Page 2 of Losing The Vampire King

Suddenly and without any warning, he finally turns around. The moonlight falls over his face and I know it’s him. His eyes are unmistakably his. Skin walkers can steal a person’s body, even a person’s mind, but never their eyes. Never.

This is Eddie. I know it.

His eyes are wide, staring at me, trying to pierce right through me. I take two hasty steps closer to him. I reach out to caress his cheek.

“Eddie, why– “ I start, when he grabs my wrist and stops me from touching him.

He twists my arm behind my back and pins me against the nearest tree, breathing heavily into my neck. I can hear his soft growls. The vampire in him has gone mad. But… why? Edmund has always been able to control him.

“Eddie?” I keep repeating his name again, in hopes that he will hear me, but he doesn’t seem to.

He snarls back in response, like a wildebeest and I know if we stay like this any longer, he will bite me. It won’t harm me, because I’m a nymph. I am immune to a vampire’s bite, but he doesn’t seem to care about that. Or, better yet, does he even know that? Does he… remember? It is as if he’s not himself at all.

That heavy scent permeates my nostrils once again, a heavy fragrance of some flower I’ve never sensed before. It makes me dizzy and nauseous at the same time. I can barely keep myself up on my knees. My head explodes into a blossom of pain that grips me on all sides.

“Edmund, listen to me!” I shout at him now, but it only makes it worse. His grip on my wrist tightens to a gut-wrenching pain. If he squeezes any harder, he might break my arm.

Unexpectedly, his mouth opens wide. I can see his protruding fangs. He will bite me. My beloved will dig his teeth into my flesh, in order to harm me.

I close my eyes. That smell is even stronger now, overpowering. The pain is intolerable. My body can’t fight it any longer. It can only keep absorbing it until I fall unconscious.

Somewhere in the distance, a screech is heard, a bird I’ve never heard before, a bird I doubt even inhabits these woods. I’ve never heard that sound before. Not here, at least.

But something strange happens. The grip on my wrist loosens. Then, nothing. The heavy scent of those nauseous flowers is gone. The woods are silent again. The pain has subsided, as if someone had magically made it go away.

I open my eyes, breathing heavily, ready to slap some sense into Edmund, when I realize to my shock that he is gone.

I look around, but I see nothing. I see no one. He’s left no tracks. I have no idea which direction he’s headed to. All I know is that he is gone. He’s attacked me, and now he is gone. The thought seems crazy, yet that is exactly what happened.

I lift my hand up, feeling that burning sensation as if I just stuck my hand in the fire. There is a bright red bracelet of pain around my wrist, left by the man I thought loved me more than life itself, a man who would rather harm himself again, than do that to me.

Rubbing the sore spot, I turn around and start running back to town. I don’t know what’s going on, but I have every intention of finding out.

Chapter Two

Edmund

I open my eyes heavily, feeling as if someone had been pouring buckets of sand over them the entire night. They burn with an unknown sensation of pain and rubbing them only makes the feeling worse. Still, that is all I can do.

I try to prop myself up on the bed. It is difficult. My body somehow doesn’t feel like it is my body at all, but rather someone else’s and I’m just borrowing it for a couple of days, but before using it properly, I have to learn how to do it first. There is a strange tingling in my fingers. I lift them up and bring them to my eyes, for closer inspection, but this reveals nothing other than the fact that they really are my fingers.

I rub my eyes again, ignoring the sharp shards of pain that shoot from the back of my head, straight through my eyes. I focus on my breathing, hoping that this will diminish the painful sensation.

At that moment, I hear the door open. I instantly look up. A woman appears in the doorway, carrying a bowl in her hand. The light behind her breaks on the metal of the spoon she is holding in her other hand. She is unarmed, but that still doesn’t mean that she isn’t dangerous.

I immediately jump to my feet, putting my back against the wall. I’m not taking my eyes off of her.

“I take it that your memory still hasn’t come back to you?” she asks in a way that assures me we are close. Too close perhaps, for someone I’ve never seen before in my life.

“Who are you?” I demand.

She tilts her head a little to the side. “You know this would be the fifth time I tell you the same story again?”

“What story?” I ask. She doesn’t sound annoyed. She sounds saddened by something… maybe by the fact that I don’t know who she is?

I look at her, trying to pinpoint something striking about her, something that might jog my memory. Her fiery red hair is tied up in a loose bun, with a few strands falling around her face, contrasting her pale complexion with the fiery redness. Her eyes are wide, inquisitive. I can tell she isn’t afraid of me.

She proves this when she walks into the room and closes the door behind her. She walks over to the bed where I was just lying and sits down, with the bowl still in her hands. I see it is porridge, with some red fruits. She must be crazy if she thinks I’ll eat any of that. She might be trying to poison me.

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