Young Writers Society

Aaaaand here's chapter two. Enjoy and whatnot. Crit and comments welcome. Again, be nice but not too nice.

Chapter Two – Part One

Nich just about wet his pants as he stared blankly back. His sire merely smiled at him and a moment later, the older vampire looked him over. He quickly choked about a reply, something about being glad to see him again. He couldn't even remember what he'd said once he'd actually said it, but he was sure it wasn't very inspiring. At all. But it made his sire smile nonetheless--and made him bite his lip, determined not to say another word.

“You shouldn’t have run,” his sire said, and it sent a sharp pleasure-pain shiver down his spine. Nich refused to move, refused to let his sire know he was getting to him. He didn’t need the ego boost. “Why did you run, Nicholae? Was I so bad?”

You have no idea. Nich wanted to tell him that, to shout and scream, and threaten him. Yet he stood there and did nothing. He just stood there, staring back at his sire. He couldn’t look away, but he could hear the others. Ashtad and Anya were still there, Ethan standing between them. The rest of them had all left, leaving Nich right where he was. He hadn’t noticed when Ashtad had released him and moved away, didn’t remember taking note of the movement. You have no idea.

“Come, Nicholae.” The command was iron laced with velvet, all smooth vowels and hard constants. It had him shifting his feet just slightly, grimacing. His sire’s expression was warm, welcoming. Nich knew it was a lie. He stared at those dark eyes, the dark skin, that thick, black hair. “Nicholae.” A warning.

With a wince, he moved forward, towards his maker. He knew better than to ignore a warning tone like that. “Master,” he forced out, and stopped short of the older vampire. He knew it was well within his sire’s reach, not that he could have fled the room without being caught, let alone the house. It was pointless to flee; his sire was letting him know this clearly. Besides, he had Ethan to worry about, too. Nich bowed his head, eyes closed.

A hand clamped down on the back on his neck, right where it met his head. It wasn’t painful or particularly strong, but he knew that it wasn’t meant to be anything but restraining. Regardless of that, he could feel the strength behind it, knew it wasn’t being used for a reason. And his sire had every right, every reason in the world to hurt him, yet he wasn’t. Why wasn’t his sire doing anything?

“You scared me, Nicholae.” There were lips by his ear, soft words whispering against his skin. He swallowed the moan that threatened to bubble up. “Don’t ever do that again, fledgling.” There was a sigh. “Three thousand years, my lovely. You should not have run.”

Nich froze, his eyes flying open. “You gave me no choice.”

The fingers tightened, then they were gone and his sire had released him, stepping back. Nich raised his head to see the shock on the older vampire’s face. Yet he swiftly wiped his expression clean, something ugly taking the shock’s place. “Was it so bad, Nicholae, to give up a century of your new life for me?”

“Do you really want to hear my answer?” Nich questioned, tilting his head slightly to the left. He could feel Ethan’s gaze on him, along with another’s. And it wasn’t his elder siblings. The spirit! How could he forget? He shouldn’t have forgotten. Was his sire blinding him on purpose, clouding his other senses? He didn’t know, but judging from the dark ugliness in his master’s eyes, there was going to be bloodshed sometime in the near future.

“A mere century, Nicholae,” his master replied. He completely ignored Nich’s question. “It was more mercy than my sire showed me. You should have been grateful.”

Nich scowled, backing up a step. “Jörmungandr,” he said, and felt more than saw his master freeze in place. Then those dark, dark eyes narrowed and Nich had to swallow a whimper. He would not show fear. Not now, not ever. “You kept me prisoner for three.”

“You walk a very fine line, my child.” Anger twisted the words, and his sire’s face.

There was silence in the room, now. No sound except for Ethan’s barely-there breathing and the sound of his heartbeat, loud now in the quietness of the room. Nich forced his fear down, risking one darting glance towards Ethan. He had a feeling the human might not like to see what could happen next. He set his stance and squared his shoulders, raising his head high until he was glaring down his sire.

“You ruined my life.” It wasn’t shouting, wasn’t a whisper, just a calm, flat statement of absolute fact. It was the truth and Nich knew his sire knew that. Well, the truth as far as Nich knew—which should have been just about everything he’d ever remembered of his three-thousand-year-long life. “You destroyed everything to find me, and that was when I was still human!”

His sire went extremely still, unmoving, his expression gone blank. Nich hated that, hated it absolutely. He hated what he was now, hated how he’d been made, and most of all. He hated who had made him this way. His fury, his anger at what happened to him, came surging up in a raging torrent.

“You ruined my life!” he shouted, fist clenched by his sides, eyes gone bright, glowing red. He knew his fangs were at least twice their normal size, that his eyes glowed and that his nails had grown out into claws. He hoped, in a small, tiny corner of his mind, that Ethan would not hate him after this. Lowering his voice, he continued, “How can you claim to show me mercy when you took everything I loved away in the first place? How can you? You stand here and you smile at me, treat me like you love me, and yet we both know the truth.” Nich snorted and his tone turned sour. “I’m just another pretty, unique face for your god damned collection, aren’t I?” He let the anger fade slightly, forced his claws back into fingernails, his fangs back to normal. He was furious, yes, but that was no reason for him to lash out and scare Ethan. Ethan. He hesitated before turning to go to Ethan, dragging the human away from his siblings. “You had to destroy an entire village just for the one person who had seen me pass through, and had to obliterate several more just to flush me out.” He turned another glare on his sire. “And that was only in the one month I ran from you after you told me what you were and what you wanted to make me.”

His sire’s face was stony. Nich didn’t care. He held onto Ethan tightly, not looking at him lest he see something on the human’s face that he didn’t like. On the edge of his awareness, he could hear the woman—the spirit—trying to speak to him. Her voice was calm, the tone soothing. He tried to focus on that for now, and not on anything else, least of all his sire--at least, for no longer than necessary.

“Be glad I didn’t kill myself before you got to me. Be glad those I saw did not try to harm you.” He smiled; a grim, chilling smile. “I doubt you would have turned me if you knew what they could do, what I could get them to do.”

“Nicholae—”

“Don’t,” he warned, nearly choking on the word. His sire went silent. Nich took the chance to turn and glare at Anya and Ashtad. They stood between him and the door. Nich glared at them, his gaze promising pain and blood and death if they didn’t listen. “I suggest you get the fuck out of my way.” He watched in slight surprise as they did exactly as he’d demanded. When they were out of the way, he cast a glance back at his sire. “You may know where I am, but don’t you dare think I’m some helpless fledging you need to protect and care for.” He turned his gaze away again. “I am far more than that.”

And with that, he swept out of the room, Ethan in tow. No one tried to stop him. Not even when he took the car they’d arrived at the mansion in. It was a long time before Ethan said anything, and even then, it was only when they were far from his sire’s mansion and well on their way back to town. Nich was still pushing his fury down, still trying to force himself to calm down. He could feel the spirit woman; she’d followed them, all the way from the lawn outside Jörmungandr’s mansion, and beyond, to where they were now. She wasn’t grounded, he realised. Not at all. In fact, she liked to follow people. Nich smiled slightly, a tiny twitch of his lips that he wasn’t sure Ethan had seen.

“That was....intense,” the human said, dragging Nich’s attention off the road and over to him. Ethan was staring out the front windshield, his expression one of slight shock. “I had no idea you were that fucking old.”

Nich flushed and looked away. “I try not to let it show,” he said, subdued now. He turned his focus back to driving. Ethan shifted in the passenger seat, and he knew now that the human was watching him. “It unnerves people.”

“So... Three thousand years, is it?” Ethan asked, and he could hear the slight smile in his voice.

“Give or take a few decades,” Nich replied, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. Somewhere behind him, on the edge of his awareness, he could hear the woman still. She was singing, and it was familiar--but only vaguely. Nich would have to speak to her later. “Maybe centuries,” he conceded with a tilt of his head, “but yeah. I’m that old.”

“Wow.”

Nich chuckled at Ethan’s amazed tone, but he didn’t say anything. He took a chance to take in what kind of car he drove and nearly broke down laughing when he realised what it was. A damn Lincoln and one of the latest models, too. It was also red. He should have known. His sire was predictable--sometimes too predictable. And they hadn’t spoken in the last three thousand years at all, discounting the last twenty minutes. Nich sighed, closed his eyes for a second before he finally sent the fury back into its box and calmed down. The woman’s singing slowly fading into a low humming. Nich loosened his hold on the steering wheel and parked the car in a space on a side street.

“Nich?”

He ignored his human for a moment, dragging his hands away from the steering wheel to dig through his pockets for his phone. He was going to call Ciaran, let the older vampire know the situation and hope like hell that the ancient knew something that his sire did not.

“Shh for a second, Ethan,” he said, pulling up his contacts list and scrolling through it until he reached Ciaran’s number. Nich cast Ethan a quick glance before hitting the ‘call’ button. It rang for a long, tense minute before anyone bothered to answer the call. And it wasn’t Ciaran.

“Hello? This is Ciaran’s phone,” the voice on the other end of the line said, tone distinctly masculine. Nich had never been sure if the older vampire liked men or women, or both. Apparently, it was both. “Who am I talking to?”

Nich scowled. At least he’d taught this one how to answer the damn phone properly. “Where is he?” he demanded, keeping his tone somewhat neutral. “I need to speak to him. It’s urgent.”

There was a rustling sound, then a slight groan and a half-coherent question, something like ‘who is it?’ and a noisy, exhale—this last one from whoever had answered the phone. Nich rolled his eyes, but he didn’t comment. He just needed to get Ciaran on the damn phone already. Call him impatient; he didn’t care.

“Tell him it’s Nich.”

This time, there was a low ‘give me the phone, Kosumi’. More rustling sounds, a little white noise—obviously from the phone and its reception—and then; “Nicholae.” Somehow, hearing his full first name on Ciaran’s lips made it sound so much nicer than when any of his so-called family said it. The way Ciaran said it filled the name with warmth.

He smiled. “Ciaran,” he breathed. The name left him feeling much better; calmer, more relaxed than he’d been in his sire’s home. He leaned back against the driver’s seat, not looking at Ethan. The human was watching him, staying quiet, and the spirit-woman still linger, but again, she was on the edges of his awareness. He vaguely wondered if Ethan could hear it, then swiftly dismissed it. Ciaran was speaking.

“You called me for a reason.”

Nich chuckled, closing his eyes. “That I did,” he said, his voice low and letting far more of his fear and anger show through than it probably should. There was an indrawn breath on the other end of the line; Nich knew it was Ciaran. It had been too loud to be his bed companion—if the rustling was anything to go by, of course.

“He found you.” It was a statement, not a question. Nich didn’t have to answer him for the older vampire to know that it was true. “What happen?” Ciaran’s tone turned soft, cajoling.

Nich told him, and he told him everything. Ciaran listened to him, tense and quiet. He didn’t interrupt until Nich’s little tale neared its end, and he was telling the older vampire about his leaving the mansion, Ethan and the spirit woman in tow. A glance towards Ethan showed that the human was curious. He probably hadn’t expected Nich to be talking about speaking to spirits. He paused, catching Ethan’s eyes. The human smiled.

“You were hoping that I would know something he didn’t.”

He sighed and turned his attention back Ciaran. “Yes, well.... That was the idea.” He took a deep breath and let it out again. “So, do you know anything?”

Silence; long and drawn out. Nich began to fidget. Ethan was frowning at him and the spirit woman had fallen silent. He knew she was still there; he could feel her. But Ciaran’s silence had him worried. He was just about to ask Ciaran if something was wrong when the man cleared his throat, as if to speak. And speak he did.

“There is something,” he said and Nich bit his lip, waiting for him to continue. “But I’m afraid you might not like it.”

Nich sighed again. “I thought so.” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between the fore finger and thumb of his free hand. “May I come to see you?” he asked, opening his eyes. “I do not want to give him an excuse to try and drag me off again.”

Ciaran chuckled. “Certainly, Nicholae, you may come to see me,” was the soft reply. If Nich noticed it was fond, he didn’t say anything. Ciaran was bound to be fond of him. Nich smiled. “You know where to find us. I’ll let the bouncer know you’re allowed upstairs.”

“Thank you,” Nich said in a very soft tone. Ciaran’s laughter trickled down the line and then he hung up. Nich lowered the phone slowly. He felt much better now that he’d spoken to Ciaran. Ethan shifted again and he sighed, glancing towards the human.

“We’re going back to Entranced?” he asked and Nich chuckled at the way Ethan’s face lit up. The kid loved the place. He nodded and Ethan smiled brightly. He thought he felt the spirit woman smile, but switched his focus back to the human beside him in the car. He frowned, raising one hand to stroke the steering wheel. What was he going to do with the car now? It was far too nice to just leave on the side of the road unlocked. Nich smirked. He’d keep it. Somehow, he had a feeling his sire wouldn’t mind. The bastard.

“I think I’ll keep this,” he said absently, still stroking the car. Ethan chuckled at him, reclining in the passenger seat. Nich blushed and tried to focus on what he was going to do next. He had to get them both to Ciaran’s club. With a sigh, he started the car and pulled out, heading for Entranced. It wasn’t a long drive, maybe fifteen minutes, but it was mostly in silence. Ethan didn’t seem to mind. Nich, on the other hand, was dying to rant about his sire. He could do that with Ciaran.