A Taste Of A Vampire

“I wanted to live among humans, to try to keep as normal a life as I could. It’s why I don’t keep servants or staff at my home. I don’t want any of them to see that I haven’t aged. I live a solitary life, except for keeping some friends here and there throughout England and Europe, but I never keep those friends for long because eventually they grow older and I do not, and rather than explain it all to them, I just… disappear. I reinvent myself.” He sighed softly as he gazed at her.

 “I wish I knew what you were thinking,” he said gently.

“No, you don’t,” she answered. She was quiet a moment and then asked one of the thousand questions that were firing rapidly through her mind. “Has anyone ever found out about you?”

“Yes, a few people have. None of them lived to talk about it.” He was honest, at least, she thought to herself.

“Do you kill very often?” she asked, feeling sick to her stomach that she could even be asking that question of a man she was falling in love with.

“No. I try to avoid it at all costs. I think it detracts from my humanity, if I even have any left.” He looked slightly morose at the thought.

“Has anyone ever tried to kill you?” she continued.

“Yes. Both humans and other things. The scar on my neck is from a werewolf that nearly ended me, and I almost wanted to let him. I decided at the last moment to fight for my life, and I won, but only barely. It left me with that hideous scar. Sometimes I wish he had killed me. I lead a very lonely life.” Nicholas tried to reach his hand up to touch Claire’s arm, but Claire pulled away from him.

“You cared about Elizabeth… Why didn’t you marry her? She wanted you.” It was the strangest thing in the world to her that she should be talking to an old beau of her great-great- great-grandmother’s, who was also a lover of hers.

He looked away from Claire then, his eyes shifting to the fireplace as if he was somehow looking back in time.

“I loved her. I wanted her, and I struggled with that. I would have had to turn her into a vampire to keep her with me. I would have had to tell her who and what I really was, and I knew that Giles Grayson loved her just as much, and that he would give her a wonderful, happy, full life. She could have children with him. She could grow old with him and enjoy her days with him, and the family they would make, and they would pass away from each other naturally, the way that we are all supposed to. I just couldn’t take her away from all of that.” His gaze lingered on the fire another minute, and then he looked back at Claire.

She frowned. “You didn’t want to entangle her heart and you let her go, but you come after me the way you have, and you’re here telling me everything about yourself and what you are, when you wouldn’t tell her any of it? Why? Why would you do so much more with me?”

His green eyes seemed to light with the familiar fire that she had seen in them so much. “It’s different with you. There is no one here trying to claim you away from me, and even if there was, I would fight to keep you. Everything is different with you. I feel different with you, more than I ever have with any other woman in every day I have lived. I told you… I need you, and I don’t need anything. I want you to be with me, forever.”

Panic flooded her and her eyes grew wide. “What do you mean you want to be with me forever?” If it had been any other man saying that phrase to her, it might have been romantic, but to hear it from the lips of a vampire, she felt nothing but fear.

He took another step toward her, bringing him almost close enough to her that their bodies were touching.

“I mean that I will give you eternal life… that you and I really can be together forever. I love you, Claire. I can’t lose you. I don’t want to lose you, and I don’t have to. I never have to. I can keep you with me always.”

Nicholas lifted his hand to the back of her head and slipped his fingers into her hair. Leaning forward, he closed his mouth over hers, kissing her tenderly and passionately all at once, moving his mouth over hers as his other hand wrapped around her back and pulled her body up against him.

Her heart vaulted into a rapid beat, and her blood raced through every part of her. She felt herself begin to ache for him, and a need grew in her to feel herself in his arms, and to feel his body entangled with hers, but she knew that it couldn’t happen. It could never happen again.

Planting her hands flat on his solid chest, she gave a hard push and backed away out of his heated embrace. Their kiss broke and he stared at her.

“What is it?” he breathed heavily, staring at her with blazing ravenous eyes.

“Nicholas! You’re a vampire! I can’t even believe I’m saying that! It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever said in my life. Did you use some weird vampire magic or something to make me fall in love with you?” she gasped in suspicion. “I’ve never felt anything like this either, but I don’t know if it’s real.”

He shook his head. “No. I have never used any of my powers on you. I wanted anything that happened between us to be real. This powerful bond between us, this magnetic irresistible draw… it’s real. It’s as real as it gets.”

She stared at him. Her feelings for him were the strongest she had ever felt. “You just said you were going to give me eternal life. Does that mean that you want to turn me into a vampire? Is that what this is on my neck? Have you been turning me into a vampire like you?” She had an accusatory tone as she reached her hand up and touched the wound on her neck again.