The Vampire Executioner (A necromancer romance novel)

Chapter 8: Grief

Esmeralda

I went to bed thinking about Lucan and remembered the way he had looked at me, he had looked me up and down in a way that could have meant anything from he found me sexy as hell and wanted to get me into bed, to wanting to know what my insides looked like on his stake.

I didn’t know if he knew I was a vampire, I didn’t think he did, or I’d have been dead by now, but I definitely knew he wasn’t attracted to me, I looked awful, I was both unattractive and Unwell looking.

I forced myself out of my self-pitying and fell asleep in my cozy Lion King bed covers, yes I liked Lion King, a lot.

Waking up, I brushed my teeth before jumping into the shower and washing my hair and body.

I used the expensive shampoo for curly hair that I hadn’t touched yet, a gift from Sadie, a joke actually, and so I’d just thrown it in the bathroom cupboard and not touched it since.

I was thankful to the s******c witch for the first time because as my hair dried, and I ran mousse through it too it looked good, really good, I couldn’t believe it.

I stared for a long time In the mirror, my hair looked healthy and curly, barely any frizz in sight, not perfectly back to its true form but good enough, definitely good enough.

I decided to leave my hair down and then rummaged through my drawers until I found a white blouse that showed a decent amount of cleavage without being inappropriate for work and some black trousers.

I wanted to put makeup on, but I had never really bothered before and didn’t know how to do it and didn’t have any anyway. I told myself I just felt like sprucing myself up and that I was in no way trying to look pretty for the necromancer, definitely not.

When I walked through the door to work I saw Dana and Lucan messing about, they were bantering and laughing about something, and then he had Dana on the floor and pinned underneath him.

They were smiling, so I figured they were only playing and it wasn’t a real fight. Dana looked beautiful and used it to her advantage, she leaned up and licked his ear slowly and seductively and when that didn’t work she licked her way slowly along his neck and kissed it lightly.

When he moaned softly she took the opportunity to do some maneuver that had her free of him and standing again.

“You men are so easy.” She sarcastically flicked her hair back and walked away from him and behind her desk.

Did I feel a flare of deep, hot jealousy? No of course not, pfft, that would be ridiculous, a vampire and a necromancer together was unheard of, anyway, he didn’t like me and for all I knew they were a couple.

He got up off the floor and called to her, “well that doesn’t count, that’s practically cheating when you have the looks of a goddess.”

Dana came back around, snorted and replied, “pretty sure I could look like a haggard old witchy woman, and you’d still respond.”

“I absolutely would not and neither would I respond in that way towards a lady who felt she was out of options except to respond in such a way.”

For a moment he sounded like he was from a different era, from the words and how he used them right down to his voice, there was a hint of a British accent too, it sent a shiver of desire through me.

I’d dreamed of finding an old school kind of gentleman and he sounded exactly like it just then.

I didn’t like how much I was falling for this necromancer, I was powerless to stop and I don’t think it had anything to do with his necromancy powers either.

Dana nudged him when he finished speaking and a look passed between them only fleetingly, but I’d seen it.

“You’re not that sweet and innocent lover boy and we both know it,” she teased.

“Well if she looked as hot as you and spread her legs for me, I’d be just as helpless, I’d have no choice but to f***k her.”

Whatever look had passed between them, I was assuming had to do with how he had spoken because he sounded like his typical modern self again, as far as I was aware, necromancers didn’t live any longer than humans or at least not by much. Strange.

Dana rolled her eyes at him and then spotted me trying to hide in the corner.

“Alright then, let’s prove it, shall we?”

He shrugged and answered, “sure, what do I get when I win?”

“Free drinks on me when we next go to the bar and I’ll even help you get laid.”

He snorted in response, “I don’t need any help but sure, deal, same goes for you then.”

They shook on it, and she came over to me.

“Hey Esmeralda, how are you this morning?”

“I’m good, thank you, how are you?”

“I’m great, sorry if you saw all that, we practice fighting and defense sometimes at the local hall, they let us use it twice a week for real cheap which is wicked, anyway, I was wondering if you’d like to join us, I thought it could be fun having a girlfriend to hang with for once rather than this meathead over here.”

He rolled his eyes but didn’t respond, he kept watching me instead, waiting for my answer I think. Was I supposed to be their bet?

“Umm, I would, but I’m that really socially awkward and extremely shy kind of girl, I think I’d be terrible at any sort of sparring,” I laughed quietly.

Dana slapped my shoulder playfully, “you don’t need to be confident, in fact, it will build your confidence up, and it’s just me and Lucan so you don’t need to worry about a whole crowd watching or anything, come on, Please?”

“Ok,” I blushed and looked to the ground from the intense stare Lucan was giving me, I had no idea what he was thinking and wished for a second I could have Edward Cullen from twilight’s gift of mind reading, I don’t think I’d met a vampire that could do that yet.

“Yes! You won’t regret it,” Dana grinned and went over to the door to turn the sign around saying, ‘open’ on it. We had barely got behind the desk before a couple walked in.

Lucan was already in his office by this point.

“Can you sort them out for me, I need to run to the toilet quick.” She gave me a knowing look, and then I smelt the blood and understood it was that time of the month.

I noticed in every vampire film or book they never seemed to mention menstrual blood, I don’t know why it was so taboo, but I’ll let you in on the secret, yes we smelt it and sometimes if a vampire was starving it would draw them to you but nine times out of ten we had no interest.

It didn’t set of our hunger all that much if at all, unless like I’d mentioned we were absolutely starving and any blood was better than no blood.

We preferred live, fresh blood and well, it wasn’t exactly fresh, it wasn’t dead or dirty like some people thought, but it was the essence of life vampires craved and needed and that was best consumed while fresh and warm inside the body, that’s why vampires didn’t feed from the dead or those close to death, they started to lose that essence making the blood less valuable and tasty.

I shook myself off and mentally prepared myself to go over and speak to the couple, who looked like they had both been crying all night.

The closer I got to them, the more I could sense their pain and grief. It took every fibre in my being to not break down and cry in front of them, it would be really weird of me if I did, they wouldn’t understand.

I didn’t like this, I really didn’t like this feeling at all, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to speak to them for long.

The pain they felt was raw and aching and empty all at the same time and I couldn’t really put it into words, but it was a crushing feeling, like I would die from the pain, and I knew, I knew before I ever reached them that they had lost a child.

“Hello, can I help you?” I asked.

Even through all their grief they managed to be polite and smile at me, and it broke my heart.

When the father glanced behind me, I turned and saw Lucan standing in the doorway of his office watching me with a curious expression on his face.

I turned back to the couple and listened as the mother spoke. “Hello, we would like to speak to someone about seeing our child again please, if possible, today?”

She was clutching her tissue so hard her knuckles had turned white. I placed my hand gently on top of hers. “I can have a look and see what’s available for you, come on.”

I led them over to the desk and tried not to look at Lucan still watching me.

I was about to look on the computer for any availability when he finally spoke up.

“It’s fine, I can see you now if you’d like, my next appointment isn’t for another half an hour yet.”

They both nodded eagerly and followed him inside his office.

The perks of being a vampire meant very good hearing, we could hear as well as any wereanimal.

Luckily, I still got the excellent hearing gift and though I did try my best to not listen and give some form of privacy to the couple, I did hear a little of the conversation, they wanted him to raise their little boy, but he turned them down gently and explained that would only make things harder for them, he spoke to the spirit of their son instead, something I had never heard of any necromancer being able to do, even my old boss had never had this service as an option.

He relayed things to them that only their son could have known, and I heard how the little boy was talking about how happy he was and that he got to play with all of his toys up there, his grandad had helped him cross over and they were together.

I stopped listening at that point and tried to block out the pain I could feel coming from the couple, it had diminished slightly upon hearing he was happy and in a good place.

When they came out of the office, I showed them to the door and made sure to touch both their arms so that I could feed on their energy.

I was hungry, they were in pain, so I absorbed that emotional energy and felt it running through my veins, the pain of their grief nearly knocked me down but I held on to them as we walked to the door, they were none the wiser and only saw me smiling.

When we reached the door, they were smiling too, a real smile that reached their eyes.

I would feel their emotional pain for about a week on and off, but it was worth it.

Me feeding on their energy meant I took some of that pain away from them, not completely, but enough that I knew they would get a decent nights sleep from now on, and they would be able to carry on with their lives, the wife in particular as I had felt how close she was to giving up on life altogether, she would be ok now.