Antithesis: The Vampire Alliance Book Three - FIRST DRAFT COMPLETED

Antithesis Chapter 19: Eve Blakethorn-Sullivan July 2013

Eve Blakethorn-Sullivan, July 2013

“Get up,” Tul’s toe nudges under me, urging me to rise while Rob shakes his head as he perches on the sofa. This has been going on for the last half an hour and the stubborn ass at my side refuses to leave me alone. “You’re going to the dojo, now, if I have to pick you up and carry you, so you might as well go under your own steam.” He repeats the words I’d once used and I resent him for that.

Finally irritated by his incessant prodding, I roll onto my back to stare balefully up at him as I repeat the same answer he’d once muttered, “What’s the point?”

“You’ve barely trained in weeks, you’ve just given up. To me that seems a sure fire way of ensuring your prophecy comes to pass. Why not try to fight it? We’re going to the dojo to spar, you should come.” I can feel his frustration. Tul, like Rob, is afraid for me, scared of losing me and terrified that I’ll bring my fate down on my own head. I won’t cause it. I know it’s simply unavoidable but they can’t accept that.

“Anyway, I want you up and about because we’re going hunting later,” he adds.

“That’s against the rules, Johan has blood in stock.” I grumble, knowing we’ve had this conversation before with our roles reversed. I also know where he’s going to go with this and I wonder if he thinks I’m as forgetful he had been in his misery. I think he’s held off trying this ploy for the last few weeks purely to coerce me using the same method I had once used on him. Perhaps h thinks I won’t refuse him because he hadn’t refused me.

Shrugging, he admits, “I’ve been given special dispensation as long as we get you to show some fight first. Johan knows that the three of us have better survival chances than the others and as the blood stock isn’t infinite it’s better if those who are able, pointedly us, can feed ourselves occasionally. Plus he agrees I need a birthday treat,” he adds with an expectant grin, “I’ve been a vampire for ninety seven years today.”

“Happy birthday and fuck off, it isn’t going to work,” I snarl, rolling back onto my front and burying my face in the pillow.

I imagine he quirks a brow as he indignantly comments, “Well that’s not very fair.” I want to tell him that life’s not fair but he doesn’t exactly need the reminder.
Rob comes over to my side, perching next to me on the mattress. “Come on Eve, it’ll be fun. We only need to go to a small town again. It’ll be perfectly safe, why not make the most of an occasion to celebrate, eh?”

Tul sits too, leaning down to kiss my shoulder as he whispers, “Please Evie, love, it would mean a lot to me.”

Rolling over yet again, I look up into his hopeful and adoring blue eyes. “That’s manipulative, Tul,” I whisper which is enough to show I’ll allow myself to be manipulated despite my resolution to hide in this bunker for the rest of my short life.

Smiling a little he teases lightly, “I learned from the best.” When he cups my cheek in his palm I can’t help but turn my head to kiss his hand. Rob’s fingers find mine, squeezing gently and I sigh, feeling tears well again. I don’t want this to end. I don’t want my existence to cease when I’ve finally found a level of contentment.

Tul presses his lips to mine in an achingly tender kiss. “I swear I will do everything in my power to make sure we don’t lose you,” he pledges.

Reaching up I hold him close; not wanting to break contact. “We all know it’s not that simple. Being willing to fight isn’t the same as having a hope of winning.” With a sigh I add, “But I concede defeat this time, let me have a shower and we can go to the dojo.”

At least training releases a little of the nervous tension I’ve been hoarding since first acknowledging my imminent demise. It doesn’t relieve a great deal of my fearful anxiety but anything is better than nothing and I try to be grateful for what is achieved.

Tul has improved drastically since I last saw him fight, Confident now, despite his injury. It’s with no small amount of pride I watch him take down Rob for the umpteenth time. Rob pretends to be frustrated as he yields again, but his own pride is as powerful as mine. Tul laughs, sure of himself in a way I had thought he may never regain. I hope he can cling to that, I hope they both can, even when they fail to save me.

Tul is still grinning as he sheathes his weapon and holds his hand out to Rob, pulling him to his feet. Rob smiles too as he grips Tul’s hand, squeezing slightly in a way that says as much about their changing relationship as any other action could have. “Right then,” Tul laughs, “who’s hungry?”

Perhaps it is the sheer force of his enthusiasm that has me chuckling as I shake my head and concede to leaving the headquarters. Seeing him so jovial, so confident, so capable has a profound effect on me though and truthfully I don’t want to take that from him. He deserves some fun after what he’s been through. Rob too.

Plus I am truly hungry. I’ve barely eaten in days despite having humans on the premises; I could do with going hunting. Perhaps revelling in what I am will be good for me. I am a strong, night-time predator and it’s been too long since I’ve truly appreciated that. I haven’t really appreciated it since my own birthday hunt and that was months ago. “Alright, birthday boy, let’s get this madness over with.”

“Love you, Eve,” he chuckles as he takes my hand. I roll my eyes, but lean up to kiss him all the same. Rob comes up on my other side and I kiss him too, before we make our way to get changed and then to the garage. We could run of course, but for some reason when we’re going a distance out of town it is still an automatic action to take a car. Old habits die hard I guess.

Morpeth is a market town half an hour’s drive from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. It isn’t exactly a bustling metropolis, but it has a few bars and we should be able to find prey. While mortals are inclined to stay off the streets at night now, small towns are slightly safer for humans as the Senate and Redeemers have thus far focussed on cities and larger towns. The facade of safety provided by small town status won’t last, not once the Senate have bled the larger settlements dry, but for now it gives us the opportunity to search out blood ourselves in a far less brutal manner than the Redeemers would.

As we slip past a suit clad bouncer and into a generic small town bar I pray that my wanted posters have escaped the awareness of these people. It wouldn’t end well if these humans were to turn on us, or if they were to report our presence to our unsavoury enemies. Perhaps I need to start wearing contact lenses and a wig so people can’t recognise me. At least my hair is still short and most of my wanted posters depict a longer haired, younger, less world-weary me. I snort a laugh at that thought. I thought my life had been grim as the widowed whore, yet somehow things have managed to slide further even though I have Rob and Tul.

“Are you alright?” Rob whispers as he pulls me further into the club.

“Yeah,” I murmur back with a shrug, “just an errant thought on the downward spiral of my existence.”

Stroking his thumb over my cheek his expression softens, the now familiar flicker of his guilt echoing in my chest. “Dance with me,” he breathes softly, “we haven’t danced in... God, years.”

“Not since our wedding,” I tell him softly, feeling the lump building in my throat. It’s still hard to believe that we had danced our way into a new day as man and wife and within a week my world had shattered. That had been the start, the start of everything that has come since. One of us was dead within months following our last dance. It may not be a prophecy but I can’t help my sense of foreboding.

“I think we should make up for lost time,” Rob encourages as he tugs me onto the dance floor. Although he’s getting more apt at hiding it I wonder if he worries too. I wonder if he wants to make up for lost time because he fears running out of time to do so. Maybe that’s all we can do.

I don’t know the song that’s playing; keeping up to date with the charts hadn’t been a priority of mine even before the world tilted on its head. That isn’t important though; all that matters is the slow beat that guides us as Rob pulls my body against his and begins to move. His hands slide over my sides to rest lightly on my hips, holding me in place against the toned length of his body as he guides my movements. The slow twist of his hips against me is a sensual move that heats my blood even as the familiar scent of him causes my heart to ache with love and grief at the knowledge that I can’t keep this, that he can’t keep me.

“I love you, Evie.” Rob’s breath is a gentle warmth on my neck as he whispers in my ear, causing a shiver to run the length of my spine. “I will always love you. I’m not going to give you up.”

“Me neither,” Tul pledges as he presses his body to my back, joining us.

Together we dance, Rob’s hands on my hips, Tul’s hand on top of his. A gentle current thrums through our veins, a mild electricity that binds us, arouses us, confirms our need for each other and somehow manages to brush aside fears, hurts, anxieties. My body relaxes, curling against Rob’s front as Tul’s body curves against my bank. I wish I could make this moment last forever, I wish I could stay right here caught with the vibrating tone of the bass line resonating through my being as the men I love hold me up, keep me safe, try to make me believe that they can protect me.

As Tul’s lips brush my neck my pulse speeds, racing as I lean back against him. Rob’s lips go to mine, he nips my lower lip and I growl in response. He chuckles as he asks, “Feeling feisty?”

Grinning I nip him back. “With you two? Always.” Kissing him and taking Tul’s hand in mine I wonder out loud, “How do you do it, the pair of you? How do you make me feel this?” How can they make me feel warm, needed, desperate and exultant all at once and in spite of the circling vultures. I’m electrified and I hunger for them while also wanting, needing, to submit to the matching desires that flow from them.
“How do you make us feel like this?” Tul prompts in return, still moving to the music although I can feel his craving to whisk me away. Part of me wishes he would, part of me is content to stay here, feel this, feel them. I want to cling to this.

Nothing lasts forever though and as the song ends I glance around the club, stilling as I note the change in the club’s occupants. The circle of dance floor around us is completely clear and a ring of mortals stare at us with expressions glazed by desire, resignation or blank submission as they watch us, wait for us.

“Bloody hell,” Tul murmurs, stunned. We recognise the look of them, men and women entranced by vampire allure.

Good god, had we caused this? Were our heightened emotions responsible for this? Perhaps we don’t know the extent of our powers. As the first Strix in almost two millennia there isn’t exactly anyone to learn from. We’re stronger, faster; maybe our ability for the emotional control of mortals is stronger too, especially with the three of us together.

“This is dangerous, if anyone realises this was us there’ll be panic,” I murmur. Our ability to seduce mortals into feeding us is one of the few thing the Senate have not made public knowledge. I don’t want these people to know we can influence them without so much as touching them, without so much as meaning to do so.

“I think we should go,” Rob acknowledges, agreeing with me.

We slip through the crowd, trying to distance ourselves from the unnatural scene we’ve unintentionally created. Still, despite our accidental recklessness I laugh as we exit the club again. “Heaven help us if anyone ever realises just how strong we are together. Though this does cause us a problem, now we’ve created a spectacle,” we slip into a side street as I add, “which really puts an end to any thoughts of hunting. This will get round and when it does then Senate will come.”

We’re almost back at the car when the sound of running footsteps catches out attention, initially causing alarm until I scent the unmistakable fragrance of humanity.

“Wait!” A male voice calls out behind us, “I know what you are!” Quirking a brow at the mortal chasing after us I note with some confusion that he seems familiar although I can’t place him. “I used to work as a donor at Dominion,” he adds. “I know who you are, Eve Brooks, ex-Chief Robert Blakethorn, Tulloch Sullivan.”

My pseudonym is unfamiliar now; it’s a long time since anyone’s called me by the name I’d used to distance myself from my dead husband and my dead family. “I don’t go by that anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” the man admits, “I’ve been a little out of the loop since the world went to hell. With the Senate bringing chaos down on our heads I thought it best to return to the mortal world. Now there’s little distinction between the human and vampire worlds and I wonder if it wouldn’t have been safer staying with the vampires I’d become friends with. Caroline offered to help me; I probably should have taken her offer.”

Caroline, the same Caroline who had worked for Van? I remember the human now. He’d been the donor the vampire ‘courtesan’ had fed from that night in Dominion, the night I’d revealed my partial turned status to Beth and Tul had realised my need for blood. How long ago that seems now.

“So what do you want from us?” I wonder. We’d obviously caught his attention in the club, but what could he want? Protection?

“There’s a rumour spreading that the Alliance are taking in mortals, I want to know if it’s true. I want in. They say that humans who join have to pay in blood, that’s off-putting to some, but I was donor for years and I already know the role. I accept that role.” When we don’t answer immediately he adds, “There’s a lot of us you know, ex-donors, Harkers, even a few Westies and Renfields. We still talk and we want our world back, just like you want yours back. We’re all willing to fight for it, if you let us in. We’re willing to feed you too, and you look hungry.” He adds looking pointedly at me.

Even I had noted the dark shadows under my eyes when I’d looked in the mirror earlier. It shouldn’t surprise me that a mortal familiar with vampires would pick up on the signs and yet it does.

The would-be recruit shrugs, “My mother and father were both donors too, before they died, I’ve been around your kind all my life, long enough to know when you’re in need of feeding.” He reaches up, tugging aside his collar to reveal the smooth skin of his throat, skin which had been broken and healed innumerable times over the course of his life. “I’d like to make a deal. You ask Johan to give us a chance and I’ll compensate you in blood.”

“Done,” Tul answers, before glancing down at me. “You need to feed and all we need to do in return is ask Johan. Isn’t it you who said we needed a vampire-human Alliance? The more the merrier.”

He has a point, I suppose. As I slowly nod my agreement the mortal steps closer, “My name’s Peter,” he adds as he presses a scrap of paper into my hand. On it is scrawled an untidily written phone number. “That’s for Lily, my girlfriend, she’s the one with all the contacts you need to get in touch with ex-donors and the likes.” Then he tips his head for me, waiting with expectant calm. “I’d prefer it if you dosed me with a drop of blood,” he adds, “so I don’t forget this conversation. What I used to take will have worn off by now.”

What the hell. With a shrug I pass the telephone number to Rob then press my thumb to my sharpened canine and let the human lick the crimson drop which wells there from my digit. Then I sink my fangs into his throat, moaning softly as fresh blood pours over my tongue. At least the trip hadn’t been a completely wasted venture.

Topped up with blood and still running off the emotions I felt in the club I can’t wait to get home. “Put your foot down.” I tell Rob as I slip into the back of the car.

“In a rush?” he teases.

Tugging Tul into the back seat with me I smile a slow, seductive smile. “No, but you should be. You’re the driver after all, so you’ll be the one missing out on all the fun Tul and I are going to have back here. Wouldn’t you like to be in a position to join us as quickly as possible?”

In the rear view mirror I see his eyes silver. “Wait till we get home, love, or you’ll cause a car accident.”