Desire of the Soul (17 page)

Fourth, your blood has a sort of...healing capability I guess you would call it? You healed the Red in me, enough for me to be able to control my need. Fifth, damn these are a lot of questions, you were sad because of an incident involving me that will happen in the future. Sixth, I actually do not know why you stopped coming. You never told me, because as I said, you had stopped coming. Finally, lastly, yes. I do love you, more than the sun loves the moon and the stars love the sky. Wonderful, now I am quite exhausted, good night.” Dracul smiled tightly, then laid down on the hard floor and closed his eyes.
 

I took a moment to let everything he said process through my brain, before snorting and tapping Dracul with my foot in his stomach. “Really? You tell me that you love me and then you just lie down and pretend to go to sleep? What the hell! That is a total dick move.” I huffed, crossing my arms in front of my chest and making my lips pout out slightly.

Dracul turned toward me and raised one eye open, then sighed and closed it again. “I am tired, so I will deal with being a ‘dick’ as you call it, if it means I can sleep. As I said before, goodnight Tammy.”

I groaned, annoyed, and laid down beside Dracul. “Fine, I’ll let you get away for now, but as soon as I wake up we are talking!”
 

Dracul didn’t answer, and so I closed my eyes, ready for sleep to grab at me.
 

---

“Duke!” I gasped in surprise, and then ran to him with tears streaming out of my eyes. “Duke, Duke, Duke!” He looked so handsome in a black leather jacket, and tight blue shirt that hugged all his muscles. Well, I guess handsome would be the wrong way to describe him. Duke definitely wasn’t handsome, he wasn’t hot either, he was gorgeous, beautiful, the kind that would take your breath away with a single glance.

“Tammy! Oh God Tammy, we thought-I mean Aness said-You’re alive!” he stuttered out, then grabbed me to him and planted a kiss on my lips. His grey eyes lit up with happiness as he kissed me over and over again.
 

“What do you mean Aness said? What did Aness say?” I asked when we parted from each other. I felt tension growing in my body, hating that I would soon be the one to tell Duke that Aness was rooting for the other side.

“Well, she said that you had died. She told us that you’d gone with her to see someone and a band of vampire hunters took you, killed you with a stake to the heart. Then, you had simply turned to dust.” Dukes’ voice wavered as he talked, as if he was reliving the pain of me dying all over again.

I pulled him back to me, stroking his hair gently and murmuring, “I’m alive, it’s okay,” over and over again into his ear.

Finally Duke stepped away from me, the grey in his eyes turning slightly red as he fed it with his pain. “Duke, Aness cannot be trusted. Her mom is the Unseelie Queen. She’s the one who got me sent to the Fire with-” I cut myself off, and closed my mouth tightly. Something in me told me to keep Dracul a secret from Duke. Who knew what would happen if Duke knew Dracul was still alive?

“With who?” Duke asked, his eyes turning to slits as he stared at me with suspicion.
 

“I can’t-just please Duke, you have to come save me. Please...” I felt the dream flicker, and before Duke could respond I was forced awake.

---

“Tammy, wake up! Hurry!” I woke to the feeling of Dracul shaking me, his eyes wild.
 

“What the-why? What’s going on?” I looked around, seeing nothing out of the unusual, and raised my eyebrows at Dracul. I mean really, waking me up to see that nothing is going on? So not right. Especially since I was talking to Duke.

“The Unseelie Queen is coming, can you not hear her?” he asked me, running a hand through his hair as if he was nervous. He couldn’t be nervous though; I mean he’s the first Amatores right? So wouldn’t that mean he’d be like fearless?

‘
Everyone has fears Tammy, don’t you ever forget that.’
 
voice drifted into my head slowly, and right as it clicked in my brain who the person was, the Unseelie Queen dropped beside me with Aness at her side.

“Hello Tammy, we’ve come to collect you,” Aness said, and then smiled with an evil glint in her eyes. “Don’t worry though, it won’t hurt. Well, at least not much.”

Before I could stop her, she pulled a gun out of her pocket and the sound of the bullet echoed throughout the small cage.

The bullet that was aimed right at my head.

Waking

“Ah, finally, she awakens. Took long enough, didn’t it?” a man said, his dark voice grating on my sensitive ears.
 

My eyes blinked open slowly, my head cloudy and throat parched. “Who are you?” I hissed out, seeing his blurry figure standing in front of me.
 

The man looked to be about 5”9, with close-cropped black hair, the smell of dye wandering
 
its way to my nose.

“Who am I? I think more importantly we should know who you are. A young girl, in the hands of the Fae, and the Unseelie ones at that! Taken a bullet to the head, why you should most definitely be dead. Dead, gone, no one can handle something as that. Your brain should have been splattered into pieces, billions and billions of pieces. But no, no, no, you are healing, even faster than those of my own. Even faster than my own experiments.” I felt myself start to shake, fear building in my body. This man was in obvious need of a mental hospital, one that could provide for his obviously serious mental problems.

“I know what you are though. I know who you are. Tammy Maynard, the Queen of the Amatores Sanguinis. Beautiful, young, strong. Just wonderful, such a find. I haven’t gotten my hands on one of you in years, many years. Dozens of years. Such a find, a wonderful, beautiful find. Not very smart though, falling for a Faes’ charm. For Anesshygra Herwedsef Lwersy’s charm to be exact. The Unseelie Queens daughter, such a feisty one she is. Worming her way into your kingdom, stealing you away, just as we asked. Just as we demanded. Though we told her to do it discreetly, very discreet, quietly, painless. She didn’t listen, oh why didn’t she listen?

You look thirsty? Are you thirsty? I would give you something, but then there’d be no control. No control. The Directors, the Heads, they want to see you though. They want to meet you. They cannot meet you in this condition, oh no, not in this condition. I will help; I will make you worthy enough to see them. I will calm the thirst, I have that. I have that. My invention, my prize,” the man went on, his dark grey eyes looking lost and confused as he stumbled around pulling out steel-drawer after steel-drawer.
 

It looked as if I was in a hospital room, everything made of steel from the walls to the bed I was lying on, or rather, chained onto. I don’t really think that would be counted as lying on it.
 

“I found it!” he exclaimed, and I looked up to see him holding a syringe filled with a thick red and gold substance. All I saw was the red. Blood. The burn started up again, taking ahold of my entire body as the need for what was in that syringe felt too much to handle. “No, no. Cannot go, cannot leave on me. Here, here. I will give you it. I will help.”
 

He pushed the syringe into my skin, injecting the blood into my system. Immediately I calmed, feeling a drug-like haze begin.
 

“Good, isn’t it? Very good, very, very good. It’s human blood mixed with Fae blood. That’s what the gold is. The beautiful gold. Fae blood, taken from a powerful Fae. Proven to be like a drug to Amatores, a drug. A wondrous drug that brings peace to you. That brings a momentary rest to your thirst. Now sleep, my dear Tammy. Sleep so I may bring you to the Directors.”

I yawned, my eyes starting to close of their own accord. “I
need to-to-to leave,” I slurred, and tried to fight the sleep. It was too strong though, too inviting. So of course, I gave in.
---

“-so disgusting. Why the Directors even want to see her, I have no idea. I mean really, an Amatores? They already have us,
aren’t we enough Amatores for them?”
 
a girls voice said, and my eyes snapped open.

“Gracia, please be quiet. The Directors wanted her, that’s enough. You’re not supposed to complain, just comply.” My eyes immediately drifted toward the sound of that voice, a boy. He was beautiful, looking maybe seventeen, with spiked up blond hair, and sharp eyes that I couldn’t decide if they were blue or green. He was wearing a tight fitting t-shirt, showcasing a lean, muscled build. And his blood…

I don’t think I’ve ever smelled something as heavenly as what wafted from him. It was like sunshine and stars all bottled up into one person. Tugging at the Red inside of me, begging to let me taste.
 

“Who is the Director?” I heard someone say. Someone who I realized too late…was me. The boy stiffened, turning his view onto my body, still chained to another hard bed.
 

A whimper escaped from the girl behind him, a blonde whose grey eyes looked haughty and angry, but her heart shaped face set in fear.

“You’re awake,” the boy stated. Pursing his lips, his lips that looked so delicious, frown lines appearing on his tanned forehead. Everything about this guy was perfect. I swear he was like...a Greek God. That was the only explanation.
 

“Yes, I’m awake. Obviously. Now that we have the obvious out of the way, will someone care to answer my question?”
 

The boy stepped toward me, his eyes turning sharp as he looked over me, probably checking to make sure I was still chained to the damn bed.

“We’re not here to answer your questions; we’re here to bring you to the Directors. Plural, if you noticed. As in, more than one,” the girl, Gracia, said. She had followed the boy as he walked toward me, the earlier fear wiped away from her face.

“Gracia, do not talk to her. The Directors specifically said-”

“Oh screw what the Directors said! Screw it! We should just kill her now, this abomination, this demon. Kill her.” Gracia looked at me with contempt, the disgust almost like a smell emanating from her.

“Gracia, we do not speak like that. If anyone but myself heard you uttering words such as those, and in front of our guest! They wouldn’t hesitate to kill you, to lock you up, to torture you. We are just as much of an abomination as she is, maybe even more. Now stop complaining, stop talking, and let’s continue bringing the Amatores to the Directors. Alright?” the boy said, making it obvious that he was probably the one in charge between the two. Making it obvious that he was the more powerful one, the one who would put up more of a fight.

Obviously I’d be swaying Gracia then, she looked
 
easier, her mind frailer. Although her blood smelled darker than that of the boys, but it was blood nonetheless...and I was starting to get really pissed and terribly hungry.
 

I mean really, I was a ‘guest’? What kind of guest was treated like this? Shot in the head, drugged, then dragged off to see the so-called ‘Directors’. I needed to get myself out of here, and now.

“Gracia is your name? Gracia, such a beautiful name for such a beautiful girl,” I purred, my voice turning into velvet as it wove a spell around the girl. The boy barely noticed, walking ahead of Gracia at a swift pace.

Gracia
 
swayed slightly, leaning towards me as if my voice was a magnet for her body.
 
’Let me out of these chains, now.’
 
forced the thought into her brain; glad Duke had been able to teach me this before the damned Fae stole me away.

Her eyes turned glassy, then cleared, then turned glassy again, as if she was waging a battle within herself, a battle to listen to me, or to not. Finally though, it seemed I put enough power in my thought to her, and she produced a key from within her jeans. With shaking hands, she unlocked the chain that held me to the bed, beads of
 
sweat forming where her hair and forehead met.

“Gracia, what are you-”
 
But it was too late for the boy to interfere, as I hopped from the bed, my world turning a hazy red.

The Red boomed within me,
 
targeting the boy instead of Gracia.
 
His scent grew thick around me, calling me to take a bite. To taste this heavenly looking boy, no not taste, drink from him. Drink heavily until his body lay cold upon me.

I pounced, barely registering Gracia who just stood stock still beside my former bed, and locked onto the boys’ neck. He barely had time to react before I bit, the blood flowing freely from his neck to my mouth.

I thought Luke tasted good, but he was nothing. He was just a human, filled with human blood. This boy though, he was different. His blood tasted like beauty, like light, love, happiness, as if everything good in the world was packaged in this one boy. Our bodies grinded against one another, his hand searing every part of me that he touched. That wasn’t enough though, I needed more, I needed to be closer.

I ripped his shirt off, mine following, and pressed my bare top against his. I had to get close, the need was even worse than when I was feeding from others. Something about this boy-