Chapter 2: Chapter Two — Gregory

This night stayed still. As the dead. No. As if seconds before death. As if the world held its breath in wait of a long-awaited climax. A cycle that had run its course, to be replaced by another, better version. More evolved.

Sometimes, nature left signs of great change, if one knew where to look and kept favor with the earth.

Suddenly, I felt the need to see the river, from the second to highest peak of exposed rock face for miles.

I’d wandered further off the beaten path. I wanted to see no one. Not a soul.

For weeks now, I’d been tethered to business with humans without respite for my sanity. A constant roll of trips east, meetings, lunches, dinners, parties, small talk, and pretending I was one of them.

When I’d never been a human a minute of my life. Nor would I’ve ever have chosen to. Hunger boiled in my belly, an ache that hadn’t given me any respite. I hadn’t fed enough to feed the demon who lived within. The nameless, faceless entity inside of all vampires. The Curse.

Not that I had ever seen it as such. I had abilities that would melt weaker mortal minds, had they a true understanding of what I was, and what capabilities lived within.

A feminine whimper tossed its way to me in the sudden wind. Darker clouds rolled in, taking over the abundant moonlight. Rain pelted from the sky in gusting leaps and bounds.

A masculine laugh that sounded so cruel gave me pause. “Can’t have you running around with my baby in your belly. My father knew of the doctor who would do this quietly—he gave me the herbs to induce a miscarriage. But they weren’t working fast enough. The arsenic my friend brought will do the trick.”

My feet started to hit the ground harder, increasing to an outright run that some would call supernatural.

“Goodbye, my blue-eyed whore. You will burden me no longer with your wiles,” the man said.

I made my way up the incline. A carriage raced away, as a woman became airborne after being kicked off.

Anger consumed me. Licking at my psyche. I wanted to hunt him. Make him watch as I fed and tore him limb from limb. Children were a cherished gift, one only given by a woman. For a man to just kill them both was beyond me, human or not.

The woman screamed. I had a choice, but quickly made my mind up. I sped faster than I’d ever moved before. I caught her hand, but her body swung wide. Her gaze met mine and widened. She saw the Curse that gave up red flames that signified how out of control I’d felt.

I was mystified. The beautiful face of an angel revealed herself. Then the momentum sent her into the rocks before I could pull her all the way out of danger. She went limp as the rain that belted down on our heads. I carried her to the relative dryness under a thick grouping of evergreen trees. I had to tip my head forward just to see through the downpour.

I reached out telepathically, soft and tentative. I was met with unbearable pain, mentally, emotionally, and physically. A jumble of facts turned over in her head. Worry over her baby, hatred of the man called Thomas, and knowing that any minute, she would die. The latter mattered the smallest amount to her way of thinking.

It was almost as if she wanted to perish here, in the middle of nowhere. Yet, none of her resented me for saving her. As long as the baby survived.

I bit my lip, so hard my left fang cut deep. The baby had already passed from this world. Spared the horrors her mother still bared, as the broken woman tried to process the sheer immensity of what that human garbage had done.

Just when I thought she would give up, she raged and thirsted for vengeance.

I cocked my head to one side and debated such a complex creature. I slipped out of my soaking wet coat and took off my crisp shirt beneath. I wiped the blood and dirt from her face. Those cornflower blue eyes opened.

I felt the shock of her probing my mind. A psychic human! Her thoughts opened up to me further, as I let the connection strengthen, ensuring her tether to this life—unless she chose to forfeit it.

Are you a demon? she asked. Am I to offer my soul, in exchange for a boon?

My mind ceased to function. Is that what she thought of me? I found I hated that she feared me. I meant no innocent harm. I fed from criminals and those loyal mortals of the Foxworth family and Coven, who offered freely should the occasion call for it.

I brushed a thick, wet tendril of hair from her forehead to reveal a nasty gash. My hand came away covered in blood. Painful lightning flashes of desperate hunger filled me. I knew just from being close to her that her heritage had a touch of fae in it. Vampires and fae hated each other and had more than a few wars over the past two thousand years. We were an abomination to those who had existed before the beginning of man. Some suspected they had created the dinosaurs for amusement and living weaponry.

“I am a very old being that has no thirst for your soul.”

Her eyes narrowed."Your eyes are of the fires from hell. What are you, if not a demon?"

“A vampire,” I said simply enough. “And you are dying. So fast. Did you hit the rocks that hard?”

The man I was with poisoned me with pennyroyal and arsenic.

“As if you were a rat?”

That was my way of thinking.

“Then I ask, dear lady, do you wish to live? With so much hatred in your heart, do you choose life and vengeance, or death and peace?”

Her eyes darkened to a stormy grey, only made worse by how bloodshot they were. He must pay. And I will be the one to do it. She paused, a flash of fear hardening the lines of her full lips. Will I become a vampire too? Will my baby?

I took a deep breath. I never lied. “I am so sorry, dear lady, but your baby has passed. Her soul has moved to a divine place.”

The pain that radiated through her staggered me by body and mind. I’d never felt so much anguish. Faster than she could process, I viewed many of her memories. Her abusive parents, to this mortal dead man walking. But above the dark turmoil she was trapped in, a beautiful and kind soul. She would and had given her to last to someone with need, with only happiness in her heart that she could help. This woman deserved to live.

“As for becoming a vampire, sharing blood very well may turn you into a version of me. Exactly how powerful or what you will be capable of, is difficult to discern. We will only know, once you transition. Are those terms you accept?”

She nodded, biting her lip again, until it bled.

I wasted no more time. My teeth were already half extended with hunger. I bit deep into my wrist, quickly putting the wound over her mouth. Weakly, she grabbed onto my arm, short claws biting into the flesh.