The Vampire Legacy; The New Queen Rises (3 page)

When I came to, it was still dark but as I
looked up through the hole in the ground, and saw the stars in the
sky. As I adjusted to the new surroundings, I noticed that the area
around me was solid stone. I suddenly noticed a large stone box in
front of me. I felt its lid with my fingers, and as I traced the
cross on the lid, I realized that this was a stone coffin, like
ones you see in mausoleums. My body began to shake and I stepped
back. The darkness seemed to start to whisper to me, and the noise
became unbearable.

"JULIAN!" I yelled both in my mind and with
my voice, and then I huddled in the corner. It seemed like hours
before I saw the faces staring down at me from the opening in the
roof of this grave. The light from a flashlight shined down on the
lid of the coffin and I saw it clearly for the first time. It made
me shutter.

"Ashley, are you all right?" I heard David
yell.

"Get me out of here please."

"Quinn and Julian are on their way. It's
almost a maze down there so it might take a minute." I sighed and
closed my eyes. "Ashley, are you hurt at all?"

"My head hurts. I hit it on something when I
fell." My eyes started to see nothing but blackness with little
white dots, but I struggled to keep them open. It took almost five
minutes for me to see the two figures walk through what, could have
only been, a door. One of them leaned down and touched my face.
"Julian," I whispered. As I felt him scoop me up in his arms the
blackness took over again.

2

When I awoke, the light from the morning sun
was streaming in the window. I was in a large king-sized bed,
covered with a small throw, the walls around me were bright white,
and the curtains were drawn to let in the sun. I glanced around
this strange room then sat up a little to see if I was alone. I
wasn't. Julian was sitting in a large comfortable chair, next to a
fireplace, reading a book. His long black hair was pulled back in a
ponytail, exposing his childish features to me. I sat up more and
stared at him as he read. Then suddenly he looked up at me, put the
book down, and stood up.

Neither of us said a word as he walked over
to where I was sitting on the bed and sat next to me, facing me. He
reached out with his hand to touch my face, but as his fingers
touched my skin, I moved away. He curled his fingers away. His
expression told me that he was trying to decide if he should try
again. He reached for me again and rested his hand on my cheek.

"Where was I last night?" He brushed the hair
from my face and smiled, slightly.

"It's an underground cemetery. My family has
lived here for centuries and they've all been buried in the
catacombs under the backyard." Julian sighed. "I thought I lost you
last night, when you left, the first time, I mean. I thought after
I kissed you that you wouldn't come back."

He turned towards window, then back at my
hands. He took my right hand and held it tightly. "When you came
back and you started to ask me all these questions, I wasn't ready.
I didn't know how to tell you all the things you want to know."

"Can you tell me now? The others aren't
around. This may be easier since it's just you and I." Julian stood
up and walked over to the end of the bed. I waited patiently for
him to start talking, but it was awhile before he did. When the
time came, he turned to me, while he held onto the footboard of the
bed.

"My parents died in France, three years
before the beheading of Marie Antoinette. They left my brother and
I to care for us. I was sixteen at the time, and Quinn had just
turned ten." Julian moved over toward me again and sat down. "A man
named Victor La Rouge took the two of us in. He moved us out into
the country shortly after that. He told us it was to protect him
and us.”

"We started to notice how he would come out
of his room, a place we weren't allowed, only in the afternoon. He
looked pale and tired all the time, but he had so much energy. He
taught us to read, write, and to do math. He also taught us to
fence and ride a horse. Quinn started to see him as our Father,
probably because the tragedy of losing ours was still in his mind.
He worshiped Victor, but I couldn't take him any longer."

Julian held his eyes closed tightly for a few
moments, then he opened them, the green was gone, and they were
dark brown now. The color seemed to hold a world of knowledge in
them.

"One night,” he began again, "we fought,
violently. I didn't like what he was doing to Quinn. He was my
brother and I had to protect him. We had been with Victor for two
years. I was eighteen and I was defiant.”

"In the middle of our fight, which consisted
of everything from insults to fists flying, Victor did the most
awful thing anyone had ever done to me. He lunged at my neck, his
jaw clamped over my skin, and he bit into me. The pain shocked me
and I couldn't move. All I could do was hold onto life, while
listening to the sounds of my own fading heart beat. I passed out,
the blackness engulfed me, and I thought I was dead." He waited to
see any signs of disgust but, I myself was a storyteller and I
found this quite interesting. "Do you believe what I have said so
far?"

"To not believe in things that are impossible
would make most everything that you do improbable." I had never
heard of such a saying before. And, at the time, I couldn't figure
out where it had come from. Julian smiled.

"When I awoke,” he continued, “I was in a
dark room, surrounded by candles. My neck ached, my body was numb
and my heart had stopped beating. I was dead, but then again, I was
alive. My eyes felt strange, everything seemed to be breathing
life. My own hands were blue, cold as ice, but I could almost feel
the lives of every other person in the house. I got up and pulled
open the door, it was very heavy, almost solid cement and I walked
out and up the long dark staircase to the main floor of the
house.”

"Everyone acted as if nothing had happened,
the furniture that we had broken had been replaced and there were
no indications that we had ever fought. It wasn't until Quinn came
bouncing in the room that it all became clear. I couldn't look at
him, so I left.”

"I was out in the woods for over a week and
the burning in my veins became unbearable. My body hunted down a
girl, who was picking berries in a nearby field, and I just
attacked her. Latched onto her neck like Victor had done to me. I
killed her, I drank her life, and it filled me. My heart began to
beat, my flesh warmed and my pale complexion seemed to become tan.
I was a monster."

"A vampire?" Those eyes that had once again
changed color, and nodded, then looked back at my hand.

"I stayed near the home. I'm sure Victor knew
I was there, but he never came after me, never invited me back. I
watched after Quinn, tried to help him whenever I could. For six
years, I watched him live a normal life. He had actually been
engaged to this beautiful young woman, but Victor didn't approve. I
watched, one night, as the events unfolded into what turned out to
be a replay of everything that happened to me the night I had
turned. Quinn was now one of us, but Victor didn't let him leave;
he kept Quinn there and taught him everything that I had learned on
my own over the six years.”

“I had been alone." Julian stood up once
again and walked over to the fireplace. He stared at it, for a
moment, and then the logs in the stove burst into flames. "Quinn
was his protégée. His child and I was just a bastard."

"You aren't, Julian, and you’re not a
monster."

Suddenly, as if there had been no space
between us at all, Julian was on the bed, towering over me. I lay
back down on the bed and looked at his face. He knelt there, on his
hands and knees, his hair, as black as night, had come out of the
ponytail and it hung around his face. His eyes began to glow, first
silver, then red, a snarl formed on his face, and his teeth, his
canines, grew as sharp as knives. This all in a matter of seconds,
but I watched it as if it were in slow motion.

"I am a monster, Ash. One of the worst there
is. I hunted, I killed, and I liked it. I've killed girls your
age." His breath quickened, as if the violence level had risen, but
I remained calm.

I thought for sure he was trying to scare me.
Slowly, as I looked into those bright red eyes, I turned my head to
the side, moved my hair and exposed my neck. Out of the corner of
my eye, I watched his face. His eyes locked on the blood that
flowed through the veins there. He lowered his body, to let it rest
on mine, and then he grabbed my wrists, and held them. He moved
closer and I saw his jaw open, I watched those teeth come closer to
me and I closed my eyes.

I waited for the pain to come, the moment
when his teeth punctured my skin. Instead what I got was two soft
lips caressing the skin on my neck, warm breath tingling my nerves,
and a low growl of what I thought was a cat in my ear. As the
kissing continued, I didn't resist. This was what I wanted, and
then I realized that he was who I wanted. I wasn't sixteen anymore.
I felt older. I felt as if my world finally made sense.

Julian grabbed my chin and turned my face
toward his. The teeth had gone back to normal, and his eyes held
only traces of the anger that he had held before. He still was
breathing rather heavily, but when he locked onto my eyes, it
eased.

"I'm not afraid, Julian." He let go of my
wrists and slowly glided his hand down my bare arm until he rested
his hand at my side, then he pushed himself up, so that he towered
over me again. "You would never hurt me."

"You took a big risk, Ash. I could have
killed you." He gently ran his hand through my hair. He cupped the
back of my head with that hand and held me there. "I never know if
I can control my nature, especially when it comes to you. Don't
ever do that again!"

I smiled at him, defiantly and turned my head
again; he whipped it back, leaned down and kissed me hard on the
lips again. Slowly, as he back away, I opened my eyes and looked at
him. He closed his eyes, for just a moment, sighed and sat up.

"You push your luck, too far, sometimes Ash."
He sat at the edge of his bed with his back to me.

"I test boundaries. I cross lines. I have
always been this way." He didn't look at me. I pulled my knees to
my chest and hugged my legs close to me. "My mother always hated me
for that. My father never could figure out why I was so different
from my sisters. My sisters could never understand why I had to be
so rebellious. I was the odd one, not like them. I'm not one of
them." I suddenly realized what I had said and how much sense it
now made. Sitting in this house with this young man, who had just
proven to me that he was a vampire, I realized why I felt the way I
did toward him.

"I'm not one of them, am I?" Julian stiffened
at the question. "I'm something else and you know what, don't you.
Who am I, Julian? Who were my real parents?"

He turned to me. On his face, I watched a lie
begin to form. I knew him too well now for him to lie to me, but he
tried anyway.

"Your parents are at home, probably worried
sick that you didn't come home last night." He stood up. I,
suddenly, was on my feet up on the bed, noticing that I was only
dressed in somebody’s oversized white dress shirt. "They probably
think that you’re injured."

"Oh, yeah, they wouldn't ever guess that I
was staying with an eighteen-year-old vampire, who just makes my
blood boil every time I look at him." Julian looked at me and
sighed. "You make me nuts, Julian."

"This can't happen, Ash, and now you know
why." I jumped down off the bed and walked over to him. I put my
hand on his chest and sighed.

"This is happening, Jules. This has been
happening, whether you like it or not." He stood there and watched
me as I grabbed my shorts and sandals, slip them on, then walked
passed him to the door. "I'll see you later."

I was just about to put my hand on the gold
doorknob that was on the front door when I felt him behind me.
Slowly I turned and looked at Julian. He stood at the edge of the
staircase, staring at me with those eyes of his. I pulled the door
open and walked out. As I walked down the long driveway that led to
the road, I felt him again. I walked on a few more feet before I
stopped and turned again. I didn't see him, but I could feel
him.

"Quit hiding and come out in the open."
Julian stepped out from behind a tree. "Go home, Julian."

"No," he said. I crossed my arms in front of
me and shook my head.

"I'm confused." I rubbed my forehead. "You
told me that this can't happen, but you're following me home."

"You need to be protected."

"Bullshit!" My eyes filled up with tears and
I closed them. "Julian, right here, right now. You have to make up
your mind. I can't do this. I can't wait forever for you. When you
left, I waited eight months for you, eight months, just for you to
come back and tell me that I can't care for you. That's bullshit,
Julian."

"What do you want from me, Ash?"

"I want you to tell me what you want. I can't
wait for you forever. Tell me, right now, do you want me or not."
He looked at me, stood there for a moment and then sighed. He
didn't speak, so I turned and walked toward the road again. Just as
quickly as I turned around, he was in front of me, less than two
feet away. He put his hand up, and then put it back down. "What is
it?"

"You make me crazy, Ash. You are so
obnoxious. You think you know everything."

"I do know everything."

"Be quiet and let me finish." He sighed. I
was quieted into submission, just by his tone of voice. "You think
you know everything, but you know nothing. You insist on provoking
me, even though you know my nature, and I'm sure you knew a long
time ago. You push buttons that no one has ever pushed before. I'm
ready to draw the line, here Ash, but you would only cross it,
wouldn't you?" I nodded and smiled. "It's not funny, Ash. I think I
love you."