02 | orphic
mysterious and entrancing; beyond ordinary understanding

dedicated to allisonrights 💕 hope you all enjoy this chapter! let me know what you think! lots of love xx

MORNING LIGHT PRIED open my eyes as it streamed in from the ajar curtains of Damon's hotel room. Resting on the sixth floor of the Grand London hotel, I could see the London eye from across the river Thames as water churned like a ferocious beast. The day was young, shadows carving across the landscape like permanent ink.

Tired and dreary, I cast my mind back to the previous night. As much as I wanted the events to have been a dream, the man slung across the posh sofa in front of me was enough indication that this was in fact very real.

I laid in the warm sheets for a moment, pulling the exquisitely soft covers in towards my small figure as I began shivering before realising that I had a lecture today – and that I had spent the night in stranger's room.

"Shit," I half-shouted, biting on my lip as I threw the sheets off my body. My eyes widened when I noticed I was fully clothed, exempt my dirty boots which were propped up against the mahogany door of the suite.

I had to get out of here before Damon woke up. Last night, I had been too shocked and exhausted to contemplate my decision to follow the man, but now I was wide awake I had been shown a brutal reality. Damon wanted to protect me, but I didn't know from what – or who.

I made it half way to the door before a warm hand caught my own, and pushed me up against the rough wall. Damon's handsome face hovered centimetres away from mine, the stubble lining his jaw appearing darker from the close proximity. The scent of smoke and wet dirt lingered in my nose as I roughly breathed in, the man's hands rough against the bare skin of my wrist.

"Get off me, arsehole," I sneered, breaking his hold on me with a quick jerk of my arm. My face drew firmly into an emotionless expression, trying to perceive that I was unafraid when my heart was leaping out of my chest.

Damon's mouth only twitched into a smile. "Arsehole?" He repeated in his best attempt at mimicking a British accent. "Your accent's adorable."

"Well you won't be hearing it for much longer," I retorted, swiftly ducking out of Damon's arms to sit on the bed. "I either want you to tell me everything, or let me get back to my life. Otherwise I'll call the police, and it won't be pretty." I prayed that he didn't know my phone was still absent, and the only hope I had to escape his clutches were the other guests staying in the hotel. My heart was beating so quickly, I could feel each thump rattle in my ears.

"You're all words, and no actions, you know that right?"

"Your face looks pretty fucked up. Did I break your nose already? Because I'm tempted to break it again," I lied. His face was the epitome of gorgeous, something I had always envied when gazing in magazines sporting the perfect.

My comment stirred a reaction deep inside the man as he peeled his tanned arm away from the door. Unlike last night, the suit had been stripped away to a pair of loose trousers and white tank top that fit tightly around his abdominal muscles. "We don't need to talk about that right now," Damon stated. "But if it keeps you from leaving, I'll tell you. I'm warning you though, you didn't like it the first time."

I balled my hands into fists around the soft fabric of my leggings. They were due a wash, and a red residue had crusted under my nails. Something was bitterly wrong with my mind. Black gaps swallowed my past, and I didn't know whether to trust the man who had saved my life, yet taken away three others.

"When was the first time?" I enquired. My voice shook with the words – it was impossible to disguise my fear.

"Three weeks ago."

I cast my mind back, but all I could remember was a single lecture on the Greek myth, Icarus, and Hannah shouting at me about something I couldn't recall.

"You still don't remember?"

I shook my head, the red-gold strands of my hair falling into my face. "I don't get it. You say you want to keep me safe. But from what? I don't understand."

"Cora, that's because someone's told you to forget everything," Damon sighed as he edged towards the bed where I was perched, wide awake. I didn't want to think about my appearance, but I knew that a scrawny nineteen-year-old with eye bags the size of pluto would stare straight back at me in a mirror.

"That doesn't mean you forget."

Damon rolled his delicate brown eyes. Staring into them, he wasn't the monster I perceived him as. There was a child residing in his tough exoskeleton, but he refused to let it appear as he placed his hands firmly on his hips.

"This time, it does," The man stated. "Come on then, hit me with theories. What're you thinking?" He gestured with his tanned fingers to edge the words from my mouth.

"You're being serious?"

"Dead serious."

It was agonising to take my next breath, the air poisonous in my fragile lungs. I felt as though they were going to collapse from the shock – that my mind would soon spiral into limbo. "That you're a murderer, and ripped out someone's heart right in front of my eyes. And that I can't trust you."

Damon slapped his hands together, face concaving into the slither of a smile. "I get that, but technically I didn't murder them because they were already dead."

"You expect me to believe that pile of bullshit?" I muttered, my stomach clenching as though someone had punched me in the gut.

"Look, I'm going to show you something, and you have to promise me you won't freak out. Or kick me in the balls like last time," The male stated calmly despite the tension woven in the air. The room surrounding us was large, and the open plan design revealed another seating area to the right of the four poster bed, and a balcony with huge windows that were currently smothered with white linen which did little to keep out of the morning rays of sunlight. The expensive room should've made me feel at ease, but instead I wanted the world to swallow me whole until I was nothing more than a leaf caught in the wind. If I ran, Damon would catch me and insist I stayed with him. But if I stayed, I could only presume more horror would entail.

"I can't promise anything," I stated, too startled to smirk at the reference to my violence. It had been a part of me since childhood, and gaining a red belt in karate was on my CV as one of the few things I was proud of.

Damon backed away, hopping over a slice of sunlight as it scattered across the vintage carpet. His habit of ripping out hearts and avoiding the sun's gaze only made me shiver. It was a puzzle, but all the pieces were irregularly shaped and spelt out the impossible. A word echoed through my mind, but I swiftly pushed it aside.

"Then just don't kick me in the groin."

"Still can't promise."

Damon gazed up towards the ceiling, his lips moving a he murmured something. My fists balled tighter until they were white, the anticipation igniting a fire in my veins until they felt like they were exploding in a supernova.

I knew what to expect, but as Damon clicked his head and the unique shade of his hazel eyes morphed into a much more sinister scarlet shade, I wasn't prepared for what happened next. Snapping his head towards me, the man's teeth had transitioned into thin white fangs.

Panic erupted in my veins like a torrent, and flooded through my body. Vampire. The word surged to mind as it had done moments ago. I wanted so badly for it to be fake, but everything before me was real. My fear, Damon's fangs, my memory loss, it was all very very real.

The carpet squished between my toes as I sat up and sprinted for the door. The world was too fucked up, and it was sending me down the road of insanity. Yet, at the back of my mind, I had known the truth all along and I wasn't scared. I knew this world like the back of my scarred hands – the memories had just been taken from me.

The door handle was glacial against my hand as I tugged it open, but it had been locked from the inside. I spied the lock within a split second, and was able to twist it open before a strong arm was wrapped around my waist. Damon pulled me into his chest, the muscles hard beneath the thin material of my sweatshirt.

My breath caught in my throat and got stuck. I couldn't breathe with a monster – a vampire – holding me captive.

"W- what are you?" I eventually gasped and swallowed the dry lump stuck in my throat.

Damon didn't chuckle. In fact, his tone was genuinely concerned. "I think you already know the answer to that, Cora."

It took my head a second to nod, feeling heavy with all the information it now held. Damon removed his hold on my waist effortlessly as I began to stop struggling in my haste. His lips brushed against my ear subtly, but it was enough to make my body begin to quake. I usually wasn't afraid when it came down to men, or to be precise, anything. I was afraid when my mother got diagnosed with breast cancer, and I was afraid when my first boyfriend broke up with me. But this type of fear was new to me, and I couldn't shape it in my mind.

I turned around to eye the man, his face having returned to normal. "A vampire," I whispered, and forced myself to make eye contact with his hard face, yet kind eyes.

"That's why you can't remember anything," Damon sighed. I was relieved when he stepped away to resume his position sat on the wine-pigmented couch. "You were compelled."

"Like in The Vampire Diaries?" I enquired, finding it ironic that both the man stood before me and my favourite character were called Damon.

"The Vampire what?"

The look of absolution on his face had me clueless, so I bit my tongue as my heart began to slow just a fraction. "It doesn't matter. What matters is why would someone make me forget?"

"You said the last thing you remembered way eight days ago, right?"

My head bowed, lips pursing without the ability to form words. The fear was slowly ebbing away like fuel being burnt, but it was still scorching my insides like bleach.

"Then we have a problem."

My brows creased. I found the rough material of the wallpaper to steady myself, keeping a sustainable distance between myself and the vampire. Despite knowing what he was, the truth still hadn't sunk in, and I was left shaking down to my bones. "What do you mean?" I asked despite every cell in my body urging me not to.

"Because yesterday our king was killed. And I haven't seen you for eight days."

"Now you're fucking with me," I growled.

"Just let me explain, Ginger," Damon said as he waved a hand to halt my words. Rage pulsed through my body, seething at the unwanted nickname. "Every decade, the vampire clans from the capital cities in every country gather in a specific city to challenge the king so that another may be crowned. This decade, it was London, but yesterday the king was murdered."

Although I was enthusiastic about ancient history, a history lesson at this precise moment in time was not what I needed. "And?"

"And that was before the ritual even started," Damon continued swiftly without the need to pause to take a breath. "Killing the king is punishable by something worse than death. I think you were there when it happened, and that you know something. That's why someone compelled you to forget. Whatever happened is in that little ginger head of yours, and we need to find out who before he comes back for you."

"I'm not ginger," I groaned, squeezing my hands so tightly that my nails created perfect arcs in my skin.

Damon fluttered his hand once more with ease. "Say what you want, Sweetcheeks, you're as ginger as an orangutan."

I blushed at the comment, but managed to keep my composure. The world was falling apart beneath my fingertips, and I could feel reality slipping out of my grasp. Apparently I had been here before, and I didn't have a choice but to accept that there was no going back. The supernatural world was very real, and whatever lurked in my mind was the centrepiece.

"So what now?" I enquired with hope that Damon would allow me to return to my university halls.

"We've got a party to attend."

"There's no way in hell I'm going to a party with you," I hissed, eyes narrowed to slits.

"Sweetheart, I am hell," Damon stated and rose from the sofa until he was looming over my frame. I had always been average height, but his six-foot stature made me feel tiny in comparison. "I'm afraid that I'm obligated to go, and I'm not letting you out of my sight."