Vampire - Child of Destiny (Vampire Series Book 2)

Vampire – Child of Destiny

Copyright Charmain Marie Mitchell Aug 2014

Vampire – Child of Destiny, is the property of the author Charmain Marie Mitchell and cannot be copied, sold, distributed, or shared, in whole or in part, in any media format, without the prior knowledge and permission of the said author.

Publisher: Cmmpublishing, Petersfield, Hampshire, UK.

First published in the UK, US, and worldwide, in August 2014

Edition four

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For my four beautiful children, William, Jesse, Bonnie, and Ben – I love you so much xx

And as always a great big thank you to wonderful parents and my partner Mike, and lastly to Julia Gibbs (Juliaproofreader) – you’re all great xx

Vampire - Child of Destiny

By Charmain Marie Mitchell

Chapter One

2013

Once again, I take up my pen and recall the memories from my long life.  It has been a while since I have attempted to write.  Writing the first chapters of my life affected me much more than I could ever have known, and for weeks after I finished writing, I awoke at night screaming in terror, the sound of my baby's cries echoing around my muddled mind.

I have therefore been afraid to write!  I have several times picked up my pen, but before my thoughts have been able to string together the first sentence, I have put my pen back down on my writing desk and walked away, my fear following me like a gliding poisonous snake.

Oh, I am sure you read this with a mind that questions my writing, after all the entire whole world knows that vampires have no emotions and are evil creatures, do they not?  Oh, if only that was the truth!  How so much easier my life would be.

How strange it is that I recall my first memories with a young heart and not that of a mind and body that has lived for nearly five hundred years.  I had thought that reliving my memories through an aged and wise mind would make them so much easier to deal with, but of course, no matter how old we are, we never truly know the answers to all the questions we ask.

It seems that in reliving my memories I have also once again found an affinity with the human race.  I had lost that.  I saw people as food, but since revisiting my past I have remembered how it feels to be human, to be scared, alone, and above all petrified of the animal that I had unwillingly become.

I made this discovery a few days after I had finished writing.  Actually, it was the morning following my first terror-induced nightmare.  I was strolling barefoot along the soft warm sand at Pevensey Bay, a small and secluded beach near Brighton.  I love the ocean, it is the one thing in my long life that never changed, for the ocean can never be tamed, nor altered, and I find I constantly feel the need to be close to the sound of crashing waves.

After walking for a while I decided to sit down and look out to sea; watching the waves was hypnotic and eased the remaining fear from the previous night’s terror.  I was so lost in thought that I failed to notice the young boy walking towards me, and it was not until the gorgeously intoxicating smell of fresh innocent blood assaulted my senses, that I knew he was almost upon me.

I hate to admit that in years gone by I would have fed from this child.  The taste of young untainted blood is irresistible.  It regenerates the decrepit blood that circulates in a very old vampire’s body, eradicating all the sourness of the immoral beings previously fed from, and replenishes us with youth and vitality.  I suppose in some ways, like humans, eating a healthy but delicious diet; that is what an innocent’s blood is to a vampire.

I felt my fangs grow as the boy approached me, the sweet smell of his life engulfing my senses.  I wanted his blood, and I knew at that moment that my eyes had glazed over with the familiar opaque look of a crazed animal, my fangs had elongated and that I looked like the beast that I had long ago become.  I jumped up from my seated position, my body fighting an internal battle, my mind screaming, ‘NO’ but my body craving the elixir of the boy’s blood.

I then did something that I had not done for centuries.  I fled!  I knew I could no longer feed on the blood of one so young, and for the first time in years, I felt disgust at the want of my desires.

For miles, I scurried along the coastline, I say scurried because I feel that I was no better than a rat.  Rats infect the innocent with a plague of death and debauchery, and I believe this is also an apt description of a vampire.

Finally, I come to rest miles away from the boy and bury myself away from human gaze underneath Brighton pier.  I writhe with the agony of self-loathing on the damp sand, pathetic, self-pitying sobs shaking my body.

Gradually the sobs subside, but it is then that I taste the presence of a human nearby.  I glance to my side and notice an old man curled up on the wet sand.  His hands lovingly holding an empty wine bottle as if it was a precious stone and although his body smelt like death, his soft snores proved he lived.  The yearning for blood once more took over my body, but this time it was different, this was not innocence – this was food.

I grasped the man and sunk my teeth into his neck.  My thirst was so angry and intense that I did not stop until I ceased to hear the irregular beats of his failing heart, but then I flung him from me in disgust and his poor misused body fell in a crumpled heap.  The pickled taste of his alcohol-infused blood stung my throat, and bending over, I retched and retched, until black cloying clots colored the sand at my feet.

I flung myself on the man's body.  He was dead, I knew he was dead, but I tried to feed him my blood, I needed to bring him back to life, to undo the evil I had done.

"
Please breathe!
" I screamed to the wind.  Sobs once again rasped from my throat, but to no avail.  I knew that I was not going to be able to return to him what I had stolen.  This man was not innocent, but he was defenseless, and I had taken his one magical gift, in what was a miserable existence, I had taken his life! 

Wearily I returned to my home, I was so close to stabbing a stake deep into my unfeeling heart.  Thoughts of death rushed in a crazy spiral around my dazed mind.  For hours I lay on my bed, a wooden stake held in my hand beside me.  Several times, I held it above my chest; several times I came close to letting it fall into my breast. 

However, slowly a realisation came to me - I felt guilt.  For the first time, in a long time I felt a human emotion.  Maybe, just maybe, I am worth saving.  Maybe I did have a reason to live.  Yes, I had selfishly taken a human life, and there was no excuse, but now, just maybe, I could find a reason to live?  The guilt I felt, a feeling that would remain with me, was a human reaction, and as long as I felt that guilt, I knew I would not be able to take another human life.

I pulled my journal towards me and started to read.  When I had finished I closed my eyes with a sigh, and I knew I would continue with the tale of my long life, it was a story that needed to be told.  I needed the world to know the truth, and I needed to know the truth, because for the first time in a long time, I was finding Gwen - the real me.

So once more, we begin...

Part One

Chapter Two

1542

Robert softly enters my bedchamber; even with the velvet drapes drawn around the bed, I know it is he.  Although I am a young, inexperienced, and newly transformed vampire, my senses are astronomical when compared to when I was human.

Sights, smells, feelings, everything is so much more intense. Colours are brighter, life is sweeter, and in fact, just everything is amazing.  My senses are now so finely tuned, that I recognise Robert by the sound of his tread, his breathing, even the faint taste of his scent that seems to float on the air.  I have the intoxicating feeling of invincibility, and although I am in truth dead, I have never felt so alive.

"Boo!" Robert's head appears around the curtain, his smile, as always, hypnotic and mesmerizing.

"I knew it was you!" I said, poking my tongue out, and faking disdain by turning my back on him.

"Oh, did you indeed?"  Although my back was to him, I could hear the smile in his voice.  The bed dipped as he climbed in beside me, I could feel his cold breath on my neck, and my body trembled in response to him.

"Well," Robert whispered into my ear, "Did you know I was going to do this?"  His tongue slivered a delicious line along my neck. "Or this?" His voice deepened as he pierced my skin with his elongated and exquisite fangs.  I sighed in ecstasy; nothing could have ever prepared me for the exquisite feeling of making love with a vampire.  The giving and receiving of blood, two bodies entwined, emotionally and physically, combined with the heightened awareness of being a vampire, arousing emotions that can only be described, quite hypocritically, as heavenly.  I had voiced this thought to Robert a few days earlier, and he had laughed his deep throaty laugh, and said, "Oh but thou knowest not what thou sayest!"

"And my love, did you know I was going to do this?" Robert asked as he thrust his body into mine.  I screamed with joy, and joined him in our mutual pleasure, love, life, blood, and power, building into a climax of ecstasy.

A few hours later, lying in Roberts’s arms, my pleasure still sweet but fading, I asked him the question that I had asked him every day since I had become a vampire.

"Can I see him today?"  His sigh answered my question before he had even voiced it.

"She'll not allow it, Gwen."

I jumped out of the bed.  I had known that he would answer me in this way, no matter how I asked, begged, and cried, his answer was always the same.  I paced the bedchamber, irritation causing my movements to feel aggravated and clumsy.  I turned to face Robert, anger visible in my stance and the blaze of my eyes. "But why not?  He is my son, Robert!"

He remained quiet, watching me as I paced up and down, his eyes, as always, lazy and unconcerned.

"Because, Gwen," he said quietly, "Because you agreed that Henry would become Matilda's child."

I once again stopped my pacing, which I had resumed, and turned towards him. "But he is
her
child!  That’s quite clear, is it not.....I have not even seen him, I have not seen my
SON,
I just want to see him, to touch him, surely that is understandable...Please, Robert, Please..."

He arose from the bed and walked, gloriously beautiful and naked, towards me.

"The maternal bond must be broken, Gwen.  I have explained this to you countless times." His hand reached out to me, I shrugged him away angrily, and he sighed, dropping his hand down by his side.

"In a few months’ time you will be able to see him, and maybe even play with him...but...until then you must allow Matilda and Henry to bond."

His eyes glanced at me in a cold stare, stern and unyielding, and I knew that his look signaled the end of the conversation.  I would not be able to convince him today and in truth, I knew I would never convince him, no matter how much I begged.  I had made a bargain with him before our love had grown, and before my son was born, and I knew Robert would never break that bargain.

"But I am your lover, Robert!  You share your body with me every night, you spend your days with me...Matilda is nothing to you...and is your wife only in name..." 

"That, for the moment, is true.  However, do not presume to know how I feel about Matilda!  Matilda will always be my wife, and it is well that you remember that, because it will never change, you will never be that, now or ever!  I am sorry, Gwen, but that is how it is!"

I noticed the compassion etched into his face, but I was too angry to care.

"Well, that being the case, sir," I said, my voice full of sarcasm and anger, "I recommend that you had best go and sleep in your wife’s arms, for I'll not be a doxy for you tonight!"

His compassionate expression faded, replaced instantly by anger, and as his eyes grew red I wondered if I had indeed pushed him too far.  I had seen his wrath in the past, and having witnessed him kill several vampires a few months previously when I was a human, it was not something, I would, in all truth, look forward to seeing again.  I waited expectantly for the cruel punishment I thought I was going to receive.  Instead of expressing his anger in this way, he simply bowed towards me, walked to the bed, snatched up his clothes, and said, on his way to the door, "As you wish, my lady."