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“Yes,” he hissed. His excitement and desire were clearly evident in that one simple word. “But I can’t. Ever. At least not with you. Neveryou.”
“Why not me?” It was a strange question to ask. Especially when I should be happy that he wasn’t going to drain me dry, instead of feeling oddly deflated and rejected by such a proposition.
For a moment he remained unable to look at me, and then slowly his eyes opened and he focused sharply upon me. “Because I don’t think I could stop myself from taking allof you into me. I have never done that before, never drained a living creature completely of their essence. But yours, ah yours,” his voice was soft, almost seductive with yearning. “I want every bit of you inside of me. I want to taste you and feel you until I can’t take anymore, and then I want to keep on taking until I’m completely sated, and I don’t think I’ll ever be sated. Not with you.”
I stared at him in wide eyed astonishment. I thought I should be more horrified by what he was saying, what he was telling me, but instead I was oddly titillated by it. Just what the hell did that say about me? I wondered. Though I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted the answer, I was fairly certain it didn’t say anything good.
“The momentI saw you.” His eyes became distant, almost wistful as he began to pace restlessly. He reminded me of a caged, wild panther. I watched him in fascination, my eyes following every movement he made. “I felt it. I felt the hunger, the burning need, felt The Calling in my veins. I didn’t know what it was. I wasn’t supposed to experience it for another ten years, but it was suddenly there, alive and clawing at me with an intensity that no five year old should have to experience. I am thankful everyday that I didn’t destroy you, then and there, to satisfy my craving for what was coursing through you. What was pulsing through your veins, and beating against my body.”
My mouth went dry; I hugged myself against his words, stu
“Because the minute I saw you standing there in that little blue dress, with those golden pigtails, it awakened something else in me. Something more than just The Calling. I’d never known emotions, never known what it was like to care for someone, to want to be withsomeone, and protect them. And I wanted to be with you every damnday. I never wanted to be apart from you. You were so beautiful to me, so bright and shining and I relished in the newfound emotions you brought to me. Your laugh was captivating, it ensnared me; your smile fascinating.
“I didn’t have it in me to love someone at all before then, not my real parents, not even the Marshall’s. Never mind to love someone as much as I loved youin that moment, but I did and that love only grew with every minute we shared together. Minutes I cherished every day. I didn’t know what the emotion of love was, I was too shocked by its sudden burst into me to completely understand it, but I knew I would spend the rest of my life looking after you, caring for you, and keeping you safe from the danger that I knew lurked outside of this world that you felt so secure in.
“ Youmade me this way Bethany, youcreated me. You turned me into something that I was never supposed to be. Your essence called to me so fiercely that it awakened The Calling in me and awakened it long before it was supposed to be awakened. You made me feel when I was never supposed to. As far as I know, I am the only one that has ever happened to, but I’m sure if it has happened to anyone else they have also kept it a secret. They would have done everything possible to keep the person they loved safe.”
My heart melted, I could only stand there in stu
“I didn’t know,” I whispered, aching for the fear and uncertainty such a young boy must have felt when it happened. He had been unprepared, all alone, frightened, and hungry. That such a young child had restrained from taking what he wanted, when that was what his kind apparently did all the time anyway, was astonishing. That he had done it for mewas astronomical. “I’m sorry you had to go through that alone.”
“I was never alone Bethany, not with you there.”
A sob tore free of me, a wrenching agony twisted through my chest. So poignant, so deep and heartfelt, and yet so lost. “I didn’t realize, until all of this happened, that I had always loved you. That I had from that first moment also. I knew it on some basic, instinctive level that I had buried deep within me in order to keep from being hurt by you again. Because you didgo away, you didleave me Cade. You weren’t there. After the Marshall’s died, you only ever came back to me the night of my father’s funeral. And then you never came back again.”
His smile was self depreciating. “I didn’t want you to know what I was Bethany, ever. I never wanted you to know what I was, what I struggled with. I simply wanted you to see the good in me, to lovethe good in me. The good that you gaveto me, that without you I never would have had. I couldn’t bear for you to see the evil in me. I had to go away Bethany, and I couldn’t come back ii I was going to keep you safe.”
“Why?” I whispered, my lip trembling. Emotions ricocheted through me faster than a bullet in a metal room. “Why did you have to go? You never would have hurt me Cade. You controlled The Calling as a boy of five, why couldn’t you do the same at seven, ten, or even fifteen?”
“Because they would have killed you too.”
I started in surprise. “ Whowould have killed me too?”
He took a step closer to me. I could see the yearning in his gaze for me, his desire to hold me, to have me understand. “The Marshall’s were not killed during a random home invasion. They were killed because of me.”
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
“We don’t feel emotion Bethany. We don’t care for anything other than ourselves and our gratification. We don’t exhibit love for anyone. I was young; I was unbelievably stu
“But after they were murdered I knew I had to stay away from you. My kind couldn’t realize that they had been wrong, that it was youthat had changed me. They would have killed you then, and they would not have been as kind about it as they had been to the Marshall’s.”
I had been struggling all along to remain standing. My legs finally gave up the battle. Sliding down the bark of the trunk, I stared at him in stu
Cade was suddenly before me. There was so much sorrow in his eyes, so much pain in his expression as his hands gently clasped hold of my cheeks. “They died because of meBethany, because I was not strong enough to hide my newfound feelings, because I could not control what I felt for you. I promised myself that I would stay away from you after that, that I would keep my distance and keep you safe, no matter what I had to do to make sure of it. No matter how much it killed me to stay away when you were the only thing I wanted, the only thing I thought of. It didn’t matter how much it hurt me, how much your feelings were hurt, I had to keep you alive. I had to keep you away from them and I did everything I could to ensure your survival.”