Chapter 67: Becoming One of Them

CAROLINE.

It had been three damn days since my body died, but my haunted soul lived on. Sometimes I had great pain, and I didn’t understand why they saved me. The torments I was going through, the thirst for blood were so vivid that I cried out in pain, but no one was hearing me.

The only one with me every day was Erik Von Hagen, the vampire who transformed me ... or saved my life. It was difficult for me, my craving for blood was violent. I refused to see Teresa for fear of attacking her again. I had to heal before I saw her. Erik told me that Teresa tried to see me several times.

“I won’t risk seeing her, Erik, not after what had happened!” I kept repeating to him every time Teresa came to my door.

Sebastian decided for me to move into his house for a while and Erik to stay so he could help me.

“I understand you, honestly, but she’s your friend. Finally, your treatment is not over yet. Here you go, drink a little!” he handed me a small animal so I could feed.

I hoped I would never know the taste of human blood.

I did not know what was happening to me around this man, but I didn’t feel at ease. Every time he approached me, hot chills stirred my being. His scent was driving me crazy now that I felt it so deep within me.

I hated this because if I think about it; I hated this man. He condemned me to a torment I never thought existed. The darkness I had been in for three days covered me more and more, and the only light I realized it was Erik.

“Tonight, I want us to go outside, to the park. I want you to overcome your fears and embrace your condition as a vampire,”

“What do you mean? I don’t think I understand you…” I asked him, kind of scared.

To be alone with Erik? Besides the fear, I also felt an impatience that I didn’t understand.

I didn’t dislike the idea of ​​being alone with him, only that Erik had accepted that he would teach me how to be a vampire. My life no longer belonged to me, but to him. I was his creation.

I felt how everything, my thoughts, my soul, my heart, my entire body, everything belonged to him. This man with an incredible sex appeal that attracted me like a magnet.

My heart was always pounding when he was so close to me. His smell intoxicated me and revived my dead and cold body. Even if I was a walking dead, I felt passion, desire, lust like never before.

“It’s simple, beautiful. I’ll have to teach you a few tricks. You have them in your blood from the moment I transformed you, but they will have to be fine-tuned. In approximately one hour, it will be dark. I will come to pick you up. Oh, and don’t worry about the demons who did this to you, I won’t let anything bad happen to you, I swear,” Erik concluded with his seductive smile, not knowing if I wasn’t indifferent to him or this was just how he usually smiled.

I didn’t have time to answer that he had left the room and next to him I saw the only being I currently wanted to keep at a distance, although I missed her so much, Teresa.

“Will you let me in?” she asked shyly, almost fearfully.

Although when I got attacked by those beasts, I saw Teresa’s strength. So, she wasn’t so helpless either. Maybe she also refrained from hurting me.

And, unwittingly, I noticed the sharp look she gave Erik. And this reason was beyond me, although if what she told me was true, then the problems between them were much bigger. I was wondering why Erik didn’t react in any way.

“Yes ... you can come in!” I replied in a whisper and in a calm tone.

She was still my best friend, and I considered that what she did to me was not a mistake, but just a desperate attempt to save my life, to have me around.

As soon as she crossed the threshold, her scent entered my nostrils, causing me to take a step back. After all, her human side drove me crazy. Refrain yourself, Caroline!

“How are you, Caro?” her question came to get me out of this halt and throw me into another one.

How was I? Scared, tired, hungry, with so many unanswered questions. She got closer but just enough to sit on the chair and then motioned for me to sit next to her. “Come, please! I know you don’t want to hurt me; I can feel that!” I looked at her with wide, puzzled eyes, but in the end, I complied and approached.

Now I was only inches away from her and my senses have already gone mad. I tried to refrain, to distract my attention from her neck, from her fine skin. All her involuntary movements drew me to her. “I know you can control yourself, Caroline. And I know you don’t want to hurt me!” she told me and looking deep into my eyes, I suddenly felt myself calming down.

I dropped my weapons and leaned back in my chair. It was as if her gaze determined me to do so, to calm down. I could feel her deep inside my mind, like she ordered me to stay calm.

Then a wide, victorious smile appeared on her tender face. That was Teresa, my friend, with whom now, after these three days, I managed to share some thoughts.

I didn’t know what she had done to me, but I was grateful to her. “I did nothing to you that you wouldn’t want me to do, Caroline!” Now I realized exactly that she had read my thoughts.

“How did you do that?” I asked her, confused, even though I knew the answer.

“I discover myself every day and to be honest, sometimes it scares me too. I feel like I’m the only one in this…” she admitted with pain in her voice, looking down, avoiding her eyes, from which hot tears flowed.

She was just as scared as I was. We were both going through definitive changes that would stay forever, and that scared us. But she wasn’t alone. She had me and Bash.

“But you’re not alone in this, Terr ... I’m here and Bash is here too... and Erik…” I tried to mention him, but in the next second, she looked at me in pain.

“Bash? The one who used me as a tool for his experiments? That Bash? Or Erik? The man who left me on that beach, scared, looking in all directions and shouting for him? That Erik? Thanks, but no thanks! I think you are the only one left, and I don’t need anyone else. I honestly tell you, Caro,” she concluded, sighing hard and hiding her face in her palms.

That was when my body ordered me to hug her. But would I have the will to get over my condition? It was mandatory. I surprised her when I got up from my chair and approached.

I was longing for my friend’s embrace, warm, welcoming. She received me happily, wrapping her arms around me, feeling her heartbeat. Thirst had disappeared, making way for a friendship that seemed to be found hundreds of years later.

It was so good and I could feel her calming down in my arms. She was still sighing, but now I was her support. I was Caroline, her friend for a lifetime.

This only took us a few minutes, but it was enough for both of us to find ourselves again in the darkness that surrounded us. We only had each other.

“Terr, I am sorry for the other day... I didn’t mean to... attack you like that! It wasn’t me…” I tried to justify myself for my error. “It was as if someone else possessed my being, ordering me to hurt you.”

“Don’t you worry about it. I understand you, Caro. I am glad that ... Erik... is helping you, you know…” Teresa tried to mention this man, but his name stopped in her throat.

“My friend, it’s not good to hold a grudge. I know you’re in pain, but you love Bash, and recently, your suspicions that Erik might be your father have confused you. But don’t give pain a chance. If it grabs you, you will sink into it and you will not be able to come to the surface anymore. You need to heal, I understand that, but if healing comes from forgiveness, then stop thinking about it and start with forgiving these two men from your life.”

“It’s so hard Caroline. The truth is, I lived a lie for so long ... I gave myself completely to Bash. I swore love and faith to him in body and soul. I trusted him so that he could take advantage of my weakness? And Erik? If indeed my suspicions are true and I am his daughter, why did he leave me there? By what right did he leave me the prey of a cruel destiny? Why didn’t he fight for me? It was so simple and yet now it’s so complicated.” I tried to say something else, but Erik burst into the room.

“It’s time to learn how to become a vampire, beautiful!”