Authors: S. M. Bowles
Tags: #vampire, #paranormal romance, #paranormal, #vampire books, #vampire book, #vampire book for young adults, #vampire forbidden love young adult, #vampire and virgin, #vampire and human, #vampire and human relationship
Sanctity
Sanctity
sanc-ti-ty:
holiness of life and character
By S. M. Bowles
Sanctity
Copyright: S. M. Bowles
Published: March 2013
Publisher: S. M. Bowles
The right of S. M. Bowles to be identified as
author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
If you have any questions
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For my daughter, my husband, my good friend
Daisy (though she can’t read) and everyone else that has a special
place in my heart.
Table of Contents
My head lolled backwards and I was looking up
into the night. I could see the sky through the branches of the
leafless trees. The moon had risen, high and bright and as I
tried to follow it with my eyes I realized that someone was holding
me. He had me clutched against his chest and we were running fast,
so very fast!
The world kept drifting in and out of focus
while pulses of pain wracked my body. I tried to keep as still as
possible and silently prayed that it would help but my head wasn’t
the only thing that hurt. My whole body ached and it was like
nothing I had ever experienced before. Something horrible had
happened but I was so weak and confused that no matter how
frantically I tried I couldn’t seem to remember what it was.
“Can you put your arms around my neck?”
His voice was deep, anxious and as he said it, it echoed in my
thoughts and I felt as though I had heard it twice – once out loud
then again deep inside my head.
Some of the haziness was swept from my mind
and suddenly I was aware of everything that was taking place.
I knew I couldn’t do as he asked but somehow my body obeyed the
compulsion to raise my arms and I clasped my hands behind his
neck. As we passed a fallen tree and my fingers
intertwined I felt his grip around my waist loosen. He
shifted me onto his back then snapped a branch off of a decaying
tree as we raced by.
He turned suddenly to face the opposite
direction and for a fleeting moment I caught a glimpse of something
or was it someone crashing through the forest and heading directly
for us. Instinctively I buried my face in the back of his
neck and braced myself for the impact.
It never came, though, and when I realized
that it wouldn’t I looked over his shoulder. There was a man
lying in the snow a few feet away from where we stood.
Something was protruding from his chest but it was too dark to be
sure of what I was seeing and the will to hold on was leaving me.
The strength I felt just a moment before gave way. I lost my grip
and fell to the ground.
He dropped to his knees beside me and bent
his face close to mine “Elayna,” he urgently called my
name.
For a moment I thought I recognized him but
the flicker of memory vanished before I could make any sense of it.
Then there was nothing.
I felt my lips first. It was as though
they were made of ice and had somehow been touched with a flame
that was spreading heat across my face, sending a shiver through my
scalp and to my neck and down my spine. The heat kept
spreading like ripples on a pond and I was acutely aware of it
flowing throughout my chest and expanding to my arms and
legs.
I opened my eyes but that was all that I
could do. My body didn’t seem to be working. A fearful
idea crept into my mind that I had died or I was dying, there in
the forest lying in the snow; away from my mother and father. My
heart wrenched when I thought of them and I began shaking with
grief.
“Ssh, try not to think about them now,” the
man was back and tenderly scooping me into his arms. He began
running again though not with the fierce intensity he had used
before I blacked out.
“Please,” I muttered and clutched at the
lapel of his coat.
Somehow he knew I was asking him to stop and
when he put me down I doubled over. He squatted down beside me and
gathered all my hair away from my face. A moment later I began to
retch into the snow at his feet. Through the darkness I could see
that most of what had come up was blood, my blood, blood from all
the aches inside me.
“Oh, God!” he cried out when he saw it.
It terrified me and I helplessly tried to
look up at him but he tightened his grip on my hair and prevented
me from turning my head.
He whispered an utterly anguished, “Please
don’t. I don’t want you to see me like this. Just give me a
minute.”
I wondered what he meant but the retching had
made my pain exponential and before I had a chance to ask I felt
myself slipping from his grip as I slumped down into the
snow. The flame touched my lips again but just before I lost
consciousness I saw that it was his fingertip that was pressed
against them. That was where the heat seemed to be coming
from but there was something more to it than just a touch. I
could taste…I could taste…something; something wonderful and warm
and sweet and enlivening. It was heavenly and I smiled
through my tears enjoying the sensation as it rippled through me
once more.
“Ssh, ssh,” he soothed and kissed my
forehead.
He eased me to sitting then carefully lifted
me up before he began walking again. The strange feeling faded with
every step and I began to feel somewhat stronger. The pain, though
piercing at times, didn’t seem quite so unbearable anymore. I
wanted to say something but I wasn’t sure what. My mind kept
wandering from one incoherent thought to the next. I felt
like there was something I desperately needed to remember but every
time I grasped at it the thought was brushed to a corner of my mind
where it was impossible to recall.
Without warning he put me down again and
whatever was left in my belly went spattering onto the snow.
The pain was back with an agonizing ferocity. I could see
stars behind my eyes it hurt so badly. I just wanted to let
go of it all and to be swept into the darkness, nothing mattered
any more except that the pain go away. I completely lost
consciousness again.
He touched my lips; just a few drops.
After a few moments he realized that I was not coming to and cursed
out loud, “Damn it!” Another few drops, he began counting
“one, two,” a minute passed and still I was lying lifeless in the
snow. He tried a third time and after the last few drops
trickled between my lips he pulled his finger away and cradled me
as he rocked me back and forth sobbing into my hair. “No, no,
no…”
I gasped as I came to. For a moment it
felt like there was lightning in my veins. The sensation
passed as quickly as it came and I involuntarily moaned at the
sudden release.
Slowly I fluttered back to my senses. He took
my face in his hands and tilted it from side to side studying it. I
wasn’t sure what he was looking for but after a moment he began to
smile, his grey eyes bright and the corners of his mouth turned up
in complete and happy relief. Satisfied with what he had seen
he took my wrist and checked my pulse. “Good, good,” he said. “Does
it hurt?”
I couldn’t answer; I was absolutely
transfixed by his eyes. “Oh,” I felt myself grasping at some
shred of a memory but I lost it when he turned away.
“Elayna,” there was some urgency in his tone;
“does it hurt? We need to keep moving.”
He turned back to my gaze and I shook my head
in confusion as his question replayed in the back of my mind.
“No, I don’t know. I feel…I feel fine…I think. I’m cold…just
cold.”
Without remark he shrugged his coat off and
tucked it around my shoulders, “Hold it tight, here at your chest,”
he swaddled me in the heavy cloth. “There, better?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“We need to go, are you well enough?”
“Yes.”
“OK, if you feel like you’ll be sick again
just let me know and I will stop.” He looked down at me, “Can you
walk?”
I nodded. I was still very disoriented but
all the pain that I had been feeling was slipping away and
dwindling into insignificance. He slipped his hand in mine and I
clutched at it trustingly as he began leading us away.
“What happened?” I wondered. Without
realizing it I tried to remember where I was and why I was there.
There were a number of images flashing in my mind but they were
shadowy and impossible to make out.
“Where are we going?” It was all I
could think to ask.
“I’m not sure; somewhere safe.”
“I want to go home; I want my mom and
dad.”
“I know you do but it is safer for you to be
with me right now.”
“OK,” I said trustingly.
He looked down at me and I couldn’t help
thinking how sad and conquered he looked, “Are you tired?” he
asked.
That was the last thing I remembered until
hours later when I woke. It took a moment but gradually I became
aware that we were in a car and quite a bit of time had
passed. It was still semi-dark, maybe close to dawn and I was
very hungry. I was in the passenger’s seat, my head
tilted in his direction. He didn’t seem to notice that
I was awake as I studied him from where I sat and I couldn’t decide
whether or not I should say something. I was still buried in
the folds of his coat and began to wriggle about trying to free
myself.
“Here,” he reached over to help and his
fingertips grazed mine in the process.
“Michael?” I asked.
He paused momentarily and a look of surprise
swept across his face. “Yes, Elayna, my name is Michael.”
“How did I know that?”
He grinned and shook his head.
“How do you know my name?” I asked
curiously. “Is it the same way that I know yours?”
He frowned suspiciously, “how do you
mean?”
“I think you can see it, see it inside my
head. Can you?”
“Something like that.” He had an
expression I didn’t understand, a cross between anger and worry and
disappointment. He slowed the car and pulled over. Then
he reached for the dome light and flipped the switch, bathing me in
the light. I couldn’t help squinting at the sudden brightness
as he took my face in both his hands again and studied it once
more. He tilted it forwards and back and side to side.
Then he looked straight into my eyes.
My breath caught in my chest and I was struck
again by how familiar he was. I desperately wished I could
remember him and was certain that I knew him somehow.
“How do you feel Elayna?”
“I feel,” I felt absolutely fine so his
question seemed odd as I considered it, “confused.”
“How much do you remember?”
“It seems like I can’t remember
anything. I want to and I try to but it feels like something
won’t let me. I’m very hungry.”
He looked away and curled his fist to his
lips in contemplation.
“We will stop soon and I will get you
something to eat. I still need to get you somewhere safe, so
I need you to promise me to do everything I ask. Do you
understand?”
