Page 48 of Taken By the Vampires
Chapter Thirty Four
I was never going to be ready, that I inherently knew, but I forced myself to nod and tried to ignore the sadness that crept across Xander’s handsome face. This was the stuff of nightmares, I had to remember that. They held me here against my will. They were the ones keeping me from Mom.
“We have been Vampires for over four hundred years.”
His gaze sank when I gasped, as though telling me about them was costing him greatly. But when he looked back me, his face was filled with fresh resolve. “You are entitled to know everything, Ella. I will not keep a thing from you.”
I nodded, trying to ignore the pervasive chill seeping into my bones.
“I was turned first, almost fifty years before Cassius. It was another ten before my sire also turned Davon. We are of the same coven.”
“Just the three of you?”
“Our sire perished three hundred years ago. With his death, our curse began,” Xander said.
Out of everything, that, I didn’t expect. “Curse?”
“We are unable to leave this house, save for a slim perimeter around it. That’s why we took the bear, Ella. Even with the risk of you seeing what we had to do. It wandered close and we are starving,” Cassius said.
His eyes, crimson before, were now the light caramel they’d always been. “Youcan’t leave?”
“Our souls were joined to the Earth, and this house, binding us through great pain,” Davon said.
“How did it happen?’ Despite the terror that flowed through my veins, I need to know how these men – Vampires – came to be cursed. I’d read my Grimoire, but there was nothing in there about curses.
Until recently, that was.
“There’s a little known fact about Vampires. We use blood as our sustenance, take it to feed, but what we take we can also heal. Renew the blood from which we derive our life,” Cassius said.
A wry grin shaped Davon’s lips. “It was that gift that eventually condemned us.”
“It’s not something that is widely known, but there was a witch who had learned our secret. She was the one who approached us.” Xander sighed, the sound so bone-weary. “If we would have known, we would have kept our identity a secret.”
“But we didn’t and when she approached us, it was blackmail she used,” Cassius said.
“Cure her husband, or she would tell the town what we were. Although we are Vampires, we still had our lives. We worked, lived, loved. If we left the town, we would have nothing. Contrary to what you may believe, we are not monsters, merely… changed,” Davon said.
This was sounding very familiar. “And the town?”
“The same town as yours, Ella. Conway. It seems it hasn’t changed for three centuries,” Cassius said.
It sounded as though it might had even regressed. Conway was insular. Hypocritical. Depressing. Sounded like it all kicked off with this witch – whoever she had been. Both the Vampires and my family unable to leave the town for whatever reason. Theirs by curse. Mine by circumstance.
Dread settled like black tar in the pit of my stomach, anticipating hearing something I didn’t want to hear.
“Did you cure her husband?”
“He was almost gone before we stepped foot inside her cottage. We warned her that it was too late, but she was deaf to our voices. She didn’t want to hear,” Xander said.
“She was desperate,” Davon said.
“We were her last chance,” Cassius said.
“He had no chance,” Xander said, his voice filled with bitterness. “Her husband died as we treated him. His body was too weak, his soul half gone from his body.”
“And she blamed you.” It was all beginning to make sense. The awful, awful despair of their situation.
Xander nodded heavily. “It was a terrible night. The villagers convened. They saw us for what we were. They were simple people who saw us as demons. They also saw her for the witch she was.”
