Bloodlust (The Blood Series #1)

Chapter 19

  My first instinct is to burst out laughing and that's exactly what I do. He must be kidding, that's the only explanation. A giggle escapes my lips as I ask jokingly: "What? A demon? Like in the Bible? With the horns and the red skin and all that? Did you sell your soul to the Devil, Mr Faust? Oh my God, don't tell me you have a tail!"

Nathan is not laughing with me. Somewhere in the back of my mind I recognize that I'm not really laughing either. Laughing is just my way to sustain my sanity, my way to cope. Nathan simply stares at me with emotionless dark eyes and waits for my nervous giggles to end. I gasp when I realize that he's being serious. Either Nathan has gone completely bananas or...

"Silence."

At first I think that he's talking to me and I open my mouth to snap at him for being so rude. But then I notice twinkling blue lines spreading over the white walls of my room and realize that he wasn't really talking, more like casting. I channel my inner Seer and recognize the blue markings shining on my walls as a Silencing Spell. I'm not even sure how I know that but I'm guessing that this Seer thing is starting to work while I'm awake too. Nathan has cast a spell to make my walls soundproof. I can scream and scream... and no one will ever hear me.

I stare at him as my stomach tightens to a knot and wish I could read his mind. I go over all the times I've spent with him and try to see the demon he claims to be in his actions. Try to see the sinister monster where he stood, hear the demon in his words, feel the destroyer in his lips when we were kissing but there's nothing. Why is he lying to me? There's no way he is a demon. It just can't be true. From what I've learned about demons through TV and books is that they are evil. Diabolical, really. But Nathan isn't like that. He's kind and patient and beautiful and funny and perfect. Not a demon. No way.

Unless it was all an act...

"No", I breathe out. "You can't be. No."

His voice is quiet and pleading when he finally decides that it's time to address me. "Haley, please..."

I shake my head furiously and feel like choking on my own oxygen. "Don't come any closer", I warn when his hands make a move to steady me as I stagger away from him. His hands drop to his sides and his eyes are hooded as they meet mine. I stare into them trying to see the evil in their bright emerald green color. But all I see is defeat, like he has been predicting me to act exactly like this and is sad to be proven right.

My voice is barely a whisper. "Go."

"Haley..."

"GO!" I scream and he obeys after casting one last tormented look in my direction. He walks out of the room and for a split second I worry about my mom catching him leaving until I remember how easily he hid from her earlier.

I bury my head in my hands and scream until my throat sores. What is happening to me? When did my life start to be like this? No, actually, I can pin-point that exact time. This all started after I slept with Nathan freaking Blood. Just a couple weeks ago I was your usual high school girl with a human boyfriend and my only problem was if I'd pass biology or not. But now... Now I am someone I don't even recognize. But then again Nathan isn't the reason I started having those damn dreams. I realize that I'm just angry at everything and blame him because he's the latest on the long list of people and things that turn out to be different from what they were supposed to be.

A seer, a vampire, a demon. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. I'm a Seer. Troy's a vampire. And Nathan... Nathan is a demon. A demon. It just can't be true. A demon, really? It doesn't make any sense. How the hell can he be a demon and is there like a rule or something that states that everyone around me has to turn out to be some kind of a supernatural creature? I guess I should consider myself lucky that my mom hasn't been outed as a werewolf. Yet.

There's only so much weirdness a person can handle in 24 hours, I think fuzzily right before I hit the ground.

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My mom is understandably hysterical even though I try to tell her that I'm fine, my blood sugar just got too low and that's why I fainted. But my mom is not an idiot, it doesn't take long for her to connect my fainting to my nightmares. She's freaking out and seems to think that my problems are her fault, no matter how many times I repeat that they are not. She insists on making me an appointment at some therapist's office for next week and I reluctantly agree to go, mainly just to get her off my back.

The rest of the day goes by in a haze. I try to study but I can't concentrate under my mom's watching eye. I consider going to the library to study but it's located in the middle of town and I don't want to risk running into Nathan. Andrea is unavailable too, the Giorgios are having a family night. For obvious reasons I don't want to go visit. I'm still furious at Troy and I'm pretty sure that come Monday, I'll strangle him.

I end up spending the day at my dad's. Well, in his garden to be exact. It may be the middle of September but the air is still quite warm and I enjoy lying in the grass on a blanket and letting sun smile on me. It's peaceful and remote, far from anyone whose name starts with an N and ends with it too.

My dad nearly has a stroke when I show up at his door. I make it clear that I'm not there to meet him but he still manages to be happy to have me there. Amy is euphoric too and won't stop fussing. Eventually they leave me to study but keep dropping by to offer me snacks or an extra blanket. In the end I don't get much studying done which doesn't really surprise me since all I can think about is Nathan. I was so terrified and frankly overloaded with supernatural crap this morning that I didn't handle things with him right. I have a lot of questions, I want to understand and that is very dangerous. Understanding someone often leads to sympathizing and I'm not sure if I'm ready to feel sympathy for the devil, pun intended.

I end up relapsing a little after midnight and call Nathan. I know he's still awake, I can sense it when I think of him. The phone chimes for so long time that I'm certain he won't pick up at all. I can practically see him standing over his phone, staring at it and wondering why the hell I'm calling him. As soon as he figures it out, he'll hopefully tell me too because I'm just as confused.

Eventually he picks up, his tone reserved and cautious. "Hello?"

I squeeze my eyes shut at the sound of his voice. It's now or never. "Are you willing to meet me?" I manage to wheeze out.

He is quiet for a long time. "Why?" he finally asks.

I don't have a reason. If I was smart, I'd stay the hell away from Nathan. I'd swear off guys altogether, forget I once knew him and curse his name if I ever made the mistake of thinking about him again. But I guess I'm not smart because I find myself pleading.

"Nathan. Please."

He sighs. "Fine. Just tell me when and where", he grumbles.

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The next day Nathan is waiting for me at the cafe I asked him to meet me. I intentionally picked out a cafe in the busiest part of the town, near the haven where all the tourists go to get a feel of our coastal town. When I get there and see his face, it's obvious that he knows exactly why I picked this place out of the hundreds of cafes in the city and it hurts him. I swallow my apologies and follow him to a table outside. It's a sunny September day and there are a lot of people on the terrace enjoying the day. I feel relatively safe and sit down.

"So, uh..." I begin when the waiter has left with our orders. I asked for water and a cookie to keep my blood sugar up while Nathan settled on staring at me resentfully. I chose to ignore his self-explanatory grudge against me when there were curious ears in the hearing distance but I can't put this off any longer. I need to understand how the heck he can be a demon.

But before I can even get started, Nathan interrupts me. "Are you here to find out whether I have a tail or not?"

"Do you?" I ask before I can stop myself.

He shoots me a miffed look that screams that he wishes that he hadn't agreed to meet me.

"Sorry. But you can't just drop a bomb like this and expect me to not react."

He blows air out of his lungs. "That's just it, Haley. I knew you'd react exactly like this and yet I still told you. I know now that trusting you was a mistake."

"It's a lot to take in! I admit that I acted rash yesterday morning but I freaked! When you say 'demon' I can only think of the Devil's spawns my Sunday school teacher warned us about. She used to say that if we ate too much candy, Balaam, the demon of avarice and greed, would drag us to Hell." I cast my eyes at him and challenge: "Are you going to drag me to Hell if I eat this cookie?"

The corners of his mouth twig and he tries hard not to laugh because he wants to keep up the distant exterior but when I keep eyeing him suspiciously, he breaks out in a small smile. "No, I won't. I'm not on Hell dragging duty today. Help yourself."

After I have defied fate by eating that cookie, I turn serious. "If you want me to even start to understand this, you have got to tell me something."

"Like what?" he beats around the bushes.

I shrug. "I don't know. Start with the basics. A Demon Guide For Dummies", I offer and he scoffs but starts to talk anyway.

"My family and I are physical demons. As odd as it may sound, there is a ranking. Demons who have a solid body are most like humans. Obviously, we are not humans but we look like them, talk like them and sometimes think a lot like them. Due to that physical demons are often thought to be weaker than other of our kind but that's not true, that's just other demons trying to belittle and badmouth our clan."

"Then of course there are the spiritual demons, they are like ghosts, not able to form a solid body so they often resort to possession and such. They are pretty weak but can cause quite a havoc when they want to. They often target small audiences, like individual people or families, hence all those movies about a family moving to a haunted house."

"Third and the most powerful category are ethereal demons. They are often fallen angels and therefore imminently more powerful than any other creature in this world or in any of the others. Oliver is a fallen angel, that's why he's so dangerous, that's why he can inflict pain on others simply by looking at them in the eyes. When he fell, he left only his white wings and morals behind, not his abilities."

"When you say he fell..." I say trying to sound calm when I'm anything but. So now there's angels too? What is this,Supernatural?

He nods. "I mean when he fell from heaven."

Oliver Knight, the blood-red eyed man from my nightmares, is an angel? An angel with big beautiful wings? An angel who only wears white and talks in riddles about the difficulties of life and the importance of being kind? "He doesn't really seem like your typical angel", I say carefully, not wanting to make Nathan shut down again when he's finally talking to me.

Nathan lets out a dry laugh. "I'm certain that what you think angels are like couldn't be further from the truth", he notes.

"What? Have you met an angel?" I ask eagerly. Something in his tone makes me think he knows more than he's letting on.

He shakes his head. "Nah. Just fallen angels and believe me, they are enough to make me not want to mess with Heaven's finest."

"So this whole demon thing... What can you do? What are your abilities?" I ask after we have ditched the restaurant and head to the Garden Street, a picturesque place decorated with gorgeous plants. It's not really a flower time anymore so there aren't that many people on the Street today. We walk even further away from them and continue our little talk about demons, angels and whatnot.

Nathan looks hesitant to answer. "A demon never likes to reveal all his secrets. Makes him vulnerable", he remarks.

"Okay", I mutter and seal my lips. It's probably better if I don't know. After all, I'm still not certain how I feel about all this so it's for the best if I don't know how to destroy him.

Apparently Nathan notices that I fall silent because he continues talking. He's kind of vague in his words but I'm just happy he has decided to try trusting me again.

"In your eyes my family is scary because of the business you think we do. In my world we are scary because we are so strong. Due to being a Blood by birth I can do a lot. I'm able to alter this reality to my liking. In simpler terms I can make things happen and appear. I'm not able to teleport like some demons but I can move faster than the human eye can see so that kind of makes up for it. My family has been collecting abilities for centuries and therefore our family is at its most strongest right now."

"What do you mean, a Blood by birth?"

"Well, I'm sure you already know that not all those who are called Bloods are actually related to me. I'm a Blood born because both my parents are Bloods but those who don't have a Blood parent are given the name by joining us. Sometimes my family likes to extend the name to those who we feel deserve the title and who we think we'll be of use to us."

"Meaning recruit", I correct, my tone a little spiny because I'm thinking of that idiot Callum.

He shoots me a look but nods. "Guess you can call it that too."

"So you're stronger than the other members of your family because you're a 100 percent Blood?" I gather.

He nods. "But that doesn't mean that they're not incredibly good because they are. I'm just able to do more due to my heritage", he notes dismissively and I get the feeling that he has heard people belittle his abilities because the power behind them comes from his blood.

I throw my hands in the air and say: "Show me something."

He winks at me and says: "If you dare, come a little closer."

I step towards him feeling uncertain and visibly flinch when he takes my hands in his. "Wait", he whispers and I freeze.

A gust of wind blows around us and suddenly the pedals in the lilacs are showering down like a summer snow storm. They dance around me in a way that only enchanted lilacs can and I can't help giggling when they get stuck in my hair like a crown. What's with all this giggling?

"My queen", he jokes and bows respectfully while I blush.

The remaining lilacs surrounding the cobblestone street we're walking create a canopy over our heads. Under it I feel protected like a fairy princess in her kingdom on a Sunday stroll with her prince. Everything around me is so divinely beautiful that I nearly feel like crying but I don't because I'm afraid that even one little teardrop could bring it all crumbling down.