Chapter Fifteen
2278 Words
His jokes aren’t funny, and I find myself nearly puking with the speed he’s going. I thought for sure the man would go slower now that we aren’t being chased.
No such luck.
And I’m going to be killed to boot? Why did I even bother saving his ass if he’s going to off me?
I have to be honest with myself though. I’m not the reason he survived that little attack back there. Aside from the fact I kept the dang knife from grazing his skin, I honestly didn’t do much. Kicking balls doesn’t exactly earn me a medal in combat sports.
I brave a peek as he continues to carry me and find we’re climbing higher and higher up a mountain. The only thing I’m thankful for at this moment is his ability to dodge trees without colliding into walls of bark and leaves.
I can’t even focus on the moon or stars through the clouded, tree-filled area without the feeling of being sick to my stomach.
“You need to find the parking brake, Semion!” I scream, hoping he’ll slow the f**k down before I unsheathe this goddamn knife and plunge it into his neck.
I imagine vampire speed is the first stereotype that I’ve seen to be true about these beings. It makes me wonder how true the whole mind-reading thing is considering Semion often answers my questions before I have a chance to ask them.
Even through the speed, I feel his chest rumble with laughter beneath me. To my dismay, he picks up speed.
Fuck me.
I’m going to die at the hands of a speed-demon… literally.
Before I can react to his new pace, he’s dropping me again, this time allowing me to hit my tailbone against the hard ground.
“That was totally unnecessary,” I say as I stand, brushing the ass of my jeans off with one hand, the other still clutching the handle of the blade tightly.
There Semion stands, his bare chest heaving with the breaths of someone who just ran a marathon.
Well, ran a marathon with a one-hundred twenty-pound female on his back.
Serves him right.
“I think it’s more than necessary to prepare you, Tess,” he says, the S-sound hissing through his white teeth as his muscles undulate and glint beneath the moonlight.
“Don’t call me that. And prepare me for what?” I ask. I’m hoping he’ll actually be straight with me for once and tell me what the hell kind of riddles he’s spouting.
“Your death,” he says with a chuckle.
Again, his jokes not only lack humor, but also make no dang sense. I look at him with confusion.
He rolls his eyes. “The only way back is through death. If you want to be what you once were, you have to die.”
I look around, my eyes taking in my surroundings. We’re at the top of a mountain, the horizon around us paling in comparison to our altitude.
We’re on the highest mountain in the greater area, and I won’t be able to find my way down even if I knew where the hell I was. Directions have never been my strong suit.
Not now… not ever.
Finally, my eyes graze over the shirt-covered knife in my hand and then to Semion, his dark stare boring into my soul, begging me to challenge him. Colors illuminate beneath the fabric covering the blade—purples and reds all threatening his livelihood.
Yet here he stands, with me, the feeble little human holding a magic-filled knife that can threaten his very nature. Here he stands… trusting me to not lunge forward and take the curse from him like Rune did to me.
Is it really a curse though? Or have I been looking at things all wrong?
My life before this was nothing but a battle for survival—a battle to make enough money just to eat. If I do this… if I follow Semion… it’ll be a battle to feed. I’ll be switching sides in the war. I have to be honest with myself. I’m just not sure if it’s worth it. Do I want to keep up the battle?
Semion walks to me, his knees bending so his face is level with mine. I can’t help but feel drawn to him, yet I know it’s just his essence—his vampirism—that makes him seem more attractive than he really is.
He touches me, reaches out to grab my hands and bring them closer to him… to his chest just like he did before in my apartment. It takes a moment for him to realize I still have the cloth-sheathed knife in my left, and I watch, almost in slow motion, as he reaches to grab it.
“No!” I scream. Well, it’s not a real scream because I know just as much as the next human my voice will echo throughout the mountains and valleys in the area. Instead, it’s more like a gasp of air that comes out with force—forceful enough to get him to stop. “Don’t touch it. I’ve felt the agony this magic can bring. You don’t want to touch it.”
Semion nods, seeming to trust me in this moment as I kneel to place the blade on the ground. It’s still covered, but it doesn’t take away the fear I have that it’ll somehow unravel itself and attack us… attack him.
Once the knife is settled against the grass-covered surface, I place my foot overtop it, keeping it in place so I know no one will come and take it.
It’s still too dangerous. And, at this point, no one can be trusted.
But should I trust Semion? In reality, he could have killed me long ago. Hell, the moment he found me in that grimy parking lot, sucking the life from my evil foster father, he could have ended it for me.
But he didn’t.
He still hasn’t.
And I need to figure out what he has done with my friend. I need to know what has happened to Kat. If it takes dying to find the truth, so be it.
“Okay. Say I want to be a vampire again, I need a few things answered,” I tell him emphatically, my body hopefully giving away my eagerness to listen to what he has to say.
Semion nods, his hands still grasping onto mine and holding me close, my knuckles brushing against his bare chest.
It makes me nervous, and I think he knows it.
“Ask away.”
“First, where’s Kat?” I ask. “She’s the only friend I have, and it’s killing me I don’t know what happened to her.”
For the first time since he has had me alone, Semion backs away, giving me space, his eyes no longer able to capture mine in the trance he usually consumes me with.
When his hands drop mine, breaking the physical contact we have, he says, “I had to turn her. I’m so sorry, but I had no choice.”
My heart, the heart that has finally started to beat after so many years of dormancy, drops into my stomach.
“You turned her?” I ask, gasping for breath as I sit down on the ground and cross my legs, my foot still securing the knife beneath me. “Why the hell would you have to do that? Is she okay? What the hell?” My questions are like rapid fire, but I can’t help it. She’s the only friend I’ve been able to make, and I’ll be damned if I let her get away because of my genes—because of my parents who decided to ditch me when I was a baby. Ultimately, regardless of their presence, they decided to ditch me with this curse, and now my friend is suffering because of it?
“Shhh,” he hisses, hushing me by placing his forefinger against my lips. “Don’t make me kiss you again to shut you up.”
I look in his eyes and almost wish he would kiss me again. The kiss he landed on me when he was trying to shut me up before was pure bliss. He tastes so yummy, and suddenly, I feel the need to taste him again—to feel his plump lips against mine.
He must see the lust in my eyes, because he backs up, forcing his body away as he speaks.
“She was dying. If I had any chance of saving her, it was to turn her.” He finally turns back to me, his eyes sincere as he adds, “She asked for you as soon as her transformation was complete…”
His words trail off, and I’m not sure what it means until he decides to continue, his eyes now downcast again so as not to upset me.
“She wanted blood. She wanted your blood. And she isn’t stable right now and she won’t be until we can train her to feed safely without taking lives.”
“You didn’t seem too concerned about lives back there,” I scold, pointing down the mountain in the general direction I assumed we came from… the general direction the men were that he’d laid out flat mere minutes before.
He laughs. “They were mages, Tesla! Supernatural magicians… and their magic was, and is, specialized to hunt vampires. Did you think I was going to give my life for them? Hell, did you think I’d give up Kat’s life for them?”
That cuts me… makes me stop short, my body initially wanting to pounce and now sitting still. I know he’s right. Still though, the asshole side of me wants to fight… to deny his argument and tell him just how one life isn’t at all more important than another.
But in reality, Kat’s life is by far more important than those assholes at the bottom of the mountain. Semion is right. And admitting he is right will be one of the most difficult things I can accomplish in my life so far… aside from my defection from the orphanage.
Thankfully, Semion saves me from my own pride.
“Look, Tesla. I can’t guarantee you’ll come back to me as you once were.”
I look at him, confused. “What does that mean?”
“I can’t guarantee you’ll come back as a pureblood vampire. I’ve never been through this before. I’ve never had to reverse the magic,” he says, and I wonder how he even knows about born vampires versus the bitten kind.
How the hell can I even know?
Finally, I hold my hand up for him to stop talking long enough for me to absorb all this new information. “Wait, you say you’ve never done this before, but you just told me a few minutes ago you made my best friend into a vampire? How does this make any sense?”
He shakes his head. “You misunderstand. I can turn anyone. Just a small taste of my venom will turn even the strongest human into a vampire.”
I look at him, nodding for him to continue so I don’t have to slap the answers out of him.
“You have been a vampire from birth, Tesla. It’s different for you. You were never bitten and turned. You’ve never had to go through the transformation most others have to. So, now that the magic is gone from your bloodstream, I’m not sure what to expect if I try to reverse what Rune has done to you.”
It’s the most words I’ve heard Semion say at one time, and still, I wonder just how much he’s choosing to share with me. It seems like every other word out of his mouth is veiling a hidden agenda he is purposefully keeping from me.
Trusting him is not going to be easy.
Then again, I have nothing to lose apart from my only friend and a shitty stripper gig.
He must sense my trepidation, because he continues with his warnings, probably so I don’t b***h if things turn out different than before.
Then again, anything different than my past will be an improvement.
“You need to know,” he warns. “It’s entirely possible that, if your transformation is successful, you still won’t be the pureblood you were before this whole clusterfuck. Do you really want to become one of us again if it means you lose your status as a pure?”
I don’t have to really think about my answer. The answer is as plain as the nose on my face.
“My life will be empty either way. I have no one to live for, so I might as well take the risk.” I shrug, unsure what my risk really is. Is it a risk if you have nothing to look forward to either way? The only thing I think I can look forward to once I’m a vampire again is the possibility of seeing Kat… and maybe seeing more of Semion.
Regardless of how confused I am about all this vampire mumbo jumbo, I feel drawn to Semion in a rather primal way… like there is no denying him, no matter what happens to me… to us.
“Ready?” he asks, holding his hands out for me.
I look at his hands and then back up at him, shock probably evident in my face.
No. No, I’m not at all ready.
- Writer
