A Taste Of A Vampire

Her heart stopped in her chest. She could not think or even breathe. She couldn’t believe the words that she had heard Colin speak. It couldn’t be true. She must have heard him wrong. There was no way that Nicholas could be dead.

“No…” she gasped in a hushed whisper.

Colin’s voice grew very quiet. “It’s true, your ladyship. I am profoundly sorry. Would you like me to find out what I can about what will happen to his property?”

She couldn’t make her brain work. It was as if everything in her had suddenly frozen. There was a silence that felt as if it was becoming awkward, and she struggled with a reply for him.

“Yes,” she answered with a choked voice. “Yes, please find out what you can about acquiring that property. I definitely want it, if he’s gone. Thank you, Colin,” she managed to say.

“I’d better go. I’ll be in touch with you soon,” she told him, needing more than anything to get off of the phone. Her heart was breaking and she couldn’t stand trying to have a conversation.

“Of course. Thank you for your call. I look forward to talking with you soon.” He told her that he was sorry once more, and then spoke his goodbye and they hung up.

The moment the phone was back in the cradle, she buried her head in her arms on her desk and sobbed until every tear she could cry had been shed. She took the rest of the afternoon off and went back to her apartment, climbing into her bed and weeping until sleep overtook her.

It was some relief to sleep. He came to her in dreams, and she could hear him, but she couldn’t see him. She called out for him over and over, and called out so loud that she woke herself up, and looked around the room. It was dark. The afternoon was gone and the black blanket of night had fallen.

She pushed herself from her bed and went to the kitchen to get herself a glass of water. The bite mark on her neck was throbbing, and she held her hand to it. Going to her bathroom, she wet a cloth and washed her face and held the cool damp material to her eyes, hoping to heal the swelling.

She walked to the living room windows and looked out of one of them to Central Park below. It was a vast darkness, glittering with electric lights throughout. It seemed peaceful, and she felt that she needed peace more than anything right then.

The love of her life was dead, and she was doing all that she could to come to terms with it.

Claire picked up her purse and keys and walked out of her apartment, heading over to the park. She hadn’t seen the clouds overhead, though it was a hot summer night, and when the rain began to fall on her, she looked upward and felt as if the sky was crying right along with her. It was an enormous release to her to feel the rain washing all down her as her pain fell from her eyes in salty tears.

She walked along slowly down the pathways, letting the rain soak her, and wishing it would wash her away like the colors of a painting fading into the puddles she walked through.

A breeze swirled around her, making her shiver at first, and the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and she hugged her arms to her body for a moment, but then she stopped and lifted her chin, her eyes staring ahead without really seeing anything.

There was a familiar feeling about the breeze. It was something she had felt in her home in England many times, but had not once felt since she had been back in the states. She blinked and looked around, almost feeling as if she had woken up from a dream.

There behind her was a figure in the dark. Her heart caught, and she drew in her breath sharply as the figure began to move toward her. He came into the pale glow of a tall streetlamp nearby, and at the first sight of him, she cried out.

His black hair was wet with rain and dripping, hanging low over his forehead. His green eyes were locked on her, and the corners of his mouth were turned up in a smile. She covered her mouth with her hands and shook her head, trying to make herself believe it.

“It can’t be…” she whispered, sure that she was seeing things.

“What is this, you don’t believe your own eyes?” he asked in his deep and sensual voice. He came to her and held her face in his hands. She could barely breathe.

“Perhaps you’ll believe this,” he almost whispered as he leaned down and kissed her softly, covering her full lips with his as their mouths moved together. Her tears began to flow even more then, and she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, holding him as close as she could until their kiss parted, and she stared up at him.

“I don’t understand! How can this be? Colin Dent told me that you were dead! How can you be standing here?” she wondered, shaking her head in disbelief.

He chuckled softly. “Oh well, he’s not wrong. Nicholas Ryder is dead, at least, on paper. You see, I do this every couple of decades. I kill myself off officially so that no one starts to be suspicious of me not aging. Then I come back looking slightly different, with a new name, and no one knows the better of it. I keep the estate. I just pass it down to the newest version of me.”

She furrowed her brow and snapped at him lightly. “I thought you were dead! I cried over you! You just broke my heart!”

He touched her cheek softly. “It sounds like it’s working just fine to me.”

Laughing a little, she shook her head and pulled him in close to her again for another kiss. When she let him go, she looked up at him and took his hands in hers. Her voice grew serious. “What are you doing here?”

Nicholas shrugged slightly. “You called me. You called me in your dreams, and then you woke up calling me. I told you I would always come for you when you call. I’m here for you, and I will always be here for you.”

She shook her head in wonder. “How is that even possible?”

He just laughed and kissed her softly again. “I love you, Claire. Anything is possible.”

“I wish I could believe that,” she answered him. “I want to tell you something.”

“What is it?” he asked curiously, gazing at her with nothing but love.

“I have decided to go back to Grayson Manor. I want to be there instead of in Manhattan,” she admitted.