The Bloody Birds of Britain

Chapter 9

The sun is yellow. That magnificent golden yellow that illuminates the world with hope, filling dark crevices with a warm glow and erases all bad thoughts. It's a beautiful day.

Where am I? Hortense wonders, she looks around. The place is uninhabited apart from a few loud birds and the sea that laps around her body like an excited puppy. A beach, that narrows it down, but where? She had seen so many beaches and how? How did she get here?

"We're on Rious Island," says a voice behind her. She turns and finds Valentin, a very naked Valentin. She gushes at his nakedness, it's been so long.

His beautiful slightly hairy but toned body is shriveled from the sea. The dark grey tightly curled hair is wet with sea water, but it's curls do not falter, they are stubborn like their owner. Lines, life lines she calls them cover his high forehead like faint pencil markings as though someone had forgotten to rub them out. Side burns shape his triangular face, with a small amount of stubble running along his chiseled jaw. His cheeks are horned, with small dimples visible only when he smiled and that was a rare occasion. The most perfect feature were his sharp, heavy lidded clear blue eyes; they shone like diamonds in the sun and saucers in the moon. They were simply beautiful.

"Why are we here?" She asked him, standing up and brushing sand off. She too was naked.

"This is your dream," he smiled with his arms open. "You tell me."

"I'm dreaming?" She gasped, it scared her, something was happening or had happened but she couldn't remember what.

"Calm down," he said, grabbing a handful of her hair and thrusting her head into the sea. She choked... Wait! She choked? How,... How can this be! She screamed in her head, desperately reaching for Valentin's powerful hand.

Her lungs were filling with water, but she was vampire! How! How can this be! She screamed again whilst splashing around frantically in the water.

She could feel it, the water level in her lungs rising and rising. Valentin did not remove her, despite her struggle. Slowly the human body began shutting down, it's organs were missing air, she needed to breathe. Her body was dying, the darkness had found her again. It was coming with it's arms open wide for her. It waited like a silent specter, watching until her body stopped thrashing about. With such delicacy it closed her eyes and the all-encompassing darkness returned.

Hortense opened her eyes. The sky was still a perfect blue and the sun a distant yellow. She feels wet sludgy sand between her toes and dry sand in her hands. Her body is lapping the sand in the hands of the sea.

She crawls from the sea and laid on the rocky sands of the uninhabited island, spitting out salty sea water. Her hair is a mess, entangled with seaweed and small fishes but she doesn't care. Her heart is full of happiness caused by the proximity of her maker.

A loud splash in the shallows behind says Valentin has fallen over.

She turns and sees a large fish escaping into deeper waters. Standing up and re-entering the shallows, she finds him with a layer of sand already covering his dark curly head.

Without much concern for his well-being she grabs a fist full of his curl hair and pulls him out.

"You fool," she chuckles as he rolls over, his face covered with sand

Valentin lays on the rocky sand and pats the space next to him.

"Come my child lay with me," he says in his rich voice. Hortense lays on her back next to him.