The Forgotten Child-Twilight

Chapter 16 - Part 1

THE TRUTH ABOUT HELENA

The reason why Helena didn't smell like a vampire was because she wasn't one. But the reason why she didn't smell human was because she wasn't human either... well, not quite.

Helena told me that her people came from far away, so far away that I'd never begin to imagine. Her people had come from a world where the sun shone with a blue cast, not a yellow one. They had been here for eons, but found it difficult to survive here. The sun was different, not just the color, but what it was made from... this world was different like that for her people too.

Helena confessed that her people had interbred with the humans here, in an attempt for her kind to get stronger. However Helena's race was different because they only reproduced more of their same kind. It wouldn't matter if she had mated with a human or vampire, her children would always be one of her race.

Throughout the millennia, Helena's kind had changed, but little, and changing me back to human was something she just wasn't able to do...it wasn't in her knowledge or power.

Helena's race had had slave casts eons ago on their world. Her kind existed within the slave musical 'Minstrel" cast. The 'Minstrel's' could produce vocal and project instrumental sounds like I'd never heard possible. Helena had the ability to pierce the heart with her voice and musical projection, that's why Aro had stolen her.

Helena's small 'Minstrel' colony was almost extinct when Aro discovered her. He'd had others of her kind before, but they either gave up or died eventually. That's when Helena confided to me that her kind could not become immortal like humans could. Even though her kind outlived humans by hundreds of years, they too eventually died. Now I understood why Aro had never changed Helena, or her predecessors.

As the days marched by, Helena would calm me when I would become anxious about Aro, claiming he wouldn't even think to come after either of us.

As time continued, I got a clerical job, while Helena pretended to be my wife. Although the Volturi began to fade into a dim memory, I found myself obsessed and possessive with Helena.

ooOoOoo

One day I asked just what she and Aro did in her chamber. Helena looked shocked and told me that she only sang to him; and for me to forget about him. I didn't believe her, I knew Aro had a mate, but I also knew the effect that Helena had with males.

After two years, I hardly ever thought of the Volturi, and I didn't seem to crave human blood with the intensity of my past, making perfectly due with animal blood.

The only thing I now craved was Helena herself...I caught myself staring at her beautiful green eyes. I would study her lovely porcelain features as her small hands worked a loom, forming cloth for new clothes for me.

I became very rich, making investments...I didn't need the things that humans needed, just Helena. I began to love her with an intensity I didn't know could possibly exist.

I knew Helena loved me in her own way. My heart would melt the way she'd smile at me as she made candles for the dark night. The dark night in which I could still see Helena perfectly well while she slept in her room.

ooOoOoo

Soon, another year had passed and I found myself loving Helena more.

Around July the summer heat seemed to get to Helena as her sweet smell perfumed the air. She seemed much more anxious than normal.

One night Helena awakened and came into the main room where I worked at the table by candlelight. I began to ask her if she were all right when she placed her hand on my cheek. Her hand was warm and very moist from the sweats that she'd been experiencing.

"I have to tell you something," Helena said as her eyes cast down as if in shame. "Every so often... about every seven years, my kind go through a type of estrus or fertile cycle."

Helen's face turned beet red, "It's embarrassing, it's similar to how the animals react every springtime to reproduce."

"Has this happened very often?" I asked her astounded.

"No," Helena answered, "it's been a while. My kind isn't sexually mature until around seventy years or so. Although I'm around 150 it's only happened a few times, and I was usually able to handle it."

"And...how did you manage that?" I asked her wickedly.

"It'll go away in a few weeks if there's no response. I'd seclude myself from males until it went away. I'm just not sure how to do that here," she admitted embarrassed.

Could she be admitting what I was thinking? What I'd hoped for? Could she accept a monster in place of a true mate? Could I make love with her and not kill her?

Although I was raised by a religious ogre, I had had my pleasures with the ladies while I was alive. The one harlot who made the mistake of propositioning me many years ago after my change had never been seen again after she left with me.

I looked into Helena's emerald green eyes and said, "I could kill you...but, I couldn't live without you."

Helena stopped stroking my face and sat down across from me. "I don't know much about this myself," she admitted, "Perhaps I should leave for a few weeks until this runs its course."

"And just what in the hell am I supposed to do without you?" I growled at her.

"Well," Helena continued, "I know what I feel... and I don't think I could consider doing this with anyone else."

I got down on my knees before Helena and placed my arms around her slim body and asked beseechingly, "Is there any way I could convince you to stay with a hideous monster?"

Helena looked at me shyly with her green eyes and said, "Well, the answers obvious since I've lived here the past two years."

I continued kneeling there; I finally found the ability to ask her, "Is there any way I could convince you to marry a hideous monster?"

Helena gave me a serious look filled with love, and quickly answered, "Of course I will."

- continued -