A Dark Inheritance

A Little Bit Different

Jenine could feel him in the woods around her - the hair on the back of her neck stood on end and the air was charged with a thick, hot electricity. A fine sheen of sweat started up on her forehead as heat rose through her chest. She pulled her long red curls back into a messy ponytail and took a deep breath. She heard a loud crack as a twig cracked in the dense trees behind her, and she whirled around - too late, an ice cold hand clamped down around her neck and pulled her up off of her feet. 

A pair of brilliant, violet colored eyes snapped open suddenly, and Liv swiped viciously at them, confused and disoriented at the early hour. Her phone was buzzing on the table top beside her, loud and insistent. She wasn’t going to pick it up. Her mother had been calling nonstop since the fight, and Liv had nothing to say to her. She could hear her mother’s voice in her head anyway. “Olivia Rose - you need to call me back immediately. You cannot just go running off any time you get a little bit upset. Come. Home. Now. I mean it young lady, do not make me come find you.” She didn’t bother listening to the voicemail before deleting it. 

Most of the time, her mother was right. Liv was a hothead with a penchant for ducking out when things didn’t go her way. But this was different. Her entire life up to this point had been a lie, and she was just supposed to go with it? It all started with Liv’s mom forcing her to take AP Biology her senior year. During the unit on genetics, she learned about how hereditary characteristics were passed down in families. The entire class did a “fun” project where they traced their blood types back to their parents. Except no matter how many times they pricked Liv’s fingers or how large a sample they took - they could never get a blood type back from the lab. She should have known something was off when her mom shrugged it off casually as a “silly school thing”. At no point in her entire life has anything about school been “silly” to her mother. She was completely insane over every little thing and went out of her way to help Liv succeed. 

And maybe this next part was a little bit Liv’s own fault, but she submitted a vial of spit to one of those find out your ancestry DNA places on the internet. She just had this weird feeling. She’ll never forget how her blood went cold when the company called her to tell her she must’ve mixed up the sample because the “specimen” she sent in wasn’t human. It was “unidentifiable”. Which couldn’t be possible. They didn’t have any pets. There was no way she could’ve contaminated the sample with nonhuman DNA. When she approached her mother about it, her mom’s green eyes went dark. 

“Well, it must be a mistake, honey.” She said slowly, carefully. “Besides, you know your father is mostly Polish and obviously my side of the family’s Irish.” She gave a hollow chuckle, pointing at her bright red curls. The energy between them felt off. 

“They ran it multiple times, mom. I don’t think it’s a mistake.” Liv felt her own eyes narrowing. Since she’d gotten the results, she’d been scrutinizing her family. Her mom’s entire family was full of blondes and gingers. Her dad’s family was full of chestnut and sandy haired brunettes. Liv’s hair was jet black. Her mom had bright green eyes, and her dad’s were brown. Liv’s were a startling shade of purple that she had literally never seen on any other human being in her life. She began to realize that she didn’t really have that much in common with them. Her mom was fit, but small and curvy, and her dad was a pretty stocky, well-built guy. Liv was thin and taller than both of her parents. After her father died when she was a baby, her mom would always tell her that she got her height from her grandfather on his side. There was always some distant relative on her dad’s side that she would never meet who she supposedly took after in this way or that until she’d finally stopped asking about it. But this was different - she could just feel it in her bones that something wasn’t right. “Please, there’s something you’re not telling me.” 

“You’re being ridiculous, Olivia. Go do your homework and let this nonsense go.” Her mother turned away from her and started pulling out ingredients for dinner. And that was it, conversation over. But Liv was going to get answers one way or another. 

So she waited a few days to have the house to herself, and, instead of inviting her boyfriend over to fool around, she went into her mother’s bedroom and started looking around. She rifled impatiently through a box she found under the bed, but other than discovering her mom’s vibrator and a truly disturbing amount of lube under a stack of boring looking financial papers, there was nothing in there. She went through the closet, the sock drawer, her mother’s makeup and perfume, her jewelry, her desk drawers, everything and found nothing of any interest. She was tidying things up to leave the room the way she found it when she noticed that one of the drawers she’d dumped out had a false bottom. 

She pried it open. “What the hell?!” She said out loud into the empty room. Under the false bottom was a collection of lethal looking, bizarre weapons: a long wooden dagger, several silver blades of varying lengths and shapes, and a long, thin silver rope. There were also a couple of silver crucifixes and some old, dusty books inside. She ran a finger along the edge of one of the crucifixes and cried out - it was burning hot. She cautiously reached out to touch the other, but stopped cold when she heard her mother’s voice behind her. 

“Stop! Don’t touch that!” Her mother shouted. Olivia spun around, dropping the drawer and spilling its contents all over the floor. One of the blades stuck straight up from the floor between them. 

“What is all this?” Liv was too stunned to even register that she might be in trouble. She popped her burning finger into her mouth to try and soothe the pain. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing in here?” Her mother fumed. 

“Apparently discovering your secret blade collection.” Liv fired back. 

“You had no right to look through my things.” Her mother spoke through gritted teeth, her cheeks blotchy and bright pink. 

“You’re storing some kind of absurd arsenal in here and I’m the one with explaining to do?” Liv was incredulous, her voice rising. She could feel tears burning at the back of her eyes, but she refused to cry. It drove her crazy that being angry or frustrated always made her cry. It made her look so weak and emotional. “What is all this mom?” She could hear the pleading note in her voice and she hated it. 

“Olivia - get out of here. Now.” The fury had deflated her mother, who stepped into the room and reached for the blade stuck in the floor. 

Liv didn’t move. “Not until you explain this.” She reached for the wooden dagger to start cleaning up the mess. In an instant, her mother’s hand was clamped around her wrist, tight as a handcuff. 

“Don’t touch that.” She said, her voice so low Liv barely heard it over her own gasp. 

“Let go - you’re hurting me.” Her mother released her wrist, and she lunged for the dagger, wrapping her left hand around it tightly. In the second it took for both of them to realize what she had done, Liv was suddenly conscious of a pain like nothing she’d ever felt in her life. She howled like a wounded animal and dropped the dagger again. Her hand was blistered as if she’d sustained third degree burns. “What the f--” she started to say. 

“Language!” Her mother snapped automatically. Liv met her eyes and managed to bark out a laugh before passing out from the pain. When she came to, she was laying in her own bed, her mother watching her from the beanbag chair in the corner. Her hand was bandaged, but it still throbbed. Liv looked around the room, waiting for her to say something, to explain any of this. Her eyes landed on a picture of her and her boyfriend at last year’s prom - he was dipping her nearly to the ground and she was laughing. She almost couldn’t remember what it felt like to feel that carefree. All of a sudden everything seemed upside down and confusing. 

Her mother sighed, catching her attention. She started to sit up, but her mother shook her head. “Just rest. I didn’t want to tell you this until you were older. Finished with college. Maybe even medical school.” Liv couldn’t help but roll her eyes at that, but she kept her mouth shut and turned to lay on her side, facing her mother. “Olivia - I grew up a little bit different than you have. My family, well, they hunt vampires.” 

“Wait - what? Like Buffy?” Liv couldn’t stop herself. 

“No, not like Buffy, Olivia.” She could hear the annoyance in her mother’s voice. “Please just let me finish.” Liv nodded, miming zipping her lips. “So, like I was saying, as far back as anyone remembers, my family has been part of a community of vampire hunters. I was trained to be one myself, but when I was seventeen, I went on a hunt with my father for a vampire called Caspian. But when I met him, he wasn’t any of the things I’d always been told vampires are. He wasn’t bloodthirsty or cruel or interested in senselessly murdering humans. He was just a person. An incredibly handsome person. We fell in love, and I got pregnant with you and had to run away from home. My parents couldn’t know what had happened, and my father was still hunting Caspian, so I told my best friend, your father, and he married me and helped me get away before anyone could figure it out. I had no idea what the other vampires would do if they heard about you, so I changed my name and your father and I went into hiding--”  

“Except he wasn’t my father at all.” Liv said coldly. “Everything about my life is a lie. I don’t even know what I am. That test was right, wasn’t it? I’m not even human.” She sat up sharply, ignoring the way the room spun around her. 

“Olivia, please - I didn’t know what you would grow into. And you’re at least half human.”

“Wow - that’s so reassuring.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice. She held up her hand. “So what the hell is this?”

“Well, that stake you grabbed was consecrated in holy water. Vampires can’t touch it.” 

“But how can I be a vampire? I go outside during the day all the time; I eat garlic like it’s a separate food group; and, oh yeah, I haven’t ever had the urge to drink anyone’s blood!” Liv couldn’t tell if her head was still spinning from sitting up too fast or if it was just the insanity of this conversation. 

“Well the garlic and the sunlight things are just stupid pop culture bullshit, but vampires don’t start drinking blood until maturity. Since I wasn’t sure what you would be, I figured if we just treated you like a human, maybe that side of you would become dominant. And honestly, I don’t know if there are any other half human, half vampire children in the world, so who knows what this will be like for you. Maybe you won’t ever develop bloodlust and it’s just a sensitivity to holy water.” 

Now Liv was certain it was the casualness of her mother’s tone making the room spin around her. “I can’t be here.” She said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. In a haze, she ran down the stairs and out the door, grabbing her car keys and backpack on the way out. She slid behind the wheel of her cherry red Mini, and had the car pulled out of the driveway before her mother made it out the front door. Liv could see her mouth moving but she couldn’t hear a word she was saying over the sound of Ariana Grande belting through the stereo system. She can’t remember how long she drove around before she pulled into her boyfriend Luke’s house’s driveway behind his blue pickup truck. She hadn’t even thought to call first, so she was glad to find him at home. She texted him that she was outside and leaned against the truck, eyes closed against the sunlight. 

Luke was wearing a red St. Thomas High School Baseball tshirt and long grey basketball shorts when he stepped outside, breaking into a smile when he saw her. He had eyes the color of fresh blueberries and golden hair, and when he swept her up in his arms to hug her, he smelled like baseball glove leather and bar soap. She instantly felt a sense of calm rush over her and knew she’d come to the right place. He pushed her hair back away from her face and gave her a gentle kiss. “Everything ok?” he asked, looking down at her bandaged hand. 

She snuggled into his chest, sighing. “Yeah, I had a curling wand accident yesterday.” She smiled to cover the lie. “And my mom is just being impossible today. Are your parents home?” 

He shook his head. “At my little sister’s gymnastics tournament for the weekend. I thought I told you about it” He ran a hand through his hair sheepishly. 

She shook her head. “You did - I’m just a mess today and completely forgot. Do you wanna go inside?” She looked up at him through her eyelashes and ran her hands down his chest and over his abs. He caught them at the waistband of his shorts and grinned at her. 

“Because obviously you want to talk about it?” He said, pulling her back toward the house. 

“Oh definitely - I think we should have a nice, long, intimate conversation.” She responded. 

They barely closed the front door behind them before his mouth was on hers, his hands tangled in her long black hair. She bit his lower lip gently, running her nails down his back, heat rising in every part of her body. He groaned and pressed her up against the wall of the entry way, running his hands along her breasts, thumbs flicking tantalizingly over her n*****s. She gasped into the side of his neck, kissing her way along his collarbone. She pulled his shirt up over his head and started to kiss her way down his body, pulling down his shorts to find nothing but him, rock hard and ready for her. She dropped to her knees, kissing his lower abs, hip bones, inner thighs, anywhere but his c**k. His breathing was erratic as his twisted her hair around one of his hands. “Please Liv” he begged. She let out a little laugh, running her fingernails gently down his inner thighs, he shivered, knees buckling slightly. “C’mon” he managed to say just before she took him into her mouth. He used one hand against the wall to support himself and the other to pull gently on her hair as she worked her magic. Within minutes she could feel him getting close to the edge, so she slowed down, teasing him and drawing out the experience, but when she started to speed back up, he let out a little growl and gave her hair a sharp pull, stopping her. “I’m not done with you yet.” He said, locking eyes with her and pulling her up to her feet. He kissed her roughly, before turning her around and pinning her hands above her head with one of his. He pulled down her shorts and slid two fingers between her legs, working circles around her c**t until she screamed, her legs shaking. He was inside her before she finished cumming, his hip bones pressing into her butt as he thrusted. He held her hands tightly with one hand and wrapped the other around her waist, keeping her pressed close to him. She could feel his muscles tightening against her back as he got closer and closer to his release, and she pleaded with him to let her hands go so she could touch him. He spun her around and picked her up, holding her back against the wall and he looked into her eyes as he took one of her n*****s into his mouth. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her screams of pleasure into his shoulder. He called out her name as he finished, and she felt a rush of warmth. He held her there for a few moments after, still inside her, and whispered, “I love you, you know” into her hair. For a moment, Liv forgot everything but him. “I love you too.” She said, smiling. Eventually they made their way upstairs, where she fell asleep against his bare chest to the sound of her phone buzzing insistently.