How rare and beautiful it is to even exist.
The Brighton Estate, London; July 29, 1914
Europe was at war. The Archduke of Austria-Hungary, Franz Ferdinand, had been assassinated and within the following hours all the tension that had been building up over decades finally boiled over a filled pot and all hell broke loose. Murder of the Austrian Heir and his Wife. It was the headline of the Daily Mail. Izabella looked at James uncertainly as he read the paper. She waited for a reaction but what she got was the more unsettling than she could have ever anticipated. He calmly refolded the paper, setting it back on the breakfast tray and stood, moving to the wardrobe to pull out his uniform.
"James?" Izabella pulled the cotton sheet around her, watching as he dressed her bottom lip eternally caught between her teeth. She could see his hands shaking, nerves she supposed and she too stood to begin buttoning the khaki colored shirt. In haste, he adjusted the suspenders and Belle tightened the knot of the dull green tie. The colors only made his eyes look bluer.
"I'll return soon, darling, but I must speak with the other officers about this." He kissed her forehead but she held onto his tie, straightening for a second time before pressing the lapels of his coat down as well. The Captain touched her cheek, the action was filled with longing and remorse but he quickly decided to lean forward and kiss her upon her lips, if only so she would not remember the troubled look in his eyes.
She could not forget what she had seen in his blue eyes and with a sadness lingering in the air he left from her room and down the stairs to head out to the stables. Leaving Belle to watch from the window as he rode down her drive at a mad pace. The vampiress ventured down the hall to one of the spare rooms and knocked, despite knowing that Adam would be asleep. There was no reply and with a heavy sigh she opened the door anyway, he was lying in the center of the bed, curled into the surrounding blankets and fast asleep.
Izabella stepped closer the bed, her step light enough that even the old floor did not creak under her foot and with the same nimbleness she sat on the bed and laid next to him, her cheek pressed into his back. Before she knew it sleep had engulfed her body and had it not been for Adam's movements she would have likely slept until James's return. "Belle, what are you doing?" When she opened her eyes it was dull green ones that stared back at her, piercing through her being. Her mouth opened to speak but she closed it back, her teeth grinding together.
"He had to go and speak with the others, war is nearly upon us." The way Adam's jaw clenched at the mention of war did not go unnoticed but Belle could not bring herself to question what he may know. He stood before she could place her hand upon his, jerking away from her touch in a way that made her brows furrow.
"I got these for you." He plundered around in the old desk in the corner of the room, withdrawing a stack of four books. Adam sat the books in front of Izabella, watching her curiously as she opened the first one to see the contents, and then the second one as well. She swallowed the lump in her throat and looked up.
"Medical books?" Silence hung in the air and suddenly she realized, or thought she did. "Is this because of your dream? Is that why you have been giving me these books?" When he did not answer she took his silence as a yes. "Tell me Adam, please." He searched her face, contemplating if he should tell her, if she should know now what he had seen in his dream. He couldn't tell her now, even the tears glistening in her golden eyes could not make him tell.
Gathering the books close to her chest she left the room and retreated to a room she rarely used anymore. The door had likely not been open in three decades and she knew that dust would have gathered on nearly every surface imaginable. It was her father's old study and she had left it as such, nothing had been moved. She pushed the door open and quickly moved to the Rococo bureau plat, dropping down the stack of books before retreating to her room and picking up the ones he had previously left her as well.
Izabella pulled out the straight back chair, adorned with gold fixings and sat, beginning to fumble in the drawers for a piece of parchment that had grown even more discolored, and from behind her ear she pulled out the iridium tipped fountain pen, glancing to the corner of the desk to see the quill and ink pot still standing resiliently against time.
The vampiress took the first book from the stack and observed the title. A Treatise on the Operations of Surgery with a Description and Representation of the Instruments Used in performing them. Treatment of Wounds, Abscesses, and Ulcers. Dated 1831. Sighing she turned past the title page and began reading the content and making notes within the pages and on her piece of paper, she annotated the text ferociously leaving not a single page or diagram without some sort of note. Within an hour she had devoured the first book, the content permanently committed to her memory, and so she placed the book aside and picked up the next to repeat the process over again. This time she would read through the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, dated 1850, and the next would be the first volume of the System of Medicine, which was more recent than the others, being dated 1886.
The last she was able to read fully before she heard the sound of hooves stamping up her drive was the one that worried her the most, the one she made sure to keep in the front of her mind despite the other three books contained. It was specifically on blood, inflammation, and gun-shot wounds. The records began in 1794 and had been ongoing and updated up until the start of the twentieth century. Closing the book she looked over the three pieces of parchment that had been filled from top to bottom and from edge to edge, on both the front and back and sighed. Should what she feared come to light she had an idea brewing her mind, a crazy idea at that, but after reading the numerous books and her prior knowledge of medicine it seemed to her that if James went to war she would follow.
The Brighton Estate, London; August 5, 1914
Great Britain Declares War on Germany that was the headline on this morning's paper. The day had passed all too quickly and it terrified Belle to no end, she felt like she was already losing him. She walked with James, knowing tomorrow he would be gone, he would be traveling the country recruiting young men to fight in the war and before she would see him again he would be shipped across the channel.
"Belle, darling, I need to ask you something." The silence between them had been long and close to intolerable since he had returned from speaking with Jamie. There was a twisting feeling in her gut and somehow she seemed to know, she seemed to know that he was going to break her heart. They both stopped walking down her drive and he moved to stand in front of her, taking her hands into his own. The ring in his pocket was heavy though in truth it weighed little, it had been that way for several days now. He could not wait for the date he wished to ask her on, he truly did not even know if he would be alive to see that date.
"I know it is incredibly and unforgivably selfish of me to ask you this, with the war coming, but I can't let you go," he breathed, and she pleaded with him, silently, her eyes speaking a thousand words. "I do not want to go to my death without having known what it is to be truly and unequivocally happy, for once in my life."
"James, stop it!" she hissed, tearing from his hold and turning away from him, eyes bright with unshed tears. Frantically, she shook her head, daring to look back, his eyes glistened with his own tears. Izabella placed her hands on his chest and leaned her forward, her head resting just below his chin. "You're not going to die, James. You can't know that." Her voice was quiet.
"I know there is a good chance I may not return, and that is why I know this is selfish to ask of you," he replied firmly. Unable to move, Izabella watched, breath hitched, as he kissed her knuckles and sank down to one knee. "Izabella Brighton, will you marry me?" She wanted to say no, she desperately wanted to say no and run. A month ago she would have not hesitated to say yes, but now she was hesitant. It was not because she doubted her feelings for the man, she loved him wholly, but it was because of the timing and manner in which he was asking. He asked her like it was his final wish before parting with this life, he asked her now only because he thought he was going to die.
Izabella did not even notice the ring he had pulled from his breast pocket, her tears blurred her vision; she could not even make out his handsome face. Her silence worried him, but she nodded, slowly and unsurely. "Yes." He did not smile at her response, he only felt his heart drop when he slipped the rose gold ring onto her finger. James rose to his feet and wrapped her in his arms.
The clouds above their heads burst, rain soaked them to the bone and made their tears indistinguishable from the droplets of precipitation. Izabella's chest heaved and it only caused him to cry harder as well, but he would be fighting for her. Their clothing was drenched and despite the coolness of the rain James offered her his hand and they walked back to the house, slowly, savoring every last moment as morning would come swiftly.
Adam played a somber piece on piano, it only ripped Izabella's heart further in two. They were standing in her room once more, inches apart, not speaking a word as drops of water fell from their clothes and hair to the polished wooden floor. Deftly the vampiress pulled the coarsely knitted tie from his jacket and undid the knot at his neck, it was the first piece of clothing to fall to the floor. The soft echo of the rest of his uniform is all that filled the air until he held Izabella's trembling hands still and began to untie the strings on the back of her gown, it pooled at her feet and James could not help but reach out to stroke her cheek. She stepped forward and closed the distance, their bare chests were pressed tightly to one another's when his lips met hers.
Now they stood before each other, unclothed and vulnerable. Delicate and cold fingers traced over his collarbones, up his neck and to his lips. His skin was like marble beneath her hands. She would memorize him before he left, the tiny imperfections, the patterns of his freckles, what his touch felt like and what his voice sounded like, she would learn it by heart.
"Belle." She marveled at the sight of him, the flat planes of his chest, how his broad shoulders tapered down to a narrow waist. She had seen him in this state of undress many times before, but this time it was different. Gently, ever so and always gentle the Captain laid her to the bed his hands bracing his weight above her. "Are you certain? You know I would wait a thousand years for you." Her eyes fluttered shut and she nodded knowing that he did not have a thousand years, she did, but he did not. He kissed her palms, fingertips, and clavicles, she was sweet, and he would savor it in the time of battle, the sound of her laugh, the sight of her smile, her scent, he had to remember it, he had to, this was what he would be fighting for.
She arched beautifully at his touch and he felt as if he were looking upon divinity itself. He touched her with reverence, he kissed her with the same notion as well. Izabella touched his cheek, her thumb dragging over his lips. She indolently draped one of her legs over his waist and he needed no more words to hold it firmly in place, his hips pressing against hers. Her eyes widened and lips parted when she felt him pressed against her center and it was only natural that she would open her legs wider for him.
The vampiress moved her hand to trace over his neck but he caught it within one of his and pressed his thin lips to the inside of her wrist and could feel her lively pulse beating beneath the pale skin. "James." She whispered his name and rolled her hips against his. His move to pull Belle atop him was agile and she gasped when he propped himself on his hands splayed behind him. Her hands ran over the sides of his neck and into his short hair, unable to withstand her desire for him she raised her hips up and pressed back down, her heat engulfing his entire length. Golden eyes slipped shut and her mouth hung open but James watched the way her face contorted.
Never had she felt so complete and it was a feeling she could only have with James, it did not come from Adam, nor from Lucius, but from the charming Calvary Officer who was above all mortal. She felt his breath at the hollow of her neck and opened her eyes again, looking down to see the clearest pair of blue eyes she had ever seen staring back at her with emotions too numerous to count, but she tried, there was love, lust, and adoration; though lurking in his eyes was also fear, he would never tell her that he was afraid but she could see it like a word written clearly on a page. "Belle." When her left hand rested on his shoulder it was only then did she really notice the ring that was now there.
It was almost too much for her to bare, the feel of him, his scent with ever-present hints of leather and saddlewax and above all the sweet smell of his blood, which was rushing through his veins. She could see the vein in his neck throbbing, begging to be breached but she forced her head to loll back. Izabella moved and it shattered her world, there was a nagging voice in the back of her mind saying this was the last time she would ever see him, this was the last night they would be together. Her fingers threaded loosely into wet his hair, half cradling his face when she kissed him.
James moved his lips against hers slowly, savoring every moment, even the way her breasts moved against his chest with each roll of her hips. Her wanton noises only drove him that much closer to madness, to condemning everything and remaining here, with her. One of his hands wrapped around the small of her back, pressing her closer for several long moments but he could stand it no longer when he rolled Izabella onto her back, still buried deep inside her.
When they moved, they moved as one, one whole entity that had been created because of a ripple in time. Two people were born almost worlds away yet with each other it was like they had always known the other. James kissed her neck, repeatedly, and the small groan that left his lips was unavoidable as Belle raked her nails down his back. He had a perfect view of her body, with the way her breasts rose and fell with each breath and her eyes, hazily staring up at him. Though what he found to be the most beguiling was the way her lips pulled back, before his eyes he saw her fangs extending and it reminded him briefly of her lethality and the reason she had shied away from intimacy over the months.
"James," she cried his name, her back arching from the bed, her head pressing further into the pillows. A single tear fell from her left eye and it did not go unnoticed by the Captain, he suppressed the growing lump in his throat and slowed his rapacious pace. She trembled as her body grew taut, clenching around him with sheer neediness.
The Captain pulled one of her legs over his waist and fell back to his side pulling Izabella with him. She moved her hands to his face for a moment, kissing him soundly and as his hand slipped away from her face to pull her closer she followed, lacing her fingers through his own. She could feel it rising within her, from the pits of her belly, the embers that he had created months ago now formed an all-encompassing flame and it consumed them both. Her body trembled from the immense pleasure and his grew rigid against hers. She whispered his name like an unholy prayer but he could say nothing except for the soft murmur of her name.
In the moments after they did not speak, there was no words to be spoken, but alas James brushed a lock of scarlet hair from her face. "You have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love... I love... I love you. And I never wish to be parted from you from this day on, though I know that wish will not come true." Her eyes raised to meet his, both gold and blue were clouded by tears, Izabella touched his cheek, an elegiac smile appearing on her lips.
"I will be with you, James," her hand slipped down to rest over his beating heart, "in here, in your heart. And I too love you, eternally." For the final time that night their lips met and in restless thoughts they each fell into sleep wrapped in the other's arm but even so, the future did not seem so bad.
Izabella watched him ready Bill the next morning, saddling the horse, he would not see battle, unlike James. She stepped forward and clutched to the lapels of his jacket, looking up into eyes that never failed to leave her on the verge of breathlessness. "Come back to me, promise me that James." Her voice was quiet and quivering but he nodded and tipped her chin up, kissing her quickly on the lips.
"I will try my best to return to you and marry you." Her lips trembled and his heart nearly broke as he could not help but feel this would be the last time he saw her. "Never forget my love for you, Izabella." How could she? He was the first person in centuries that made her feel cherished and loved completely. Her pale hands reached to cradle his face, James sighed and settled his leather clad hands atop hers.
"I love you, my darling Captain." His smile was doleful at best and hers was no better. He leaned down and pressed his lips against hers once more. She wanted to steal him away and protect him from the war, she could not bear the thought of not having him in her life. Tears streaked her porcelain skin as he mounted the old horse, his bags strapped onto the saddle. James gave her one last longing look, turning away before he convinced himself to do something regrettable and just like that he gone, riding off in the morning sun leaving Izabella alone.
Izabella Brighton fell to her knees, an ache forming in her heart. She looked in the distance, in the direction he had gone, begging him not to go where she could not follow.