Michael v - Unnatural

This was unfathomable, losing twice—first Michael and now Brania—no! That was absolutely unacceptable. “After everything I’ve done for you and your father, you can’t just walk out on me.”

Brania sighed. It was time to take a short vacation from the opposite sex. “If you don’t want le petit Edwige, perhaps you should call my father. I know he’s quite grateful for everything you’ve done.” Buttoning a button that had come undone on her silk blouse, Brania added with a lascivious grin, “And He fancies the company of both genders.” When the door slammed behind her, it only made Brania chuckle even louder.

Nakano found nothing funny about Brania’s comment. He might be a vampire, immortal, preternaturally powerful, but he was still sixteen, surly, and very serious. “What do you mean Michael’s not here?!” Nakano shouted, though Ciaran didn’t even flinch. “Where the hell did he go?!”

“Ronan took him.”

This human was really getting on his nerves. “You mean you let Ronan take him.”

Unhurried, Ciaran finished the paragraph from his chemistry textbook, then placed a bookmark between the pages. When he looked up, his face was calm. “And what was I, a mere mortal, supposed to do to prevent one vampire from leaving this room with another?”

“You’re resourceful, Ciaran! You could’ve thought of something.”

And then the calmness disappeared. “I’m always thinking of something!” Ciaran bellowed, losing control. “I gave you an alibi so no one would find out the truth, that you killed Penry.”

Like I needed your alibi, Nakano thought. What can the police possibly do to me? “I don’t care about that and I never asked you to lie for me! What I want to know is why’d you let Ronan take Michael away from here?”

It was hard to believe that Nakano, thinner and shorter than Ciaran, was so much more powerful, but that was the truth. Luckily, Ciaran was more cunning than he was strong. “What would it have mattered? Even if I could have prevented Ronan from taking Michael, it would only have prolonged the inevitable,” Ciaran said while walking toward Nakano. “He would have come back tonight or tomorrow or the next day and eventually Michael would be in his arms again just as he is right now.”

Pushing that image from his mind, Nakano focused on the boy in front of him. He wasn’t nearly as handsome as Ronan. Well, he was completely different, but he was better-looking than Penry. And Penry had really good-tasting blood, so Ciaran’s had to be that much more delicious. His mouth watered as Ciaran got closer. “The only way I can really help you, Kano, is if I had more power,” Ciaran said slowly. “If I was more like you.”

Standing an inch away, Ciaran ran his fingers down Nakano’s arms, his soft nails gliding over even softer skin. He tilted his head and lengthened his neck so it was within reach of Nakano’s mouth. All Kano had to do was allow his fangs to descend and bite down. “I thought you weren’t interested in boys?” Nakano asked, a bit out of breath.

Pressing Kano to his body, Ciaran whispered in his ear, “I’m interested in power.” He didn’t even try to slow down his racing heartbeat. He wanted Kano to feel it thump, thump, thump, and for him to imagine his blood flowing through his veins. It was working. Ciaran felt Kano’s body pulse with desire and his fangs graze his neck. Finally, finally he was going to join his family. He may not become exactly like his mother or Ronan, but it was close enough. It would have to do.

Unfortunately, it was not to be.

Stop! The word thundered in Nakano’s brain and involuntarily his fangs throbbed in protest. Do not take Ciaran. Father says he is worth more to us as a mortal. He wanted to betray Brania’s command, he wanted to take Ciaran from humanity to satisfy his own hunger and to spite Ronan, but he couldn’t. He heard something in Brania’s voice, a tone he had never heard before, and he knew that if he went against her wishes again, he would be destroyed. He hated caution, but he had no desire to die.

“Do it,” Ciaran pleaded, cringing at the sound of desperation in his voice. He pushed his neck into Nakano’s mouth, but all he felt were lips, dry, uninterested, like Ronan’s. “Take me!”

“I can’t!” Nakano cried, pushing Ciaran away from him.

Reaching out like a blind man about to fall, Ciaran’s fingers sought out Nakano’s flesh. He felt his shoulder, then his neck, and pulled him closer to him so once again Nakano’s mouth was against his neck. “Do it! Do it now!”

Against his will his fangs descended, instinctively searching out the human flesh that was coated in a thin layer of sweat. Nakano’s arms clutched Ciaran around the shoulders and waist, his mind desperately trying to override his craving. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t, but how could he ignore this boy who was giving himself so willingly?

“I SAID NO!” Brania’s voice was so loud, so unyielding, it transcended space and even stung Ciaran’s ears. Nakano pushed Ciaran away from him brutally, a fang scraping the skin of his neck, and fled the room.

As he crashed into the headboard, Ciaran heard the door slam shut. “Not again!” Livid, Ciaran knelt on the bed and banged his fist into the headboard several times, shaking the bed frame. His body heaving, he grabbed his textbook, held it over his head, and let out a guttural cry as he slammed it against a lamp, smashing it to the floor. He kept slamming the book onto the end table over and over again until the fury, the despair, that clung to his body was released.

Exhausted he collapsed onto his bed too tired to even cry when a shard from the lightbulb pierced the palm of his hand. As he pulled the sharp remnant of glass from his flesh, he saw his blood spill out, the blood no one wanted. Quickly the bleeding stopped, producing only a small puddle of the red liquid, but enough to taste. He cupped his hand and brought the blood to his mouth and drank it, the taste intoxicating, even if it was his own. His free hand shook slightly, so he reached out to steady it, resting on the surface of his chemistry book. Tracing the sturdy, reliable edges of the book with his fingers, he suddenly knew what he had to do. What he had done practically his entire life, rely on himself. If Ronan and Nakano wouldn’t create him in their images, he would have to take matters into his own hands.

“And when I succeed,” Ciaran said, the taste of his own blood still fresh on his tongue, “I’ll make the both of you pay.”

Revenge didn’t only fill the space of Ciaran’s room, it hung over Penry’s memorial. Imogene gazed down at the flowers, wilted, lifeless, like Penry’s body must now look in his coffin, and her blank stare hid her outrage. She had been hiding it for days. She didn’t share it with anyone at the trauma center in Carlisle or with the police; she kept it to herself. Now standing on the soil where Penry took his final breath, she was no longer able to keep it contained and felt the rage bubble to the surface.

Her scream was so loud the birds high above in the trees flew from their nests, frightened. She covered her mouth with her hands, her wails spilling out through her fingers. Why?! Why was Penry taken from me? Why did his life end so violently? She didn’t know why, but she thought she knew how.

There was no way he was killed by an animal; it was the act of a man. Her boyfriend was murdered. She knew it instinctively, just as she knew there was something wrong with the headmaster when she saw him walk toward her from the other side of the brush. His stare was blank, empty, the line on the left side of his face so deep it was like a scar, and when she called out to him, he didn’t respond. He was just staring at her, but not at her face; he was fixated on something else.