Blood Blossoms

8

Iris remained silent. She was speechless. She swallowed all questions she wanted to ask with a grain of salt. It was like a vampire whore house basically. She blinked as her eyes became dryer than her throat, she reached over and grabbed one of the bottles of champagne. Bewildered he was even going to let her drink.

Popping the cork, she took a swig from the bottle uncaring of seeming unladylike, or the fact that she was drinking underage. She sat the bottle down for a moment, staring off into the distance.

"Who did you murder?" He asked boldly.

She knew he was going to get his hands on her record, and it was going to have everything in it. All the evidence from the crime scene, her horrendous mug-shot, the address of the dump she grew up in without her parents, her life before her parents. He was going to have her whole life in his hands, just as he did then. He had her right in the palm of his hand, and if he so chose to he could squeeze and end her without blinking.

She took another swig.

"I-I murdered my foster brother Bruce." She confessed placing  the bottle back down and her hands in her lap.

Johnathan looked unfazed, as she glanced up at him with her head down. "Why? Did he do anything to harm you?" He pried.

"No." She said. "But he was molesting the younger girls and boys and bullying everyone else in the house I was living in at the time. There was seven of us. He and I were the same age, and the kids were all younger than twelve. He—he would put his hands in the pants of the younger kids, practically babies; ones who weren't even advanced enough to form complete English sentences yet. Five, four, and a two year old."

Johnathan watched her, his body calm, and Iris didn't know if he believed her or not with the poker face he sported. So she continued.

"I caught him, on top of Ethan. The four year old. So I snapped." She said shrugging not wanting to go into detail.

Johnathan caught on to her silence and reached a hand across the table. Iris stared at it, her light brown eyes focused on his blue ones. She hesitated before she placed her own into his warm palm. He rubbed the back of her hand in small comforting circles. It was a sign of consolidation, action in place of spoken words.

"Come, let us finish so we can go back to the house, yes?" He smiled.

Iris watched the lake the small ripples from the breeze entrancing her. You would've never thought there was a snow storm the previous night.

She smiled sadly taking in the view once more before turning back to him. She nodded.

After approximately an hour of conversation, Iris began to relax more, she went from feeling as anxious as an interviewee for a job interview, to feeling more apart of the house. He placed his napkin on the table and held out his hand for her. She held the throw around her tightly as  he led her back to the palace, in silence.

~*~

One touch. That's all it took for her to comply and sit comfortably on the couch in his study. She smiled as he laughed telling a story about Jareth and Emilio when they went out for football many years ago.

She didn't know how old Emilio was, but she intended to feed into her curiosity and find out. She didn't ask any more questions about the vampire life but she was numbering them by what she'd wanted to know more.

"Do you only drink the girls' blood?" She asked after his fits of laughter.

"Ah question number four," He mused with a opened mouth smile as he sat next to her with his arm draped behind her head. "We mainly feed on our girls, yes. From the vein and from stored blood we get once a month during our in-house blood drive day. Which is always on the fifteenth. The girls enjoy it, you get a full pampering treatment, and we don't drink from any of you for a week after. It is the seventh now, so you will have the opportunity to join this month. And we eat human food, it does not taste of sandpaper like all fiction nonsense portrays."

Iris blinked rapidly. "Um...How long do you keep your girls? I only ask because all of them are really young, and since you're a hundred and twenty year old vampire...I thought you'd have more that looked like Bernard walking around." She chuckled uncomfortably, not knowing if that was crossing the line of his question restrictions.

"Until they are ready to leave. If not they are welcome to stay for the remainder of their lifespan. Petunia was the first of my girls. Of course there were women who knew of secret and happily supplied me with what I needed to survive, but once they reach a certain age, they are not able to provide those things anymore, or they go and live full happy lives married with children, or thriving careers. It was always a human necessity, that I, myself, could not provide." He said swirling the cup of brown whiskey in the small glass, staring at it, then back up at her.

Iris thought momentarily. "Have you ever been married?"

Johnathan's eyebrows rose in surprise. She seemed to do that a lot. Surprise him. The only one who ever surprised him that much was Rose, but even she was no comparison. Then he thought about Iris, there was once someone who she reminded him of. Someone back in a past life of his. "No," He answered.

Iris didn't miss a beat. "You're lying." She accused.

Johnathan's mouth twisted a bit. His long pause extended purposely, it was as if he was warring with himself whether to challenge her accusation. "You have caught me." He said giving in.

Iris was surprised he didn't argue back or get angry and slam her up against another wall. She wondered what she was like. She had to be beautiful, someone who had more grace with a feisty fire that rivaled his own.

Iris knowing he didn't really want to talk about it decided to move on. She glanced at the old grandfather clock, it was nearly one in the morning. She didn't realize they would've had that long of a tour of the house. Each room with a hilarious memorable memory. 

She'd learned a lot though. Dahlia was allergic to shrimp and they had found out when Jareth had made her some of his Brazilian shrimp soup. Rose was deathly afraid of spiders, and had fallen off of a ladder in one of the spare bedrooms cleaning it once last year, Magnolia was a comic book collector and often fought with Emilio when he creased some of her pages when he snuck some to read. Petunia was a barbie doll to Johnathan, he loved to dress her up, and Lily was good in every sport, which made her somewhat of the prodigal son of the house. And so much more.

"Can you turn into bats?" She questioned.

"Heavens, no!" He laughed. "Fiction at its finest."

"Does garlic hurt you?"

"Why do you ask these god awful questions?" He asked back. "No, that much should be evident with the meal served with garlic bread we had earlier this evening."

Iris felt foolish, so she decided to ask more questions pertaining to Johnathan himself. "How come you have to sleep during the day and your sons are day walkers?"

Johnathan, sat his cup down on the coffee table in front of them, a smile faint on his face, he took Iris' cup of lemonade and sat it down next to his. He turned his body at an angle to face her. He tucked a side of hair behind her ear. Before she could process it, he bit into her neck again. This time he suckled her blood like it was the last supper. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as he brought her against him, squeezing onto her as if for dear life holding her neck in place. His fangs pulsed with glee as he made sure not to waste a drop, sucking her skin with his lips.

Iris was numb. She didn't feel a thing. She could only feel the tingling of his fingers trailed from her throat down her collarbone, all the way over the fabric of her dress and to her exposed thigh, keeping his hand there, tightly squeezing.

Her eyes too rolled in the back of her head and before she knew it, she was out cold. Limp in his arms, Johnathan stopped before he drank too much. He pulled away and stared at her. He licked the wound once more before reaching around her and pulling out a first aid kit from the side stand drawer, and bandaging her up before he picked her up brida style and carried her to bed.

He dwelled on her question pondering on her inquisitiveness. Just as he laid her on her bed pulling back the blanket and tucking her in. He kissed her forehead. His mouth trailing down to hover above her lips.

"Because, my love...Original vampires are subjected to death at the exposure to sunlight. I have to live to produce an heir for the congregation. As for my sons...What is a vampire king without his loyal princes to do his bidding during daylight hours?"