Child of thorns

Fin- Chapter Seven

I just want to say thanks to everyone who had read this story this far. This chapter may be a bit long but it was definitely the most fun to write and the most fun to read. Any comments or opinions will be appreciated. Hope you enjoy it!!!! Thanks!

A trickle of blood crept down Anya’s cheek as she held the limp dog in her hands; its feet dangling like loose threads on a dress. The smell of iron engulfed the small room making it unbearable to breathe any more of the hot stale air. The dog’s sleek white fleece had become dyed by the think rich blood which had begun to coagulate into the fur.

A droplet of blood fell from Anya’s cheek into the awaiting pool below with a soft splash. Anya was facing away from me wiping the last of the blood from her lips. Looking at her eyes I saw how scared she was, not of me but of herself.

I took a step towards her as she took a step back raising her hands in defence.

“Do not come any closer,” yelled Anya.

I stopped dead not daring to take another step. Her voice sounded guttural, a sound so primal and animalistic it sent a shiver through my body and up my spine. Both her canine teeth had become elongated and glistened with blood in the light of the fire. 

“Who did this to you?” I asked.

“I do not know,” she said screaming.

She turned from me facing towards the fire. Her shadow spread out across the room in the eerie glow. She had begun to cry. Tears were running down her face only it was not water coming from her eyes but blood. I moved to take another step when she turned towards me with bloody tears running down her face.

“Please, no. Stay where you are,” she pleaded. “If I cannot stop myself from attacking a dog I do not want to trust myself around humans.”

“So you, are not human?”

Whispering she said, “Not anymore.”

“What are you?”

Anya let that hang in the air for what felt like an eternity. She was still crying slightly as she looked about the room.

“I am not sure what I am. Old stories I heard growing up talked of shadows which needed blood for nourishment. They called them vampires.”

Vampires, but they have been dead for years.

Aegon had told me stories about how the kings and queens joined together in a war against vampires hundreds of years ago. They wiped out all trace of them, hunting them down and burning them in fires. If Anya is a vampire then she is not safe and never will be.

“Vampires have been dead for years,” I said whispering being careful as to not wake up Rose.

“I thought so too until a few months ago.”

I grabbed a chair and sat down close to Anya.

“My father was still alive at the time. We always went hunting together in the woods catching deer, fish and other animals. Together we were unstoppable, we could feed our family for weeks on a single night of hunting.”

“We were unstoppable,” she said as a hushed whisper. Tears had begun to forms around her eyes as she stared intently at the fire. She pulled her gaze away from the fire forcing herself to continue.

“The night it happened seemed like a blur. Everything happened so fast, faster than you could think possible. We had been tracking a deer through the forest in the dead of night. I insisted that we catch the deer; Father suggested we go home but I insisted and my Father loved me. He always used to rub my head in the playful way of his. The man with the white hair stole him from me.”