TO LIE WITH MIDNIGHT ROSES

||22||

XAVIER

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Why did Varida have to come back now?

She had left to visit some friends in France, she had never mentioned when she was returning but I guess it was today.

Varida was nosey and sneaky at the same time. Intrusive and unapologetic but why out of all people did she have to pry and get into all my business? An annoyance she was and to think she could have hurt Renessa even in the slightest had made my head spin.

God, that girl caused me all sorts of trouble.

Varida on the other hand was certainly only doing this to get under my skin like she always does. Typical.

She had always been this way. Prying into everyone's business, especially mine — always mine and it made my blood boil.

She was new, well if you could even really call her that. She wasn't as old as the rest of us. Seventy now maybe, we had met her when she was only thirty, so she had been getting her nose into my business for years now and seeing as I never let her crawl her way into my bed she had found herself other ways of... getting under my skin.

It was 1980 when I had met Varida. Jaxon, Ryker and I had been visiting the main city more often than. We had been with Roman for while by then and after fighting in the war we had wanted to loosen up a little bit.

The hunters had been quiet for years as well, with no signs of them for quite some time we decided it would be safe to travel. Safe enough at least to venture into the city for a night at the club every now and then.

The rest of my siblings had been long dead and buried within the midnight roses of the family garden by the eighties as well, leaving my nieces and nephews and their new families to take care of the Augustine farm.

I had stopped checking up after the last funeral, my sister had finally taken her last breath a few years ago and I could not bear to hear another second of her children's sobs, all too similar to her own so many years ago when our mother had passed.

I had almost slipped back into my old ways after that. I wanted to feel nothing again, absolutely nothing and with the hunters laying low, there was no longer a chase to worry about, at least so I thought. So with that, we made our way into Vancouver's nightlife.

That's where we saw her.

Varida was on top of a table in the middle of a nightclub in downtown Vancouver when we stumbled across her. She was dancing to some song, Call Me by Blondie if I do recall correctly.

    Her skin was pale beneath the colourful purple and red lights as she spun around, seemingly in slow motion as if the world revolved around her and every man nearby had their eyes glued upon her.

Her presence sucked the air out of the room. Her golden hair was wildly curled as it draped down just past her shoulders. Her blue eyes were surrounded by smokey black eyeshadow that contrasted her striking red lipstick and she was entirely carefree and she most certainly was stunning, none of us had ever doubted that. She wore a long oversized biker jacket on top of a stretchy black mini skirt and a black top along with high, glossy black heels.

Varida emitted this strong, untouchable energy and I knew already what she was...one of us.

She had locked eyes with me later on, on the dance floor and as she made her way through the crowd ever so confidently and smoothly like she wasn't real like she was floating and she had found me. Outstretching her hand towards me, she introduced herself and as her smooth skin glided over mine, I had felt that oddly familiar feeling of a lifeless cold and that's when I had confirmed that she was a Vampire.