Chapter 3: Chapter Three — Canya
Every drop of blood I still possessed burned up in an overboil. Somehow, despite my ragged throat, I screamed, despite the fact that I hadn’t been able to form language any being understood.
Why? I cried.
“Death bares pain. But change and healing hurts far worse. As I am a born vampire, who had never turned a mortal, cannot conceive of the experience, except what I gleam from our connection.”
I growled, deep and vicious. You have never done this before?
Maddeningly enough, the vampire half-smiled. In a wonderment sort of way.
“We don’t turn mortals—at least, my Coven doesn’t.”
Acid crawled through in my brain, as parts of it broke open so quickly, I had no idea what any of this might mean for my future. But strength poured after it, not cooling the burn. However, it felt so much better. Even as my legs and arms seized as broken bones mended. My spine straightened with several pops and small cracks. I felt stretched out, as if I’d grown taller.
Talk to me. Distract me.
“If my power isn’t enough to aid you through this horrific experience, my talking surely won’t.”
Just do it, vampire!
“My name is Gregory, if you please, Canya.”
How did you…
“You cannot establish a telepathic link without a flow of memories and thoughts too. You will understand more soon enough.” He frowned, as my ligaments finally stopped twitching. I ached all over, from the tips of my waist-length black waves to the ends of my toenails.
I sat up the moment I could. The torrential rain lightened to a drizzle. I blinked, but my vision blurred. I pushed my forefingers into my eyelids as I fought wave after wave of nausea.
“You should lay down.” Gregory placed his warm hand on my now cold back.
I went to speak and coughed hard. I kept up an unbelievable rhythm. He reached into his coat pocket to hand me a handkerchief. After a bit of blood, toxins seemed to work out of my throat. My hay fever I fell ill with every spring cleared up completely for the first time since I’d been a small child. Still an acceptable offspring of my parents back then. If only they had known the truth of the present, perhaps they wouldn’t be so hard on me. No, then I’d be even worse off than I already was.
“I do not like your parents,” Gregory said, startling me from a daze.
I held my sharp tongue that wanted to snap back at him. As seconds passed, I calmed my tone. “Life isn’t about like or dislike. Sometimes it is about necessity and duty.”
He nodded sadly. “I do understand perfectly. I have an unsavory relative or two.”
I turned my head and looked over the river, revealing that I could see every blade of grass as far as my new eyes could see. Which was far. A loud crack of thunder sounded inland. I looked in the direction, bemused to see all the detail of the full moon that peeked out from the rolling clouds. And high above us lay a shattered carriage, with two horses racing further from the site. Something else moved. I smelled something so divine that I became obsessed with it. I no longer gave anything thought. I was up and running as fast as the wind. I covered the square mile in less than a single moment.
I’d never faltered or gave pause to the violence of what I’d agreed to become in my darkest hour, in a bit of desperation incapable of rationalization I bit deep into Thomas’ neck to feed for the first time. I felt something dark and mysterious rise up from inside of me. A separate entity that seemed so familiar to me. As if the transition had given flight to my darkest desires and wonder at what I may be able to do now. The pathetic victim cried out as I worked my teeth back and forth in a growing frenzy. Then, my part of my essence that remained me reeled back in horror.
I stumbled back from him, then tripped over my own feet. I collapsed on my butt, making no move to get up. I stayed down at Thomas as he staggered. He glared down at me.
“Demon witch spawn! I see now I will drive the devil out of you,” he slurred.
Gregory was instantly there. I had no idea where he’d come from. Even with my new senses, I hadn’t picked up on a naturally born vampire. I must seem so clumsy and inferior to him.
“You dare speak to a lady like that? I should bite out your tongue just calling her that name.” Gregory sounded so different. As if another voice spoke from his vocal cords. Deeper, scarier, deadlier than the already sizzling Alpha male.
“Don’t kill him!” I croaked.
Strangely enough, my voice too had that extra boom to it.
Gregory gave me his profile. “Why the fuck not?”
“Because the day I can kill the man I loved this morning is not tonight. Not here. The day will come when I’m ready.” I climbed to my feet, mind whirling with the light and dark parts of me. I hated myself, which outweighed the sentiment toward my would-be-killer. “And it will rival the betrayal of this day.
Thomas’ and my own, to my myself and my character.
My savior looked far for more like a demon than anything I had a word for. Is this truly what I’d chosen for myself after I’d found out my baby had perished?
Thomas laughed weakly, as Gregory dropped him to his feet. “You never had any grit. You’ll never follow through.”
Gregory reached back to punch him, as I broke into a blur, racing away in hopes when I got home, so I could pretend it never happened in real life.
It was a dream. A nightmare. One I’d never forget for however long I managed to survive on my own.
I never looked back.