Lurking in the Shadows (Completed)

Chapter 16

Victor

“Mina! Mina!” I kept shouting her name to find her, but she stormed off. I calm myself and take a couple of deep breaths. “If I were Mina in distress, where would I go?” Thinking out loud usually helps. A lightbulb moment comes to me and I run immediately towards the community garden. She loved gardening in her former life so I was told and most of the garden was tended to her. Now the cook does it. When I get there I’m horrified at what I see. She’s grabbing someone by the collar!

“You have absolutely ruined my life!” She was about to attack someone when I ran towards them. The guy was clearly drunk on… whiskey. I let out a deep sigh and realized that the scent of the biter had hints of whiskey.

“No, he didn’t! He’s just some drunk that you’re blaming him on! Come on, I need to take you home!” I try to snap her out of it but she just growls at me and lets the guy go while stomping away. Luckily not harming the garden too much. I pick some of the damaged spring vegetables and see if the cook could do anything with them. We run back to the manor and she sprints up the stairs to her room. I could barely keep up with her with all this anger pent up!

“Mina you need to snap out of this! You need to hunt or feed off of me or something! This isn’t you at all!” I’m genuinely worried for her. “When was the last time you fed? Honestly?” She lets out a few snarls at me and I take a step back from her.

“A full feeding like I actually felt satisfied?” I nodded to her and crossed my arms. I wanted to get to the bottom of this. “Probably since we fed off of each other at the winter ball…” The winter ball!?

“Mina no wonder you’re acting like this!! That was months ago! If you’re living off of emergency blood bags that won't satisfy you at all!”

“I wanted to keep as much of my humanity I have left! So I’ve been eating food just not wanting blood!” I slap my forehead and groan in frustration.

“I understand that, but neither of us are human anymore! This is what life has thrown at us and we can slowly starve ourselves and whither away or we can make the most of it and thrive together. I want to be with you, just let me in!” I’m almost on the verge of tears. The person that’s supposed to be by my side and love me has been hurting herself. She comes up to be and shoves me onto the bed straddling me and bites my neck. I let out a moan at the unexpectedness of this, but I’m not surprised.

She feeds off me for a solid minute and I can feel her slowly calming down. Her face almost has that rosey look to her and I can tell she’s satisfied again.

“Feeling better now?” She licks up the couple of drops left on my neck and lays down next to me.

“Yes… I’m so sorry for how I was at the meeting and how I’ve been treating you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you rejected me.”

“What!? No, no, no! I know this has been hard on you. It’s been hard on me, but I at least hunt wild animals to satisfy my cravings. It’s not as good as the blood balls, but at least it’s something in the meantime. I think you owe some people an apology for the meeting as well.” She hops off me and smooths out her skirt. I admit she looked good in that archer’s dress. I almost didn’t want to leave the room.

“Yeah, I’ll go find them. Wait for me until I get back or do you want to come with me?” I walked towards her and took her hand to kiss it.

“I’ll go with you, you need me right now.” She smiles back at me and kisses me again. Her leg wraps around my waist and I grab her thigh to support her. “There’s my Mina.” We walk out of her room and look for her dad and Jasper. We get to the study door and we can hear their muffled voices behind it. She takes a deep breath to calm her nerves and I gently squeeze her hand. I knock on the door and we hear a muffled “Come in!” We open it and they’re not thrilled to see us.

“Care to explain what happened at the tavern!? That was disrespectful to us and our client! I’d be surprised if he wants to work with us! Now we have to do damage control!” Her father really rips into her and I can see she was on the verge of tears.

“I’m sorry father… you’re right it was disrespectful and I’ll apologize to him too. I haven't fed since the winter ball…” Both her father and Jasper look at us in shock.

“Mina no wonder you’re acting like this!! That was months ago!” Jasper yells at her too. Trying to calm himself down. “Did you finally feed? You look more yourself now.” She nods her head and Jasper hugs her.

“I know you’ve had trouble with your new life, but if you really needed help, you should’ve asked us.”

“I know that now.” She cries into his chest and he just lets her. Her father gets up from his chair and hugs her too.

“I remember how rough it was in the beginning too. You don’t have to do this alone, sweetie. Please let us help you. Not just us, your family, but you have Jasper, an excellent mentor and your beloved. Don’t shut us out. I know it’s hard to trust with all that’s happened, but you can trust us.” He wipes away her tears and she calms down again. “If you ever need to talk or you want to hunt or anything, just let us know.”

“And we can continue our lessons for both of you.” Trying to include me as well, he smiles back at me and I nod a silent ‘thank you’.

“Thank you for apologizing, but never go that long without feeding again. We were worried. If a vampire goes rogue for too long, we eventually have to put them out of their misery… I didn’t want to do that to you, but I almost had no choice!” Her father smiles at me and hugs me. “I have no idea what you did to finally make her feed, but do it more often.”

“Well… there’s also something else you should know…” She pipes up. “I kind of almost harmed some drunk at the community garden thinking he was the biter.

“You what?!” They said in unison.

“And damaged some of the spring vegetables at the community garden where this happened…” She closed her eyes waiting for the worst to happen.

“I took them to the cook to see if she could salvage them.” Trying to help things for her, but they still looked angry.

“Mina! Why did you do that!?” Her father yells at her again.

“He smelled of whiskey so I thought he was the biter!”

“It was just a case of someone hitting the tavern a little too hard. I could smell him from across the garden.” He was a really stinky guy…

“Mina, Mina, Mina… just because someone smells of whiskey does not make them our attacker…” Jasper shakes his head trying not to laugh.

“Maybe Edward should give you hunting lessons while we’re at it.” Her father shakes his head. “Was the guy ok as you left?”

“Other than being really drunk, yeah he was fine. I doubt he’ll remember it anyway with the way he smelled.” Personally I don’t understand why someone would want to drink that much to get that drunk, anyway.

“Oy vey… now I almost need a drink.” Her father slumps back into his chair and rubs his forehead.

“Tomorrow we can start your lessons again, and I’ll talk to Edward and his friend about hunting lessons for you and Nyx.” Jasper tried to remain professional, but I can see that it was hard to not laugh. “Now as for the two of you I want you to have a full satisfying feed, for the both of you.” He still looks at Mina with a playful glare.

“Yes, Jasper… we’ll go do that now.” I pipe up and wrap an arm around her waist.

“Good. Now off you go. We both accept your apology.” Her father piped up still rubbing his forehead about the whole thing.

Stranger from the garden

Oy my head… how in the world did I get here? I smell my light coat and it smells intoxicating as if a woman had grabbed it recently. It almost turns me on. I keep on smelling it until the scent is gone. I want more of it! Where do I find this woman?? I also smell of whiskey so I must’ve had too many again. I must find this woman so I can have her intoxicating scent on me again.