Blood Rose Read online

  In all regards, I was hideous. Aside from that, I didn’t need a mirror to know my face was abysmal and both my eyes were black by now too. Let’s not discuss the concave cheek and rat’s nest of hair on my head.

  “Bruises heal, Anna. They change nothing.” A hand reached and placed under my chin. His eyes held mine. I could feel the strangest of tingles deep down, as if he were looking into my soul. The feeling was so intense my breath was caught.

  His thumb stroked softly over my swollen stitched lip. “You’re beautiful, Anna. So incredibly strong. If it were possible for my heart to ever beat again, it would be for you, Lianna.”

  I looked away from him. I needed time to process. Fear and doubt churned my stomach to challenge my fluttering heart.

  “How did they react when you told them?” He seemed pretty good at keeping up with my jumping back and forth from topic to topic. I couldn’t help it. Vicodin makes me ramble a lot.

  “Everyone’s a little different. Granted, there was one psychiatrist who thought I was mental also.” His brow lift and he gave me a rather crude accusatory look. I shrank down apologetically. Hey, I’d met Goth’s who tried to make people think they were Vampire’s before in my defense.

  “No reaction has ever been the exact same of course. One individual went crazy however. They committed him. Sadly, this was in the early nineteen-twenty’s when they first started experimenting with lobotomies. I felt a lot of guilt for revealing myself to him. He hadn’t deserved that fate. Until you in fact, I’d sworn I would never tell another soul for as long as I lived.”

  “It’s hard isn’t it? Keeping who you are secret.” He seemed mildly surprised by my reaction. Thoughtful. At last he nodded.

  “I know it’s not the same thing, trust me I know. But I get it. I mean my entire life I’ve been taught to hide who I am. None of my friends know to this extent. Mother and Father never believed me. They said no one could ever know. My brother...” I shook my head. Couldn’t go there. Every time I thought of him, it hurt. It more than hurt.

  “A few people know I have nightmares. Neesa. Her mother.” I cringed. “Anytime people find out anything near the truth they-” my voice broke. I looked away from him out the window. Not that I could see out. Deep breath. “Things don’t go well.”

  Damien’s hand came up and brushed the hair from my cheek slowly. “I hope you feel comfortable enough with me that you don’t think you have to hide anything from me.”

  I didn’t know what to say so I glanced at him and then back to the window. “I know that’s how I feel with you. I mean obviously, right?” He chuckled darkly. “But just the same I want you to know that I won’t ever keep secrets from you, Lianna. I have lied to you, yes but I will never do so again. I want you to trust me.”

  Too intense. I took in a deep breath and let it out in a gust. “Okay then. So what’s it feel like to smell my blood? And what about sunlight? Why can you go out in the day?”

  I had so many questions. If he wasn’t going to hide anything from me, I might as well ask them all I figured. “What about garlic and stakes? Silver?”

  He sighed. I sure made him do that a lot. “Your blood is the best torture I could possibly imagine. I have a lot more self-control than most Vampires do however. Thus, the reason I can with stand it. Despite what it does to me.”

  He watched me. Waited. I didn’t react. Then he continued, “As for sunlight we’re a good bit weaker. Hurts our eyes a lot more than it would yours. Imagine being in the dark for weeks then staring straight into the sun. We can get used to it and cope fine but it is always uncomfortable.

  “Stakes and garlic, or silver and mirrors for that matter. All myths. We can be injured and die of course. Nothing is truly Immortal. We just have a gift for longevity. It takes a lot to bring one of us down permanently.”

  “Where do the myth’s come from then? What about strength? You pick me up pretty easily like I said before.” My head lay down against his shoulder, still staring out the window. Idly his hand stroked my back.

  “We created the myths to protect us over time. Some people created them out of fear. Justly so I might add. Strength, yes lots. Compare our muscles more to steel cables next to dental floss.” He shrugged slightly. Damn. I probably shouldn’t have found that to be so attractive. But I did. “We’re quite fast too.”

  This was all so much to process! “So come on out with it, how old are you? What kind of longevity are we talking here?” His hand slid into my right, twining our fingers together as we leaned against one another.

  “Well we count in decades after the first hundred years. So somewhere around sixty give or take. I don’t remember being turned and I keep track less than most of our kind even.”

  “Wait so are you sixty years old, or sixty decades?” My brow creased as I quickly double-checked the math in my head.

  Suddenly we were lying together on the couch again. His arm behind my shoulders and neck the other against my stomach. Damien wrapped his leg around my good one, careful not to touch the other.

  He’d moved so quickly and fluidly I was barely even jostled. Though it left me startled, I admit. I took a breath and decided to just accept it without comment. He grinned.

  “I told you, I’m older than most. About six hundred years give or take as I said. Is that a problem?” His face nestled into the crook of my neck and drug his lips across the hollow of my throat slowly.

  “I-it’s a little older than I expected.” Damien nestled into me and let his lips lay unmoving against my neck. The silence lingered on peacefully for a few minutes while he allowed me to process.

  “Wow. You must have seen so many things. Experienced so much. It must be amazing to know everything you do after living through so much.” My mind wondered at the possibility of getting to live through all of the most amazing ages in our history. I was in total awe.

  “You know I am taking ancient history in college and here I am talking to ancient history while he smells my neck. That’s so weird.” I giggled with a touch of hysteria as he chuckled. Ah, Vicodin.

  “Only you could look at it so care free. I suppose when you put it that way I am as old as dirt I guess. At least some dirt.” He shrugged carelessly.

  His lips having not left my throat resumed kissing along my neck and nape and even down the first open button of my shirt. Each kiss lingered, slowly dragging along my flesh. I can’t lie. My body was responding noticeably.

  “You said if I freaked and ran you could handle that. What about the get what you want stuff? Is that whole mind control thing real?” That would open a lot of nasty questions.

  He chuckled. Finally pulling back enough to look up at me, his chin placed on my chest. “It’s not mind control though most people think it is. Let’s just say I know what people want. How the human mind works. It just amounts to a few hundred years of studying the human race and knowing more about psychology than Sigmund Freud.

  “In fact I actually met him once. The guy was a lunatic and completely stuck on himself. Da Vinci however, absolutely brilliant. And he by the way, really thought Vampirism was fascinating. I nearly turned him but in the end, I thought his body was too old to survive the change. Truly wished I could have met him in his youth.”

  “You knew Da Vinci? Oh wow… And Freud! Who else? Any other famous people? I would give just about anything to have a chance to have seen the things you have. Da Vinci...” My mind wandered off into a short daydream. Leonardo Da Vinci was my most prominent historical idol. I had read every book I could ever get my hands on about him. I had watched every documentary ever made.

  Oh yes. I am a nerd. Hear me roar.

  Damien’s shoulders tensed a little bit. He didn’t comment on my remark but his eyes watched me intensely.

  A few seconds after the thought came to him it hit me too. Someone turned him into what he is. It would be possible and the price would be my mortality.

  We lay in silence a very long while. Each of us busy in our minds, contemplating t
he same things: fate, mortality and immortality, the costs and the rewards of either. A million thoughts flooded into my mind all at once so much so they were scrambled into one another as one big tangled web. I knew on the surface it seemed appealing but the grass is never as green as it appears. I’m not that stupid.

  The only reasonable question I could think of I already knew the answer to, at least for myself. I wanted to hear his thoughts on the matter, “Is it worth it?” He stayed quiet. He couldn’t answer me.

  I granted him the change of subject, likely to one that would make him more uncomfortable. “I was passed out for a while when we got here.” I looked to him curiously. “Did you taste my blood?”

  “When I kissed you.” His hand lift, fingers brushing my lips softly. Slid from my lips, down the center of my chest and around to my side.

  “And? How was it?” Damien shook his head, closing his eyes while he did so. He wasn’t answering that. “Would it hurt if you bit me?” my voice was barely above a whisper.

  He shook his head no. I couldn’t tell if it meant a no it won’t hurt or if it was a no I won’t do it. “Would you be able to stop?” Without hesitation, he nodded. At least that was a comforting answer and one I could understand no less.

  His hand slid under his shirt that I wore, squeezing my side lightly. He leaned closer, letting his lips go back to roaming over my neck with light kisses. “I – I won’t stop you.” His shoulders shook with a low chuckle.

  “You couldn’t… but I know.” The soft whisper of his voice sent a chill up my spine. His lips brushed my neck with every word.

  I gasped softly as his kisses grew more needy. “Do you want to?” His teeth grazed my throat but not against the tips so the flesh remained intact.

  Damien spoke after another long series of kisses covering my neck down. “Do you?” It was my turn to nod.

  XII

  “AND SO THE WORLD IS FLAT”

  Damien squeezed my hip firmly as his other hand slid beneath me and up my back pulling my body into his tightly. His mouth opened against my neck suckling so light I could barely feel more than the tickling caress of his lips and cold trace of his tongue.

  Cool breath blew over my throat as his mouth opened wider, pressing his teeth against the hollow of my throat and pulling the flesh slightly with his lips.

  A sharp prick stiffened my body as his fangs sank into the base of my throat. He moaned deeply, his chest rumbled against mine. The pain was gone the instant it had come, replacing itself with a strange thrill of euphoria and a new aching need. A new hunger.

  I could feel every pull as he sucked the blood out through the four small holes in my neck. A deep groan throttled from his throat once more as his kiss deepened. His hands gripping me to him with aching need as my body arched into his.

  I suddenly felt I’d been sucked into an Anne Rice novel gone strangely awry. I was not a victim. Not at all.

  My right hand held to his neck, holding him to me tightly while my left held against his side. I didn’t notice how deeply my nails dug into his bare flesh. He did. His entire body pressed hard into mine. I gasped sharply.

  An unexpected series of explosions went off inside of me everywhere at once causing a low moan to escape my lips as my hips pressed hard up against him. The pull on my throat lightened until all I could feel was his tongue tracing circles against my open flesh. How long had the moment lasted? No way of knowing.

  Cool lips returned to placing soft kisses along my skin. Damien’s body relaxed into mine. His lips held against the bite tenderly. His body trembled slightly for a few minutes as we lay there in silence. My breathing raspy and heavier as if I had been running left me quite enamored.

  “Well?” His hands stayed where they were but returned to a gentle grasp. His thumb stroked the small of my back steadily. I was still clinging tightly. As I realized that, I forced my hold to loosen and my nails pulled away.

  “Well.” I gulped. Amazed at the fact I wasn’t in pain. Not just my neck but nothing hurt. Not my lip or my nose or my eyes or my cheek, nor my knee and my broken ankle. Not my broken wrist. Nothing hurt.

  “Well, did it hurt?” He laughed lightly, laying his ear to my chest. He murmured softly, happily even as he lay listening to the erratic beat of my heart.

  “No… It didn’t hurt,” I mumbled.

  Damien sat up enough to look at me, concern narrowing his eyes. “What’s wrong? Did I take too much? I swore I barely drank any at all.” His hands slid out from under me as he hovered over me carefully and examined my neck. No blood even drizzled from the four tiny cuts.

  “I’m fine, Damien, relax. Really. I just didn’t expect... it to feel quite like that. Or do that.” Exhaling a deep breath my cheeks flushed. I tried to roll on my side under him but his hand wrapped around my waist preventing me from moving.

  “What do you mean?” He lay back beside me letting his hand slide under the shirt to play over the tattoo on my side. I turned my head away from him, trying to burrow into the couch.

  “I don’t understand. What’s wrong?” His brow furrowed. Six hundred years old but a woman could still dumb found him? Nice.

  “Well, the injuries don’t hurt for one thing.” He looked perplexed by that. “No really, not at all. It felt good.” Uhg, “Good in ways I really didn’t think it would.” My hands snuck between us to cover my face. I struggled a second before I managed to roll onto my side with a groan. Moving brought all the pain of my body roaring back. Owe!

  “Huh? Oh-- ohhh.” Damien snickered and lay down behind me, his arms sliding around me ever still. Fingers traced circles along my belly button.

  “Well that’s certainly never happened before. I’m not sure if I should apologize or not?” He snickered again as I lay there hiding in my hands. “It’s not really a bad thing is it?”

  My only answer was a shrug. He kissed my shoulder while waiting for me to speak. “Let’s just say you’re not the only one it’s never happened to like that.” I’m twenty, come off it. You didn’t think I was a saint, did you? I folded my arms across my chest tightly staring over at the fireplace. I felt like one of those BDSM freaks for a minute, getting off on nothing but being bitten.

  His whole body seemed to pause in consideration. “I see.” We lay quietly a moment. Each of us surely thinking of what to say. Just before I could change the subject, he went and asked the all too humiliating question.

  “Am I safe to assume you’ve never been with anyone then?” His hand trailed circles around my bare stomach, up my side tracing the exact pattern of the rose before trailing his fingers slowly down my thigh. Did he have any idea how much he was torturing me?

  The roaming fingers made everything tingle. Distracting. “Yes it is safe to assume. I can’t exactly have people sleep over when I regularly wake up cut up and bloody.” It was a poor excuse. And he knew it. He waited for me to continue patiently.

  “I never dated much. There was this guy, Paul, for like three months. We were better off as friends I guess. Grew up together. It was too weird for me. I could barely kiss him. And well... you heard John at the bar. People don’t have to sleep in my house to know I’m a freak and not the kind most guys like.”

  This is so embarrassing! He’s probably been with hundreds considering how old he is. Or even more! No, I don’t even want to know. Hell, then again I don’t even know if that’s possible. Do I want to know? Oh, please someone put me out of my misery.

  “It’s quite possible actually and the numbers not nearly as high as you think.” My body stiffened as my eyes went wide. Had I spoken out loud? Surely not... But how could he have heard me if I didn’t?

  With a whisper of a curse under his breath he pulled back slowly and in the next second, he was across the room, his hands up in defense. “Please don’t be angry. I can’t help what I hear. Honestly though, I don’t hear everything.”

  I sat up and stared at him wide eyed waiting for the explanation I wasn’t sure I wanted. “You seem to think faster
and focus on so much at once it usually keeps me from hearing much of anything. However when your mind is clearly focused, well it’s no different than you speaking aloud.”

  My mind swirled into its usual haze of rambling thoughts all clustering into one another. He waved his hand in front of him as if showing me an example of myself. “Truly, right now I can’t read a thing. Most people are different and their thought process is so simple, well I hear everything. When your mind races in such a way it’s like being blocked out.”

  How much had he heard? At the restaurant had he heard my thoughts about him? Could he hear my dreams? I’d let him drink from me and it gave me an absolutely mind blowing climax and he said he didn’t know?! That liar!

  The expressions on my face must have been comical to watch. Maybe all of this was some elaborate really well planned lie? No, no, I just didn’t believe that. Even if I had wanted to.

  Hah! Know the human mind, what people want. Well no wonder!

  My mind dwindled to a single thought. That’s how you found me. He nodded to my silent realization. “The only thing on your mind was survival and fear. It was so strong it called to me from miles away. I was at your apartment waiting for you to get home. Your pain was so strong I could feel it all. It’s how I found you.”

  My thoughts went back to swirling chaos. He sat down across from me in a large matching leather chair. I had so many questions! Questions he had no reason to answer. I owed him my life. He owed me nothing. “You can ask me anything, Lianna. I owe you far more than you could ever know.”

  “I need a minute.” He nodded understandingly. We sat quietly for a very long time. He never moved. Didn’t fidget. Just leaned his elbows on his knees watching a dwindling fire.

  “You never answered me before. Why did you really leave?” Curling my good foot under me I sunk back into the corner of the couch.

  He took a minute to himself now. Compiling his thoughts. Gaze on the fire. “It’s a bit complicated but I will do what I can to explain. My brothers and sisters I am sure you have figured out are not exactly related by blood. We’ve just been so close over the last hundreds of years we have come to call each other family. Claiming a living family draws attention away from us you see.