Blood & Winter

Chapter 14: What the f**k August??

        Sunlight streamed through the window, falling across my face. I turned my head towards the light, slowly opening my eyes. My throat was dry, to the point where it hurt to swallow. I tried to speak, but no voice would come to my lips.
       I let my eyes focus on the room. I had to blink a few times, to adjust to the brightness. Everything seemed so bright, so sharp, so in detail. I must have hit my head pretty hard I thought to myself. I feel like I don't need my glasses.
       I tried to push myself up on the bed into a sitting position but my head swam and I fell back against the pillow. Within seconds August was by my side.
      "Oh god, finally! Cassandra my love, how do you feel?" Augusts' face was twisted in concern, and something else. I thought I could feel the guilt burning into me.
       "Well, actually, I don't even know what happened. I remember driving, and that's it." Where were we?
     August explained to me that we had been in a car accident, and that I had been asleep for almost a week. I bent my neck from side to side. It felt stiffer than any other part of my body. I reached up to rub it, and winced as my hand came across an extremely tender point. I saw a look of shame flash in August green eyes, and I rose to look at myself in the mirror.
       I gasped. There was not on mark on my face. In fact, I looked better than I ever had. Something was different. I gasped as I saw what the biggest difference was. Two black orbs stared back at me from my reflection. I jumped back from the mirror shocked at what I was seeing.
     "Jesus.... Fuck...August what the hell?" suddenly I was aware of everything in the room. The ticking of the clock sounded the like a drum in my ears. The birds and insects outside seemed almost as loud as a room full of people. I could smell the water from the water fall and hear its crash as though I was standing next to it. The smell of the plants outside intoxicated me in a way I never felt before. I felt my knees grow weak beneath me, and in a blur August was beside me. Supporting me, and helping back over to the bed.
         Something about his touch on my skin was different. He felt ... warm. I looked at him trying to figure out what was different.
      "Cassandra, what else do you remember? Try to think." He grasped my hands in his own large ones and looked into my eyes. I searched his, looking for answers. Suddenly a flash ripped through my mind.
        I suddenly remembered August asking me if I trusted him. Then I remembered the two fangs shooting out from his gums. And the excruciating pain of him sinking them into my neck.
Then had come the burning. The god awful burning. I had felt it for days. Unable to move. To scream. I had felt...I had felt my heart stop. I had been lost in a blackness that I couldn't pull myself back from. I remembered August whispering in my ear that he was there, besides me. I remember his soft hand brushing my cheek. I remembered being lifted and placed into a tub of cool water when the burning had been at its worst. And most of all, I remembered the silence that had come for the day or so before I woke up. After my heart had stopped.
       It was the silence of death.
      "August...what..." I couldn't find the words. I was too scared to find the words. I remembered lying on the street not being able to feel my body. To move my body. I should be dead. Or paralyzed. But here I was looking as though I had walked out of a photoshopped picture. I looked amazing.
     "Cassandra, look at me. I had no choice. You were dying. The car was destroyed. I never would have gotten you to a hospital in time. I had no choice. I couldn't let you die. I can't live without you. I'm sorry. I had no choice." He laid his head in his hand and began to sob.
    I shook my head at him. "August what are you talking about? You saved my life."
       "No Cassandra, I destroyed it." He got up from the bed and went to pour me some coffee. I saw that it was his coffee. Only this time my mouth watered at the smell of it. It may still look repulsive to me, but holy hell....it smelled divine. I grabbed it from his hand and gulped it down. August stood there staring at me. As the liquid slid down my throat I noticed that it was not coffee. There was something else in it. Something metallic, yet sweet.
I slowly drew the cup away from my mouth, and wiped my lips with the back of my hand. As I looked down at my hand I saw it was smeared with something dark, and red. I gasped and the cup slipped from my hand and crashed onto the floor.
        "What the fuck? What is that?" As the liquid spread out on the floor, I felt August take my hand and lead me down the stairs. On the kitchen table I saw the clothes I had been wearing when the accident had happened. They were burned straight though in many places and completely covered in blood. I could smell the blood in the air.
      August led me outside and walked me across a field to a waterfall that poured down a cliff side behind the house. He stood only the water with his head down. A look of shame on his face.
       "Cassandra, in order to save your life, I had to take your life." I stared at him in confusion. What the hell was he talking about?
     "August, I don't understand,." He walked up to me and tilted my head up towards his face. With a blur he retracted his upper lip as two snow white teeth slipped out form his gums. I tried to pull away but he held me close to him forcefully. His eyes swirled between green and black. It was terrifying.
       "Cassandra, listen to me. The only way I could save you, was to give you my blood. I bit you and drank from you, as you drank from me. I drained you as you filled your body with my blood. It now flows through your veins. There is not one trace of your own blood left. It has been completely replaced by my own. You would have died. I couldn't let you die. Oh God Cassandra, please forgive me. What have I done?" August fell to his knees and his body shook with sobs. He gasped for air as I just stared down at him.
      "What are you?" Suddenly the green eyes, the cold skin, the speed, and strength he had, all came into focus. I knew something had been different about him. I knelt down in front of him and lifted his face to my own so our eyes met. His eyes were filled with such pain and regret that I couldn't bare it. I sat down hard on the soft earth and looked into the waterfall.
        My mother had been right. All those years I had laughed at her for her silly legends and stories. Bits and pieces of her stories ran around in my head. I knew what he was. But I needed to hear him say it.
      "August, if you don't tell me now, I am going to walk away, and I will forbid you to ever come near me again. What have you done?"
       August looked at me and bit down into his wrist. He pulled his mouth away and the blood began to drip down his arm and onto my lap. "Drink Cassandra."
     "What? No! Are you insane?" I backed away from him towards the water's edge. I couldn't bring myself to fully believing it. But I couldn't tear my eyes away from the blood dripping onto the ground. August just stood there. His arm held out towards me.
      Suddenly I felt my mouth begin to water as the smell of his blood filled my nose. It smelled like he did. Only now the smell was much stronger. Before I knew what I was doing, I was crawling towards him quickly, and grabbing his arm.
     As I began to drink from the open vein in his arm, a pain exploded in my gums as two fangs ripped through them for the first time. But my craving for his blood over came the pain and I sunk them into his arm gulping down the sweet warm liquid.
       For a moment I lost myself in the pure ecstasy I felt from drinking his blood. Then suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, I was struck with fear and disgust at what I was doing. I threw myself back from him and felt myself go plunging into the water.
       I let myself sink down beneath the cool surface. The water from the waterfall thundered in my ears beneath the surface. Vibrating through my head and throughout my entire body. A scream ripped from my throat as I exploded through the surface. My breath came in quick, heavy gulps. August flew to his feet and braced himself as I flew through the water towards him.
         Within seconds I was upon him. I had never moved so quickly in my entire life. My skin tingled, but the anger that flowed through me took hold of my body. I found myself throwing punches at him.
       August wrapped his arms around me with a strength I knew would have crushed me a few days ago. I thrashed against him for I don't know how long, trying to escape his hold. But he never let go. He kneeled on the ground, wrestling with me till the thudding in my ears began to subside, and the incredible anger I felt, was slowly replaced by a grief greater than I had ever known.
          It paralyzed me, I let myself be rocked like a baby, as tears splashed onto August ripped shirt. I saw scratches from beneath the torn cloth that I have given him during the struggle.
        I opened the few remaining buttons and ran my fingers over the marks. They were deep, and raw. I leaned down and kissed his otherwise flawless skin. My lips brushing lightly over the tears in his skin. As I looked down on them, I saw the scratches begin to heal quickly in the places that traces of my salvia had been left on them. I looked up at him, blinking in confusion.
        "Ah, yes, one of the better sides of being what we are..." He ran his finger over my wet lips and ran them over one of the scratches. I watched in amazement as it healed and the completely vanished from his skin, leaving no trace what so ever that it had been there. I sat back and stared at him.
       I had no idea how to handle what I was slowly understanding. I rose to my feet and walked back towards the house, August trailing silently behind me. My mind was racing with so many thoughts I thought I was going to go crazy.
       I walked into the house and straight into the bathroom. I stripped the wet clothes off of my body and stood before the mirror. I stepped closer to get a better look at my face.
        The scar I had had in the middle of my forehead, practically my whole life was gone. All the blemishes I had collected over the years were gone. My skin seemed creamier, lighter than I remembered, but the thing that made me draw my breath, was my eyes.
The color frightened me. They were so black it looked as though my pupils had exploded. I was entranced in them, and had not heard August come in behind me. He stood behind me, and wrapped his arms around my shoulder.
       "That will change in time. Within a month or so they will be back to your normal blue. Well they will always be a bit brighter, and when your must feed, they will become darker, like this." He brushed my cheek with his hand, our eyes meeting in the reflection.
     "Feed?" the word tumbled around in my head. "You mean on people?" The thought frightened me.
       "No, Cassandra. My kind does not feed on people. There are some that still do so, but it has become forbidden over the years. We have...blood banks... where we take the blood we need to drink from. You saw how your salvia healed my wounds? Can you imagine what our blood would do for a human? We cannot of course cure cancer, or heal the dying completely. But our blood can heal bones quicker, burns, and cuts, healed in mere seconds. People give us their blood in exchange for ours. Though the amount we exchange is far different, it works."
I gaped at him in shock.
      "But you healed me right? I mean, I should be dead... I remember dying August. I couldn't feel my legs, my entire body in fact. I felt my heart stop. I should be dead. But you gave me your blood, and it healed me."
     "No Cassandra, my love. What I did to you, in all the years I have been a, vampire, it was the first time I have ever done so. I have never changed a human in my whole long life." His voice was heavy with pain and regret. He suddenly sounded old, and tired.
     "August, how old are you?" I leaned back against the sink and looked at him. He looked down at the floor, not meeting my eyes.
     "I will be three hundred and eighty four this year." He looked at me, waiting for my reaction.
       All I could do was shake my head. I turned on the shower, and stepped in. The warm water seemed oddly cool on my skin. I reached over turning up the heat. But as much as I turned it up, I couldn't seem to feel the warmth of the water. I heard August chuckle from behind the shower curtain.
      "What?" I grumbled.
        "If you're not careful you will come out with third degree burns and never realize it. It's not a pretty site." He was trying to control his laughter. I looked down at my skin, and saw that it was bright red. I turned the knob for the heat letting the water run cool. It honestly felt better then the warm. I let the water slowly change my skin back to it's now creamy color, and I washed and stepped out of the shower. August waited for me with a large soft towel. He wrapped it around me, and pushed the wet tangle of my hair from my face.
    "What I did to you Cassandra, is horrible. I'm so sorry. I was selfish. In the time I have lived, I have loved very few women. But never in my life have I loved one enough to do this to her." He looked deep into my eyes. He was tormented by the decision he had made, and at the moment all the anger I felt disappeared from within me.
      "When we hit that car head on, I saw you thrown through the window like a ragdoll. I heard your body hit the ground, and that is a sound I will never forget. The driver in the other car was dead. But I could smell the reek of alcohol on his breath. No one was there. We were still almost an hour from the village. You were losing so much blood I knew I could never get you there in time. You were so broken." August sat heavily on the bed, and his body shook with emotion.
       I sat down beside him, putting together the pieces of what he said.
     "I told you I loved you. I told you many months ago, that I can't be away from you. That I was drawn to you. I thought I was going to lose you, and I couldn't bear the thought. So I did the only thing I knew how to do to save you. I'm so sorry."
       I took his hand in mine, and lay my head on his shoulder.
       "So what does this mean now?" I had no idea what to think. Obviously everything I had ever heard about vampires was bullshit. Even what my mother said. They had no problem with sunlight that was for sure. August said according to their law it is forbidden to drink from humans. Humans. I found myself already comparing myself differently to people.
      "It means that you have a lot to learn. Within the next day or two you will begin to thirst. My blood will no longer be enough to sustaine you. And I don't have enough here... for the both of us. I was planning on going tomorrow, but we may as well get some now, I don't want to get stuck with a hungry newborn on my hands." He said it lightly, but I heard a hint of seriousness in his voice as well.
    "What do you mean newborn? What exactly did you to me?"
     "Becoming a vampire is a difficult and painful process. I drank every drop of blood from your body, while you in place drank mine in. Your blood was replaced entirely with my own. Your body slowly shut down, your heart stopping last. The vampire blood burns the cells of your body, replacing it with its own. That's why you felt like you were burning. You had a fever of 135 degrees. Then you feel nothing. That is the final process. Your body heals, and every sense you have is trippled in the process. You are immune to all disease, but you can still die. Fire will kill you. It's the only thing that can. Nothing else. Not a steak to the heart. Not a silver bullet. Nothing , except for fire. You may never speak of the fact that you are a vampire. Controlling the lust for blood will take time to adjust to."
       "What about sunlight? Why doesn't it hurt us?" I had so many questions for him. The anger I had felt was gone. I was curious more than anything else.
"There are only two bloodlines left that can walk in the sun. I am one of them. Alex, and the twins as well. They were turned over the years by my family. We are only a few of what is left of my blood line."
     "And what of the other's?" I asked him.
     A brooding anger flashed through his eyes. "The other family has killed nearly my entire family over the years. They drink from humans and are a growing coven. They kept their family small, until recently. They are very rich, and very powerful. For many years they have tried to gain some sort of rule over our kind, but have not succeeded yet. Though the last few years they have gained many followers." I felt his anger as he spoke as though it were my own. It was as though I could feel his emotions.
      "There must be something we can do to stop them!" I roared. I was stunned by the fury I felt. August smiled up at me. He took my hand and pulled me down next to him, touching my face gently.
      "Cassandra, my sweet love, we will forever be linked. Where ever you are, I will be able to feel your every emotion. And you as well will feel mine. Fear, excitement, anger. If you're ever in danger I will know it and be able to follow the feeling. And find you."
       "So when exactly did you change? How old did you say you were again?"
     "My story is long. Come we will drive, and I will tell you whatever you want to know."
       While we were dressing I remembered that the car must have been totaled when we crashed. "August, how exactly are we going to drive there? Is there anything left of the car?"
     "Oh when you were...turning I had a new car delivered. Same model different color." He said it like it had been the obvious thing to do. After we were dressed and had gathered our things we left the house. I didn't pay any attention to the road, or where we were going. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. Every inch of his face was magnified. I could see every strand of hair; see the green of his eyes, so clearly. He was so beautiful. It hurt to look at him.
      I leaned back against the seat and listened as he told me his story.