Halloween Romance: Blood Lovers

Chapter Five

Truth


“So, what are you guys gonna do now?” Mariah asked. Winter shrugged and Midnight looked up from her reverie, up towards the heavens, as if her thoughts could be read upon the ceiling. Kai and the others gazed at her questioningly.

Well, Your Highness?

Winter, don’t call me that. We’re not in the Mountains.

Dara, we should stay with these people. It’s safe for us here.

I don’t agree, Julian broke in. Both girls turned to look at Julian, who regarded them with a level stare of pale yellow ice. They’re all mortals, and liabilities.

Hardly ALL mortals, Julian, Midnight pointed out, glancing at some of the teenagers clustered around them. Some of them are People of the Kingdoms. Some of them are not, but have Kingdom blood in them. And Kai… well, you all know who Kai is.

I don’t think we should stay, but you rule me, Midnight, body and soul, until the End of the Long Night comes.

The dark haired girl smiled wistfully. It had been a long time since anyone had said that to her. For Julian to say it now meant a great deal.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do now,” she answered Mariah aloud. “We can’t go back to Holiday, the company’s crawling with people like Vlad. That’s why we have so many ‘helpers.’ Volunteers. They get paid. We’re the payment.” She snorted with disgust. “Could we... maybe... stay with you guys? We’ll stay out of your way, and help around.”

“Yeah. I can clean your rooms. For 50 cents of course.” Tannis gave a squeak as Midnight rapped her on the head with a pencil. “What? What the heck was that for!?”

“You guys can stay as long as you like, no payment necessary. Right, guys?” Max asked. Everyone agreed. Midnight grinned, and her teeth were bright.

“Thanks, you guys.”

Kai flashed her a little smile, the littlest, a bare curving up of the corner of his mouth, before returning to the brooding, scary team captain of normal. Midnight noticed Butterfly, Finn, and Tannis gazing up at him in adoration.

They love you, she said.

I don’t care if they love me. I want the love of another.

His words made her catch her breath, but only Kai noticed.

“So, we stay with the others? Yay!” Wing clapped, then hugged Ray around the knees. She seemed to have a crush on him.

“This calls for a celebration.” Mr. Dickinson cried genially.

“With food?” Tyson exclaimed. Everyone stared at him for a minute.

“Yes, Tyson, with food,” Kenny said, sighing in exasperation. Mr. Dickinson left, followed by Tyson and Rei to make sure he ordered the right food, and Max to keep from being bored. Gary was busy being referee to Kevin and Li, who were sparring. Mariah, Winter, and Julian were all in a corner talking. Kai had already left.

Midnight looked around, trying to find him.

Seek the song of the sounding sea, he whispered softly in her mind.

Ah-ha….

And there was Kai, gazing out at the Pacific Ocean over the balcony. Midnight, not wanting to interrupt, began slowly backing away from the entryway, but stopped when Kai spoke.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? The sea, I mean.”

“Yeah, it is. Mind if I join you?”

“No.” Midnight, hoping he meant no, he didn’t mind, walked casually up to the banister. Kai didn’t bat an eyelash. “So, what is it about the sea you like?”

“I like the colors, how they’re always changing. The sea is always different, it’s never the same for longer than a split second. It reminds me of you in some ways.” Kai murmured.

Siren call of your voice in my head, he breathed silently in her mind, singing of darkness and fairytale palaces of glass and dream smoke.

Not dreams, anosha. Not dreams only, but reality.

You are my reality, he whispered, and my dream.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he said, picking up from their talk of the sea, having a different conversation in his mind. “You’re kind of mysterious, and you just... confound the mind, confuse the senses.”

“I do that to you? I’m sorry.”

Am I your Morpheus fix, my love? The needle to tranquilize the nightmares?

No, you’re the panther, the dream cat with the silver claws that slashes fears to death and drags them in your teeth to Hell.

At that, she laughed out loud.

“Are you sorry?” He asked. “Don’t be. Confusion can be a blessing in disguise, sometimes.”

Midnight turned to look at him, wanting to say something, but unsure how.

“Kai, sometimes I feel... I don’t know, but with you, somehow I always feel safe.” Midnight whispered. Her father had told her that to speak of the truth, the full truth, of the bond, was impossible. She knew now what he meant.

Kai shivered with wonder.

What is she? he wondered silently. She’s so strange... no, not strange. Different. Not to mention divinely beautiful. My auramdas, my anosha auramdas with the dream eyes like the sea….

“Really? I’m always feeling unsafe with you. It’s like the floor could drop out from under me at any moment, and it would shatter something like a dream, and I’d wake up.”

The bond between them twinged, and he slipped an arm around her shoulders. He couldn’t not touch her, not now. It brought him peace, to be with her, to hold her to him. To feel her silk hair against his cheek, to see her true blue gaze upon him. The feeling of his mind, the tiny threads of it weaving together with hers, until they were sometimes of one thought, one mind. It ought to have scared him, but it only made him feel safe and sweetly loved.

“Sometimes, we have to wake up, Kai. Sometimes, it’s necessary to face reality.”

He felt her sorrow, her worry, and laid his free hand upon her slimmer, smaller one. She twisted her hand so it was palm up beneath his and curled her fingers, slender and long, around his.

In her mind, a soft voice whispered, You know better than that, Princess. She knew the voice of the Divine, of Raksha the Goddess, when she heard it. You know that this is truth, this is not just truth but Truth. He is the one, and you are the Queen. Nothing may stand against you.

Yes, my Queen, Midnight breathed, knowing that it was in fact Truth.

Kai smiled a little and shook his head. “No, not with you. You have some kind of... I don’t know, some kind of power, that makes life a living dream. I never want to wake up from it.”

“And, I don’t want to either, but do we know what we’re rushing into?” She knew she could not make him truly understand what being with her meant, much less becoming like her, and so she could only offer empty warnings to him instead. “Winter once told me that love is a leap only the inspired can take.”

“Midnight.”

Just her name, only that, rolling off his tongue like the sweetest honey. She melted into him. Resting her head on his chest, his arms around her, she drew a shuddering breath. He was so perfect... this, her beloved one, whom she had searched hungrily for from the age of fourteen until this point, such a long time since.

“Kai, I don’t know if I can leap, even if I am inspired.” Midnight whispered softly.

He lifted her chin up, and she stared into his eyes, so sweet, as pure as dusk, as clear as the starlight just before dawn, new as twilight. She lost all fear. Kai loved her. There was no way he could look at her like that and not love her. He was part of her.

I’ll be there to catch you, you know. My Auramdas… my Queen….

She gazed up at him for a brief moment, and then closed her eyes. She felt his warm lips against hers. So warm, so alive, so mortal against her cold and unending eternity…. His tongue, slick and warm, traced over her lips and teased them apart, sweet and inviting. He kissed her, and began drowning in the sensation of lightning crackling along his skin, heating his blood. Midnight returned his kiss, giving Kai the impression of innocence and wisdom spun together in tangled web of love, lust, and secrets.

She tasted blood, the sweetness of hers and the richness of his- she’d bitten his tongue, and hers- and she broke away from him, though she did not wrench herself from his arms as her instincts were screaming at her to do.

“What is it, anosha?” he whispered kindly. “What’s the matter?”

“I haven’t told you everything. I... I’m not who I seem.” Kai’s heart jumped. She couldn’t possibly be... the thoughts in his head echoed with truth, and she stared up into his eyes unblinkingly.

“You... you’re not human!” Kai exclaimed in a whisper. “If not human, than...”

“You know who and what I am. You know.”

And he knew, as he tasted sweet copper warmth like eternal kisses on his lips, on the tip of his tongue. He knew what she was.

“Is that what you were worried about?” Kai asked, incredulous. Midnight nodded. “I could care less if you were a demon from Hell, Midnight. I honestly could. Midnight, I love you.”

Kai blinked, taken aback by his own words.

“You don’t regret saying that, do you?”

“No, Midnight, never.”

“You promise?” Kai nodded. She smiled.

“So, what’s it like? Being… being a vampire?”

“Sometimes, it’s the most wonderful thing, other times, it’s a curse. Often, it can be scary. It’s exhilarating. I hate it.”

“I think I understand. Midnight, you won’t have to be that way anymore.”

“I’ve been doing it so long, I don’t know if I can stop myself. Kai, I-“

He silenced her, kissing her lips with a compassionate gentility unlike any Midnight had ever know. She broke away, smiling a little at his puzzled glance. Kissing his jaw, her lips whispered over his throat until a blinding, wondrous pleasure pain coursed through his body. The vampire girl had never tasted such ecstasy, such enticing sweetness. Kai clutched her to him, and gave a little gasp as she sank her fangs deeper into his skin. He moaned, quaking with pleasure. How could this feel so... heavenly? Her mouth on him was driving him nuts.

My darkness... my beloved midnight darkness…. Kai whispered into her mind.

Anosha, Kai, love of my darkness, the dawn of my life….

Withdrawing her fangs, Kai brought her lips to his again, and tasted his own blood upon them. He ravaged her lips and mouth with his teeth and tongue. Sucking and coaxing her tongue into his mouth, he bit down, drawing blood. Dara whimpered against his lips. There was so much pleasure in the sound. This could go on forever...

“Kai! Where are you, Kai!?” Tyson’s voice rang, startling them both apart. Kai swore to himself.

“Count on Tyson to have a talent for bad timing!” Midnight whispered, trying to make him smile. He smiled, kissed her, and then walked back toward the door.

“Don’t come back in for a couple minutes, or through a different entrance.” Kai instructed. Midnight gave him the okay. She understood his secrecy. This was their perfect thing, their secret, and they did not want to give that away to the others.

Vanishing into the mist, she floated to the ground below, slipped under the door, glided quietly to the room, and then reappeared silently.

“Hey, guys!”

Everyone smiled but Winter, who frowned disapprovingly. Kai gave her a wave. Things would be like this for a while, she knew. But, she had had a talk, a kiss, and the truth.

oo8oo8oo8oo

In the words of JunoMagic:

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