Morgan Rice - Desired

But he still couldn’t escape the gnawing feeling that he had done something wrong. That he had transgressed some sort of sacred vampire rule. That somehow, he would have to answer for this.

Before Sam could finish the thought, Kendra suddenly opened her eyes, and sat bolt upright, immediately awake. She stared at him, her eyes wider than he had ever seen them. Her eyes seemed to be glazed over, like the eyes of a wild animal. Alert. As she stared right through him, he began to wonder if she even recognized him at all.

“Kendra?” he asked, sitting up in bed. “Are you okay?”

She suddenly jumped up from bed in a single leap, landing halfway across the room, surprising him.

She quickly got dressed, her back to him, and she moved so fast, faster than anyone he had ever seen. It was unnatural. Clearly, she already had the speed of his race.

He slowly got out of bed, began to get dressed, and came over to her.

“What’s wrong? Is everything okay?” he asked again.

But she kept her back to him as she dressed, and he wondered why she was acting so strangely.

“Why don’t you come back to bed?” he asked.

She suddenly turned and faced him, and he saw the wildness in her eyes, and was almost afraid.

“Why would I?” she spat back.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I already have all I need from you.”

Sam felt as if he had been punched in the gut. He could not believe her words. Had she really said what he’d thought she had just said?

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked with more urgency, and he could hear the fear in his own voice.

She suddenly headed for the door, and he reached out and grabbed her arm, to stop her.

But she spun around, and with her incredible new strength, roughly threw his arm off of her. He was shocked. She stared at him with a ferocity he had never imagined, her aqua eyes glowing and unearthly.

“Don’t you ever put your hands on me,” she snarled in a low, guttural voice.

“Kendra,” he said softly. “It’s me, Sam. What’s happened to you? Don’t you recognize me?”

She suddenly broke into a laugh, a demonic laugh, right in his face, mocking him.

“Of course I recognize you, you pathetic little thing. And I never loved you. I was just using you. You gave me what I wanted. Now, I’m done. I’m only going to spare your life because you turned me. But if you get in my way again, you will suffer – the same way that your people, and your sister, are about to suffer.”

With that, she wheeled, grabbed the huge oak door, and tore it off its hinges.

The two servants stared back at her, in shock, and she spun the wood and knocked them both off their feet with it.

Then suddenly, like a wild animal, she bounded down the hall, leaping twenty feet at a time, tearing down the corridors of Versailles, smashing candelabra as she went. She was like a one-woman wrecking machine.

Sam could not believe what he saw. He looked at the destroyed hallway, the unconscious servants, and wondered, with dread, what he had created.

He bounded off after her, chasing down the hall. As he did, he felt how much her words had stung. Had she just been playing him all along? Had he fallen perfectly into her trap? And what did she mean about Caitlin? What was her agenda, exactly?

As Sam ran down the corridor, using his full vampire speed, he caught a glimpse of her, far down a corridor, tearing through a room. As she did, she hurled human beings to the left and to the right, to terrible screams of mayhem.

Sam picked up speed as he followed. She smashed through yet another door, down yet another corridor, then finally, entered the main entry parlor of Versailles. She ran right for the main doors.

About a dozen guards, apparently alerted to her presence, stood before the door, blocking it with their bayonets. As she approached them, they lowered them towards her.

“Stay where you are!” one of them yelled.

As Sam watched, she leapt up, high in the air, over their heads, and with a single kick, knocked open the huge double doors. They went crashing down with a bang.

She landed out the other side, and with one more leap she was flying in the air, heading off into the night.

Sam wanted to follow her, but he suddenly spotted something on the horizon, and his heart stopped.

There, racing towards the palace, was an angry mob of thousands of citizens.

They were charging right for the palace steps.

As Caitlin flew across the French countryside, far away from Versailles, the silver cross and her dad’s scroll in her pocket, clutching Ruth in her arms, she finally, for the first time in this place, felt as if she were on the right track. She felt deep in her bones that she was finally doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing. Searching for her father. Searching for the Shield. Following the clues, doing what she was destined to do.

As she flew and flew, her head cleared even more as she got further away Versailles. She was mad at herself for not doing this sooner. She knew all along what her mission was: why couldn’t she just embark from the beginning?

She thought of Caleb. Her heart pulled as she remembered how much she loved him, at how bad she’d felt when he’d left. At the same time, now that she was on her mission, she realized that if he hadn’t left, maybe she would have just settled down, and never sought out her father. She realized once again that, no matter how painful things seemed while they happened, if she looked back upon them in retrospect, over time, she realized that everything happened for a reason. That reason wasn’t always easy for her to see while it was happening. But the more distant she got from events, the more that reason started to become clear.

As Caitlin raced towards Paris, she started to feel a tremor of nervousness, of anticipation, at the idea of possibly meeting her father. Could it be that he had been waiting for her in Paris all this time? So close? That he would be at the Saint Germain Des Pres church? Or at the Notre Dame? Would he embrace her, be proud of her? Would he give her the Shield?

Caitlin hoped that he would indeed be proud of her, that he would recognize what a woman, what a warrior, she had become. That he would acknowledge all that she has sacrificed to find him. He would open up a whole new world for her, introduce her to his coven. And maybe she could finally have a place in the world, a people to belong to, a place to settle down. She would like that.

Caitlin also thought about Sam, with a pang of regret. She wished that he was with her, at her side, helping her on her quest. But she realized that he was too caught up in his relationship, and there was simply nothing she could do about that. Sometimes, people just had to come to their own realizations, in their own time. She just hoped that everything would be okay for him. She had a sinking feeling, though, upon looking at Kendra, that it would not.

More than anything, Caitlin wished that Caleb was here with her now, at her side, as he had always been on her search. She missed him desperately, missed having him there, missed not being able to share her ideas with him. And whatever she found, she wanted to find it together with him. And if once again, for some reason, she had to go back in time, she desperately wished that he would be by her side.

But as Caitlin flew, she realized that she was much stronger now. She had become a warrior. And part of what it meant to be a warrior was to be unafraid to go it alone if need be, to carve your own path in this world. To forge forward, even when no one else was willing to forge forward with you. It was about individual strength, and courage. And sometimes that meant the courage to do what no one else was doing.