Heaven Sent

Chapter Twenty

                                               Elijah

Three years.

Three years of torture.

Before Cassandra, three years without the touch of longing wouldn't have altered my way of life. Before Cassandra, I spent seventy-three years relatively alone, without need of lustful companionship.

No vampire or human could entice my weary soul to venture out for favors. A vampire would have performed well enough, bleeding me to nearly the last drop, bringing me to a precipice of deliriousness. A human would have followed me eagerly into any room if I wished it so. It wouldn't have been difficult to find a willing creature to placate those needs. I just didn't need them anymore.

I'd tasted the diverse flavors of humanity. Throughout the duration of seven centuries, I'd taken to bed enough people to confidently assume I'd taken them all.

I wasn't searching for companionship when Cassandra divinely strode up to my cabin, knee-deep in snow, braving Siberian tundra in search of a protector. Although my blood mother, Lamia, had told me of a prophesy, after a few centuries with no appearance, I naturally became convinced her predictions were only mad ravings. Perhaps that's why I didn't realize what stood before me in the snow.

In the beginning, I anticipated her to be an infuriating living, breathing questionnaire, albeit a tantalizing mutation of her species. Humans are not enchanting—and she was. Even with her insufferable temper, her incessant questions, in a speed of need unbeknownst to me, I quickly fell under her spell. Destinies spell.

I didn't stand a chance. Lamia's whispering's into my ear as I lay dying were not fable, but truth.

I needed to consume Cassandra, to protect her from all ailments. I needed her body, like I could once recall needing breath. A suffocating desire would overcome me when I bedded her, providing an emotional attachment I'd long since abandoned hope for.

In the short time we had together, Cassandra and I were no strangers to carnality.

We took refuge in each other more often than we probably should have. Even now, recalling the last time I was within her, we were hidden in an alley, near two feet away from a fresh corpse, both succumbing to a darkness we couldn't refuse.

I had no idea then that there was another force present that day, eating away at the woman I love. A man, desperate to own her... to seduce her to eternal depravity. So many times in her absence have I loathed leaving her with that memory of me.

I became a creature I once enjoyed being. A creature without scruples.

She left one monster to fall into the hands of another.

She's felt no ounce of love since then.

Even now, as she ignites matches, lighting candles one by one, moving about the room slowly, I'm forced to hear how quick her heart has become, how our small, private space has intensified with tension. 

Has she truly forgotten what it's like to make love?

Her gaze shifts to me, no doubt wondering why I'm keeping my distance. The wall is against my back. The party still rages outside our doors, a faint energy echoing through the halls. The energy out there compared to the electricity surging in here could make faint even the most tenacious creature. My arms are crossed to study her, to give her time, although my skin feels as if it could peel if I'm not touching her soon.

"Why are you all the way over there?" she asks. Her voice quivers—giving her fear away.

"To give you time."