The Boring and Uneventful Life of Valentina Ayers

Chapter 5 - Magic

Something had awoken inside me. 

No.

That wasn't right. Something snapped.

Warmth spread through me like blood, but this time it wasn't someone else's. It shook me to my very core. My hands trembled and I stumbled backward. 

He watched, interested.

I couldn't look at him. A foreign feeling that destroyed everything that I believed in and stood for. Like nothing I had ever felt nor expected to feel.

After all I had done.

I shut my eyes as tight as I could and stumbled out of the cellar. Tripping over my own skirts I fell face first into the tiles. But it didn't bother me. All because of that warmth. it seemed to concentrate in my fingertips. I couldn't grip anything or even pull the hairs from my face.

A servant across the room rushed over to me. I hissed at her. She froze in her rightful place "Are you hurt?"

"Just leave me!" I growled at her and she scuttled off.

I clutched my heart wanting to rip it from my chest. Life spread through my body. Weren't vampires meant to be born dead I wondered. I looked around, the darkness of my manor seemed to mock me. It said how dare you be warm when I was designed to be so draughty. I could hardly even feel the cool draught on my ankles. 

I couldn't feel anything but it.

I rushed up to my room thinking possibly it could be something I could sleep off. Very few diseases affected vampires that weren't specifically designed for them. And those were all fatal and gruesome right from the start. But I had hope. Maybe this warmth would turn to heat that would melt my organs like a hot summer's day.

A girl could dream.

Or maybe she couldn't. 

I was restless in bed, tossing and turning like I was sleeping upon a rock. it even robbed me of my sleep. After hours my hands had stopped trembling but the warmth was still there. Why did it have to persist!

I sat up abruptly, was it possible that he was a wizard. Could this be a spell?

I pondered, I had never had a spell cast on me and I knew little of magic. It was possible that it could have happened without my knowledge since I had spent so much time around him. However there was only one way to truly know.

Though I feared it I crept down the staircase again. Blocking out all thoughts of his innocent eyes. I tried to make rage my thought. How dare he cast such a spell on me, I had shown him such kindness. Feeding him, watering him, and keeping him warm despite my hatred of heat. All this to no cost of him. I did not ask anything of him but merely to not escape. Why would he even want to escape such luxuries? The world was harsh out there. He would likely die before four decades pass.

I came to the door of the basement.

The trembling started again. But I forced myself. I must know. And punish if needed or if I felt like it. 

I gripped the door knob, it feeling cool in my heated flesh. A sensation I had never felt before. What was with all these new experiences. I just wanted them to stop and the familiar cold anger to return. 

I threw open the door and there he was sleeping peacefully next to the glowing coals of the fireplace.

I had to close my eyes and turn away, my stomach and my heart had betrayed me. I re-confirmed in my mind what it was that I needed to do. Bite him, find out what he was. He had to have done something surely... surely this wasn't just me?

I put every thought out of my mind and opened my eyes with new focus. My heart melted looking upon him, but my mind, oh my mind was sharp and ready. I took another step toward him wondering what his blood would taste like. After all I had never tasted the fresh warm blood of a magic user before. Perhaps it would make me stronger, the life of his soul n his blood in order to cast this awful curse on me. I laughed at that thought. How his own magic would be turned against him.

I was upon him and he merely stirred, a wrinkle of discomfort flickered across his face. I held my iron defences around my heart tight as to not flinch or stray from my goal. His innocence made me weak, I convinced myself, it was just the spell over and over again.

I closed my eyes and let my mouth and my nose to the work. Convincing myself it was just another victim. Just some random life form I would steal the blood from in order to make myself strong.

My teeth met his flesh and his blood filled my mouth. 

I could feel his hands upon me and he shrieked so loudly into my ear. Usually I would reveal and rejoice in the ringing it would bring me and bite down harder. But his voice made me back off. I opened my eyes as I crept into the shadows.

He had tears in his eyes and clutched at the wound. He cried out in the deep pain I had brought him as his blood tumbled down his body. The vulnerability of his form and the weakness he showed brought another disgusting new emotion into my system.

Guilt.

It was intensified by the fact the taste of the blood on my lips was to my horror mortal. 

First published - 9/10/2018