Blood Vengeance [COMPLETED]

Chapter One - The Waves

The black crystal waves crashed onto the shore, shattering in a million pieces around Selene's wet trainers, her feet sinking into the dark sand. As she watched the sea break over the beach, the relentless tidal motion overwhelmed her. The vast expanse of ocean, the rolling clouds overhead, the wind that whipped strands of her hair about her face: all were greater than she would ever be, and she bowed her head in deference.

In front of her Virgil and Xander pulled a small wooden rowing boat onto the shore, and as they heaved its belly onto the sand, the grey clouds overhead burst and rain began to fall.

"Welcome to the Isle of Epershand," grunted Virgil as he dragged the boat up beside some rocks that would partially cover it if anyone looked down from the cliffs above.

Selene's legs shook beneath her and she turned and moved further onto the beach, where her thighs crumpled into her knees and she fell on the sand with a dull thud. For a moment she was completely still, listening to the sound of the wind, the birds, the roar of the sea at her back.

Her mouth was dry and parched, and she had been hungry for so long now that she no longer knew what she was, but she was so far beyond the human concerns of thirst and hunger that she was probably delusional.

In fact, she was definitely delusional. By the light of the stars, as Xander and Virgil had rowed the boat they had stolen from a small fishing town on the north coast of Scotland, she had let her eyes close and Hector's face hovered before her: a vision of perfection.

It was so real she felt she could smell him, hear him telling her he loved her. But the dream was ruined when Xander shook her awake, admonishing her for being too loud, shouting Hector's name into the darkness. Xander had given her that scowl he usually did when she mentioned Hector; the one that made her feel like crying. The one that showed both his pain and his anger all at once.

But of course Hector came up in conversation, because she carried part of him with her. His human soul rested, cradled within her. After Hector's disintegration it had set up a permanent ache, a throb, in her chest, which she had almost learnt to ignore, all these weeks later.

She let the sand hold her pain, feeling it mould to her body, her legs, her hips, her breasts. She stretched out her fingers, mixing them in the grains as the rain made them thick and heavy.

"Selene."

She heard her name over the bellow of nature's chorus, wind and sea, but did not have the energy to respond. She knew Xander would come to her, so she lay with her cheek resting on the beach, knowing her hair would be full of sand when she stood up.

"Selene, we can't stay out here. It's exposed. It looks like there's a cave just along the shore. Get up."

"I can't."

"Yes you can. We've come so far, Selene. We're close now."

"Close to what?" She asked, raising her head and looking at him out of one eye.

Xander pressed his lips together, sucking them into his mouth.

"I don't know," he admitted, finally.

"Close to the Stanley Brothers' House of Whores, my friends," said Virgil, slapping Xander on the back and smiling. How on earth he managed to make a joke, to look even vaguely cheerful at a time like this, was beyond Selene. But because he had tried, because he had injected that energy into his voice, because he had smiled, she sat up and brushed some of the sand from her arms and legs.

Xander's curly dark hair was quickly becoming wet, rain twisting it into ringlets that dripped down his neck. A thick beard grew over his chin; the result of weeks of not shaving. Virgil, by contrast, had continued to shave with a knife he kept sheathed in his boot; but every time Selene saw him use it over his neck, curving it round his jaw, she shuddered, seeing how close it ran to the skin, hearing the bristles scrape beneath its blade.

'Hector's House of Whores.' She ran the alliteration round in her mouth, her tongue stroking the sounds, clicking against the roof of her mouth, whispering against the back of her teeth. She wondered when Hector had last stayed there; last slept with one of the whores. She bit her lip: no, 'whore' was not the right word. They weren't whores, they were prisoners, forced into sexual slavery by Hector and his brother.

And there, somewhere on this island, in that House of Whores, were hundreds of girls who looked like her: replicas of London's runaway theatre star. Arthur Stanley was probably doing a roaring trade pimping them out since she had disappeared from the stage, and following Hector's failed execution. London was probably alive with the news of Hector's disappearance from right under the executioner's stake, and the fact that he had never initiated Selene: that he had never taken her to his bed as he ought to have done, as the Vampire laws required him to do. No doubt Arthur Stanley was capitalising on that too; marketing the bodies of her doppelgangers as the 'Virginal Selene: untouched, untasted.'

Copies of Selene, all of them identical. The thought alone made her head spin; she had no idea how she would react if she were to actually see them. All of these girls created by Hector and the recently executed Professor Andrews, tossed aside and thrown to the wolves because they had failed to hold Hector's soul; because they had failed where she had succeeded. She felt a pang of guilt thinking of how lucky she had been to escape that fate; no one was forcing her into prostitution, stealing her innocence or corrupting her body.

Hell, Hector can't even bring himself to touch me.

In spite of all the evil, all the harm Hector had done to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people,  her heart ached for him. It beat to a rhythm matched by his human soul, that wrapped itself about her heart so tightly that the two were almost indistinguishable.

She looked up again to where Xander stood, stretching out a hand for her to grasp so he could pull her up. She took it, feeling their wet skin slink together, fit together, and felt his muscles tighten as he strained to lift her, and she let him take the weight, moving reluctantly to ease his burden.

"Where are we going?" She asked.

"Just up there, a little further down the beach." Xander pointed to where the sand met the rocks to the north and Selene could make out a darkened alcove. "Do you see?"

She nodded, and began to follow where Xander led, his footprints in the sand dark and heavy.

“How is he?” Asked Virgil, jogging a little to catch up to Selene.

“Who?” She asked, knowing exactly who he meant, given that he was whispering so Xander couldn’t hear.

“You know. Hector,” he said, thrusting his chin at her.

Selene didn’t want to talk about Hector with anyone, because even revealing the slightest piece of information felt like a betrayal. To toss his name out into conversation like this undermined the force of the emotion she felt for him; Virgil would never understand, although it was kind of him to ask. Xander, on the other hand, actively avoided discussing Hector, and, Selene imagined, was still intent on killing him.

“It feels as though he’s still alive,” she said, patting her sternum gently.

Virgil nodded his approval, quickening his step to walk side-by-side with Xander. Selene appreciated his consideration at moments like this, knowing she wanted to be alone. The three of them travelling together for so long had brought out the worst in their personalities, and at times they found each other intensely irritating. Sometimes space was just what they needed.

Selene focussed on the small throb within her that she imagined was Hector’s soul, clinging to her life force. There was a latent fear within her that one day that throb would stop, and that Hector would be gone. But for now it thrummed contentedly, rocked by the motion of her steps across the beach, and its presence was the only thing that warded off an unspeakable depression that hovered about her head, waiting to sink its teeth into her brain.

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So this forms the first chapter of BLOOD VENGEANCE.

I've put up a photo of Selene and Xander just to the right ---->

(I had no idea Adrian Grenier and Isabel Lucas had dated before when I cast them!)

Let me know what you think and if you want to read more!

RJ :)