I can smell it.
A soft, feminine voice speaks from somewhere close by. “Marcy, do you remember what we talked about?”
The freckled woman glances up. “I… I don’t know.”
Voice becoming firm, the unseen woman asks, “Why not? You know the importance.”
The view through my dear fated’s eyes shifts as her mother clutches her tighter to her chest.
Able to look up now, I see a nurse peering down at us with a frown.
Hanging from the nurse’s neck is a silver chain with a pendant. Engraved into the pendant is a circle around a cross that bears a nail at each end. To the unknowing, the nails represent the three nails that were used to crucify Christ. The fourth nail being the one that held the announcement above his head.
To those who know better, it’s also how the Order prefers to murder my kind. A stake through each hand, one through the ankles, and one through the heart. Normally that alone wouldn’t kill us, if given enough time to heal.
It’s when they light us on fire and behead us that snuffs out our existence.
The nurse persists as she moves in to scoop the newborn baby up. “Marcy, you must understand… If she’s lucky, they will kill her if they catch her. If she’s not lucky, they will do much, much worse.”
If I could reach through the baby’s body and snap the frigid cunt’s neck, I’d do it. I’d fucking dine on the whore’s neck for an eternity. No, better yet, I’d force her to drink my blood and make her a ghoul. Then I’d set her loose inside a catholic school with instructions to murder as many as she could.
“But she’s all… she’s all I have left of Robert,” this woman who birthed my fated says.
“Yes, but your dear, departed husband would want you to do what’s best for her, wouldn’t he?” the nurse insists.
The woman holding my soulmarked begins to shake and tremble, clutching her as tightly as she can. But her grasp is weakening and the smell of blood in the room is growing stronger.
This Marcy is bleeding out!
Without help, she likely only has five to ten minutes to live.
“We’ll keep her safe, Marcy, and when it’s truly safe, you can come see her and reconnect. She’ll know all about you,” the nurse says as she starts to pull my fated from the woman’s arms.
The newborn looks up to her mother, and I can see tears spilling down her cheeks.
“Chloe Marie Bonham,” her mother whispers. “Her name is Chloe.”
“That is a good name, she’ll be strong,” the nurse says as she lifts the child up.
Being tucked into the nurse’s arms makes me want to vomit up everything I’ve ever drank.
We’re shifted to see the woman, whose body is growing paler by the second under the bright medical lights.
“Do you, Marcy Bonham, give Chloe Marie Bonham to the Order of Saint Benedict? Do you place your child under our protection?” the nurse asks.
Marcy’s answer comes out with a labored breath. “Yes.” Her arms raise towards the child, her chest heaving mightily to drag in air. “Hold… her…one…”
“We’re done here,” the nurse says coldly.
The nurse and whoever else is in the room step away from Marcy, allowing her to fully bleed out in her bed.
She’s here.
My fated has finally been found after so many lonely years… Nine hundred and eighty-seven years…
So many long nights spent wasting away as I hungered for my mate. So many years of walking alone…
“She’s here, Raphael,” I sputter out to my best friend.
“Who?” Raphael asks.
Turning to look into his eyes, I growl, “Chloe Marie Bonham, my soulmarked.”
“In the city?!” he practically yells as he yanks me to my feet.
“No. No, I can’t… If she’s that close, I’d be able to tell. But she’s in North America, I think.”
“I’ll send out word to our network,” he says as he pulls away from me.
“Try Canada. The nurse who helped her had a Canadian accent. But her mother had a southern accent, almost like she was from Texas…” I stop and think for a moment. “Maybe, I don’t know.”
“I’ll make sure they know.” Raphael races from the room, the door practically flying off the hinges as he rushes out.
Getting my legs firmly under me, I move toward the door myself, but at a much slower pace.
The hunger is back now, stronger than ever before.
I can feel my stomach literally devouring itself.
I’ve been told this would happen. The linking of two can paralyze most vampires, even one as strong as I am.
My hands cradle my stomach as visions of Marcy bleeding out flood through my mind. Each drop of blood both nauseates me and drives my hunger even closer to the edge of bloodlusting insanity.
“Fuck!” I scream.
My fingernails rip out, turning into razor-sharp claws, and my fangs fully explode from my gums.
Blood dripping from my mouth, I slash out with my hand at the dim light in the hallway, causing showers of sparks to explode in my vision.