Creatures of Hell Book 1: Whispers in the Dark

Chapter 40: New Era

"Do you want me to take Willow so that you and Sedrick can go and dance?" Mum asked me and held out her arms for Willow.

She smiled as I placed Willow in her arms and I picked up the ends of my dress so that I could find Sedrick on the other side of the room. He was stood beside David, congratulating him and Holly on getting married and I couldn't help but feel ashamed for the way that me and David had acted a month ago. 

But of course, it was all cleared up now. If mum and Holly could get to know and accept Willow and Sedrick even though they weren't human, David and me thought that we could cut our losses.

"Hey, you wanna dance?" I asked him, pulling him away from David.

"And there was me thinking that it was normally the gentlemans job to ask." Sedrick replied, waving goodbye to David and pulling a face that told him I was the boss.

"Okay fine don't dance with me." I joked and pretended to walk away.

"Madam." Sedrick said and bowed to me, holding out a hand for me to take.

"Sir." I replied and followed him out on to the dance floor.

He took my arms and placed them around his neck and then placed his own around my waist, "Have I told you how beautiful you look today?" he said.

"Nope." I replied, focussing on not tripping over the ball gown I was wearing.

It was a light purple dress that Holly had insisted her bridesmaids to wear. It was floor length, flattering around my waist and I'd liked it alot more when Holly pointed out it was going to hide the bite marks on my legs, not that I needed to as she said. My only problem with the dress was I kept on tripping on it, especially in heels!

"Good...Candice, you look really beautiful today." he joked, the light shinning in his dazzling dark eyes.

"Oh I wonder what reminded you to say that?" I muttered sarcastically, dancing in and out of the couples that were also dancing to the slow song the band were playing.

"It's just my chivalrousness." he smiled back, "Has your mum got Willow?" Willow had been perfect throughout the ceremony, dressed in a perfect little white flowery dress I'd bought for her when me and my mother went shopping, she didn't stir or cry once even though it was a boiling hot day. It was only when we'd gotten out of the car to come to the reception that she'd started to cry.

"Uh-huh, although she looks like she's getting grouchy. Maybe we should take her home soon."

"What your mum?" he joked.

"Oh you are so hilarious it's unbelieveable." I replied sarcastically, "I'm serious, I think she might be tired."

"Well wouldn't you be if you spent most of the night crying?"

"Only you would know." I teased and almost tripped on my dress again, luckily Sedrick was there to catch me.

"Is that the best you can do? An insult to my sensetivity? Just because you aren't as amazing as me doesn't mean that you have to insult me."

"As amazing as you? Says the vampire."

"Hey there ain't nothing wrong with never growing old, being extra strong and being able to run faster than any human."

I looked down for a couple of seconds, thinking what I'd been thinking for the past month.

"Hey, what was that look all about?" Sedrick asked, catching me in the eyes.

"Nothing.." I lied.

"What? You can't seriously think I'd believe that. Come on, spill the beans." he said and led me away from the dancefloor and out the backdoor of the hotel and into the magnificent gardens. "Now, you can speak without anybody over hearing you."

"Well...You're a vampire."

"Yes and I'd thought that you've known this for the past year." he said, making light of the conversation.

"Funny. No I mean that I'm a human and-"

"Are you trying to say that you're scared of me because if it's something I've done then please say, I'll never ever hurt you." He said, worry filling his eyes. 

He'd never do anything to hurt me, I was sure of that but that wasn't why I'd looked away when he'd mentioned vampires, it was for a totally different reason all together.

"No, I'm not scared of you, definately not. I mean that...in five weeks I'm going to be nineteen years old, the year after that I'll be twenty, year after that I'll be twenty one."

"Yes I do know math even if I may not be the best at it."

"What I'm trying to say is that I don't want to get old whilst your still young."

"You want to be a vampire?"

"Maybe..I don't know. I love you and Willow and I want to be with you for the rest of my life but I don't want to look like your grandma whilst you're still the handsome twenty something with a killer smile."

"Well twenty three if you want to be so prescise about it but it doesn't bother me if you are nineteen or ninety. I love you for who you are and there is nothing that you can say to make me change that."

"Okay..."

"It's not enough for you is it?"

"It is but..."

"But what?"

"I want to be with you forever. I want to wake up with you in the mornings and watch the sun go down with you in the evenings. I want to travel the world with you and see everything. I want.."

"The chance of living forever."

"Yes." I said solemnly.

"And you want to feel the cravings, the want to drink everybody you see dry. You want to be feared by everybody and have total control over life and death. You want to hide in the shadows for the next five hundred years until your tolerence to the sun changes? That's what being a vampire is, a lonely and most of the time disappointing life that never ends. I never want you to suffer through that just so you can sacrifice your chance of a normal life to be with me."

"You think I'm sacrificing it all easily? I'm giving up every shot of having more children, getting married, moving to the beach...Everything I give up, I've thought about a million times and never once have I chosen them than being with you and Willow forever."

Sedrick looked away and I looked to the floor, I didn't want him to feel like he couldn't give me everything I wanted because he was all I wanted, him and Willow.

"Do you really want to be a vampire that much?" Sedrick said and I looked up at him.

"More than living."

He turned away for a couple of minutes and the wrapped his arms around my waist, looking over my shoulders.

"Let me do this properly then. If you want to be with me for eternity, be with me as my wife." he said and then looked into my eyes.

"Are you proposing?"

"Are you accepting?"

I looked down at the ground and thought back to when Malik had proposed to me, it had all been a trick to destroy his brothers life. I had hated the thought of being trapped to a vampire,promising myself to something that shouldn't exist.

The truth was I'd never liked vampires, nothing attracted me to them, they were cold, dangerous and not meant to exist. Vampires were destroyers, they caused pain and since they'd come into my life I'd known a fear that nobody should ever experience.

Did I really want to become a vampire, one of the things that has scared me for life, taken me from my family and forced me to know truthes that cause nightmares in most? And did I really want to have to spend the next thousands of years of my life, cowering in the shadows, drinking peoples blood, just to be with somebody I love?

"Yes."