The First Touch (5 page)

Ivan responded dully, “I go where I am told.”

There was a long stretch of silence, and
Autumn
cleared her throat, excusing herself and headed toward the bathroom. His eyes wondered over to the jacket and in a flash, he swiped the napkin from the pocket,
just as she stepped
out of site,
spreading it out and read the words that she had printed,
Hungry eyes
. He flinched, folded it back up, and returned it to the pocket. Now he was nervous, perhaps this was going to be harder than he thought,
she had seemed
so wrong but now....

He cursed under his breath and focused his ears, listening to the sounds of the room. The waitress was talking a
bout how rude a large muscular gentleman had been when he had ordered, while
the couple sitting at the front of the shop snickering together as they unscrewed the sugar lids
on their table
.

Back in the bathroom only five feet away
,
he listened as
Autumn
washed her hands
,
for a very long time. Meanwhile
,
her heart was pounding in her chest and she was humming a soothing melody to herself. After a few minutes, the water shut off and she emerged from the room with a sweet smile on her face.

His own heart began to beat faster as he watched her approach the table and take her place again. His skin felt suddenly warm, though he was sure it was not, as he watched her reach into the pocket of her jacket and pull the napkin out again. Then, just as before she scribbled on it and quickly returned it to the safety of the jacket pocket. He asked, “What are you writing?”

She blushed deeply, and she replied, “Oh, that, that’s nothing, just ideas that popped into my head. I like to write them down so that I won’t forget them.”

He looked at her skeptically and asked, “What kind of ideas?” He continued staring at her; head tilted imitating her expression from earlier though his eyes were unwavering.

Autumn smiled again and replied, “It
is nothing interesting really, j
ust a little rattle
,”
gesturing towards her head. “It is easier for me to move on with my day if I write it down. Otherwise I dwell on it, and get side tracked.”

He did not seem convinced, as he asked, “May I?” Autumn lo
oked slightly taken aback by his
suggestion
but she fished the napkin back out and reluctantly handed it to him anyways.

She was blushing a deep crimson color
when she added
, “They are just random thoughts that pop into my head. They won’t make much sense out of context.”

“No worries.” He replied slowly
,
opened the napkin and spread it out flat in front of him. The first words he already knew
the first word, Hungry
eyes
. However, for her sake he pretended to read them. The second words surprised him a little, though he quickly pushed past it, a coincidence that is all he thought to himself...

The words where written sloppily...
a kiss
and below that…His breath caught again as he starred at the words on the napkin, they had been written quite erratically. He studied them cautiously...
blood dripped from his lips as he smiled
.

He licked his lips and looked at the untouched cup of coffee that had now gone cold in front of him.

His voice dropped unexpectedly as he spoke, “What were you thinking when you wrote these words.” His fingers absent mindedly traced the last line.

All of the color drained from
Autumn’s
face as her eyes looked at the words that he outlined. She slowly looked up to meet his gaze
,
barely daring to look above her eyelashes. He had not intended for the words to come out quiet so primal, but she had hit a nerve. Her face confirmed his suspicions;
she knew
that he was a vessel
. He looked at her questioningly as her mind too began to race,
dare she tell him about her visions
?
Would he think
she was crazy
?

He was so handsome and intimidating. She wanted to share everything with him, or nothing. She could not make up her mind thinking,
the truth
?
Or what she told everyone else
? She never thought that she would be sitting across from someone like him. His face and eyes were enough to melt any woman’s heart. However, his voice was what struck her so completely; its soulful depth could not be denied. She wanted him as she had never wanted any other man in her life. She felt silly feeling so intensely about someone so quickly. If he was not so damn good looking, but he
was
and she wanted to tell him so badly.

She had been struggling with her subconscious for nearly an hour now, a nagging feeling of familiarity. Autumn
’s little voice in her head
that was now becoming a screaming banshee, told her that
this
was the voice from her dream. Nevertheless, there was another part of her, somewhere distant but strong that said,
no, just kiss him and be done.
The two raged a war in her mind that caused a headache to form almost instantly, that paired with her raging hormones and she was done for.

Autumn leaned forward in her chair with intensity in her eyes that sent a hot shiver threw him. Then she spoke very softly, almost a whisper, with a hint of something... dangerous... in her words, “No worries.” Ivan looked at her with a skeptical look,
how did she know
?
Moreover, was she now telling him that she would tell others
?
No
,
she was saying she knew and that she would not tell others, but he could not trust that. He sniffed the air looking for signs of danger again, and found none. His head began to swim with details from today,
a messenger, a decoy, what was she
?

Meanwhile,
Autumn
rubbed her temple before staring back at Ivan matching his intensity. She had felt good about her decision to leave her meaning open to interpretation. He stared at her with a serious look of apprehension,
or
was it desire
? She was not sure but she felt a surge of power as she forced herself to look back at him.
He was so damn handsome,
she thought smirking to herself.

He sucked in hard and thought about jumping over the table and draining her dry. She knew what he was, who he was,
a ploy no doubt now
, he twitched thinking,
was another clan trying their hand at manipulation?
He was sure now as she stared at him with no fear, she only matched his look taunting him with her eyes, she was so...wrong...too
perfect
...they must be using some kind of hallucinogenic agent. He rubbed his wrist that still burned and looked back at her distrusting. He would find out who did this and kill them. She would tell him...before she
died
.

The blood rushed though his veins his temper flared unexpectedly. As soon as the flash hit his system, his knuckles tightened. She closed her eyes and took a breath her hands tightening on the arms of the chair as well, unconsciously preparing for his attack. His head turned sharply almost unnaturally, his eyes wild with anger now. The thought flashed through his mind,
she knows...and she is unafraid
. He smiled cruelly as the final transformation hit his system.

His heart stopped beating then, and his eyes dilated as her heart rate tripled, almost ripping from her chest.
As Ivan let a growl loose, pouncing
on to her
,
knocking her chair backwards with the force of his body. She closed her eyes and did not open them even as his mouth rested inches from her neck. She could feel his hot breath as he paused momentarily looking at her face. To his surprise, she was smiling happily as if his attack had been playful and n
ot deadly. The question escaped
from his snarling lips before he could stop himself, “Why are you smiling?”

“I didn’t see that coming
,”
she let the smile slip from her face as she finally looked at his eyes
for the first time
. They were jet black almost no milky whiteness showed, and he snarled viciously, defensively. She tilted her head back to get a better look at his face. He looked at her with something new glaring at her; they were different eyes now something dark and hungry. Her heartbeat changed then from exalted pounding to the appropriate chaotic desperate rhythm that
choked the blood from her limbs at once.

As she listened to the change in her heart, she now understood the feeling in her chest. It had come from a different source
altogether, real danger. A
momentary slip in
judgment and she was about to be killed.
What was he? Something she had never seen before
…
at least not in real life, a creature... yes a creature posing as a man
.
A
...
What was he?
A monster?
No...
A
demon?
No...What… vampire... no
they weren’t real... were they
?

She cursed to herself looking at his mouth,
I am going to die. I am going to be eaten by a vampire.
Then it struck her
,
this was not how she wanted to die.
This was so wrong! This was crazy!
Her feeling of self-preservation had not kicked in,
why?
Had she just become so accustomed to ignoring the unusual events in her life that when death had asked her to a cup of coffee that she followed him like a lovesick schoolgirl! She even blushed damn it!

It was then that she realized that he had asked her a question, and was waiting for an answer,
what had he asked
?
She struggled to understand the words that formed from the sounds that he was making but her brain refused to comply. Her chaotic mind was still processing the feeling of certain death that his eyes spoke to her. He shook her and shouted something that sounded very angry, almost emotional. Yet all her thoughts
could filter was Ivan’s eyes as her mind
screamed into the abyss,
Grayton
!

The pain of his steely grip brought her back the way that only it can. Her tear-filled eyes turned towards Ivan now quivering lips and the
words finally reaching
their target, “Who do you work for?” Ivan repeated himself twice now
,
through clenched teeth
,
obviously struggling with something internally that was causing him great pain
at the moment
.
While the first screams began as one of the customers saw the creature that Ivan had become in a blink of an eye.

Autumn replied
,
shaking her head slowly from side to side, “You wouldn’t understand
,”
she paused momentarily not looking at him, “Grayton was right.”

He twisted his head as if he were trying to make sense of the words as he whispered, “Grayton did this?” She dreaded to see the look on his face, but she felt a strong need to understand exactly what he meant. To her surprise, his beautiful face was twisted into look of utter betrayal and furry. Iva
n repeated to himself, “Grayton,
” his astonishment still apparent.

Autumn replied, “What no....”

He struck without hesitation, ripping her throat out in one clean sweep. It was so fast that she did not even have time to think about it. He was standing over her before her eyes could even close instinctively.
The
horrified shrieks of those who still remained, were the only sounds signaling the act had been completed, before the remaining bodies
fled from the building
, leaving her to her fate
.
Next, she felt the bloo
d spraying from her neck, raining
onto her face and hands.
He had been
merciful
,
Autumn
thought, the bite had intended to be as quick and painless as possible.
How she knew this,
she was unsure now, since
the blood
loss
swept away
her memory almost instantly.

She found it difficult
to be
angry with him for his part
, his pain had been overwhelming. It was then that she realized that that was all she could feel, his pain. His pain had become her pain and they where one at that moment. From now until eternity, she no longer felt alone in this world, complete. It was not at all, what she had expected from death.

The blood felt good on her skin like a warm shower, no pain at all
now
. She did not dare open her eyes again; she wanted to hold on to that feeling for as long as possible. That and the feeling he was still standing there watching her and she didn’t want to
remember him that way, not with blood on his lips; she wanted to remember what he looked like when he first smiled at her. If she had opened them though, she would have seen the look of complete horror that now flashed there.