The Vampire’s Redemption

Chapter 2

In 1715, America was a mess, and the Province of Carolina was no exception. People were still trying to find their place in the New Continent. Specifically, they were trying to get adjusted to the whole recent North Carolina/South Carolina division. Repercussions from the Tuscarora War were still being heavily felt, while the Yamasee War was just beginning. The pressure from the British Crown was getting to be unbearable. And as if all of that wasn’t enough, everyone was still reeling from the mysterious loss of the colony on Roanoke Island, even though it had happened over a century earlier.

Michael Williamson was born in that chaos, and he had carried it with him for all of his life—both his mortal existence and his immortal one. The chaos crawled constantly under his skin, patiently waiting to be unleashed. It resided in his bones. It pumped along with the blood in his veins, or at least it did for as long as there was any blood pumping in his veins. It beat alongside his heart, or at least it did for as long as his heart was beating. Now it remained with him, in his nerves and skin and muscles. In his being.

Over the centuries, Michael had fed that chaos—sometimes willingly, sometimes without even realizing it. The chaos ruled his very existence. It had always been that way, and that was the reason why his sire had been drawn to him in the first place. Michael’s darkness was the thing that had condemned him to a non-life in the real dark. Provided that was really the horrible sentence it was made out to be.

While many of his counterparts considered their non-life a curse, Michael could never see it that way. It wasn’t that he had not tried, because he had; he had tried very hard to, despise the hand that had been dealt to him, but he could never do it. He could never buy into the resentment, the self-loathing, the misery. He may not necessarily like who he was, but he sure did like what he was.

After three hundred years on this Earth, he was not yet tired of life—or of death, for that matter. He still craved all that the world had to offer. As far as Michael was concerned, three hundred was the new thirty.

And it really did seem like the world still had something to offer.  Three days after his first encounter with Danielle, he was still unable to get her out of his head. He had been thinking of nothing and no one else since, except for those all-consuming moments when the hunger struck.

“Let’s go to Ojai,” Stephen had said. “Nothing ever happens in Ojai. It’ll do you good.”

Stephen had a way of knowing how to tame Michael’s chaos whenever it became too untamable. And so they had packed their duffel bags and driven from crazy L.A. to tranquil Ojai, in search of that peace that always helped calm Michael’s restless nature. A vacation, their very own vampire retreat.

Except that something did happen in Ojai. For the first time in over two centuries of being a vampire, Michael had met a human that he did not want. There was something about Danielle that turned his hunger off, like somebody had flipped a switch within him. He had been desperately hungry the night he had walked into the pub where she worked, and yet he had not wanted her. He had wanted everyone in that room—except for her.

The whole phenomenon was puzzling and fascinating. Michael could hear the drumming of her heart and the whooshing sound of the blood in her veins, but he did not thirst for her blood. For the first time in over two centuries, he had met someone who didn’t make him hungry—if anything, Danielle made his appetite all but disappear.

He needed to take a closer look at this woman who made him as uninterested in feeding on her as in feeding on a plateful of salad. He had walked up to the bar and she had looked up at him with the bluest eyes he had ever seen, and that’s when he knew he had to get to know her. Danielle had delicate Asian features, almond-shaped eyes…and blue irises. The combination was breathtaking.

There was something about this woman, and Michael was determined to find out exactly what it was.

Which was why he now found himself in front of a mirror that did not show him any reflection—old habits die hard—trying out shirts that he had no idea what they looked like on him.

“Hot date?”

Michael didn’t turn around; he had heard Stephen walk into the room seconds ago, and Eli, like all humans, made as much noise as an elephant as he moved around in the kitchen.

“Sort of,” he said, vaguely.

“Are you serious?”

Michael did turn around then, having finally settled on a black shirt that, he thought, hugged his torso just right and probably made the green of his eyes pop.

“As a matter of fact, yes, I am,” he said.

Stephen was watching him with a bemused expression on his face. He had dark eyes and angular but graceful features, and he wore his long dark hair tied up in a carefully messy bun. Half-Hawaiian Native and half-Caucasian, Stephen was a beauty to behold, and he had broken many hearts during both his human life and his existence as a vampire. He had been sired along with Michael and they had been inseparable since. Of course, they’d had their falling outs during the centuries, and they had spent much time apart as they both tried to figure out who they were, but eventually they always gravitated back to each other.    

Michael was happy some things did last forever, because he truly couldn’t picture himself treading this world without his immortal brother by his side. Stephen was cooler, quieter, more level headed. He could placate Michael’s chaos in ways that Michael himself had never learned how to do.

“Who is she?”

Sexuality became a blurry thing for vampires, but Stephen knew Michael still preferred women—just like Michael knew Stephen still preferred men.

“Her name is Danielle. She works at a pub downtown.”

Stephen scowled. He was leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “Michael, we’re here to decompress, remember? Don’t put yourself on the radar.”

Michael huffed. “It’ll be fine. Besides, I’m not going to feed on her.”

Stephen snorted. “I’ve heard that one before.”

“I mean it. I…” Michael hesitated. “I don’t want to,” he admitted, still quite unable to believe it himself.

Stephen’s stern scowl morphed into a confused frown. “What do you mean?”

Michael shrugged and crossed the room over to the dresser. He pulled open one drawer and took a necklace out of a small box, placing it carefully around his neck.

“I don’t know,” he said. “When I look at her, I feel…not thirsty.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve no idea.”

Stephen stared intently at him. “Are you seriously telling me that this woman somehow turns you off?”

“Hunger-wise, yeah,” Michael said, because he would have been a fool to be turned off by Danielle s*xually. The woman was gorgeous, and he had seen his fair share of gorgeous women over the decades. “It’s weird, isn’t it?”

“I’d dare say.”

“I asked her out because I want to get to know her better,” Michael went on. “I want to figure out what’s going on.”

“Can’t you just…I don’t know…forget about it?”

Michael raised an eyebrow at his brother. “Would you? If you met someone you didn’t want to feed on, no appetite whatsoever, would you just ‘forget about it’?”