Blood Bride

Chapter Five: Dreaming Through Her Eyes

THE whizzing of bullets passed his ear made him duck his head hurriedly, curling beneath a small crate of wood. Loud screaming and cries of death could be heard ripping through the air over the foreign languages that were spewed. He clenched his eyes shut, covering his ears.

There was a thundering voice and somehow the voice soothed his shaking being, bringing him to open his glistening orbs. He tried to stifle sniffles so the men just a few feet away wouldn't hear him.

Jon has dreamt of war many times. Never once could he recall sniveling in the corner like an infant. When his gaze trailed over to a muddy puddle nearby, he noticed that the eyes he was staring through, were not his own.

He examined her puffy eyes and messy waves of honey brown, knotted and askew; her fair skin and her little pink ruffled dress smeared with smudges of mud. This was her dream. He was looking at this scene through her eyes and perspective.

He clutched his small, pale legs closer to him, his trembling refusing to cease.

"Hold your fire!" A man barked. "We had an agreement! I gave you what you wanted, and you would leave my family and the innocents alone! I'm fighting this battle as you asked! Isn't my blood enough for you?! Why must you spill more?!" The murmurs of a language he didn't understand made him stiffen from behind the small crate.

"Foolish question." The voice that responded to him was distorted, too deep for any vampire or human. Too slow to be normal. But he couldn't see who was speaking. Fear numbed his legs and kept him hidden. "We are vampires. That is what we do. We spill blood and we consume it. If you cannot understand that by now, Lance, it is pointless to have you around any longer. You are almost completely drained of what I need from you."

Vampires.

He hugged himself tighter, clutching his four-year-old hand tightly.

The ones that drink blood.

"And you have the nerve to speak to your master that way." The unknown voice sneered. He could hear Lance gulp. There were a few steps taken, growing closer to where Lance stood near the crate. "Do you want to know why I don't need you any longer?" Lance didn't dare move. He didn't hear a scuffle, or a breath taken. "Because you're no longer afraid. I enjoy feeding off fear, and if you have none, how could I possibly enjoy consuming your blood?"

As he listened in pure terror, his arm was gripped forcefully, and metal was pressed to his head. Jon let out a high-pitched cry, struggling to get away from his captor that held a gun to his head.

"So, let's strike some fear back into your heart. I'm going to murder your precious little girl." His hair was ripped back by a man with caramel toned skin and slanted eyes. His expression bore no emotion. He didn't care if the young girl lived or died. It wouldn't trouble him if she laid dead beside the two soldiers lying motionless near the feet of Lance.

They were at war and all that mattered was conquest.

"Don't touch her!" Before Lance could move, he was held in place by two other soldiers, his feet scraping the dirt as he fought against them to get to the girl that was clutched in the grasp of another.

His heart was racing. That's what the man with the disoriented voice wanted.

He couldn't move his head, for his hair was yanked back so tightly it kept his stare with the calm, blue sky above. He couldn't get a look at the man. Just a side stare of blurry, blond hair.

The cold weapon shifted and pressed harder into his temple, forcing more panicked tears to leave his eyes. His breathing hastened as he kept his stare locked with the passing white clouds.