not because he was a murderous lackey.

“I know that you probably want me to tell you where he is but I’m not going to.”

“What?” The shock was plain to see, written all over Aiden’s face. “Are you joking? After what I just told you? I thought you’d want him dead just as much as I do.”

I shot him a look of cold determination and walked to the end of the alleyway. I could tell that he was following a few steps behind but Robert’s blood was still in my system so I was certain I could outrun him.