House Wyndham Vampires: Half Light Part 1

HALF LIGHT.

The House Wyndham Vampires.

Phaedra Weldon.

The story of the Wyndham Vampires is a work of creative consent. The concept of Carly Piper Wyndham appeared fully formed on a long trip to Alabama. Smashed into a van filled with family, my niece suddenly yelled out "I dropped a nut!"

After further conversation with Carly she thus found her nut and I had found an idea for a new heroine.

I would like to thank Carly Piper, my niece for whom this series was created. It's about time we had a strong female vampire taking charge of her harem.

And as always to my father and Carly's Papoo, Leonard C. Weldon, Jr.

I dropped a nut!"

The declaration came from a girl by the front door of the coffee shop. She sat on a worn, velvet couch, surrounded by a harem of high school football players. Laughter erupted from the group and I made a long, exasperated sigh.

Wind blew red and orange leaves around the sidewalk outside and across the windshield of my brother's car. He'd let me borrow it but only on the condition I brought it back without a scratch. Did leaves count?

It looked like I remembered cold should look. It was so strange how such memories never faded. For me, no matter what temperature I saw through the gla.s.s I would never feel it when I stepped outside. Just like I would never taste the coffee sitting in front of me, or enjoy the brownies in the display case by the register.

Because I am a vampire.

No one in the coffee shop knew this truth about me. I came in every evening, ordered a cappuccino, watched movies on my tablet and paid little attention to the world around me. I had one year on my own. One year away from my Father and my family before I was to be Blood Bonded to the son of one of the strongest blood families in Europe. That was my future.

This was the destiny I was made for.

Two months had slipped past in my year of independence. I felt as if I'd done very little to show for it. My brother Jared lived with me as a chaperone of course. I looked 17. And I'd been 17 for more than a decade. I had a driver's license that said I was 18.

"I found my nut!" the girl squealed. More laughter.

Really? I sighed and looked back at my tablet.

Late summer shifted to fall with the snap of Mother Nature's fingers, moving from asphalt melting heat to jacket and scarf weather in a matter of two weeks. With the change in season came the start of school. The local high school dumped out every afternoon into the strip mall where the coffee shop sat. It was the first business visible from the driveway. Confronted by either an ice-cream establishment or a place of warmth and rich coffee, my evening escape had become a high school haven.

Why would a vampire hang out in a coffee shop full of humans? Because it was a little known fact that coffee masked the smell of their blood. Coffee was the cleanser that let me sit in peace and not be overwhelmed with their intoxicating scent as often happened when I was out with Jared. I'd visited several coffee shops in the area and found this local place to have the strongest scent.

I would buy my coffee, sit in the back, and inhale the aroma. It was an uneventful routine but one I'd grown to enjoy. Why? Because it was my routine.

No cla.s.ses. No studies. No responsibilities. For one year, my life was mine.

But everything was about to change that day in October as a winter storm blew rain in from the west.

I'd been so engrossed in watching a movie that I almost didn't recognize the sound at first. I a.s.sumed it came from the earbuds that blocked out the buzz from the laughing students around me; maybe a glitch in their manufacture.

And then I heard it again.

The crashing of a heartbeat.

I looked up from the movie. Was it someone in the coffee shop? Maybe one of the boys getting excited with the nut-girl? Then it happened again with greater stress. A low thud against my senses, driven by the overwhelming feeling of desperation. I removed the earbuds and listened with the preternatural hearing I'd grown to depend on.

Nothing.

And then...

A thunderous cacophony of pounding panic.

I turned in my chair to face the front windows as I focused on the source. Light rain, mixed with sleet, dotted the cars and sidewalk. The heart pounded again.

I shut off my tablet and shoved it into my bag as I stood. I moved past the nut-girl and her harem as I stepped outside. I closed my eyes and sniffed the air, listened to the wind.

The cacophony of that heart became a beacon. I ran to the left toward the woods connecting the small strip mall to the larger chain grocery store beyond. There were two paths cutting through the copse of hardwoods and pines, both made by years of foot travel. The closest path wound around the ditch and over the pipe that moved the tiny creek under the road. The one farther to the north-where the heartbeat came from-went through a small stream of moving water.

With a glance behind me to make sure I was out of sight of the coffee shop, I ran at a more natural speed for me, but something too difficult for the human eye to see. Once I cleared the first trees I saw them; a group of boys kicking someone on the ground near the edge of the stream.

"...give it to you, huh? That'll-" kick "-teach you to- " kick "-f.u.c.k with my girl -" stomp "-again!"

"Yeah...let me do it, Jack."

"Naw man...let him have his fun."

I didn't know any of them but I did recognize the colors and mascot on their jackets. Football players. Same school the nut-girl and her friends were from. The most violent of the a.s.sailants-a tall guy with blond, chin length hair-bent over the victim, grabbed his collar and then shoved his face into the water.

Their victim flailed and tried to fight back, but the other two jumped in and held his arms and pressed his shoulders down.

It was his heart I heard above all the others. The attackers's hearts were dim lights against the bright star of the drowning man's.

They had to be stopped before they killed him-but there was no one else around. No one else could hear them except for me. There was no time to call authorities. By the time they found him, he would be dead.

I had to stop them. I had to save him.

"One year, Carly. One year on your own, and then you must come home."

That's what Father said to me when I'd asked to have time before the bond.

"And during that one year you must remain invisible to the cattle. You must never get involved."

Never get involved. But I couldn't let this guy die. And he would die-whether these bullies knew this or not. His heart was skipping. Faltering. What air he was taking in was filled with water.

I threw my bag behind a scruff of brush and vaulted up into the nearest tree. Most were pines, evergreens, so I wouldn't be spotted immediately. The hard woods still wore their fall leaves, but not for long. I looked down at each of them, studied their position, their level of fitness, listened to the sound of their hearts, measured their breathing. I remembered every preternatural sense Jared taught me to use when planning an attack-and then I began.

To them it would seem as if a wind had knocked them back. I would be little more than an invisible force that darkened their eyes and would leave them with the worst headache of their lives when they woke-cold and wet from the rain. I knew where to stand, where to hit, and where not to.

It took a lot of control not to hit them where I shouldn't.

A lot.

Once they were silent and still, I pulled the victim from the water. He coughed as I turned him on his side as water emptied from his mouth and nose. Once I was sure the water was out of his lungs I turned him on his back.

The left side of his face was swelling. His lip was split and bleeding and the aroma of it nearly knocked me back. There was no fresh coffee nearby to mask the scent. I gently placed my hand on his chest and knew ribs were broken. He was bleeding internally. They had hurt him. Bad.

I recognized him. I had seen him in the coffee shop a couple of times. He never sat with the others. He wore the jacket same as his attackers. A fellow football player.

His heart fluttered. My own hunger flared. It'd been a few days since I'd eaten, and he smelled...good.

He was dying... I'd known enough death since my turning and could sense it, smell it, and taste it. This young man would die before help could arrive.

But...I knew what could heal him...what would make the needed repairs. But if I attempted to heal him, it would also start a process that if continued within the lunar month, would bind him to me, body, heart and soul. It was something I was forbidden to do.

But...

I looked down at him. His breathing was ragged and labored and his eyes were open now. He looked up at me. Dark, expressive eyes. But I didn't know if he could see me. I needed my phone. He needed an ambulance.

I turned and held my hand out to where my bag was. Pulling it to me was a simple thing-a manipulation of want and my connection to the world around me as it sailed through the air to my hand. I wasn't as accomplished at it as my brother was. Or my father. They could move things as big as cars. I was still grounded to the small stuff. I was still young by their standards.

The sharp sting of sleet on my cheeks and bare hands reminded me that though I didn't feel the cold, he would. The weather was unique for this time of the year, especially in the southeast. It meant traffic was going to be at a crawl. An ambulance would never make it.

He needed medical treatment now.

Something warm and wet touched my forearm. I looked down at his hand on my wrist. His eyes were focused now and alert and filled with pain. As our eyes locked together, his silent calls for help reached me. Reading minds was not one of my talents-it was more of Jared's. But I could have sworn I heard him...calling to me.

His heart skipped. And then skipped again! His eyes rolled back and he closed them. His hand slipped from my arm.

No!

I dropped my phone and my bag, the numbers 911 entered, but the connect b.u.t.ton untouched.

He needed me...needed my help. How long had it been, that someone needed me?

I remembered his face in the coffee shop. The polite smiles as he prepared his coffee and I stared at him. He was beautiful, and could be again.

I bit my lower lip, and felt the p.r.i.c.k of my teeth. I bit down harder until I tasted my blood as it welled up from the cut. I shouldn't do this...but really...who would know?

How would anyone find out? If I gave him blood, just once, and never again, he would just heal and go on with his life. And I would just be a pleasant memory. That's what Jared said happens. And what my father taught me. No more than a single drink within a lunar month.

That was the rule.

But it was also a rule that I wasn't supposed to give my blood to a human.

"...help..."

My own heart, which still beat as strong as an elephant's, skipped as I heard the fear in his voice, and the need. With a glance around and a quick check in my mind of where my brother was- Home...playing a video game...

I bit down again and again into my lip to make sure there was enough blood and leaned over him, my face to his face. He opened his eyes at that moment and our gazes locked as I spoke with no words.

You will not remember me.

I pressed my lips on his and told him to kiss me.

He obeyed and his tongue brushed my mouth. He shuddered, then abruptly leaned up to meet me and kissed me, pulling my lip deeper between his own for more and more blood. I let him kiss me...and felt heat rise from my chest and move upward over my shoulders, through my fingers as I touched his shoulders and face, and then to my cheeks.

I'd been kissed before. When I was a human. But never since. It wasn't allowed. And as his kisses became less of a want of my blood and more of a need for my touch, I found myself answering him.

Until I heard voices and pulled back. I looked around and sensed someone entering the path from the grocery store. Female. Two of them. They would be on us in seconds. I looked down at him. His face was already healing, the swelling disappearing, the cuts on his lips mingling with my blood as the flesh folded and healed.

His eyes were brown.

And beautiful.

"Don't leave..." he said as I moved back from him.

I grabbed my phone and my bag and looked back at him. I put a hand on his cheek. "You won't remember me. You should sleep, and heal. Help will be here in a minutes."

"No..." he said, but he couldn't help but do as I said. My blood was in his system. And in a few days it would disappear, diluted by his own.

"Sshhhh..." I said and ran back to the edge of the woods. I should have left then.

I should have gone home.

Just forget him.

But I had to make sure they helped him. I had to make sure he was safe.

"Oh G.o.d!"

"What the h.e.l.l happened!"

"It's Brandon! And look there's Jack, and Tony! Oh my G.o.d...what happened to them?"

"Steph, call 911!"

I couldn't see them. I could only hear them. And I lingered there in the setting sun until I heard the sirens.

He would be okay. He would heal.

And he would never know me.

I turned and walked away in the direction of my home as I touched my perfectly smooth lips. The wounds from my teeth were gone, but his taste and touch lingered. Long past when I should have moved on.

"I want to take a trip," I said the moment I got home. "What if we...get in the car and just drive into the mountains? I mean, the leaves are beautiful this time of year."

Jared, my Family brother and my chaperone during my "year abroad" as my father put it, looked over the lid of his laptop at me. "Uh...it's sleeting, Carly. They're calling it a wintery mix. We get on the road now we'll be on it for a day. Why the need to go somewhere? You never want to go anywhere."

I sat down facing him at the s.p.a.cious table. Not that we ever used it for anything but a catch-all. Everything I bought or read was piled on it. What junk mail came to the mail box outside ended up here. Including Jared's computer equipment. He liked building them and seemed pretty good at using them. "I'm bored. I want to do something."