Desirable Trinity

Chapter 16

Casey had every intention of saving the girls.

He had trained until he was swimming in his own sweat and grew delirious with sleep because he was dedicated to freeing them even if it meant his own life. Since the morning until the downfall of the sun, Casey has prepared himself until the next night when they would save them, so imagine his surprise when a set of soft knocks patter against Kamren’s warehouse. Kamren and him look at one another, surprise easily visible on each of their faces, but before Casey can think of who is behind that door Kamren already let them in.

Marie walks in first, wearing nothing but a black button up shirt that covers half of her thighs, while the rest are dripping with dirt and grass. She looks shaken up, her hair disheveled with sticks decorating it as if a bird’s nest, but it her glazed over eyes that shock Casey the most. She looks destroyed, drained, and displaying an emotion he never thought to see from Marie Shepard: vulnerability.

Kenna is the next one to walk into the room and she, too, has dirt and grass staining her skin, but she looks stronger than Marie does for the first time since Casey has ever known them. Unlike Marie, Kenna has a torn up floor length pink gown on, one that shows off her lean figure as well as displaying a color other than black on his normally gothic appearing friend. When Kenna strolls in, she is picking out dead leaves from her ombre hair, refusing to look at anybody.

Then he sees Dianna.

In that moment, he forgot about the other two or whoever may follow and focuses on her, the woman who he primarily did this all for. Gone is the girl that he remembered in the town clean of disaster, and now he is looking at a survivor. She embodies a warrior, still as beautiful as ever, yet with scars that show the battles she has won that makes her all the more appealing to Casey.

She no longer is flawless, but he never wanted perfection from her.

He just wanted her.

Kamren is walking in with her, both of them talking with obliviousness of Casey’s gawking. He has yet to see an ounce a fear in her body since she strolled in, but when Dianna looks at him she is terrified. He takes a step nearer to her as Kamren moves towards Kenna and Marie, Casey’s movements slow and precise as his heart starts to beat at a thousand miles an hour. Dianna’s sole eye grows large like a saucer at the sight of him, but when she tries to take a step back from his advancement, he moves quicker towards her.

“Don’t look at me.”

Her voice is broken, frightened, and heartbreaking for Casey to hear. He watches as she looks away from him, shielding her face that she deems grotesque, but all he craves is to stare at her. She stops trying to move from him and so he takes this as his chance to get closer to her until he collapses onto his knee only a foot away from her.

He kneels there; staring up at the woman who refuses to look at him and waits for her gaze, but as the time ticks she stays hidden behind her bleeding hands. Casey can feel everybody looking at him and Dianna, watching before their very eyes what he intends to do, and he begins fishing out the box that has been weighing down his pocket since the day she broke up with him. He stares up at her once again, hoping to see her face already, but when he doesn’t he clears his throat.

“Dianna,” His voice sounds pained, staring at the missing fingernails on her hands instead of her face, but she still doesn’t look at him. “Please, look at me.”

Immediately, she shakes her head, and from the only spot on her face that he can see through her fingers, he can see a tear falling down her chin. “No, I’m disgusting.”

“You’re beautiful.”

He smiles slightly when he hears her scoff. “I resemble Frankenstein’s wife.”

“You are one cute Frankenstein.”

“I’m a freak, Casey.”

“You’re gorgeous.” He immediately retorts, but when she still doesn’t look in his direction somebody else speaks up.

“Just look down at him already, coward!”

When Kenna screams the words, a flare of anger passes through Dianna and for a single moment she forgets she is trying to hide her face as she glares at her fiery friend, her hands clenched in fists at her side rather than shadowing her appearance.

“I just saved your life from a murderous vampire, how does that make me a coward?!”

Then, out of the corner of her sole eye, Dianna sees Casey and the kneeling position he is in. He smiles as he watches her slowly turn in his direction, shock disabling her ability to move quicker than a snail, but he patiently waits until her eye is staring into both of his. He has the closed box in his hands in front of her when she registers it, disbelief covering the face Casey intends to wake up to for the rest of his life.

“I wanted to do this a few months ago, you know.” A nervous laugh leaves Casey as he can feel his hands clamming up with fear. “The day you dumped me I had planned out how I was going to propose for us to be together forever, but when things ended I couldn’t bring myself to get a refund. I suppose I was waiting for a moment when I could win you back, or at least know the reason you ended things so I could fix whatever I did wrong.”

“You did nothing wrong, Casey…” She interrupts him, softly murmuring the words through her chapped lips, and he weakly smiles at her.

“I know, let me finish, beautiful.” Nervously, he fumbles with the box, almost dropping it before resuming his speech. “Then you disappeared. Even though your friends kept telling me otherwise, I had hoped you had found the perfect life you deserved, away from your father and his wrath and I thought that maybe that is why you ended thing. Then I realized that it didn’t matter why you ended things, but how I was going to find you to change your mind.”

He flipped open the box, displaying the diamond ring that sent the woman of his dreams gasping in shock.

“I decided that when I found you I wasn’t going to wait and I wasn’t going to let you decide that we were over because I was going to make you mine forever just as I have always wanted. So what if you lost an eye? I’m not all that great to look at, but I can say with great certainty that I will still be amazed by your beauty every single time I open my eyes next to you each morning. You are the only person I can be with in this world, so please say yes already so I do not have to keep rambling corny lines that-”

Before he can finish his sentence, the smallest and quietest response leaves the woman of his dreams.

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

He stares at her in disbelief as he watches a large grin envelop across her face, whilst a stray tear falls down her one eye. “Yes!”

Casey can hear the three people watching hollering with joy, but he does not care about them at this moment. He races towards Dianna, embracing her hips in his hands and thrusting her body against his as he desperately itched to do since first seeing her before claiming her lips against his without mercy. Casey is invigorated by the taste of her lips, bringing her closer to him with each movement she makes to further touch him, and soon all he and Dianna can hear is one particular vampire making barfing noises.

When they finally pull away, Kamren speaks. “Congratulations, you two are the first couple since Cleopatra and Marc Antony that made me physically barf up my breakfast.” Then, theatrically clapping twice, Kamren looks at the four of them and asks a rhetorical question all of the girls were not expecting. “So since the little blonde number is already a vampire, what shall I teach you two girls first before she comes after you to bring back to Niklas?”

“Elizabeth?” Marie’s face shatters by the words. “She is a vampire?”

“According to my little text,” Kamren pulls out his phone and reads off. “Evangeline’s exact words were ‘Elizabeth’s turned, protect the two that fled with everything you’ve got. Seraphina and I will meet up with you soon.’”

Pocketing his phone once more, he smiles at the people around him, but before he can speak again Marie whispers. “I left Elizabeth with him….”

“Marie,” Dianna’s body is still intertwined with Casey, but as she says her friend’s name she moves away from her new fiancée. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“How the hell wasn’t it?” Marie glares up at her friend, the one just a day ago she was adamant on saving. “I chose you over Elizabeth, I-”

“Was the girl a virgin?”

Kamren interrupts Marie and the petite brunette glares at the man with pure fury. She steps away from Kenna and approaches the man with a curious gaze, ready to smite down on him before Kenna intervenes and grabs onto Marie’s hand.

“You perverted-”

Once again, he interrupts.

“Oh, dear Satan, I am not asking because I am interested. You humans are always so overdramatic. I was asking because it may lift that little conscious of yours.”

“Yes, Kamren, she was.” Dianna now stands next to her two friends, Casey beside her, and his human asks him. “Why is that important?”

“Virgins are the purest forms of humans, but they are also the most susceptible to the allure of vampires. While you girls have had past lovers and have understood and grasped the concept of attraction and seduction, virgins have not and therefore are practically pawns in vampires’ hands.”

“I-I don’t understand.” Marie looks warily up Kamren. “She didn’t run with me because she’s a virgin?”

“Think of it like drugs, humans. None of you dabble in cocaine, correct?” He looks at the four of them, watching as they shake their heads, and Kamren smirks. “So let’s say that you are all given cocaine and Marie is lying and is a raging cokehead. You all get the purest form of cocaine possible and all of you take the same amount, but after snorting it the only one who doesn’t overdose is the munchkin because although she didn’t have the purest form of snow before, she has built up a resistance and is therefore more prepared for the strongest shit.”

The room turns mute.

“So Elizabeth had a death warrant from the beginning?” Dianna is the only one to speak up, but as Kamren opens his mouth to answer, somebody interrupts him.

“Ever since she laid her eyes on him.” All five people in the warehouse turn around and stare at the source of the voice, Evangeline’s short frame moving closer to them all. “Seraphina tried everything she could to save your friend, but-”

“She’s a vampire.” Marie’s voice cuts through the air like it were a knife, her anger the sharpest of blades.

“Seraphina sent me to you all to join you. Unlike her, Niklas pays no attention to whether or not I am in that home, and so she wishes for me to help Kamren prepare you all.”

“Prepare us for what?” Kenna immediately speaks up and Evangeline looks over at Kamren and then Dianna.

“You haven’t told them?”

“Told us what?” Marie interjects.

“We were busy with a little romance.” Kamren visibly rolls his eyes only to look at Marie and Kenna briefly before turning his full attention onto his human.

“They’re your friends, care to tell them?”

“Tell us what?!” Both girls practically scream the question at the same time and Dianna grimaces.

Dianna looks over at her two friends and sighs. “You might want to sit down for this one…”