Bound

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Awakening

Darkness.   Dark like the blackness of the grave, all encompassing and sense obliterating.   Her eyes opened to the dark, searching like a beacon in the dark.   Her memories pulled at her as her vision blurred, then sharpened.   Just like that the darkness became exquisite.   For the first time in her life she could truly see.  Objects appeared to her, she lay in a stone room upon a carved granite bed.   There were no soft or frilly things here,  no lights of any sort.  But she could see.   See as clearly as if she stood in the sun on a cloudless day.   

Brianna sat up slowly, more conscious of herself than she'd ever been before.   The first thing she realized as she turned her sharp gaze about the room was that the familiar pull of breath, the need for it, was gone.   Expecting fear but finding none she lay cold fingers against her wrist dully, not surprised when she didn't find a warming thud of pulse.   Curiously she felt no terror, no rise of horror at this, just a mild amusement.  She touched the side of her throat and discovered two tiny marks, barely discernible.   

He had been successful at his venture, she mused, taking a moment to mourn the girl he had killed.   The woman he had replaced her with rose elegantly from the hard death bed, eyes seeking the room.   She was harder than before, her features more chiseled  and even more delicate, with the ivory pale skin glowing luminously.    Brianna was surprised that she hadn't felt any pain, that her transformation from mortal to immortal had been so seamless.   Her musical laughter startled her as she moved to the door of this chamber.   All the fear and terror of mortality had fled her, but she was relieved to see she still felt.    And now she noticed what she hadn't before, a hot burning urge rising up, replacing her thoughts one by one. 

Vampire, she thought, and this time there was an emotion that carried her from the room, wrenching the barred door open as easily as if it had been made of matchsticks.   She crossed the floor, troubled by the dim light coming from the end of the hallway, but in tune to the quickly rising hunger she felt, growing stronger with each moment.   To her eyes, the piercing ice blue eyes of a night predator,even the dim candle burning on the wall bothered her.  

At the end of the hall she took the polished stairs upwards, to the mansion she had been a prisoner in for so long.  And her hunger was overpowered by a even more powerful emotion as she saw him standing in the darkened room, his brilliant eyes focused on her.   Anger bloomed in a way she had never experienced before and a growl ripped from her throat, fierce and vicious...

He sensed when she'd awakened, knew the moment she released her mortal chains for the realm of the undead.   Connected in a way he had not expected he felt her presence as if it were his own, felt her lack of fear, her courage, and yes, her hunger.    A week prior when Gareth had managed to stop his feed of the most precious blood he'd ever tasted he had taken his new treasure to her recovery room, the crypt below the mansion he used to rest during the daylight. 

There had been no noise or movement from her as the powerful venom worked in her.  He'd known when her heart had stopped beating, felt the intense cold descend into her.   Now  he looked as she breached the top of the stairs, her icy gaze set upon him.   She was intensely more beautiful in her afterlife than she had been, platinum blonde hair shining around a face that could only be described as a work of art.   The simple black gown he'd dressed her in set off the porcelain quality of her new skin and she was simply breathtaking.    

He heard the feral noise rumble across the room and turned in time to prepare for her spring.  The lethal quality of her eyes excited him as he  crossed to meet her.   Come what may, she was his for eternity, and he relished the encounter to come......