Ada raised her voice to speak out to the crowd of Londoners swarming around her, stepping up to the edge of the wooden platform to be seen. The sure, confident words of her speech flowed through her lips and awed the onlookers as she pleaded, encouraged and sold them her stories and discoveries.
She glanced to her right as the crowd grew even more, by far the biggest crowd they had had yet, sharing an excited little smile with Belle, watching on from the other edge of the platform. Belle was stood up tall, showing confidence and elegance, her topaz dress synching in her tiny waist and flowing in ruffles around her ankles. The colour worked perfectly with her bright blond hair, curled partially into a neat bun at the back of her head with a few wispy ringlets falling to her cheek bones and drawing attention to her bright blue eyes.
She turned back from her sweet friend and continued to speak to the crowd. She was determined to make this the best speech so far, a crowd this size would mean so much more than all of their others put together, she had to make it count.
Her confidence was growing with every being that joined them, her voice grew louder as the crowd grew bigger, her hypnotising words were drifting through the streets, luring in person after person. She was just about to allow Belle to say her part when her words caught in her throat, her voice stuttering and breath catching.
There was a man.
Only this man was like no other. The more Ada stared at him, the more differences she could make out; his deathly pale skin, the unnerving sense of age, the strange way his gaze calculated everything. She found him terrifying, but she also found him beautiful.
Her gaze was locked onto his face, just as her voice was locked in her throat. She noticed Belle tottering up to her in her peripheral vision, her eyes wide with confusion as she hissed at her under her breath.
"Ada! What do you think you are doing? Is there a problem? Are you unwell?"
Ada shook her head slowly, entranced by the stranger before her.
"Well then for the love of God stop being such a daft fool and speak! We are losing the crowd Ada! What are you doing?"
Belle's panicked voice rang through Ada's ears yet somehow she couldn't hear her. The rest of her ranting blurred into the babble of the confused crowd, meaningless to Ada.
The man in the crowd stood still between two raucous women, his midnight black hair curling over his ears, cropped to just above his jaw and matching his ebony eyes. His expression was empty, showing no emotion at all as Ada stared at him. He was tall, easily spotted in the crowd of slouching workers.
Ada's expression grew from awe to suspicion and confusion as her brain began to work again, her eyes growing wide and her breath coming quicker. The man continued to look back at her, before a sleek, dark smile curved his full lips, revealing ghosts of dimples and making him look slightly mischievous. He turned away from her, weaving his way through the shrieking crowd, meandering to the edge before disappearing completely.
Ada's breath hitched as soon as he was gone, only one thought filling her mind.
I have to follow him.
She looked back to Belle, who was hysterically attempting to calm the people before them, shrieking to talk over the shouts and bawls of the men and women. Ada rushed up to her and grabbed her arm, drawing her full attention to her without having to strain her voice.
Belle's startled eyes met hers and showed no relief that Ada was finally out of her trance, no doubt because of Ada's expression.
"I'm sorry, I have to leave." Ada immediately let go of her arm and bounded across and over the platform, hitching up her crimson dress in a failed attempt to protect it from the mud and rotten food on the floor. She only just managed to hear a helpless cry for her to come back from Belle, yet she was too determined to find the man to feel guilty. She heaved past leering men and screeching women, giggling children and bawling babies until she pushed to the edge of the crowd, right in front of the street he disappeared down.
Her heeled shoes were caked in mud and the hem of her dress dragged on the floor yet she still jogged forwards, much faster than what was considered lady like. The street took an abrupt turn and suddenly it became deathly quiet, not person in sight except one man, walking with his back to her.
He was wearing a long dark coat that billowed around him and dark trousers, his hair curled to the back of his neck and he appeared to have his hands casually in his pockets .
"What are you?" Ada demanded. She didn't bother with being polite, she was already covered in dirt with strands falling from her now messy bun and breathing heavily, manners wouldn't matter now.
The man stopped and turned slowly, his wide eyes locked with hers as he paused side on to Ada, his head turned to look at her. He was wearing a plain white shirt with a dark red waistcoat under his long, black coat, matching the colour of Ada's dress. Ada was a lot closer to him now and she noticed that his skin was flawless, his features sharp and alluring and his posture straight and tall. He held his shoulders back, with no hint of a slouch and his manner was like no other man living in London. He definitely wasn't a worker.
"Excuse me?" His voice was deep and smooth, it echoed through the empty street and sent shivers deep within Ada.
He's a demon, no other man has had that affect on me, Ada thought. Her mother had introduced man after man to be her husband, yet none had sparked any interest within Ada. She was now twenty one and her mother had given up finding her a fiancée after more than 50 failed attempts. It wasn't that she thought they weren't good enough for her, there were definitely some handsome men, she just thought their lack of knowledge and interest in science to be unappealing.
Yet the man in front of her was nothing like the men her mother had introduced to her, instead he was like the men her father wrote about. The ones that killed and seduced in order to live.
Her hands trembled and her brain screamed at her to leave yet she still spoke with the same confidence she had with the crowd, "What are you?"
The man breathed out a humourless laugh and smiled as if she were telling a bad joke. He stepped around to face her full on and looked around in confusion. "I'm terribly sorry but I haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about."
Ada stared at him with undying determination. "You are not human. You are far from it, I can see past your façade. Do not try to pretend you are and do not play games with me. I am far stronger than I look." Ada never broke eye contact with him and finally he reacted.
His expression was light and slightly joking, an edge of confusion fuelling the unsure smile that played on his lips, yet as soon as she spoke it all dropped completely. It was such a sudden change of expression Ada felt a twinge of fear in her stomach. The almost happy expression turned dark, his smile completely vanished, his joking eyes turned a flat black, like dark holes burning into Ada as he stared with lowered lids back at her. His whole expression was suddenly unamused and wicked.
Ada felt an overwhelming urge to step back, yet she didn't. She held her ground as he casually edged forwards, his movements lazy yet his expression that of a hunter.
"You say I am not human, what else could I possibly be?"
Ada shook her head and remained strong, showing no cracks in her façade. "Something dark. You're dangerous."
"And what of it?"
Ada stood tense and still as he got closer, ambling around her lazily. "I demand to know what you are."
He laughed silkily, the deep harmonics causing shivers to run throughout her body. They weren't cold shivers, like the type you would get when you read a horror story, they were warm, secretive…pleasurable.
"Such a loud bark yet no bite. Dear lady, I suggest you leave and forget that we encountered before I am forced to make you. After all, it'd be much easier, for both you and I, if you would go without causing a fuss, I lose my temper a lot more easily these days." His expression suddenly changed for a split second, his eyes turning curious as he pondered over his last words, he was intrigued by the fact that he lost his temper more easily now, which only made Ada even more interested in knowing about him, knowing him.
"I will only go once you tell me what you are."
He stopped in front of her, looking down with a slightly less cruel expression and more of a curious one. He cocked his head to the side slightly and she could see him calculating in his mind. Ada's mind ached to know what he was thinking, what was churning through that mysterious mind of his.
"So determined you are to know what most run from with terror. How interesting."
His voice was still deep, yet the dark edge was gone, replaced by a burning curiosity. A small groove worked its way between his eyebrows and all traces of the hunter left his face, leaving a young, handsome man who was very intrigued about the girl in front of him.
He didn't say anything for a while and Ada almost had to squirm under his dark gaze, she wanted to move or at least do something to eliminate that fierce concentration in his eyes that bore into her. "I'm not afraid. Tell me."
A slight hint of friendliness entered his eyes as he spoke, "I can see you're not. Yet once I tell you you will be."
Ada put on her best stubborn expression, the same one she would use when she would tell her mother she didn't like the man she found for her, and stared straight at him. "My father writes about beings that look like you. Beings that stalk the darkness, searching for death. People believe he is insane, yet now I know he is not insane, he is correct. At least about part of it anyway."
The man raised his eyebrows questioningly, "oh? And what does your father believe I am?"
Ada took a nervous breath, "he calls you vampires."
A strange hint of delight flashed through the man's eyes and he smiled, showing neat rows of pearly white teeth, none of the fangs that her father described. For a panicked second Ada thought she was wrong, that she had got it all horribly wrong, until he began to talk.
"Your father is more correct than you think. I am a vampire."
Ada felt no fear. No overwhelming panic and urge to run. She just felt curiosity, and a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach that fluttered whenever he smiled at her.
He gazed at her with soft, warm eyes for a silent while, no hint of the lazy hunter was left from before. It was almost like he had a different personality, and Ada liked this one a lot more.
"You aren't scared are you? You were right. I think I like you," he said fondly, a smile on his lips and in his eyes.
Ada couldn't help but smile back, her pretty face lit up as she gazed at him. She certainly wasn't scared, she wanted to know more about him, she bound him interesting and…alluring. He licked his lips and readied himself to move.
"Please excuse my manners, but I would just like to try something."
With that he leant down and kissed her.
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