Maker, maker

Brother bonding

After I had hunted and dried off we made our way back to the car, I wondered if those guys had made it away. Caleb was silent, but still watching me as if he thought I was going to freak out, or run, or both. "Okay, so he's your brother. Can you explain that to me?" He took a deep, unsteady breath.

"My dad got annoyed at us a few hundred years ago because Elijah fell in love and because I didn't tell him, so he dropped us both. After we fell to earth, our wings were clipped, we wandered. He fell in with the wrong crowd; a vampire queen took interest in us. She had one of her most powerful generals turn him after he gave up his grace trying to save the girl he loved. Then they came for me.

"I used my grace to blind him so I could run, but it didn't last for long and he hadn't found me again until now. Anyway after he turned Elijah, the general decided that he didn't care to place his arms with the queen anymore. Instead he started his own faction and took down the queen. He executed her and all her followers, then he began his plan to find his new queen and rule over all vampires with her. He has already taken control of some of the packs of werewolves and is moving on the other ones." I leaned against my car that we had gotten back to.

"So how do I take him down?" He stared at me as if I had missed something extremely obvious. "Kathy, he wants you to be his queen. He already thinks you're his mate." I raised my eyebrows. "His mate? What the hell is that?" We got into the car, I let Caleb drive. "His mate means that he thinks you're his soul mate, there is only one in the world for everyone. If he makes you his mate then he will feed on you and then you feed on him and you fall under his spell that can't be broken."

I had only noticed that we were going the wrong way from my house. "Where are we going?" Caleb's grip on the steering wheel tightened. "I need to keep you safe from him; the maker's pull can be strong. We're going out of Belfast for a bit." "What about clothes, food or shelter?" He turned to see me staring at him. "I have a safe house that's warded against angels and vampires, neither can enter without and invitation. There's another one we will go to tomorrow, my friend owns it, but we might have to pretend that we're married." "What?" He sat silently as the sign for leaving Belfast whizzed past us, I turned in my seat to watch Belfast getting smaller. I noticed a large black figure running in the opposite direction from us.

We drove until it got dark, during the drive I made up a lie and texted my dad about a school trip gone wrong and that I was in the south of Northern Ireland in a town called Dungannon, he seemed to buy it. We ended up deep in the woods somewhere, there was a camp fire and a log cabin with all the lights switched on inside. What is this place?" Caleb and I got out of the car, he turned to face me. "This is my safe house."

The cabin was one story and made completely out of dark wooden logs. The inside decor was quite modern, with a television and a joint kitchen and living room. Caleb walked casually over and sat in front of the TV. "Come on in." I crossed into the house and shut the door behind myself. "I have clothes here for any occasion. We can spend the night here and then head on tomorrow." His face gave away that he had something on his mind but I didn't push him on it. Instead we cuddled on the sofa, watching the Jeremy Kyle show.

I went to bed after that. There were no bedrooms, but the sofa folded out into a double bed. There was silence most of the night, apart from the gentle snores coming from Caleb. At one point he rolled over and slid his arm around me, not wanting to wake him from his sleep I sunk deeper into his embrace and closed my eyes, attempting to find the same comfort of sleep that he had.