Chapter 8 Lucian
Lucian
“How old are you?”
She pauses mid-chew of the cheese-flavoured cracker. “That’s…wow.” Ah, her preferred response. “Have you always lived here?”
“No. I wander constantly.”
This cabin was an accidental find last year. It was only meant to hold me over until life here grew boring too—like everywhere else eventually does. I’ve spent my days wandering the mountains, and after a few months, I was preparing to move on with the new year.
Until discovering Sawyer, that is.
Now, seeing my little human sitting in the middle of the cabin with a few stolen food boxes spread around her, the shitty heat system kicking on every so often, and only a bed and a couch—the ones that came with the place—I realize we can’t stay here long-term.
We need a better home.
“Been here for a few months,” I add, to answer more of that lingering curiosity she undoubtedly has about my living situation.
She reaches for what she’s called a “chip”—whatever that means. I stopped tracking human food inventions after my transformation. With modern technology and loosening health standards, processed food has been on the rise, and it’s become pointless to monitor.
“How did you become a vampire?”
A common question from any human when learning about an immortal—because she’s far from the first, even if there shouldn’t be any—and one I half-expected her to begin this conversation with.
“A transformation from human to vampire is only possible after the human dies with vampire blood in their system. The death triggers the healing properties within our venom, battling with the mortality of death, and results in a change. My own transformation was a seemingly random attack after a ball one night. Much to my mother’s chagrin, who was attempting to set me up with every eligible woman, I left early—only to get attacked on my walk home.
Whyever he decided to drip his blood into my mouth before running off and leaving me too drained to survive, he made himself my maker, but never returned. ”
Two hundred years, yet it exists in my mind like it only happened yesterday. For mortals, it’s been longer than two lifetimes. My family has long passed on, though my two sisters’ descendants continue, who I peek in on occasionally.
“Balls and eligible women,” she muses. “A whole other kind of world.”
“Every generation has its benefits and downfalls,” I reply, carefully picking my words. “My time as a human was much more refined, but each decade after offered something worthwhile.”
“What about this decade?”
You. You’re my something worthwhile.
“Technology, I suppose, has its highlights.”
Her eyes flick to her cell phone resting beside the bed. “Yeah, I get that. What about other vampires?”
“What about them?” Humans never enjoy using full sentences. At some point in societal development, maybe with that technology we just mentioned, they’ve grown lazy and everyone assumes what the other is about to say.
She exhales audibly. “Do some live nearby? Do you see others?” She leans closer and stops chewing as her pulse picks up again.
Fear. She’s concerned what happens if my brethren were to stop by, but has grown accepting of me. I can’t deny feeling pleasure by this.
“Most of us are nomads since we don’t get along with others well.
It’s a preferable lifestyle I personally maintain.
” Until now. “There’s thousands of us worldwide, and it wouldn’t be surprising if you’ve unknowingly walked by one in the past.” I pause, waiting for her reaction, but she returns to munching on food.
“A few hours over the US border is where the North American vampire king resides.”
That gains a reaction—an uptick of her brow. “Kings within the vampire community. What’s he do?”
“Keeps the rest of us in line. He’s very old, very dangerous.” More so now. Word travelled that he took a witch as his Bride—his fated mate—which means protecting her is his entire focus.
I sit forward, my hands woven together and draped between my legs. “Tell me about you now. Your life is more interesting.”
She snorts around a water bottle. “Says the vampire. Yeah, no, sorry, before an hour ago, you didn’t even exist. I’m…whatever.”
She’s far from whatever. Red flashes though my eyes. She catches my warning, though doesn’t understand the true meaning behind it.
“For the same reason vampires fascinate you, you fascinate me. Tell me everything.”
“Why?”
Because I’m greedy. “Curiosity.”
She sighs, her eyes drifting to the wall across the room.
“There isn’t much to tell. I work as a laundromat attendant, a waitress at a mid-rated restaurant, and a cashier for a big box store.
They take up ninety-nine percent of my time because it’s the only way to survive these days.
It keeps me busy enough that I never hang out with friends, so we’ve slowly drifted apart.
Which is probably for the best, since seeing people usually means spending money. ”
She’ll never have to work again, because I’ll be taking care of her.
“I live in Winnipeg—it’s where I drove from. My apartment’s run-down, and every cent I make goes to keeping it, paying bills, saving for this trip, and…supporting my mother.”
Her tone changes there—turns sharp with disgust—so I know prodding into her family will need to happen soon enough. Shifting to lighter topics that don’t taint her sweet scent the way poverty did, I ask, “What’s your favourite colour?”
“Emerald green.”
“Why?”
Her skin flushes, her shoulders drawing back.
“Can’t believe I’m admitting this…it reminds me of a Christmas tree.
Not the fake ones, but a real one. It’s one of those things I promised myself I’d do when I grew up, since my childhood home never had a tree during the holidays.
Rarely fake ones, and definitely never real.
The smell of pine…” She sighs, her eyes fluttering shut.
“That’s what I dream of, and it was one of the reasons for renting a cabin; the ad online said it’d be equipped with one.
It’s the only way I’d finally be able to have a real tree, because getting one up the stairs to my apartment would be impossible—and practically screams wealth.
A break-in is the last thing I need. So emerald green being my favourite colour is the free way to get that tree, all year ’round. My apartment is themed as such.”
Every word from her mouth not only pisses me off, but gives name for the sudden possession that begged me to keep her and not kill her.
She needs me as much as I need her. She needs someone to care for her, to give her the tree she’s always dreamed of. We’re in a fucking forest; I’ll give her a tree every day of the year to see her smile.
I’ll give her everything her family obviously did not.
Poverty is something I understand, but didn’t experience as bad as others.
As a son to a banker, we were middle class.
Wealthy enough to maintain a decent-sized mansion with a few household staff, and wear in-season clothing.
We were invited to balls and parties within our circles, but didn’t include any of the upper class’s lords and ladies.
It was a comfortable life without pressures of a legacy.
Father wanted me to follow in his footsteps; Mother wanted me married, to give her a grandchild. Simple times.
In my time, Sawyer would have been considered lower class, though it’s difficult to determine where.
With an education and her beauty, and certain training, she may have made it as a lady’s maid, or even a children’s governess.
Without an education, she’d likely be working within a family business or on a farm—or worse.
Fate put us together within the ideal timeline.
Beneath her reasons for liking green is a few childhood facts she brushed over, but my mind didn’t.
Not having a tree every year as a kid speaks to an unfortunate childhood, matching her previous mention of supporting her mother.
Then there’s the marks on her neck that have been bothering me since finding her in that car.
“Where did the scars on your neck come from?”
She pauses mid-chew, staring up at me the same way a deer once did before it streaked deeper into the woods. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me. Humans are not born with scars like that, Sawyer.”
She finishes chewing and swallows loudly. “We get them if we’re really clumsy.”
My stare lingers until she gives up concealing her past, responding with a huff.
“I was thirteen and came home from school to find Mom’s boyfriend hanging around with a few of his friends—nothing abnormal.
The sitting around and drinking, I mean.
The friends were new. I tried to leave, being uncomfortable around strangers—grown men especially—only for one of them to yank me back inside.
All of them were pretty drunk and fiddling with switchblades and kept daring one another.
A few went too far, and Mom came home to find me sobbing on the floor with cuts in my neck.
She kicked them all out, and it became one of the best days—one of the very few times Mom acted like she cared.
” She lowers her voice to mumble, “Until taking him back,” but the horrid addition is lost to two hundred years of bloodlust—the craving to kill—and the plans to make it happen.
“You were a child.” I’m driven to my feet, first by her story, and then by the dominant urge to find the assholes who marked up a child and tear their fucking heads off—after making a few well-placed slices of my own onto their bodies.
Places where they won’t bleed to death, but they’ll very well wish to.
Inhaling unnecessary air, my attention lowers to the woman on the floor, biting her lip. I know what she sees: a monster. Fangs prod my gums, my vision coated all over again. Scaring her isn’t what’s needed, no matter how much her story justifies it.