Chapter 13: A Short History Lesson

I just stared at him for a few moments, my brain not comprehending what I had just heard. Time seemed to have stopped; nothing was working at the normal pace at all. All I felt a disconcerting blank, feeling nothing, seeing nothing, understanding nothing. It was all just nothing to me. All of it.

Finally, I regained enough of my brain to choke out. "What did you just say?"

"Alana, Davide and I are vampires, Elena," Arsenio said again. "Alana was the first of us; she was already two hundred years old when she met Davide and I. I heard that some man had found her beautiful, and so had turned her, but she had been so scared that she ran out on him in the middle of the night. Anyways-."

"Stop," I commanded, holding a hand to my head and looking more than a bit nauseous, "Just stop. I need some time to think; this is all just too sudden." He shut up.

I looked up at the ceiling, anywhere but into his eyes, his dark, sexy brown eyes. My heart was beating… at its normal pace, and weirdly, I felt a sense of calm, though that made no sense whatsoever. I mean, come on! The dude had just damning told me he was a frickin' vampire, and so were my boyfriend and his ex-girlfriend. It wasn't enough that I suspected Arsenio and Daniel had both just taken an interest in me simply because I resembled Alana, and they were stuck in some sort of love triangle, but now it turns out that that same love triangle was transcending time, starting back from over a hundred years ago? What the hell? It was too much for me. It should have been too much for me, I should say actually, and yet, it wasn't! I felt an eerie calmness, and automatically glanced at Arsenio. I didn't understand why, but whenever I was around him, my heart started racing, and I felt the intense need to be his equal, and for the first time ever, I was completely calm in his presence.

"Stop that," I said without thinking.

He gave me a look that told me he thought I was somewhat delusional. "What exactly am I suppose to stop?"

"That, calm thing," I said, waving a hand at him, knowing perfectly well that my words sounded like nonsense. Well, most I'd experienced today was completely nonsense, so this was actually pretty normal… I must've reached a new low for this to be considered normal. I so need an aspirin after this. "You're making me feel calm, aren't you? A perk to being a vampire, like Damon in Vampire Diaries-."

He rose up his hands and shook his head rapidly, "No, no, no, I'm not doing anything like that, I swear."

"How do I know that?"

"Elena, for once in your life, just trust me, okay? I swear I am not doing anything, at all. Why do you think I'm making you calm?"

"Because!" I exclaimed, "Because I am calm! I should be head over heels freaked out, feeling like hell is on my heels, think that this must be some sort of heavenly retribution, but I'm not feeling any of that! I'm just completely and utterly calm, and hell bite me in the butt if that makes any sense at all!" By the time I was finished, I was standing screaming in his face, and yet, I was still completely calm. That only served to infuriate me even more.

It was strange, how I was getting worked up about not being worked up. I should have been completely freaking my head off, and yet, I just felt nothing. There was a part of me, a rather small part, mind you, that told me that I had kind of expected it all along, that I had considered the possibility to make up for my lack of memory and Arsenio's and Daniel's combined interest in me, but that didn't make it any less weird.

Arsenio just let me go like, that, pacing, trying to figure out why I wasn't more scared to be cost in some sort of immortal-love triangle crossfire. When I calmed down that part of me, I stopped and stared at nothing, my eyes not really seeing what was before me. It was almost as if my eyes had turned inside out; I saw what was inside my brain rather than what was outside.

Slowly, I went through all he had told me, turning over every single detail in my brain, and felt, a sense of rightness. It felt right now, felt like that was how it should have been all along, that I should have considered the possibility sooner, without him having to tell me. True, it was all completely absurd, but there was a small part of me that told me I had always known; I'd just kept writing it off as crazy. When I came to that conclusion, I sighed and sat back down.

"Elena?" Arsenio asked, his voice telling me he knew how I was feeling already.

"I'm fine," I sighed, "But I'm pretty damn sure I'm going to have a killer headache later, so hurry up and tell me what I don't know."

"Well, I'm pretty sure you don't know how to do calculus, and the way to do that is-."

"Arsenio!" I exclaimed, laughing, "You know what I'm talking about."

He gave me a cheeky grin, and I realized with a start he had just been trying to make me laugh the entire time. With that knowledge suddenly in mind, I blushed a light pink color, giving him a coy smile. "Come on, tell me about you, Daniel and Alana."

He gave me a halfhearted grin and cleared his throat. "Well, for starters, I didn't actually meet Alana when I was 15; I met her when I was 18, the same age at which she turned me. Secondly, I'm roughly 300 years old; long enough to have seen the world change into how it is now. Anyways, my parents introduced me to Alana, and yeah, we did the whole courting thing. Davide had been friends with Alana for a long time, and yeah, they courted quietly. Alana had turned us both without our knowledge, saying to each of us that we would be together for all of eternity.

"When we'd found out about each other, we'd demanded that she choose between us. She told us she wanted to live with both of us for all of eternity, but we didn't allow it. We fought over her, and we discovered powers we'd never had before. Both of us were faster than we'd ever been in life, stronger, and our elegance had been exemplified all in that one battle. We discovered that we'd gotten claws as well. That was how we'd killed Alana; we'd stabbed her through the neck, aimed for the other.

"It's been roughly 150 years since I last heard of Davide's whereabouts. I crossed paths with him once after we'd split up in… China, I think it was, or maybe it was Mongolia. Either way, it was somewhere in Asia. Anyways, we had a rather bad reunion, with the two of us yelling our heads off at each other. We almost killed each other right there in the middle of the town; that was how violent we were.

After that, I didn't see him again for a long time, and I didn't expect to ever see him again either. I had no idea he was here; I was shocked as hell when I found him here, and I was even more surprised when I found him here with you."

"Why does it make a difference that it's with me?" I asked curiously.

He pulled a hand down his face, his face growing haggard. "I'll get to that. Anyways, when Alana first turned me, I'd been in my bedchamber. She'd told me she'd come to me that night, and that she would give me something I would never forget. I thought at the time that it meant she'd give me her virginity…" I blushed hard at that part, and looked away, not needing to hear the details of whatever they'd done. However, either Arsenio didn't see my face or he just didn't care.

"When she came to me, I welcomed her into my bed, and she'd straddled my waist…" His eyes grew glassy, remembering that night. His voice was dreamy, as if he were lost in the memory, had completely forgotten where he was and who he was. "Alana had bent and kissed me several times, before pulling out a knife on me. When I'd looked at her in alarm, she'd explained to me what she was. Like you, I expected to be completely freaked out, but there was a part of me that had already suspected, so it wasn't as bad as it might have been."

"How do you get changed into a vampire?" I asked hesitantly, not sure if I wanted to know the answer. I was curious as hell about the entire thing, thirsting to know more about it, but at the same time, the very thought terrified me. What if it just took a kiss? Didn't that mean that I was already a vampire? I hadn't felt the need for blood though; was it just a slow process?

Arsenio must have seen the beginnings of panic on my face, because he quickly said, "To become a vampire, you have to take some of their blood, and then they have to drain you dry. That's what Alana did. She cut herself and told me to drink some of her blood. I was horrified by what she was suggesting, but the love in her eyes had convinced me, and that wasn't even including her sexiness. She'd been wearing a loose, white silk nightgown that barely covered her up to mid-thigh, and with the way she'd been bending over me, I could see her chest just pouring out of that dress." He gave a small laugh then, blushing deeply. "I'd been so turned on it was hilarious; I couldn't say no to her at all. And so, I took her blood.

"Once I was done, she bit me, and drank me until I was dry. It wasn't painful, not really; it was more like a floating feeling; it was just amazing, really. She told me later that I was out for a few hours, that it was normal for all those who turned. Afterwards, she took me hunting. I'd been so hungry by the time we found our prey that I almost drained him dry; I probably would have if Alana hadn't pulled me off him. Anyways, so yeah, that was how I became what I am.

"So, what happened earlier was this: I have no idea how she did it, especially considering she should be dead, but Alana some how came and possessed your body. She used you and talked to Davide and I. She did that the first time you came over to my place as well. Really, I have no idea how she did that; I can't even do it, and I've been alive for quite some time, and I have a good deal of power myself. Maybe it's because you might be a descendant of Alana, maybe the great-great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of her sister of brother or cousin or something. Besides that, she clearly hasn't controlled anyone else, so that's really the only thing I can think of."

He sighed again and pulled a hand down his face. His eyes seemed uncertain, torn over something, but what that something was, I had no clue. He opened his mouth several times, like he did before, but for the first few times, no sound came out. He swept a hand through his hair again, opening his mouth a few more times. Still nothing came out.

"What's wrong?" I asked, concerned.

He wouldn't meet my eyes again, something that was getting a reputation as a sign of him about to say something I didn't want to hear, or something he thought I would think as crazy. "You're not going to believe me," he said finally.

I snorted without thinking. Wow, that's really attractive, Elena. "Let me be the judge of that. You've told me a lot of messed up things today; this couldn't possibly be any worse."

He met my eyes evenly. "Then let me remind me of something, Elena; if you regret this later, don't say I didn't warn here. Here's exactly what happened when Alana was possessing you."


Sorry for the extremely short chapters guys! Hey, for all those who read this, would you mind letting me know if you want a lemon in this or not? I'm trying to decide whether or not to put one, and for the time being, I seriously have no idea.

Now then, Arsenio is about to tell Elena what happened between Alana and Daniel! What do you think will happen? What will she say to him? What will she say to Daniel? Will she break up with him? Will she just try and forget about it and look past it? All in the next chapter! Stay tuned!

Thanks for putting up with that little ad X'D. Until next time!

Hanieya Okudashu