Chapter Eighteen

   Fluttering my eyes open, surprised that I had actually fallen asleep, I rolled over to face him. Once I had opened my eyes fully he stared back into mine with a softened expression; I went to speak but he brushed his fingers along my lips to hush me before he leant over and sealed them with a kiss. Still starring in his eyes throughout it, I touched his chest with my palm and pushed him off slightly.

   ‘Good morning to you too, baby,’ I whispered across the minute gap. ‘How was your night?’

   He averted his narrowed eyes to the pillow then answered. ‘Long and restless, you were so relaxed that, well, your human side came out really strong. Yes, I’d already fed on you a little earlier but the smell of it tempted me too much... so I...’ His hesitation and his still averted, frowned eyes told me the worst. Gasping in horror, I bolted upright and launched off the bed, planting myself hard against the wall while feeling down my neck. ‘No, Tif, I didn’t do that.’ He had sat up himself, only he was poised so similar to a cat ready to pounce on its prey that it unnerved me slightly. Kneeling instead, he opened his arms out for me to clamber into. ‘Tiffany, I’d never do that to you. What I meant was that I had to leave last night. I couldn’t take the temptation anymore and I forced myself out of that front door to go hunt something else other than feast on you while you slept. You mean everything to me, I care so much about you that I can’t lose you now. You shouldn’t have to fear me anymore.’

   Nuzzling my nose to his neck, I stroked his back to reassure him first. ‘Mike, I don’t fear you. I’m just cautious that’s all, I know how much this means to you.’ Hopefully he knew I meant our shared predicament.

   ‘Then why jump off like you did?’

   ‘Because I was shocked and I didn’t let you finish. Besides, there’s not much I can do about the smell. I’m so used to yours by now that I forget how mine has a different effect on you. And I can only guess when it thickens more.’ I pouted my lips into a smirk, and alluringly narrowed my eyes.

   He, on the other hand, gulped and stuttered. ‘Now, now, there’s no need to tempt me ri...’ I stopped his words with a slow, long kiss; but he didn’t want it or from me like this, I guessed. ‘Tif, Tif. Please you can’t do that to me. As much as I... erm, love you, I don’t want you to hold me like that. I know you don’t mean to but to me it’s like you’ve got me caught up in a trap and when it’s at its most viable then I have no sense of escape or freedom. Please, my sweet, try to control your own self and temptations. For me, hmm?’ He was so careful with his words; I found it impossible to get even the slightest bit mad at him making me seem like his captor.

   My fingers ran through his hair as we smiled agreeingly into each other’s eyes. ‘Mike, what would I ever do without you?’ The small breath he took told me my scent was normal again, normal for him. ‘You accept me as I am, flaws and all, yet you still hold onto the me you’ve always known. Yeh, physically I might have changed and mentally too in some cases but it is still me. And I will never do it intentionally again to you, unless I have to. I just wish there was a way I could control it. I mean the times when it comes out are the times when I’m the happiest I ever feel in a day, and that’s when I’m near you; and kissing you, well you have no idea what that does to my head.’ I felt my cheeks fill with blood and I bit my lip to prevent me from smiling like a five year old, but it still happened. His fingers once again brushed along my jaw line and he held my head in his hands as he leant down to strongly place his lips on mine.

   Internally, my pulse quickened as my heart pumped harder and faster within my frozen chest; frozen because I was paralysed with the tingling feeling of being wanted pulsing through my veins.

   He pulled away, chuckling. ‘There you go again. I wish I could stop kissing you, then the lust of wanting your blood wouldn’t scratch at my sanity,’ he described. ‘Well, it’s time for breakfast, by which I mean a hearty human breakfast.’ I swelled my eyes up mockingly. ‘Oh you know what I mean.’ Grabbing my hand, he led me downstairs.

*****

   Just as we reached the bottom step, I heard him smell the air around us; no doubt he was sniffing out for Jake being around.

   ‘Tif, baby, you should go talk to him.’

   ‘What?!’ I asked. It wasn’t that I was mad at him for suggesting it; it was I just wasn’t expecting him to say that.

   ‘You should. He’s here of no choice of his own, it was either this or be on the streets for his people to pick him up again or stay as an outcast. That’s what we are, Tif, whether you want to believe it or not, we are; and now so is he. Our friends took us in, and on trusting me as they do, took in you and him too. You need to reassure him that we won’t harm him as long as he stays trustworthy to us.’ He turned around to look at me. ‘But be careful. I trust him, but when you’re near him I go into an uncomfortable mode of wariness. Just stay safe, my love.’ He leant over, kissed me once while squeezing my hands in his affectionately, and then let me go to head to the kitchen.

   Not knowing where Jake would be, I closed my eyes and copied Mike’s gesture before. The sweet fragrance loomed lightly on the static air within the house, following its trail I got led outside and down the far end near the few trees.

   ‘Jake?’ I called out, hoping for a response. ‘Jake, I’m only here to talk,’ I added to the silent day.

   ‘Why? What’s there to talk about? Other than the fact I’m a prisoner here.’ His voice came from behind the huge birch tree; walking around it, I stood back so to give him some space still. ‘And don’t go making excuses that will make me feel better or free ‘cause it won’t work. I am a prisoner here, I’m only staying because I don’t want to go back to the way I was.’ I kept myself quiet and let him speak, it was best that I let him get his head sorted as he let out his thoughts; I was still his friend and I didn’t want him to get hurt through the things that might unfold in the near future. ‘They were going to make me kill you, Tif! How could I have coped in the actual moment? I care about you. I don’t know what it is about you but you seem to have drawn me in somehow, whether it’s intentional or not, I think you have. Now I can’t get enough of seeing you. And it kills me to think of you in that room with him, at night. Thinking of his arms on you, his lips on yours, it hurts way too deep down inside that I can barely breathe.’ I looked on in shock at what he was telling me; what was it that I had or did to get these two good lads to like me so much? ‘I feel like I should have my heart ripped out to prevent me from feeling anything for anyone after you. We were friends, and then more than friends, now what am I? Just your enemy, and left to look on as you love someone else and see you happy with him. You should just have bitten me back in that room, Tif, it probably would have hurt less than the pain I’m feeling now.’ Closing his eyes, he dropped his head and balled his hands into fists by his sides.

   ‘Jake, it’s not like that,’ was all I got myself to say at first, but on finding my voice I could talk once again. ‘Yes, we were friends but I couldn’t see it going much further, that is because I am what I am, I always have been; I’ve just been in denial for most of my life about it. But now I’m... unleashed, things have gotten better. He’s not just a lover to me, Jake, he’s helped me through more than you’ll ever realise. Becoming the full version of what I am inside is hard. We’re made to drink blood, we’re made to taste its tanginess and bitterness, we’re made to give into the smallest temptation and let our demons take full control of our bodies. It’s not easy, but Mike... Mike was there for me when I needed his advice; he’s more experienced in every field of our beings than I am. My parents wanted me to be the few that didn’t inherit our parents’ viciousness.’ I stopped there and let my information sink in properly. ‘Even now it’s hard for me to stand here and let your scent fill my nostrils and scratch at the walls I’ve built to contain my other half. She’s unforgiving and cruel; she will take as much blood as she needs to sustain herself for a certain amount of time before she wants more. I’m trying to keep her at bay for now, but I don’t know how long I can hold onto my own body. And arguing or getting overly emotional won’t help me, I haven’t fed for a week, and I know I need to keep up this facade for as long as I can.’ I was about to speak again, but when I opened my mouth he raised a hand as a signal to keep quiet. His eyes had entered a phase of cloudiness, as he thought about my new little story.

   His lips pouted in a curious, thoughtful way as he stood there, then took my hands loosely in his. After about a minute he spoke carefully to me. ‘I see, but still I don’t understand at all how things must be for you. I’m grateful that he’s let me stay here, but being around four, five guys of their nature is perilously dangerous for me. I mean, I have to watch everything I say in case they take offence and attack me. I feel outnumbered as it is, and with him so protective of you... well it makes the thing ten times as worse. I just have to look on and watch him take care of you the way I wanted to. Even before I found out what you really were, I cared about you, and even though I know now that you’re one of my mortal enemies I can’t help but feel there’s some part of you left in there that belongs to my world.’

   In my head, that didn’t help the fact that there was still a human side of me left, the side of me that tempted Mike so much into wanting to rip open my neck and drink me dry of all my luscious blood; but I still refused to believe that that side of me was strong enough for even Jake to pick up on, however slight it was. Looking down in shallow despair of my predicament, I breathed out sharply. Then my ears pricked up to the sound of crunching nearby, smelling the air quickly I picked up on the most familiar blood I knew.

   ‘Mike?’ I called out, while letting go and stepping back a pace away from Jake.

   Poking his head around the tree as he approached, Mike looked at me in surprise. ‘You heard me?’ he asked, the surprise echoing in his voice. ‘You’re too good. Jake, how are you?’ he asked rather too politely as he walked around and stood right next to me, so close I felt his hand brush mine, whether that was a sign for me to hold it I did not know but I didn’t take it after what Jake had said to me in confidence.

   Looking back at Mike with a hint of malice in his eyes, Jake answered. ‘Not too bad, thanks, but I would have preferred that you didn’t sneak up on us like that next time. Not to be disrespectful but it is rude no matter if it’s on friend or foe.’ The air around us tightened in a haze of hate and the two boys that I cared about looked on at each other with what seemed jealousy or just simple hatred in itself.

   On a whim that hit me like a brick to the back of the head, I quickly took Mike’s hand and led him away. ‘I’m sorry, Jake!’ I shouted back. ‘This is how it has to be. For your safety and mine.’