Taken Over

   I really wanted to sit down. Really wanted to walk away. I didn’t want to hear this anymore, but I found my feet wouldn’t move. Mainly because I was terrified that my legs would no longer hold me up. The human race had never had a chance to begin with; we had even less of one now that our numbers had been decimated. I slumped against the tree, trying to think, trying to understand, terrified by what little I did understand.

   Suddenly all of those times he had seemed tense, distant, exhausted and strained made sense. Those times he had disappeared into the woods, and come back strangely revitalized. He had gone hunting. But what exactly had he been hunting, animals or the Frozen Ones? Nausea twisted in my stomach. How little I knew about the man that had touched me so deeply was unsettling.

  “You were only a child when they gave you away. How did they expect you to control your er… appetites? I mean you do drink blood, don’t you? You’re the one that said those monsters bring the blood back for them. Ian…” I choked on my words. “Ian drank mine.”

   Fury flashed over his features, for a moment his eyes became completely black again as a snarl curved his upper lip. I took a small step back, a mewl of fear escaped me as I saw the creature lurking just beneath the surface. Cade’ssurface. I saw the murderous fury he had managed to keep hidden from me for so long. He took a deep breath, the tight set of his shoulders relaxed slightly.

   “Don’t fear me Bethany.”

   I had no words for him, my heart ached for the sorrow I heard in his voice, but how I could not fear him? He was truly terrifying when he was enraged to the point of revealing his i

   “There was nothing you could have done about tonight,” I whispered.

   His eyes latched onto me, hardness slipped over his beautiful features. For the first time he appeared truly alien to me in the gleaming light of the moon. “I could have killed him sooner. I shouldhave killed him sooner.”

   My mouth dropped, a cold chill ran down my spine. He meant it. He would have killed Ian sooner if he’d known that tonight was going to happen. He would have killed him in cold blood, and he wouldn’t have blinked an eye. I wanted to cry, he was darker than I’d ever imagined, ever thought possible. And he had killed for me tonight, and I knew with unfailing certainty that he would do so again. “Cade…”

   “Make no mistake Bethany, youcome first. Always. No matter what happens, after tonight, you need to realize that your safety is number one. No matter what the cost or who I have to go through to ensure it.”

   “Oh Cade.”

   He stared at me for a moment longer, his head tilted slightly to the side. “The hunger for something other than food doesn’t awaken until we reach fifteen, and neither do our other abilities.” It took me a moment to realize that he was answering my last question; that he did not want to elaborate on his last statement. “By then we are better able to deal with our urges. We can control allour appetites if we so chose. We are capable of surviving on meat if necessary, a lot of it, and preferably raw.” I jolted in shock, my eyes widened. It took everything I had not to vomit. Oh God, oh God! My mind was screaming, hammering, pulsing with adrenaline and terror. Meat. Rawmeat. All those strange urges, all the differences. My head bowed, I was struggling to breathe.

   “Though under times of great duress, activity, and stress meat does not suffice and it becomes necessary to feed on real blood. There are others way to feed our need for a soul and humans are not the only things that possess a soul,” he continued, apparently not realizing how sever my reaction to his words was. “There are other ways to fulfill that need, and it does not have to destroy, or even hurt the person, or creature. I just need to take caution not to lose control.”

   “So then why are they doing this?” I was stu

   His eyes softened, compassion shone from them. For the first time since this had all started I saw the Cade I had come to know and love beneath the hardened façade he had been exhibiting. “Bethany…”

   “My mother… Please just tell me why!?”

   His face hardened again, his ice were black ice once more. “Because they can, because they’re hungry. Because they don’t curb theirhungers. It’s why they’re in this mess in the first place, why they had to abandon their own ravished planet to begin with.”

   A sob escaped me, and then a fiery rage surged through me. I straightened away from the tree, finding strength where moments ago there had been none. “My mother is dead, millions of people’s lives- no billionsof people’s lives- have been ruined because they can’t control their hunger!?”

   Was I going to become like that too? The question didn’t leave my mouth though.

   Cade watched me for a long moment, before nodding. “Yes.”

   His flat answer momentarily spiked my fury. Why wasn’t he as indignant and infuriated by this as I was? “Damn you!” I snarled.

   Hurt flickered in his gaze; he took a step toward me and then stopped. “Damn me? I didn’t do

this! I kept you alive.”

   I shook my head, but I could feel everything within me crumbling again. My anger deflated like a popped balloon. It was hard; it was all so freaking hard. I felt like I was spi

   “I’ve kept you alive for a very long time.”

   My head snapped up at his words. I didn’t understand what the hell he meant by that. “Excuse me?”

   He sighed softly. “Ever since the moment I saw you Bethany, I knew. I’d never had emotions before then, never experienced feelings; my kind doesn’t have those things. It’s not supposed to happen to us. Ever. I was supposed to be too young to have felt the hunger, The Calling, when we first met. It wasn’t supposed to happen for another ten years. The Calling is what we call the desire we acquire to touch and taste a soul. When it happens, we feel as if the soul is calling to us, beckoning us to feed from it, to savor it, and gain strength from what it has to offer.”

   “Pardon our souls, damn things should just keep quiet,” I muttered bitterly.

   “Not helping,” he grated. “You have no idea what it is like to deny The Calling, hour after hour, day after day. No idea what it is like to suppress that hunger, that desire; that need ,especially when I am around you.” I stared angrily at him, but I clenched my jaw and bit my tongue on my sharp retort. I had seen that hunger burning in his eyes, I had felt his desire for something more from me; I just hadn’t recognized it for what it was. Hadn’t recognized what it was that he really wanted from me. “The Calling of your soul is so strong, and vibrant, and I want you so badly. I would give anything for just…”

   He closed his eyes, his hands fisted as he broke off. For a brief moment ecstasy and then tension and pain twisted his features. “A taste?” I whispered unable to stop the thrill that tore through me at the thought. He wanted me desperately, but he had never touched me in such a way. I was certain of that, I had felt it with Ian, I would most certainly have felt it if Cade had ever done that to me.