Luna 6.1

Aiden was hunched over a man; he reminded me of a wolf who was protecting his prey from the rest of the pack before he devoured it. The air around him seemed to be crackling. He brought the man’s wrist to his unblemished face and trailed his nose along the vein there. He took a deep breath seeming to savor the ‘flavor’ of the man.

I knew the strength of bloodlust now, but this man’s blood smelled rancid. How could Aiden breathe in that scent? It felt like if I breathed any more I was going to puke.

“Delicious,” Aiden snarled. I gasped and began to scamper away. He looked stronger than I did, but he was my brother, the only person I had left. He wouldn’t hurt me, right?

He turned on me and started to hiss and growl. I’d never seen him like this before, but there was no way human Aiden would ever act this way. He’d changed just like I had. I opened my arms to the demonic creature in front of me, searching his eyes for a sliver of humanity. He used to be so sweet and caring; he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Now…now he was a monster just like me.

“What’s going on, Aiden?” I asked, my voice trembling. He cocked his head to the side like he didn’t remember me. If Dad hadn’t made me promise him to go to Aiden, his life would’ve been lost to the mist like everything else. But none of that mattered right now; he just needed to tell me what the hell was going on.

“Asha?” Good, I thought. He does remember. Now I don’t have to explain everything to him. His eyes flashed in recognition. This time he held his arms open for me. My long arms wrapped around his thin waist, and I burrowed into the familiar coolness of his chest. He didn’t used to be cool before; he’d been so warm, so human. Now he was as cool as Dad was, a poor imitation of humanity. Squeezing him tightly, I tried to show him all of the odd feelings and urges bubbling up inside of me, boiling stew. My skin seemed to heat up where our bodies met. He instantly slid from my arms as heat waves floated off of me.

“Stay away from me,” he demanded with fire in his eyes. I took a step towards him, and he bared his teeth. I wasn’t stupid; I knew that he could hurt me and probably would if he felt threatened.

“Whoa, Aiden. I’m your sister. Don’t go all predator on me. I’m sorry for whatever I just did, but I have no clue what’s goin’ on. I wouldn’t even be with you now except Dad made me promise to stay with you. I just wanted to honor a dead man’s wish.” My voice held no feeling when I said the last sentence; it sounded like I didn’t care that Dad was gone. I did. I already missed his clearheaded decisions, and knowledgeable voice that could always talk me down from the ledge. And the one I was on right then was pretty steep.

“Who was it?” Aiden asked, his voice cold.

“Brae his brother and Layla his girlfriend.” I kept my face an impassive mask. There was no reason that I should’ve worn my heart on my sleeve. I could protect myself. He was a murderer, a brute, and a demon even. I didn’t need his help, and I certainly didn’t want it. Those names…I could’ve easily called myself the same things. But it was different because humans killed animals too. In essence, it was the same thing except I wanted blood and they wanted meat.

“Brae and Layla? The Slayers?” His eyes expanded. He turned his back to me in a slightly defensive position and scanned the forest for them.

“They left last night,” I said, dismissing his fear.

He seemed to have forgotten about his meal, but I hadn’t. The man seemed dazed as he watched Aiden pace in front of me. He looked at my brother like he was some deity come down to earth just for him. What a pitiful excuse for a human being, I thought, shaking my head in disgust. Didn’t he get that Aiden was going to kill him soon?

“Who are ‘The Slayers’?” I asked, absently pulling leaves and dirt from my hair. I’d heard Layla mention them, but still didn’t understand what it was. He turned to me, his tall, lanky figure towering over my own. His eyes glazed over as he looked down at me.

“They are a group of disgusting creatures that enjoy killing innocents. Anybody that they feel threatened by is disposed of immediately,” he said, his voice full of hatred. I wondered what they’d done to him. Other than kill Dad of course.

“Tell me what’s goin’ on, Aiden.” He pursed his lips and gave me a conflicted look. I growled and showed him my teeth like he’d done to me earlier. I was all for intimidation. Besides, fighting was a good way to release all my anger. A battle of the beasts. “Now.”

He raised his arms in surrender. “Dad changed you.”

My anger suddenly warped into desperation. “I’m sick of all the riddles. I know that I’m different. Please, tell me what I am,” I choked out, trying to hold back my burning tears.

“Not human,” he mumbled.

I got down on my knees, my head bowed in submission, and wept openly. The pain from the tears was nothing compared to the pain of not knowing what I was. “I’m begging you, brother. I need to know.”

He got down to my level and whispered in my ear, “Vampire.” I shrieked an inhuman sound and tilted my head to the right side, offering him my neck. I wanted-no, it was much stronger than that. I needed to die, to leave this earth without having killed someone else.

“Do it,” I cried. “Just kill me now, Aiden.”

“Asha, stop this. You’re my sister. I couldn’t kill you if I wanted to.” He shook his head and I could see a few tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes. “I know it’s hard, but you have to live. For me, and so what Dad did wasn’t just a waste of everyone’s time.”

“No, I don’t have to live. Someone else can do whatever I was supposed to do. I refuse to be a vampire.”

“You had to have known, Asha. I can smell bear on your breath,” he whispered, picking me up off the ground and cradling me like a baby in his deceptively scrawny arms. He brushed me off and looked at me with sympathetic eyes. How dare he pity me, I thought, my mind bouncing between being grateful and upset.

“I don’t want to be this way.” I banged on my chest, flakes of dried blood-both mine and the grizzly’s-falling off of my sweatshirt. Killing and wandering to find more things to kill; what kind of life was that? My eyes filled with acidic tears as my dreams filtered through my fingers. “I can walk, thank you very much,” I said, suddenly horrified by the way he was treating me. Jumping from his arms, I looked straight into his eyes.

My hand wrapped around the back of his neck and pulled him down so we were eye to eye. I’d noticed that something was different about his eyes, but passed it off as a glitch in my vision from the constant dim lighting. The sun hadn’t touched my flesh for more than a second since I’d woken up, and I’d only seen it for about a minute before the bloodlust shielded my eyes. “What’s wrong with your eyes?” I asked, anxiety lacing through my irritated voice. His eyes were the color of steel, identical to Dad’s. They used to be a plain Jane brown; the exact same as mine.

“I have much to teach you, little one,” he said, his voice full of tender patience. “You inherit the eye color of your sire, your creator, Dad.”