Nicholas

Scarlett is a young vampyress. The daughter of the coven's leader. She has a happy life, safe, fairly uneventful, but when her father starts to worry about her safety she begins to have some suspicion

I decided to take my time walking back to the coven. The tall trees blocked the moon light with their wide and glorious branches. The floor of the dark forest was covered with the dead leaves and out sticking roots of the trees. There were the often bed of heathers at the foot of trees or just in lilac bursts here and there.

I could still hear the bats screeching and their wings flapping behind me. Their musty but cold smell lingered on my skin and dress and had wavered it’s self into the waves of my hair.

I licked the tiny droplets of blood from my fangs, it’s warm, sweet taste tingled on my tongue. I then pulled at the end of the ribbon in my hair. The bow released allowing the long length of my hair to trail down my back in loose curls. My fringe covered the most part of my right eye; I flicked it so it instead covered the majority of the right side of my face.

The wind blew and the delicate red and black skirt of my dress danced in the breeze. The breeze carried a smell of charred wood and cinnamon from the West of me.

Slowly I turned my head toward the smell, all I saw were trees that were all next to identical. Stopping dead I turned in the direction of were the scent had came. My body completely still facing the West. I smiled, “Nicholas, I know you’re there so don’t be a fool and come out so I can see you,” I sighed. Nicholas didn’t appear. He was so stubborn, then again I was, more often than not, far to stubborn myself. “If you don’t come out I’ll have to... burry you up to your chin outside my Father’s cave.” I wasn’t bluffing when I’d said it, obviously Nicholas was also aware of that.

His hands deep in black denim jeans he sauntered out from behind a tree that sat about fifteen metres away from where I stood. His dark green shirt loose on his lean, muscular body. He smiled and ran his hand through his spiky, cropped, dark hair. “You wouldn’t really? Would you?” he said smoothly, knowing I would.

“You know fine well, that I know fine well, that you know fine well, I would have,” I said, my eyebrows raised.

“If you could catch me, and we both know I’m the faster runner,” Nicholas said teasingly. He was right. He was faster.

“That’s true, but you would eventually run out of land and be forced to swim, and we also both know that I’m the faster swimmer,”I said, lowering my eyebrows to scowl at him. Nicholas could be childish at times, this used to annoy me.

“Touche” Nicholas said in defeat. I just looked at him questioningly. I hadn’t the slightest idea why he’d been spying on me. I was sure he was spying since he’d been hiding and also Nicholas never used to hunt out that way, he used to go feed on drunken clubbers. We began walking through the forest side by side. He eventually told me that he had followed my scent because he was worried because I wasn’t back to the coven yet.

“Did my Father send you to ‘keep an eye on me’?” my father had started worrying about me being out by myself in the forest and had often sent Nicholas to find me when I was a little later than expected, but never before this early. I had told him not to worry so much and trust me.

“I do trust you,” he had said, in his deep, powerful voice. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“You think that a human could harm me? Explain how that is remotely and logically possible,” I had asked in a confused and slightly cross tone.

“It isn’t the humans I am talking about!” my Father thundered in a voice louder than a waterfall and deeper than the sea. Mother and I were the only ones not to quiver slightly. We were not afraid of Father. Well not in that sense, I was afraid I would disappoint him. And I’d vowed never to allow myself to. I had never asked my Father what it was he spoke of if not the humans. I had meant to ask him on countless occasions but the words clung to the inside of my throat. I had often wondered what he was so afraid of.

I had hated seeing Father so stressed and frightened.

“No, my Lord did not,” Nicholas answered, “Your Father is hunting,” he continued, “I took it upon myself to come find you.”

“But it was not a week ago Father was hunting, I can not recall the last time he hunted twice in a month,” I said.

Nicholas was making an obvious effort to look into my eyes.

He was lying.

My Father wasn’t out hunting, but I knew Nicholas had, more probably than not, been asked by my Mother or Father to tell me otherwise. I could easily have coaxed him into telling me what he was really up to. But if Mother or Father had requested for him not to tell me, they must of had their reasons. “Never mind,” I said, shaking my head at him slightly.

“Thank you,” Nicholas replied. He was aware that I was smart enough to figure out he wasn’t telling the truth. And he was also grateful that I had dropped the subject.

“Why, may I ask, did you take it upon yourself to find me?” I asked him. Nicholas suddenly became shy. His eyebrows pulled together, he tore his eyes away from mine and looked up at the treetops, putting his head right back so he even the tops of the highest trees.

There was no possible way he had came to find me purely just because I wasn’t back yet. That had perhaps have been the reason he had given my Mother, and maybe it was parochially true, but there was more. Nicholas ran his fingers through his dark hair, his eyes on the forest floor. “I missed you,” Nicholas said in answer to my question.

I gave a short laugh, then just smiled and said, “We both know that wasn’t the reason.”

Nicholas’ eyes met mine again, the dark green and black was both beautiful and frightening. He loosened all the muscles in his face; his expression became soft, but his eyes were challenging. “Would you like a bet on that?” Nicholas took a step towards me, he was mere inches away from me, this did not distract me as he had hoped it would.

“It was maybe a reason, but not the main one. Also that little trick you just pulled, with the eyes and the proximity of your closeness, trying to get me to believe you? It may work on human girls, maybe even the odd naive vampyress but you’ve known me more than long enough to be aware that it won’t had the slightest bit of effect on me.” My smile had disappeared and my face become serious. “What are you hiding?”

“I have nothing to hide from you, my lady,” dropping his attempt to make me believe him and turning back to his usual self.

“Then tell me, and how many times have I asked you not to address me as ‘,my lady’, it really irritates me,” I said rather annoyed. Nicholas mumbled something under his breath, the only phrase I could make out was ‘unfairly beautiful’. “I can’t remember the last time someone other than my Father, my Mother or a human called me by my name!” I had hated it when people addressed me as ‘my lady’ and Nicholas had known it, he had said that to annoy me or to distract me.

“A human?” Nicholas asked.

“Yes, sometimes they ask for my name, when you tell them I guess that they can trust you somehow; they feel... safer,” I told him, I hadn’t forgotten our previous topic.

“Did you have to do that tonight?” Nicholas asked.

“No, the man was half way to being completely hammered, he needed no reassurance. I just let him follow me into the forest,” I told him, smiling slightly. Nicholas laughed. I was still curious as to why he had come to look for me that night, but saw no reason to push the subject.

“I, for one, think it was not his alcohol consumption that swayed him into following you,” Nicholas said, in mock accusation while looking up at what you could see of the sky through the dense treetops.

“Are you suggesting that I hypnotised him in shape or form? If so I did nothing of the sort!” I told him, rather offended.

“Oh, no, no! Not at all! I was merely suggesting that it was more probably the more... hormonal side of him, that made him follow you into the forest, rather than him being intoxicated,” Nicholas explained, his smile spread wide across his face, exposing his fangs.

“I had not thought of that,” I said, quite taken back.

“I’m not surprised,” I gave him a questioning look, “Well, Scarlett, you are not one to bask in vanity or think very highly of your appearance.”

“Thank you, for calling me by my name, but I would have thought most would think it good not to as you say ‘bask in vanity’, would they not?” I was rather bemused by his assessment of what I thought of myself and my character.

“Well, is it not healthy to have a little vanity?” He said, still smiling.

“I have had no problems with my health and according to you I have very little or possibly no vanity,” I told him.

“You think very little of yourself, Scarlett, when in fact you are more than a very fine woman, vampyress and will in time be a more than a very fine coven mistress,” Nicholas told me with a smile of admiration.

“Thank you for your compliment, Nicholas, and also thank you for again using my name, but your kind words are just that, kind.”

“How so?” Nicholas asked.

“You are my friend, Nicholas, and have been since my birth and I hope until my death, so how do I know that you aren’t making great exaggerations for my benefit, as opposed to if you and I were not friends then you obviously wouldn’t be lying,” I explained. Nicholas thought that over for a moment.

“I suppose that makes sense,” he said agreeably.

I looked up at the tree tops and turn after a moment and saw a body of bats flapping towards myself and Nicholas. My bats. They flew, screeching above our heads. A small, young one fell to the ground at Nicholas’ feet. Nicholas hissed and bared his teeth at it. I hurried to my knees to help the poor creature. I scooped it’s fragile body on to my lap.

It’s velvet black wings tucked into it’s sides and furry little snout hidden well underneath them. It’s entire body was shaking. Nicholas was still hissing at it, “Nicholas!” I growled and gave him a look that would make anyone, vampyre or not, be more than a little scared; he’d looked as if he’d soiled himself upon seeing it. Nicholas was obviously more dignified than to actually have soiled himself though.

I relaxed me expression, to allow Nicholas to compose himself then turned back to the quivering bat in my lap. I stroked it gently from it’s head to it’s toes. It’s ear twitched slightly when it peered over it’s wing at me. I smiled gently at it, the poor little thing shied away. I smiled showing it my fangs and gave a small hiss so it would recognise me. It brought it’s head out from behind it’s wing and looked at me warily, making sure it was me. Of course a bats sense of sight was not the most fantastic in the animal kingdom, so I hissed again and allowed it to sniff the back of my hand. It sat up in my lap, gave me one last look over, and then it flapped away to try and catch up with the others. My smile widened when it caught up with the others.

Nicholas joined me on the forest floor, sitting on his knees as I was, in front of me. “You wanted to know the main reason that I came looking for you?”

“Yes, I did. I’m still curious,” I answered.

“Okay then, I came looking for you because... because... because,” Nicholas bit his bottom lip, unsure whether or not to continue. “Because... because I wanted to do this,”

Nicholas wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me recklessly close to him. He brushed my hair away from my face and cupped my cheek with his hand, moving his thumb along my cheek bone and done my jaw. He pressed his forehead against mine, making me look up at him. He was breathing heavily and so was I. I closed my eyes and listened to his heart beat, it was listening to the rapid drum beats of the music at the coven parties. I opened my eyes again to see Nicholas’ green and black eyes wild with excitement. He slowly closed the gap between my lips and his.

Author's Note

Hope you like it! x :)