Limerence II

For those fans who have been with me since the start, this one’s for you, because without you, without your constant encouragement, this book would never be.

I will always be indebted to you.

For my Bad-Ass girls, your talents never fail to amaze me. That and your filthy minds.

For my amazing street team,
‘Little Red’s Deads’.
You are all amazing people, and I’m grateful for all your constant hard work in pimping me out. I hope one day to meet every single one of you.

And finally, much love goes to the awesome and super talented author Ken Mooney. I am constantly in awe of your strength, my friend. And you make me laugh until I snort, so that’s kinda brilliant too.

In the days following
my departure from England, I struggled with many things: pain and suffering—at the loss of Oliver, my family, and what felt like my soul—and the physical pain of becoming a new vampire.

My body was constantly wracked in agony, aching and burning with a fevered infection like I have never felt before. Until my next feed. I was delirious as I worked through my many demons, my mistakes, and my losses. I said goodbye to the Mia I had once been, left her soul in Delamere forest, cold and forever wandering, never to be seen again, and after her passing came the new me. She was stronger and colder, harder and less emotional than the old me. As the days wore on, I forgot who Mia Lawrence was, I forgot the pain she had lived through, and I stepped out on to dry land in a country far away from my home a new woman—a new vampire. Born from obsession and lust.

Sorrow still dripped from me, but I was given no time to recoup; I was pushed straight into training. I was taught skills to defend myself—and our queen; I was taught how to control my power. And I was taught the history of vampires—though some secrets would always be kept hidden.

Slowly I forgot my pain, forgot my memories of who I was. I cared not how I came to be, and was happy to just exist in this beautiful new world to which I had been introduced.

So much trouble went in to bringing me here to the Queen’s coven, and yet I have barely seen her but a handful of times. She is a recluse and hides herself away while she talks of war and building an army to defeat the ever-elusive Mr San.

The vampires at the coven are all strong Bastions, as am I. There are a few standard vampires, called Pawns, here and there, but for the most part they are all powerful with a secret strength of their own. A strength that the Queen wants—needs—to fight her war against Mr San, and of course offer her their protection. Or so we are told. Each vampire, whether Pawn or Bastion, is gifted with strength and beauty—the only positive to having no soul—but the chosen few are blessed with something more, and there is never any way to tell which vampire will get these extra gifts, or what they will be, until the time comes.

For some it was the gift of strength; for others it was the gift of sight. Others were far more complex. My power was the gift of being able to see another’s emotions. They call it aura-reading, which sounds tame in comparison to some others, but I was to learn that this power would also enable me to see far more than anyone ever thought possible. Part of me fears that there is more inside of me than just this, that perhaps I am merely scratching the surface of the force that lies beneath.

With the extra power that came with being a Bastion, something new developed—something more dangerous that threatened to devour each and every one of us if we could not control it. Within each of us—each Bastion—lay a passenger vampire. A vampire who was stronger and more evil than all the world’s hatred put together. If left to grow and takeover the bodies they hid in, and not controlled, tamed, and put back to sleep, all hell would break loose. Or so I have been told.

She
resides inside of me.
She
is strong.
She
is my tormentor, but I am strong, and she has not won control yet.

I feel nothing for my previous life now. Not pain, nor anger. The bloodlust and constant training have blotted out any feelings and emotions I once had for that previous life, and now I just am. And that previous life means nothing to me anymore. Now I must focus on the long future ahead of me.

I will be
her
servant, until I am not.

I must be strong.

And I must never give up.

“Don’t play this game
with me, Evan. You know you’re going to lose this time.” I smirk and give him a playful wink.

“Oh, Little Mia,” Evan scoffs with a deep laugh. “Your confidence will be your downfall, pretty girl.”

Rocking back on my heels, my knees bent and ready to pounce, I laugh at his patronising name for me. I can’t stop the gleam in my eye no matter how much I want to.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

I roll my eyes at him. “Please, I was born ready—”

He jumps, his legs wrapping around my waist, and suddenly I’m beneath him, pinned to the floor by his hard body, my shoulders digging painfully into the crude stone flooring. His arm muscles twitch as they hold me in place and I try to fight him off, but he doesn’t budge and I scream in frustration.

“I wasn’t ready, damn it!”

Evan laughs again and I squirm even more. “You said you were born ready, did you not?”

I scream out loudly. “You cheated!” I kick my legs as hard as I can, my hands flailing out and beating against his rock-hard stomach as he releases them.

He leans over me, his chest pressing against mine as he battles to control my body.

“Get off me,” I scream in his face, my temper tantrum getting the better of me.

“Not until you say sorry.” It’s his turn to smirk now, which only infuriates me more.

“Sorry? For what?”

“For accusing me of cheating. I never cheat, Mia. Now if you won’t apologise, then I really must insist,” he pauses, “upon a kiss.” He smiles, knowing that I won’t be happy with either option.

“Just get off me, Evan, and we can start again. This time with no cheating.” I glare up at him, feeling hot under his gaze. His face is close to mine, making us almost nose to nose.

“Now, now, don’t be such a sore loser. A kiss or an apology, that’s all I want, then I’ll let you up and we can be in this same position in less than five minutes.” Evan roars with laughter.

Granted, my fighting skills don’t match his, but I’ve been training constantly for the past year, give or take, and I can kick some serious arse now. Evan has skilled me in various weapons, but for the most part it is hand-to-hand combat—though you wouldn’t want to hand me some knives without the fear of losing a hand. Even older, stronger vampires struggle fighting me—which is damn near impossible in this world—and Evan says that I am one of the best students he has ever had.

Considering Evan is my trainer, he’s obviously been holding back some moves—because no matter what, I can never beat him. I look up into his face, his skin tanned a golden brown, his dark brown eyes reminding me of melted chocolate. His dark hair is pulled back into a low ponytail and is hanging over one of his very large muscled shoulders, making him look every bit the sexy warrior that he is. I feel a pull in my stomach, a tightening and release, a flutter of butterfly wings, and heat rising to my cheeks. His face softens as he sees and probably senses the reaction I’m having. His tongue darts across his lower lip, all smiles gone now, leaving only a dark hunger on his face—a primal, sexual look.

I swallow, though I don’t need to; instincts are still there, and nervous instincts even more so. “Get off me, Evan.” The words leave my mouth with little to no conviction.

We are face to face, our eyes watching each other’s apprehensively. His body covers mine, smothering me to him like a sexual blanket, his grip on my arms never loosening. Breath from his mouth escapes through the gap between his lips and passes over my face. A tremor runs through me and I finally pull my hands free, breaking his intense stare. I wonder if he did it on purpose, or if it is still just a habit with him—to breathe.

He looks like he is about to kiss me and then I can feel his vampiric-self withdraw from me, closely followed by his body as he rolls away and stands in one swift movement. He holds a hand out for me to take, but I ignore it and stand without help, a little embarrassed by my reaction to him once again. It’s been like this for months: enjoying each other’s company, but being uncomfortable together at the same time. We are both tainted by our pasts and unwilling to move forward into the present, as if frozen in the final moments that we died. It doesn’t help that every emotion and feeling is heightened and exaggerated constantly.

“You are getting better, Mia.” Evan looks away from me, clearly embarrassed too.

“Thanks.” I wipe my brow with the back of my hand and smile sincerely. “It’s all to do with your amazing training.”

Yeah, that’ll help the situation: flattery.

He smiles and raises an eyebrow. “Amazing, eh?” The slight accent in his voice always makes me pause.

We have trained together for over nine months now, yet I still know nothing about him—not really. Vampire covens aren’t big on gossip, it seems. Or maybe I’m still too new to all this and am not included. I don’t know and I don’t really care, though I would like to know where he was originally from. He fascinates me: his strength, his size, his smile, his accent. The vampire in me uncurls with a lazy smile and I realise that I’m hungry.

“Amazing might be a stretch of the truth.” I roll my eyes at him with a small grin.

“You are a cruel woman when you want to be, Little Mia.” He smirks as he calls me by yet another pet name, and pushes my shoulder with one of his large, rough hands. It stays on my skin for too long. We both pause and look to his hand on my flesh, the ghost of a frown eclipsing both of our expressions.

“I must leave. I have other things to be doing.” He frowns harder but doesn’t remove his hand. Though his voice has turned cold, his aura has not. I can see his confusion for the way I make him feel, whether he speaks it or not. The sexual desire between us is clear, yet we continue to fight it, guilt betraying us both.

“Me too.” I step back from him and his hand falls away, the loss of his touch leaving me cold. His hand was warm, like the breath leaving his mouth; it’s another trait that he has the power to control. He likes to pretend that he is human with his heat and breath; that is all I have learnt from him from our time together. His other powers still elude me, and he refuses to talk about what they may or may not be. The mystery surrounding him is deeply fascinating to me for some reason.

He looks uncomfortable, and begins to crack his knuckles noisily before averting his gaze from mine with what seems like embarrassment. The image would look strange on any grown man, but it looks stranger still on a man of his size: over six feet tall, with wide shoulders, tanned skin, and long dark hair.

My thoughts become muddled when I think of Evan, and my inner vampire loves it—
she
is desperate to be free and in total control. I turn on my heel without another word, grab my towel from the floor of the training room, and walk away, feeling suddenly so very tired and drained.

“I’ve told you to stop calling me Little Mia, Evan. There will be a day that I’ll have you on your back and you’ll remember that I’m not so little and weak after all,” I yell on my way out.

I hear his sharp intake of breath at my double meaning.

The vampire in me is harder to rein in when I’m tired. She wants to be let loose, to be free and wild. I swallow her back down and fight against her, willing her to go back to sleep. My eyes sting with blood-red tears as I dash to the showers.

She’s growing stronger.

*

I arrive back at my room after a hot shower. The colour of the water never fails to freak me out after a training session.

Pink, pink, to make the boys wink.
Or scream and beg for their life.
I smile at the second thought. I’m hungry after using up some of my reserves, and begin to dry myself quickly so I can go and feed. There are many things I’ve learnt in the past year about being a vampire—like we sweat blood, we cry blood, and yes, we bleed blood. Emotions are strong and intense all the time, and as a newer vampire I must learn to control my inner vampire.

Yes, my inner vampire. That took some getting used to, I’ll admit. It’s not something that I could have ever known about previously, no films or books ever talk about inner vampires. Most have vampires going off the rails because they turn off their humanity, and while that’s a lovely scenario, the truth is, there is no humanity inside me to turn on or off anymore. The only thing inside me is another, more vicious, bloodthirsty vampire—a vampire that for some reason is intent on taking me over, and I’m told on a daily basis that I must not let that happen. Ever. The great lengths
she
goes to in order to take control are astonishing, and the best way I have found to control her is by keeping myself well fed, strong, and exhausted. Training with Evan combats two out of three, he’s making me strong, and the training wears me out. The only problem I find is that he brings out a lot of…urges in me. Namely of the sexual type. And around him I struggle to control those urges.

I dress in black leggings, knee-high boots, and a navy blue racer-back top. It’s winter, but it makes no difference since I don’t feel the cold anymore. I pile my mass of wet, black hair on top of my head, fasten it in place with clips, and make my way down the hallway to the dining room.

It’s been nearly a year now, and I’m finally finding my way around, coming to grips with my own existence, and I’m completely accepting of it. Why would I not be? Immortality, powers, strength: it’s all deeply fascinating to me, and I’m eager to learn more. There is still quite a lot of training to be done, so I’m told—both mental and physical training—and I’m yet to leave the coven, our home, because I have not been able to control
her
yet.

It happened slowly. At first I fought it, begged to be killed and put out of my misery, for my body to be sent back home to my family so that they could properly mourn me. The constant burning pain in my stomach and fangs—the hunger sending me almost mad as I refused to feed—was almost unbearable. And then as I moved further away from home, as they stole me away to lands I did not know, I became more compliant; and then Evan came into my life, and everything began to slowly change.

He helped me accept and move forwards, he helped me understand about feeding, and how we don’t kill the humans, we just take a part of them inside us and protect it, letting it blossom and grow in us, helping us to become stronger vampires. Of course by the time I realised they were just words, it was too late and my humanness was gone, my feelings for humans—my family—obliterated. And I couldn’t care less.

The nightmares are one of the only downsides to my turning: constant dreams of death and screaming. I don’t know why they frighten me so much. Perhaps it’s the fear that I will lose control and this will all be over, or perhaps it is just stray memories of my previous life.

I don’t feel anything for my past, for the people that I assume I once cared about. Friends, family, lovers—they mean nothing to me anymore. I barely think about them, or how this happened. I care little for their suffering, and since Evan helped me to accept my fate and feed off the humans, I have never once wished for my unmaking. This world is amazing, these skills are wonderful, and I wouldn’t change back, given all the pain and suffering of every human on this earth.

I pass the Commons, the only room that I stay away from. After an unfortunate incident when I first arrived, where I could not control my bloodlust and therefore could not control my own sexual urges, I keep to myself as much as possible. Freewill—and freelust—are common and accepted parts of this life, and ones that I am sure I will one day embrace again, but right now my main hunger is for blood, and not the lust of the flesh.

The dining room is quiet at this time of the day. It is neither lunch nor teatime; however, I know that there will be food prepared. There is always food prepared. I take my glass from the stand and move along the counter until I reach Mad Donny, the chef here. He smiles warmly at me, as he always smiles.

“Mia, how are you today?”

“I’m good.” I mirror his smile as I look at the selection. “Hungry.”

“Of course—aren’t you always? What would you like? Something sweet? Something spicy, perhaps?” He licks his lips greedily and rubs his hands together. Donny is always hungry, though he should have learnt to control his thirst by now. He is far older than Evan, and me, and even older than most of the other vampires around here. His eyes gleam at me with an insanity that he does not try to control; it’s what makes Donny
Donny
. I don’t know how he does this every day; the smell alone would send me over the edge, but he seems to relish in it. Perhaps his pleasure from it is because of his constant overindulgence.

“Sweet, please, Donny,” I say and hand him my glass. Sweet is always my preference, especially after an unfortunate April Fool’s Donny played on everyone, which involved hot chillies and blood. The poor human never tasted the same afterwards.

He turns to the selection of humans behind him and, reaching for a youngish man, he pulls the seal from his wrist and holds it over my glass. The man’s eyes are glassy and hollow as he stares ahead of him at nothing. His lips are bluish and dry, and his skin pasty.

My stomach grumbles as the glass begins to fill, and I urge him to hurry, my fangs unsheathing in expectancy.

Down, boys. Not this time.

Donny reseals the wound and turns back to me with my now full glass of sweet B negative.