She didn't come down the next morning. I didn't dare to go up to her room, in case she was still resting. Billy was nowhere to be found either, and I didn't want to risk anything.
Nothing could get into my brain in school. Quil threw me a note again in class.
Q: How's everything now?
J: I don't know. She didn't come down in the morning.
Q: Oh.
J: Who bit her?
Q: I don't know. The smoke was so thick I couldn't tell.
J: I see.
Q: Tell her I'm really sorry.
J: Sure.
After getting home, I threw down my bag and went to the kitchen. When I looked out of the back window, I spotted her in a white shirt, sitting on the beach.
Aw shit. I can't… damned.
After a short mental battle, I still walked out, holding two glasses of water. I sat down gingerly beside her and handed her a glass.
"Thanks."
"I'm… um…"
"No need to apologize," She said, taking a sip. "It's not your fault. Your friend Paul was the one who nearly chewed my torso off."
"But I was the one who ran away, really, I'm so sorry."
She smiled slightly, hugging her legs to her chest. "Apology accepted, then."
"You're not human either… Should've known earlier…" I rubbed the glass between my hands.
"Neither of my parents were."
"Hmm?"
She held out her glass and dipped a finger inside, chanting a string of words. The water slowly changed into a deep shade of purplish-red. She then passed the glass to me.
"It's real wine. It's not the high school chemical trick."
I sniffed it. The aroma of high class wine drifted to my nostrils. "So… what are you, exactly?"
She laughed and ran her fingers through her wind-swept hair, "I'm not even from Western stories, I doubt you'll understand anyway…
"Let's just say, I'm a shape-shifter too. In Chinese, and some Japanese folk tales, there's a spirit known as the fox spirit. They were beautiful women, stunningly beautiful women, but they were actually vixen, having gone through years and years of meditation. But that's only folk tales, as time passed the fox spirits evolved along with everything else. They were no longer made, they were born.
"In the folk tales, the fox spirits were the women who would draw the eyes of men everywhere, usually they were the badass ones, or in modern sense, bitches who would go stealing the husbands of other human ladies. Well, they still are in modern days.
"All of us have the basic powers, besides from appearance we can control our scent, which is why you didn't notice me the first night. We can manipulate our scent to our target's preference. We also have something similar to hypnosis, for easier feeding."
"Feeding?"
There was a sarcastic smile on her face. "We live by feeding off the yang energy from males. In Chinese culture, the world has two different energies: the yang energy, associated with males, and the yin energy, associated with females. Apparently we have too much of yin energy, for a balance we need to feed off the yang energy of males.
"That's when my mother rebelled. She hated the kind of living and ran off to the US 50 years ago, fell into the river of true love and married my father, and then had me."
"Wait… then you're…"
"I'm 35 this year, literal age, but we stop aging physically at 18," She laughed at my expression.
"Oh."
She took the wine back from me and took a long drink from it. "Somehow, my mom still aged after she met my dad. Since no one from the tribe has ever really… run away before, or gotten married for that matter, so well… I guess that's the first time it's happened."
"So how did your mom…"
She sighed, "Some time ago, my mom suddenly asked if I wanted to spend the holidays at a friend's place, which is here." She suddenly smirked. "I've been to your house many times before, Jake, even before you were born, and yes, I did see you in diapers."
"WHAT?!" I was horrified. This was so not happening.
"Anyway… She passed me a letter to give to the friend, namely Billy. I didn't object, so I just came here. You probably wonder who my dad was. He was a werewolf too. That's why I have some… extra abilities apart from the basic seduction crap."
"Whoa. Really?"
"Yea, that's how my family knew Billy. Billy was the best man at my parents' wedding. So, when I arrived, Billy read the letter and broke down. My mom sent me here for protection. The tribe had found her… and well… she sent me here in hope that the wolves can protect me from the fate that she and dad faced."
She smiled lightly and looked down. I patted her back. All of a sudden her head was on my shoulder, and tears were running down nonstop from her eyes, drenching my shirt. Her breath came in sobs, and she grabbed her sides just like how… someone did.
I was quite frozen. But then, when a girl was crying on your shoulder, what else could you do? I wrapped my arms around here, hoping to give her some comfort.
"I know… it's no use… hic to cry about this… but still…" Her words were choked with tears. "I miss her so much! I'd much rather… fight by her side… than to run away like this… I'm such a coward!"
"Aw, come on…" I rubbed her back gently. "Your mom wants you live on happily, since you're still so young and can do so much more…"
"Why? Why must they take her life? She didn't do anything wrong! And I can fight! Why must she send me away?"
"Come on, Nat," Nat? NAT?! I was giving her a nickname already?! "Your mom wants you to live your life, keep going on, do what you want to do. Let's not let her down, eh?"
I let her cry for a while more. When her sobs lessened to silent tears, she drew back and sat up straight, wiping her face with the back of her hand. "Thanks, Jake, sorry 'bout the shirt though…"
"No problem…" Her hand left her face and I gasped. "Your eye's…"
Her left eye was a brilliant shade of emerald, just like the one on the fox. Out of nowhere, there was a ripple of an unknown force rocketing through my body. As quickly as it came, it vanished.
"Oh damn!" She quickly looked down on the sands, and picked up something brownish. "These damned contact lenses…"
"Why do you need contact lenses?"
"I have an Asian face. Do Asians usually have green eyes?" She rolled her brown/green eyes.
"Oh. Is that another fox spirit thing?"
"Well, different families in the tribes have different colours. My mom's were green. The leaders have violet eyes. Well, we're supposed to have the ability to hide our eye colours in public, but maybe because of the wolf thing, I can't seem to do that. Lucky I'm living in the age of contacts, then." She forced a laugh out of her throat.
It was quiet for a while after that. I watched her silently. The sea breeze threw locks of her hair back. She squinted her eyes slightly against the wind, the tear streaks on her cheeks slowly vanishing as the wind dried it. My gaze followed her neck down, the view being cut off at the slightly low V-cut of her shirt. I took my eyes away before I could think of anything else. Well, I didn't exactly dislike the fact that she had two buttons unbuttoned, and she had rather attractive collarbones.
The sleeves of her shirt were rolled up, revealing her tanned yet flawless skin. Then, I spotted something on the inside of her right wrist.
"Hey, what's this?" I took her right arm; completely skinny compared to mine, and turned it up. There was a small tattoo of a 5-petal flower there. "What flower is this?"
"It's a plum blossom. Everyone of our kind has a tattoo of a flower on their wrist, kind of like identification cards, really. It's something like our codenames in the tribe. It's supposed to correspond with our personalities, I think."
"Oh? What does yours mean?"
"Well, the plum blossom blooms in winter, and during the harshest months it's in full bloom. I think it's the whole 'able to survive hard times' thing."
"Then that's it! You'll get through this time, I'm sure. I believe in you," I said, grinning. She smiled back.
Unconsciously, I ran a finger over her tattoo. Her skin was cool. Not vampire cold, but just cool. She shivered under my touch.
The air was suddenly still. I looked up and found her eyes looking back into mine. Suddenly a very useless scene from childhood came into mind. The scene in "The Little Mermaid" where Sebastian the crab was singing for the prince to kiss Ariel.
Go on and kiss the girl~
I swallowed hard. I felt her pulse increase, and a flush of colour rushed into her cheeks. Her breathing came in and out quickly. I swallowed again, and then leaned in slowly, carefully, afraid to break the silence around us.
Damn these raging hormones.
I landed the kiss lightly, afraid she'll get freaked and turn away. When she didn't, I added a bit more pressure and got her response. Her lips were soft and sent a whole wave of warmth through my body like never before. I drew an arm around her waist and pulled her closer, feeling the fabric of her shirt on the skin of my arms. There was a small moan from her lips, and that sparked off something inside me.
I entangled my fingers in her hair and held her face to mine. My lips left hers as I left a trail from her lips to her jaw. Her hands were suddenly on my chest, pushing me away.
"Jake…"
"Mm?" I didn't want to stop. I continued to kiss her, from her jaw up her ear.
"Please… Stop, this isn't right." She pushed even harder now. "Jake. Stop it!" She gave a final push, and I finally broke off. She was looking down at her lap.
"I'm sorry… I'm not ready for this," She stuttered and started getting up.
"Yea… Sorry. I was going a bit out of line…" No you're not sorry. You sickass pervert. You still want her.
"Let's pretend this never happened," She turned without another word and ran up into the house. I sat there, not knowing what to do, staring at her back as she disappeared behind the door, the taste of her lips still lingering on mine.
--
AN: omigosh such a kick out of writing this chapter. Ok guys, in case you're still wondering what the hell the fox spirit does, wikipedia is always there. I'm basing mine on the CHINESE one, since I'm Chinese and I'm more familiar with it. There are still apparently Japanese and Korean ones, which are similar ones. I changed the myth a bit, to fit in with the story, harhar, but just note that like any other fox spirit, Nat is one freaking hot babe, though not out to seduce guys and then take their life force. Yes.
And yes speaker for the undead, you got it right. hahaha
