Southern Comfort
Disclaimer: As much as I'd love to, I don't own Twilight – SM does.
AN: Okay, this is the last new story I'll be starting until I finish up some of the others. That doesn't mean there won't be updates.
Ch. 1: So It Begins
CPOV (Charlotte)
Las Vegas lived up to the reputation of being Sin City. With crime statistic being what they are it should rank number 1 in both murders and disappearances alone, but the State Tourism Board obviously cooked the books in that respect so as not to scare off all the little fish that come here to have fun, I thought to myself as I tracked my dinner while the four would be rapists stalked a teenage runaway. The girl was completely clueless of the real danger she was in. Then again, the idiots planning on doing all manner of vile things to her thought they were predators. They were about to learn what a true predator was. You see, that old adage about the city being a concrete jungle was right and vampires are the kings and queens of it.
My Happy Meal had made a mistake and got to close to the runaway. The girl was smarter than she looked; she ducked into an all night dive then ordered some food when she sat down at the counter. Foiled, the human monsters started to search for another mark and I decided to offer myself up for consideration. I stepped out of the shadows then walked past them.
There are certain perks to being a vampire, one of which is the change wipes out any imperfections then enhances our beauty and natural assets. My 4-foot 9-inch petite frame was encased in cut-off Daisy Dukes that showed off my tight round ass and shapely legs. The fitted white tank top was low cut and drew the eyes to my mid-B cups. My shoulder length ditch-water blonde hair was tied back in a pony tail. I adopted an expression of being lost and helpless as additional bait. It wasn't long before the fools were on my tail.
The sound of a distant thunderstorm out in the desert tempted me and I decided to end this shit quick. Ever since I was a human child, playing in the rain has been one of my favorite things. I focused on the sound my cowboy boots made on the pavement and the heartbeats of my pursuers to keep my head in the game; there was plenty of time to play afterward. At the first available dark ally, I turned then headed deeper into the shadows. When I was far enough that nobody could see from the street, I turned back to wait. Like the good little sheep they were, my dinner followed after me. They thought they had me cornered but froze when I started to growl.
Normally, I would've made the fuckers suffer before I drained them because they'd been terrorizing women for the last month. They should've counted themselves lucky that I wanted to get to the storm otherwise it would've taken hours before I was satisfied and they begged for death. Truthfully, it was a bit anticlimactic; much like the last time I'd had sex. The curious coed was so nervous that her body stayed rigid the whole time and I was amazed when I actually made her cum. She bolted the second her body stopped shakin' only to run straight into Peter.
Most vamps out there would be shocked and think that he and I had an open relationship. The idea that the two of us were mates was a misconception that was deliberately encouraged from the second we opened our eyes as Newborns. Truth was that Peter and I are twins, not that you'd ever guess we were even related because he's 6 foot tall and looks just like our daddy and I'm fun sized and take after our mamma. Another little bit of irony is that I was actually born ten minutes before him. Another misconception we've perpetrated over the years is our last name, Whitlock. We like to tell nomads we come across that we adopted the name in honor of our Sire but we were born into family.
Our father was the younger brother of Thomas Whitlock and when he and mamma died from a fever, the two of us were sent to live with Uncle Tom. He and his wife raised us as their own along with their three children; Jeremiah, Jasper and Ruth. Jerry was gunned down by a stray bullet when two drunken idiots got into a gun fight. Jasper lied about his age and enlisted to fight the Yankees but went missing a few years later. Uncle Tom lost everything by the end of the War and decided to move the family out West to start over. Peter and I stayed behind for a few days and never rejoined the others.
We were captured by one of Maria's scouting parties and taken back to her camp to be changed. Jasper, who had been in the psychotic cunt's clutches since he went missing, recognized us and quickly bit us before his Sire could. The Newborn Armies and battlefields of the Southern Coven Wars were not pleasant environments for any kind of female. He was there when we came out of the change and quietly told us to act like mates and he'd explain later. It hadn't taken long to figure it out on our own. Despite being one of her better fighters, Maria decided to have the Major – Jasper – kill me after my first year because she thought I didn't have a power. He told me and Peter what was going to happen then helped us escape. The bitch tortured Jasper for six months for his "incompetence."
It took us thirty years to get Jazz away from Maria. He traveled with us for a long time before he sank into depression and went off on his own. Eventually he felt drawn to the diner where he found his mate, the hyperactive Pixiepire. Alice was a sweet gal, even though she forced my older brother to wear pansy clothes and eat animals. Peter and I were jealous of him for a long time, we both wanted mates of our own. My twin finally found his mate a few months ago and it made life at home almost unbearable. It wasn't going to be long before I met my mate and I wanted to get it over with already.
Contrary to what modern authors and moviemakers have led everyone to believe, there was a lot of mystical bullshit involved in vampire mating. For starters, there was the Draw. When a vampire is ready to find their mate, they feel pulled in whatever direction said mate is in. If the mate is already a vampire, then the Draw doesn't happen until both are ready. If the vampire's mate is still human, they feel the Draw and an occasional phantom heartbeat. Both get stronger when the human is reaches the point where they can accept their destiny. I've felt the Draw and phantom heartbeats for just over a year now.
The next three steps are where the belief that it takes three bites to be turned into a vampire came from. It's become common in situations where both parties are vamps to skip straight to that third step but it creates a weaker bond.
The First Bite is what I liked to jokingly call the Stepford Effect. An exchange occurs where the vamp gets a taste of the human's blood then leaves just enough venom to form a scar. In addition to being a warning to other vampires that the human is spoken for, it renders them suggestible and submissive to their mate. The vamps use this as a means to mold the human into their ideal companion. Can you say, "Pavlov's human?"
The Second Bite when the vampire changes their human. The three days the human spends burning from the venom also strengths the bond and conditioning from the first bite.
The Third Bite, or Bitch's Mark, happens after the new vampire and their creator consummate their mating. At the height of their climaxes, they bite each other. While these bites are a sign of their love, they complete a mystic circle. For the Sire, the third bite is a sign of their dominion over their mate and amps up their protective instincts and possessiveness. For the fledgling, it can be the final nail in their coffin. They still have free will but their tie of love and submission to their Sire can never be broken. Unless the Sire wants an equal and allows the fledgling to bite them two more times. If both were vampires from the start, they can still do the three bites; it just means that the second bite doesn't cause the change.
One example that came to mind of that was the Major and the Pixiepire. Jasper, being the sneaky fucker that he was, had been raised in a time when men were to provide for and protect their families; their word was law. Being an Officer in the military then in the Newborn Armies only enforced those beliefs. After marking Alice to cement their mating, used the notion of biting during sex to give her the other two bites but never once allowed her to do the same. The poor girl never realized what he had done but was lucky in that he preferred to use his gift to subtly guide her instead of direct dominance.
Another example was my twin, who wasn't as lucky as the Major. His mate had been changed during World War 2 when woman had to step up and do all the jobs that were held by men while they were off fighting. She only agreed to let him do the three bites if he allowed her to do the same. Instead of the nubile little sex slave he always wanted, he got someone that was his equal in every way.
There was more mystical crap but that was the basics. I still hadn't decided how I was going to go about everything once my mate was ready. While the idea of an equal partnership with my mate is appealing, the warrior in me wanted docile and obedient.
An intense pain in my chest followed by a massive pull to the Northwest made me scream and fall to my knees. My mate was not only ready but in intense pain. I forced myself back to my feet then ran faster than I ever had before. The cell phone in my pocket vibrated once with an incoming text but I was going to ignore it until later. The only thing that mattered at that moment was that my human mate needed me.
It'd been early evening when I left Vegas and was past ten at night when I reached the familiar forests that surrounded Forks, Washington. Last that I'd heard, Jasper was living here with his other family, the Cullen's. Maybe I'd look him up after I found my mate and dealt with what was causing them such pain. It started raining as soon as I crossed the Washington state line and I was worried my mate might get sick. My sensitive hearing picked up frantic, heartbreaking, sobs in the direction the pull was coming from.
Less than a second later, I found girl in her late teens that looked like a half drowned cat. The pull stopped the instant I saw her, she was my mate. All of my senses were focused on her and paused after two steps because she whipped her head around and looked right at me. I wasn't really sure what was more shocking, the recognition of what I was in her eyes or the fact she sensed my presence at all. I actually had a gift, Stealth. Unless I wanted them to, nobody could hear me when I moved or smell me and they'd forget about me after I left their line of sight. We hadn't found out about it until about two years after we ran away from Maria.
I suspected that she was feeling the pull as well and that's what made her turn. The human calmed down a fraction after her eyes found mine. Not bothering to appear normal, I flashed to her side and had her wrapped in my arms. She relaxed a little bit more as she pressed herself closer to me. Her head found the crook of my neck and laid there. There were a few things that needed to be done right away; the first being to get her calmed the fuck down. Her heart was beating too fast and her throat was going to be raw for days if she didn't stop sobbing. Then I'd get her into dry clothes and check for injuries.
Being this close and hyper aware of everything about my mate, I had to fight down the urge to kill when I noticed her natural strawberry and freesia scent was overpowered by some suckpuppy's stench. And it wasn't just any suckpuppy, it was Edward-My-Shit-Don't-Stink-Holier-Than-Thou-Harvey-Firestein-In-Training-Fuckin'-Cullen. The bastard had done something to my mate and he was going to die the second I knew she was okay.
"Hun, I need you to calm down for me, please," I soothed and pulled back just enough to get a better look at her face but ended up getting lost in her milk chocolate eyes.
The spell was broken after my girl tried and failed to stop sobbing. She started to hyperventilate and her sobbing became hysterical. If she didn't get a grip soon, she was going to do herself a lot of harm. I tried everything I could think of to help her but nothing was working. My mind flashed on my earlier musing and instinct took all choice away from us in the blink of an eye.