Vampire - Child of Destiny (Vampire Series Book 2) Read online

  Vampire – Child of Destiny

  Copyright Charmain Marie Mitchell Aug 2014

  Vampire – Child of Destiny, is the property of the author Charmain Marie Mitchell and cannot be copied, sold, distributed, or shared, in whole or in part, in any media format, without the prior knowledge and permission of the said author.

  Publisher: Cmmpublishing, Petersfield, Hampshire, UK.

  First published in the UK, US, and worldwide, in August 2014

  Edition four

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  For my four beautiful children, William, Jesse, Bonnie, and Ben – I love you so much xx

  And as always a great big thank you to wonderful parents and my partner Mike, and lastly to Julia Gibbs (Juliaproofreader) – you’re all great xx

  Vampire - Child of Destiny

  By Charmain Marie Mitchell

  Chapter One

  2013

  Once again, I take up my pen and recall the memories from my long life. It has been a while since I have attempted to write. Writing the first chapters of my life affected me much more than I could ever have known, and for weeks after I finished writing, I awoke at night screaming in terror, the sound of my baby's cries echoing around my muddled mind.

  I have therefore been afraid to write! I have several times picked up my pen, but before my thoughts have been able to string together the first sentence, I have put my pen back down on my writing desk and walked away, my fear following me like a gliding poisonous snake.

  Oh, I am sure you read this with a mind that questions my writing, after all the entire whole world knows that vampires have no emotions and are evil creatures, do they not? Oh, if only that was the truth! How so much easier my life would be.

  How strange it is that I recall my first memories with a young heart and not that of a mind and body that has lived for nearly five hundred years. I had thought that reliving my memories through an aged and wise mind would make them so much easier to deal with, but of course, no matter how old we are, we never truly know the answers to all the questions we ask.

  It seems that in reliving my memories I have also once again found an affinity with the human race. I had lost that. I saw people as food, but since revisiting my past I have remembered how it feels to be human, to be scared, alone, and above all petrified of the animal that I had unwillingly become.

  I made this discovery a few days after I had finished writing. Actually, it was the morning following my first terror-induced nightmare. I was strolling barefoot along the soft warm sand at Pevensey Bay, a small and secluded beach near Brighton. I love the ocean, it is the one thing in my long life that never changed, for the ocean can never be tamed, nor altered, and I find I constantly feel the need to be close to the sound of crashing waves.

  After walking for a while I decided to sit down and look out to sea; watching the waves was hypnotic and eased the remaining fear from the previous night’s terror. I was so lost in thought that I failed to notice the young boy walking towards me, and it was not until the gorgeously intoxicating smell of fresh innocent blood assaulted my senses, that I knew he was almost upon me.

  I hate to admit that in years gone by I would have fed from this child. The taste of young untainted blood is irresistible. It regenerates the decrepit blood that circulates in a very old vampire’s body, eradicating all the sourness of the immoral beings previously fed from, and replenishes us with youth and vitality. I suppose in some ways, like humans, eating a healthy but delicious diet; that is what an innocent’s blood is to a vampire.

  I felt my fangs grow as the boy approached me, the sweet smell of his life engulfing my senses. I wanted his blood, and I knew at that moment that my eyes had glazed over with the familiar opaque look of a crazed animal, my fangs had elongated and that I looked like the beast that I had long ago become. I jumped up from my seated position, my body fighting an internal battle, my mind screaming, ‘NO’ but my body craving the elixir of the boy’s blood.

  I then did something that I had not done for centuries. I fled! I knew I could no longer feed on the blood of one so young, and for the first time in years, I felt disgust at the want of my desires.

  For miles, I scurried along the coastline, I say scurried because I feel that I was no better than a rat. Rats infect the innocent with a plague of death and debauchery, and I believe this is also an apt description of a vampire.

  Finally, I come to rest miles away from the boy and bury myself away from human gaze underneath Brighton pier. I writhe with the agony of self-loathing on the damp sand, pathetic, self-pitying sobs shaking my body.

  Gradually the sobs subside, but it is then that I taste the presence of a human nearby. I glance to my side and notice an old man curled up on the wet sand. His hands lovingly holding an empty wine bottle as if it was a precious stone and although his body smelt like death, his soft snores proved he lived. The yearning for blood once more took over my body, but this time it was different, this was not innocence – this was food.

  I grasped the man and sunk my teeth into his neck. My thirst was so angry and intense that I did not stop until I ceased to hear the irregular beats of his failing heart, but then I flung him from me in disgust and his poor misused body fell in a crumpled heap. The pickled taste of his alcohol-infused blood stung my throat, and bending over, I retched and retched, until black cloying clots colored the sand at my feet.

  I flung myself on the man's body. He was dead, I knew he was dead, but I tried to feed him my blood, I needed to bring him back to life, to undo the evil I had done.

  "Please breathe!" I screamed to the wind. Sobs once again rasped from my throat, but to no avail. I knew that I was not going to be able to return to him what I had stolen. This man was not innocent, but he was defenseless, and I had taken his one magical gift, in what was a miserable existence, I had taken his life!

  Wearily I returned to my home, I was so close to stabbing a stake deep into my unfeeling heart. Thoughts of death rushed in a crazy spiral around my dazed mind. For hours I lay on my bed, a wooden stake held in my hand beside me. Several times, I held it above my chest; several times I came close to letting it fall into my breast.

  However, slowly a realisation came to me - I felt guilt. For the first time, in a long time I felt a human emotion. Maybe, just maybe, I am worth saving. Maybe I did have a reason to live. Yes, I had selfishly taken a human life, and there was no excuse, but now, just maybe, I could find a reason to live? The guilt I felt, a feeling that would remain with me, was a human reaction, and as long as I felt that guilt, I knew I would not be able to take another human life.

  I pulled my journal towards me and started to read. When I had finished I closed my eyes with a sigh, and I knew I would continue with the tale of my long life, it was a story that needed to be told. I needed the world to know the truth, and I needed to know the truth, because for the first time in a long time, I was finding Gwen - the real me.

  So once more, we begin...

  Part One

  Chapter Two

  1542

  Robert softly enters my bedchamber; even with the velvet drapes drawn around the bed, I know it is he. Although I am a young, inexperienced, and newly transformed vampire, my senses are astronomical when compared to when I was human.

  Sights, smells, feelings, everything is so much more intense. Colours are brighter, life is sweeter, and in fact, just everything is amazing. My senses are now so finely tuned, that I recognise Robert by the sound of his tread, his breathing, even the faint taste of his scent that seems to float on the air. I have the intoxicating feeling of invincibility, and although I am in truth dead, I hav
e never felt so alive.

  "Boo!" Robert's head appears around the curtain, his smile, as always, hypnotic and mesmerizing.

  "I knew it was you!" I said, poking my tongue out, and faking disdain by turning my back on him.

  "Oh, did you indeed?" Although my back was to him, I could hear the smile in his voice. The bed dipped as he climbed in beside me, I could feel his cold breath on my neck, and my body trembled in response to him.

  "Well," Robert whispered into my ear, "Did you know I was going to do this?" His tongue slivered a delicious line along my neck. "Or this?" His voice deepened as he pierced my skin with his elongated and exquisite fangs. I sighed in ecstasy; nothing could have ever prepared me for the exquisite feeling of making love with a vampire. The giving and receiving of blood, two bodies entwined, emotionally and physically, combined with the heightened awareness of being a vampire, arousing emotions that can only be described, quite hypocritically, as heavenly. I had voiced this thought to Robert a few days earlier, and he had laughed his deep throaty laugh, and said, "Oh but thou knowest not what thou sayest!"

  "And my love, did you know I was going to do this?" Robert asked as he thrust his body into mine. I screamed with joy, and joined him in our mutual pleasure, love, life, blood, and power, building into a climax of ecstasy.

  A few hours later, lying in Roberts’s arms, my pleasure still sweet but fading, I asked him the question that I had asked him every day since I had become a vampire.

  "Can I see him today?" His sigh answered my question before he had even voiced it.

  "She'll not allow it, Gwen."

  I jumped out of the bed. I had known that he would answer me in this way, no matter how I asked, begged, and cried, his answer was always the same. I paced the bedchamber, irritation causing my movements to feel aggravated and clumsy. I turned to face Robert, anger visible in my stance and the blaze of my eyes. "But why not? He is my son, Robert!"

  He remained quiet, watching me as I paced up and down, his eyes, as always, lazy and unconcerned.

  "Because, Gwen," he said quietly, "Because you agreed that Henry would become Matilda's child."

  I once again stopped my pacing, which I had resumed, and turned towards him. "But he is her child! That’s quite clear, is it not.....I have not even seen him, I have not seen my SON, I just want to see him, to touch him, surely that is understandable...Please, Robert, Please..."

  He arose from the bed and walked, gloriously beautiful and naked, towards me.

  "The maternal bond must be broken, Gwen. I have explained this to you countless times." His hand reached out to me, I shrugged him away angrily, and he sighed, dropping his hand down by his side.

  "In a few months’ time you will be able to see him, and maybe even play with him...but...until then you must allow Matilda and Henry to bond."

  His eyes glanced at me in a cold stare, stern and unyielding, and I knew that his look signaled the end of the conversation. I would not be able to convince him today and in truth, I knew I would never convince him, no matter how much I begged. I had made a bargain with him before our love had grown, and before my son was born, and I knew Robert would never break that bargain.

  "But I am your lover, Robert! You share your body with me every night, you spend your days with me...Matilda is nothing to you...and is your wife only in name..."

  "That, for the moment, is true. However, do not presume to know how I feel about Matilda! Matilda will always be my wife, and it is well that you remember that, because it will never change, you will never be that, now or ever! I am sorry, Gwen, but that is how it is!"

  I noticed the compassion etched into his face, but I was too angry to care.

  "Well, that being the case, sir," I said, my voice full of sarcasm and anger, "I recommend that you had best go and sleep in your wife’s arms, for I'll not be a doxy for you tonight!"

  His compassionate expression faded, replaced instantly by anger, and as his eyes grew red I wondered if I had indeed pushed him too far. I had seen his wrath in the past, and having witnessed him kill several vampires a few months previously when I was a human, it was not something, I would, in all truth, look forward to seeing again. I waited expectantly for the cruel punishment I thought I was going to receive. Instead of expressing his anger in this way, he simply bowed towards me, walked to the bed, snatched up his clothes, and said, on his way to the door, "As you wish, my lady."

  Anger washed over me. How could he do this to me? I flung myself down on the bed, rage running like poison through my body, curses flowing from my lips. I knew deep down that I should not expect him to act in any other way. He was, after all, the man who killed the father of my child and all of his family. He was the man who had given me the choice of living and giving my unborn son up to him and his wife, or dying and condemning my unborn child to death. He was the man who had stolen my life, in every sense of the word, and in doing so condemned me to an eternity of depravity. How could I be so stupid to believe that this man, this man whom I loved, and who I believed loved me, would ever let anyone or anything stand in the way of what he wanted?

  My rage subsided, but it was rapidly replaced by sorrow, as my mind relived the last few months. The residual human part of me recoiled and grimaced with terror at the horrors I had witnessed. The new, vampire element, accepted that everything I had seen was part of my new life, and the fact of the matter was that I needed to accept my life as it was now.

  Rising from the bed, I walked to the door, and ushered in the serving girl Anne whom I had heard rushing down the corridor. Leading her to the bed, I bade her sit down, and then taking her slim wrist into my hand I bit gently into her thin translucent skin. The taste of her salty but sweet blood eased my mind further, and I felt myself drift into the realms of beauty, which a vampire shares with their victim. Floating in this world of bliss I heard a soft voice ask, "But what does the Gwen part of you think?" and I heard my inner voice scream with venom, "Gwen needs revenge!"

  Chapter Three

  Anne left my bedchamber looking pale and wane, and although I hated the fact that I needed to drink blood to survive, I felt sated and vibrantly alive after feeding from her. I had decided whilst feasting on Anne that I needed to make my own way in this new world. I wanted two things: My son, and to gain revenge, and I was not going to get either by begging Robert.

  I was going to take what was mine, but not yet. I had made a promise to myself that when Henry was old enough I would attempt to flee Vanike and Robert, taking him with me. However, for now the time was not right, Henry was too young to survive and more importantly, I was not strong enough to protect him.

  I had eighteen years to achieve this feat, for I would never accept the fact that my son would grow to manhood simply to become a vampire. Robert had stated, when we made our bargain, that Henry would be reborn as a vampire on his eighteenth birthday, and on this day, he would become a prince amongst vampires. I did not want my son to become a prince amongst vampires! I wanted him to have a normal life, free from murder and evil, but wanting this for him was dangerous. If Robert caught me even sneaking to see Henry then I would face at least banishment or even death. For myself I did not care, but if I failed then I would fail my son, and that I could not do. I had been searching for a way to see my child, but I had so far been unable to sneak past Matilda's women, but I had decided that I would bide my time and that I would eventually succeed.

  My words may have been strong, but in truth, I bled inside. The need to see my son grew stronger every day. I imagined his chubby face, and his sweet smile, for I feel certain he would be smiling by now. Henry was ripped from my slashed womb to enable him to live, and as I died, I heard his cry, and rejoiced that he lived, but not once did I see his face. Matilda had whisked him away, certain that I was dead, but Robert had fed me his blood, and against all the odds, I had survived. I was certain I had survived so that my son could live his life without their depravity, for as much as I loved Robert, he lived an evil existence, and I did n
ot intend to give my son up to his will.

  I decided I would no longer beg Robert for a glimpse of my son. I would act as if I accepted his words, and that I no longer cared for the child of my heart. I would also go out of my way to find friendship amongst the vampires. I needed their trust to be able to move freely around the manor, and to gain their trust, I needed to show them I had fully embraced my new life.

  I walked over to the chest that housed my gowns. Tonight I needed to show Robert I had accepted his command, and so I chose my most alluring gown. Becoming a vampire had changed my appearance. My dark hair, once straight and sometimes lifeless, now hung around my shoulders in glittering curls, vibrant and beautiful. My eyes, which had always been my best feature, now not only shone with mischief, but with a blue brilliance to rival any sapphire. My lips shone red like cherries, and my figure had returned to that of a maiden. I had noticed, several times, the eyes of some of the male vampires following me lustfully, while the women’s eyes glittered with jealousy. I had not yet taken advantage of my new beauty, and now was the time to start.

  I quickly stepped into my blue dress, deciding for the first time ever that I had no need of a chemise or a corset, and I laced my bodice tightly to ensure that my breasts showed to great advantage. I then pulled my stomacher tightly to enhance the appearance of my small waist, and I left my hair to fall down my back like a shimmering cape.