Alina
I didn’t know how long I stood there after he left. I felt empty and alone somehow.
I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hands and went to the kitchen. Clearly, I was losing my mind if I just kissed my nightmare. What came over me? It was like I had no control over my emotions. It couldn’t just be physical attraction, could it? No, I was sure it was just that.
By now, the omelette that I was making was completely burnt and inedible, so I took it off the burner and threw it in the trash can. I hated wasting food, but I lost my appetite. I took the boiling water which had reduced to half its amount off the stove, poured some instant coffee mix into it, and drank from it. It was too hot, but the pain helped me forget some of my unease.
What happened today wasn’t supposed to happen. Then again, what was I supposed to say? What was I supposed to do now? Things were so confusing, I can’t even think straight. Why did Erick have to come back? Where was he until now? So many questions kept circling around my head, but I had answers to none. I wasn’t even sure I wanted answers.
Finishing off the scalding hot coffee, I washed the cup and left it on the counter to dry. Then I took some ice cubes from my freezer and placed it on my burnt tongue to provide relief. I stopped being self-destructive a long time ago. Why start now that my life was finally going somewhere? I was an editor at a fairly popular local magazine, I had an apartment of my own, and I was no longer that girl who couldn’t speak out to save her life. I couldn’t take three steps backwards just when I took two steps forward. Erick’s arrival couldn’t change things for me. I wouldn’t give up the life I’ve made for myself just because I was supposed to marry a vampire.
I sighed as I sat on my sofa and tried to think of a way to deal with my life, but I just didn’t think I had the strength to fight anymore. With Erick’s return and my dad’s worsening condition, I felt like my life was spiralling out of control.
Erick
I swam harder and pushed my legs to their limit until my hands touched the other end of the pool seconds later. I didn’t stop. Turning, I swam even faster until my fingers touched the other end of the pool again. Frustrated, I rose from the water, pushed back my blond hair from my eyes, and punched the side wall of the pool. The tile cracked and a chunk of tile fell to the bottom of the pool.
Cussing, I got out of the pool, wrapped a towel around waist, and started drying my hair with another one. Right now, I was at my private beach house off the shore of Hudson Bay, a good four hours away from Alina’s apartment. I wanted so badly not to screw things up with her, but in the end, that was exactly what I did! Damn it!
She wasn’t making this any easier for me either. Why would she? What reason did I ever give her to trust me? I had to focus on making this work, though. Alina’s mom was a very close friend of my mother, and I wanted to honour her last wishes, not only to protect Alina but for my sake as well. Vampires didn’t have mates, no matter what modern fictions let everyone believe, but we remained faithful to the ones we chose, and Alina was chosen for me a long time ago. I might not have accepted that before, but I did now.
I brushed back my hair from my eyes again. I really needed to cut it short. It was getting too long for my liking. The swim helped a bit with the stress. I always swam when I was stressed out, but it didn’t help me find answers to what I needed to do next. I needed to form a plan to make things right and to at least make things a little less awkward, but my mind kept going back to the kiss we shared.
It was the briefest kiss I’ve had in my entire life, but it was also the most special. It felt like my whole body was on fire. She must have felt it too. I felt her shudder before she got all ninja and jumped away.
Damn! Focus, Erick! Ok, so our wedding was pretty soon, so I had to take care of the wedding preparations. It would be a private wedding in full vampire style. There would be vows and all, but nothing fancy. It would be in front of hundreds of witnesses, vampires mostly. And there would be the blood bond.
The blood bond binds two vampires or a human and a vampire to each other, forever. We would have to drink the ceremonial blood that would be a combination of both of ours after our blood has been accepted by the Gods as a sacrifice. Then there was the matter of Alina turning into a vampire. I wasn’t sure if Alina wanted to stay human or turn into one of us. If she did stay human, she would always be fragile and prone to danger, and she would grow older, but I didn’t want to force her into anything right now. She had to want to turn by herself because if she didn’t want to, she could become a very dangerous newborn.
So I sat there on a bench, debating on what to do the next day when I suddenly remembered her boss, Ryan.
That prick was taking my girl out somewhere, and I really needed to interfere. That was when a plan formed in my head.
I smirked. This would be very interesting.
AlinaI woke up to my phone ringing. Groaning, I reached over to my bedside table and picked up my cell. The time read three fifteen in the afternoon.“Hello?” I answered groggily without looking at the screen.“Hello, sweets! I’ll be there to pick you up in two hours. You okay with that?”Shit! Ryan!I had completely forgotten that I had to attend a business dinner with him. I went to visit my father at the hospital this morning, and he seemed to have gotten even worse than before, so I came back home and cried myself to sleep. I haven’t been eating anything since yesterday either, surviving only on coffee.“Yes!” I answered, remembering Ryan was still on the phone. “That’s fine by me. Thanks for giving me a heads up, Ryan. I completely forgot!” I had no need to hide the truth or feel ashamed. Ryan understood my situati
AlinaHe wore a steel grey suit with a royal blue shirt underneath that made his eyes stand out. His blond hair was perfectly styled, and he looked just out of a fashion magazine kind of gorgeous. His lips were formed in a mischievous smirk, and his eyes were sparkling with excitement. He hasn’t shifted his eyes from me since the instant I walked into the room.How on Earth did he get here?“Is something wrong?” someone’s voice cut through my trance.I looked towards the person to see that it was the restaurant manager, Mr. Davis. Ryan was waiting for me to have a seat, and I didn’t even realize I was staring back at Erick from the moment I walked in. We were like two different poles of a magnet drawn to each other.“Nothing, sorry.” I apologised and sat down on the chair which just so happened to be right next to Erick.Everyone got down to business as
AlinaI slowly came to when I felt cool hands touch my forehead. My eyes fluttered open, and I woke to a dimly lit room I had never been to before.“Sorry, did I wake you up?” a familiar voice asked.I looked to my right and saw Erick sitting on a chair next to the bed I was on. I only shook my head when my throat felt too dry and scratchy. Taking in my surroundings, I sat up against the headboard with Erick’s help.I was in a large room which appeared to be painted sky blue in the dim light. The lights were out, but several candles were lit in all corners of the room that gave it a warm glow. I could sense the cold sea breeze and the sounds of waves crashing on the shore, so I assumed we were somewhere near the sea. There were two large open windows with drawn curtains to let the wind in, andthe candle lights occasionally flickered with the wind but didn’t go off. I could see that it
AlinaMy eyes were burning.That was the first thought I woke up to. The second, however, was to realize that my eyes weren’t really burning. I opened my eyes a bit, only to shut them immediately. It was under the scrutiny of the direct sunlight coming in through the huge floor-length windows on the wall opposite to the bed.The third thing that crossed my mind was, I don’t have gigantic windows in my bedroom!Oww!I jumped up in bed, looking around the unfamiliar room to search for the source of the voice I just heard. However, all I got was a room devoid of any other humans or vampires for that matter.I could’ve sworn I heard someone talk. How come no one was here?I did talk, but it’s in your mind.Then I remembered about last night, of being escorted to the restaurant by Ryan, bumping into Erick, fainting in the bathroom, and ending up at his
AlinaMrs. Stayton was, just like all the other vampires I’ve had the pleasure of seeing, utterly gorgeous.With her long blonde hair in perfect curls that reached to her lower back, neat facial structures, and an hourglass figure, she could easily give Hollywood actresses a run for their money. However, she preferred to stay out of the limelight. She wore a sky blue knee-length designer dress embroidered with real silver threads and paired it up with a silver hat. Erick didn’t have that much in common with his mother in terms of looks, except for their ice-blue eyes. She had a more delicate build and a heart-shaped face while Erick was all hard angles and sharp features.“Nice to see you again, Mrs. Stayton. How have you been?” I greeted politely. She was, after all, a very powerful vampire of over three hundred years. Unlike popular belief, vampires weren’t immortal in the true sense
Alina“What on Earth is this?” I asked while holding up the red knee-length dress in my hand that Erick had just handed over to me.“Your wedding dress, of course!” Erick answered without even looking up from his tablet.“What the hell!” I screamed, turning every customer and salesmen’s attention towards me.“Sorry,” I mouthed before turning to glare at Erick.“Alina, there you are! Oh! What a lovely dress!” Kenna passed the fabric through her hands. “This’ll be perfect for the binding ritual after the wedding! Don’t you think so, Erick?”Binding ritual? Why don’t I like the sound of that?Of course, you wouldn’t. Erick smirked and placedthe ten point one inch screen of the tablet in front of his face. I glared at him anyway. What was with giving me only half the info?“Oh, dear
Alina“Alina?”“Alina, say something.”“Alina!”“Huh?” I was startled back into reality as Erick’s face faded away and Ryan’s face appeared in front of me.“What’s wrong? You’ve been spaced out this whole morning,” Ryan asked as he sat himself down on one of the chairs in front of my desk.“Nothing. I’m just stressed, I guess,” I answered, putting my pen down on top of a bundle of papers and running my hands down my faceThe article that we worked on in the restaurant was going to go on air today, and I had to write the speech that our Editor-in-Chief will be broadcasting since I was the one who took down the notes. Ryan had, thankfully, kept all the equipment on my desk yesterday and covered for me when our boss noticed my absence. All that hard work would be for nothing if I wouldn’t be able to w
ErickI decided to wear black dress pants and a jacket with a crisp white shirt underneath. Today, we were going to the inauguration of my new blood bank in Moosonee, Ontario. The main press release already took place this afternoon. Now, it would be followed by a tasting ceremony just for vampires. This day, our subjects would see me and Alina together for the first time after the announcement of the wedding.We already had blood banks in Ontario located in Ottawa and Toronto. However, supplying blood to all vampires in the north was becoming a problem, so we opened another bank for easy supply. It reduced chances of suspicion, too. Now, we didn’t have to explain to the government why gallons of blood were being transferred across the state to specifically those two blood banks when there was no emergency.A knock sounded at my door. “Come in.”Kendrick, my chauffeur for today and the chie