Chapter Twenty-Six
Stolen
The next six months were spent in a string of hotels and inns around Canada. Sometimes they stayed in the heart of the city, and other times on the outskirts. Alistair wasn't fussed too much about location - food was abundant. He seemed to be able to draw humans out of nowhere. Curious creatures followed him when he called, enchanted. He rarely had to take them by force, though he enjoyed it much more.
Even more rarely did he let Lena go out and hunt with him. As encouraging as he was of her returning to a typical vampiric diet, he was worried Lena would slay an entire city district if he didn't watch her carefully. He stressed she was unpredictable as a newborn, and Lena understood. Her emotions oscillated, swung back and forth between extremes like a pendulum. A single word could send her into a fury.
Though, she wasn't so sure that was true anymore.
It was one of the rare occasions Alistair let her join him on a hunt. She supposed it had more to do with their current remote location in the middle of nowhere in Ontario than his faith in her limited self-control.
They stood in the middle of a walking trail in the early hours of the morning. It was still dark out, and there were few hikers about. Lena smelt them. She heard them - the crinkle of muesli bar wrappers, the snap of twigs as they disturbed nature on their morning walk. A river cut through the woods, and the sound of icy water rushing past them permeated the crisp air.
"Are you excited?" Alistair asked.
She nodded. She fed only a few days ago, but she always enjoyed a kill. She imagined the rush she would feel when her teeth were plunged deep in the neck of her prey.
"Try to find someone alone," he said. "I'll redirect you if you need me."
She breathed deeply, and latched easily onto a scent. Sweet, as she liked them, in the opposite direction of the river. She tended to avoid running water when she hunted. It confused her.
She turned towards the direction of her next meal, but stalled. She glanced at Alistair.
He smiled, and nodded.
She launched herself forwards.
She ran through the woods, avoiding fallen branches and twisted roots. The motions were second-nature to her at this point. As soon as she registered an obstacle, she bypassed it. Twisted her body one way or the other, or leapt.
Alistair kept up with her pace. It worried Lena. It seemed only weeks ago that he struggled to chase after her, that he arrived at destinations a few seconds later than her.
"You're getting slow," he observed.
She narrowed her eyes and bared her teeth at him. She didn't appreciate him saying so.
She tried to push herself to run faster, but found she couldn't. This was her greatest speed. She was unable to move any quicker.
When she happened upon the young woman, resting on the forest floor and nursing a twisted ankle, Lena did not hesitate. She charged at her and bit into her neck without preamble.
She screamed. A hundred thrumming wings sang good morning back, as all the birds fled their nests.
Lena knew it was the day. She felt it, like she had aged impossibly in the last few hours. Rationally, she knew it was a constant process, and that it had begun as soon as she awoke in Thessaly. All this time, she had steadily been creeping closer and closer toward a precipice.
Now, she had tumbled forwards, and fallen into an abyss.
She was what she dreaded.
Average.
She expected the bloodlust to follow her strength and speed out the door, but it remained. A tickle in her throat, like little embers were leaping out of a firepit. It would be reignited soon. All it would take was one of those embers to catch, and then she would be in agony again. A whiff of a particularly appealing human would set it off, but just anyone would do if she left it untended long enough.
Alistair appeared behind her. She sensed him come in, felt the disturbed air stir her hair as he rushed to her. Was he faster than her now? Could he outrun her? She didn't want to know, resented the moment she would.
She felt like something had been taken unfairly from her.
"Lena." He touched her shoulder gently.
She rolled over on the sofa and faced him.
He looked too happy, considering what was happening to her. He smiled down at her, one hand behind his back, the other sliding down her shoulder to her arm.
"What is it?"
His smile faltered. He crouched, so they were at eye level. "I noticed you've been in a mood lately."
Lena was caught between a grimace and a sigh.
"I heard women appreciate gifts to lift their spirits," he said.
He brought his hidden arm out from behind his back. In his hand was a small box, wrapped neatly and tied off with a satin bow.
Lena frowned, and sat up slowly.
Alistair took the space beside her on the couch. He nudged her with his knee. "I thought I should do something nice. You lasted a whole year. Well, almost."
She looked warily at the gift. It wasn't like Alistair to lavish her in material things. The most he had ever given her was dinner.
He shook the gift, urging her to take it. Something rattled inside, and he promptly stopped.
She took it from him. Slowly, she untied the ribbon and opened the box.
Inside was all black velvet, home to a necklace. The chain was gold and dainty. A single rose red gemstone hung from it, cut into a small square and attached at the corners. The colour was vivid, as if it was blood encased in the stone.
Lena looked at him. "Did you steal it?"
He swatted her thigh. "If times haven't changed, I believe the correct response when receiving a gift is thank you."
"Thank you, Al."
He smiled warmly, and Lena shifted under his attentive gaze. His eyes tended to scorch her when she wasn't careful. All too often she melted under them, her bones liquifying when he looked at her.
He turned his attention to the necklace. Pinched between his fingertips, the chain looked impossibly thinner and more fragile.
"Turn," he said. "I'll fasten it for you."
She faced the other way.
Alistair's fingers brushed over her skin as he swept her hair to the side. He made quick work of securing the piece of jewelry around her neck, but his fingers lingered on her nape, and drifted to her shoulders. He rubbed lightly, massaging an ache that vanished a long time ago.
"Do you like it?" He pressed a light kiss to her shoulder.
"It's very pretty," she said.
"I'm glad," he said, and he sounded it, too. He pulled away from her, and turned her back around to face him. He appraised the crystal, staring at the space just above her cleavage. "The colour is becoming of you."
He looked so happy, and Lena could hardly stand it.
They were celebrating something that filled her with dread. It was a birthday present of sorts, but to her all it symbolised was that she was losing. Her strength and speed had diminished greatly from what it once was. No longer did she have the upper hand. No longer could she do as she pleased. No longer was she a newborn.
Riddled with doubt and fear, she knew she had to do something, had to improve her skills, master her gift so she wouldn't be weak. She was running out of time-
No. She already ran out of time.
Impatience niggled at her. She wasted almost a year. She wanted to be done with all of this already. Her hands itched for a neck but not a human's, not her typical fantasy. She pictured a man dressed in a black cloak, his features mouse-like but his violence nothing short of a beast's.
Lena packed when Alistair went hunting. He told her he was going to look around the busy parts of town for a snack, but he still wouldn't let her accompany him. She wasn't particularly interested in it, having fed recently, but she asked to keep up appearances, to pretend things were still as they were mere days ago. Alistair maintained that her bloodlust would not have changed despite her aging. She would not be able to control herself in a crowd of people, especially once she tasted blood, no matter how satiated her thirst seemed to her now.
He asked her to stay behind.
She told him she didn't mind, and it was the truth for once.
It barely took her a full minute to throw all her belongings in her suitcase. It was the same one Rosalie gave her, though it no longer reeked of her.
She hesitated at the door. Paused, fiddling with the pendant of her necklace.
Should she write him a note?
What was the point? He knew where she was going, just as he always knew where she was headed. What else was there to leave in a message, other than her whereabouts? An I love you?
She considered it briefly, but it didn't seem like something you just wrote like that - something you scribbled out on a piece of paper before disappearing in Europe to kill a man.
She couldn't so much as say it, and writing was a lot more deliberate. She had to think more, had to spend more time drawing out letters that still looked so foreign to her. Where would she even find paper in a place like this? A pen?
She would just have to tell him after it was settled, she decided, just as she planned all along.
Lena quietly slipped out the door.
thank u so much for reading x