aircannonsinc You-2
You-2
My wolf is fighting me to leap out due to my growing uneasiness and mistrust, and I’m gagging at the stench of vampires invading my senses the longer I breathe the air in this small confinement. Overwhelmed with the feel of them and hating that a part of me somehow wants to tune in and feel them the way I do with the wolves. I don’t want them inside of me that way, and I fight it with all my will.
“You know there’s a surefire way to check. I know you brought him. What are you waiting for? I wouldn’t have asked you to come if I wasn’t sure, and he knows her by sight. He’ll kill your doubts in a flash.” Leyanne goads him, confidence oozing. Her posture is straight and arrogant, as though she knows this is inevitable and he’s wasting time by delaying. I can’t add anything to this conversation because I don’t know what it is, what he wants with me, or why he’s trying to prove I am who she says I am. Or who they have who would know me face to face. My heart rate ups its chaotic beat, and my palms turn clammy with sheer stress at this situation.
“He’s hesitant, afraid of disappointment after thinking she was gone all these years. I can’t force him to look at her if he doesn’t want to.” The dark stranger shifts in his seat, props an arm on the ledge, and turns his head at the black-tinted window. Staring at the road out there, and flexes that square, muscular jawline. If I didn’t have Colton, I would dare say he would be crush-worthy if he weren't a vampire. As it is, I wouldn’t blink twice about staking him through the heart with one of my claws.
“How unlike you, not forcing people to do what you want. Are you going soft? Has age finally caught up with you, old man.” she jokes, but his low throaty growl only makes her smile wider, and I get that this chick likes to rile people. She loves to throw in those little stabby words for reaction. He becomes about a hundred times more intimidating and snaps his head back to her, scarily steady and graceful, yet the killing intent is clear in those glowing reds.
“I’m not that much older than you!” He grinds out, clearly offended by her age digs, and I gawp, doing the math in my head and realizing this goon is over three thousand years old. The grimoires have never been clear on vampire life spans, but surely that can’t be right. Some of the ones we killed looked way more aged than him. Some were even old in terms of human looks, yet here he is in his prime of youth and over three millennia old.
He taps his thumb, which I notice is sheathed in a black leather glove on his thigh, another layer of weird on this sinister freak given they don’t feel cold, so why the gloves? He sits still as though pondering something, then nods.
“You’re right. It’s the quickest way. And I need certainty. Not possible. Varro requires confirmation as soon as I can.”
I jump as my door is opened again without warning, realizing that much like wolves, vampires can link psychically. Although we haven’t seen much of it back home, he probably told whoever it was to get in here.
I instinctively slide towards Leyanne, inner nerves taking over, and shielding myself beside her in hopes she will protect me, as a dark-clothed figure appears in the blinding light of the open door. Tall and muscular but shrouded in the shade as the sun sets behind him, making it impossible for me to see. I peer out, blinking as I try to adjust, eyes watering profusely, rubbing them to shield the sudden retina-burning brightness that’s pointed right at my face. He hesitates and stands there silently without coming in or getting closer.
I’m momentarily confused and look to Leyanne, then the vampire with a questioning tightness on my face, and out to the figure once more. Unsure of what’s happening here or if I’m expected to do something. Spinning my head and then halting as a new scent enters my nose and makes everything around me stop dead and blur away as a detail homes in all my senses to one thing.
I know his smell… there’s something familiar about it, something gnawing at the back of my brain as I inhale deeper to get more of it… his scent. Memories are stirring, darkness pushing away questions and thoughts as every fiber in my soul grabs onto the familiar and tries to pull a face back from the eternal depths of my past.
I will never forget it. It’s so close, so comforting, so real. Not in a million years would I not know what is filtrating through my nostrils and stimulating all my nerve endings. My body stiffens, my skin goosebumps, and all my hackles raise in alarm, shock, and deep despair that scratches my heart and makes me gasp out a sob of recognition. Realization crashes through my senses as my eyes widen in disbelief, and I instinctively throw myself out of the car to see for myself that this can’t really be him.
The figure backs off at speed, seemingly panicking at my burst out. Leaving the gap between us at ten feet as I get upright and glare at the hooded person before me. Inner chaotic emotions flying crazily, and the need to confirm, to see, to know it’s him, almost takes me over like a crazy person. My brain stammers and my soul is in instant agony.
He’s male, stands over six feet tall, is powerful, and is in his late twenties. Well, he would be now.
A scent that no wolf would ever mistake, especially not me, as I knew it so well, and I lift my hands in disbelief. Stunned and numb all at the same time.
“It can’t be you…… how can it be you? You died. You were killed. They all were ….. You died!!! SHOW ME YOUR FACE!” I screech at him, tears cascading from nowhere and immediately washing over my cheeks, drenching my skin, as hysteria takes grip. My heart feels like it’s being shredded to pieces while fear and panic overtake my limbs, and I begin to shake. Losing control as the air around us rids me of the vampire’s scent from within the car, and there’s no more mistaking it. I can smell it fully now.
Him, wolf, my blood…… I know the scent of one of our own anywhere, and I know him. I know him as I know the back of my hand or Colton’s voice. This can’t be happening to me.
“Lorey… I…” he lowers his head, looking to his feet, and even his voice destroys what’s left of my soul. His voice is only maturer, huskier, and yet, it’s still him. That voice would hush me to sleep with bedtime stories every single night.
The tears break harder, and I claw at my chest to counteract the crashing, burning pain inside of me at the realization he’s really here. After ten years of thinking him dead, he’s alive and with vampires like I never mattered.
“Jasper…. why?” I wail at him, betrayal wracking my body painfully and hurting me much deeper than physical wounds could. “Why didn’t you come for me? When mom and dad died, why did you leave me? You let me believe I was alone all this time. Do you know how I survived, how I lived? How alone I was? WHY??” I sob, accusing him, hurling my words like weapons amid the gulping cries of a distraught child.
My brother shifts uneasily on his feet and draws back his hood to finally expose the face I have longed to see for half my life. He has the same soft, short brown hair that flops over his forehead on one side and softer blue eyes under straight brown brows. In an aged face, the features I loved so well still remain. Handsome flawlessness, much like our father. His eyes are damp with unshed tears, and he can’t look me in mine as his shame courses through and shows on the face that always found it hard not to reveal his every emotional thought.
“You were dead… that’s what ….. I thought…. You were dead. The Santos - they wiped out the clan. They left no one else alive… The farm, the village. It was all destroyed when I came back to find you.” He crumbles, his shoulders sagging as his body slumps excruciatingly, and he steps toward me. He reaches out a hand and then withdraws as though he fears my rejection and anger. Or maybe scared, much like I am, that one touch will awaken us from this dream, and neither will be standing here at all.