Page 23 of Little Wing
It was only about ten minutes out from our home that my father noticed the absence of my brother’s labored breathing behind him. All that remained was his horse free of its rider.
Worried about the sickness, my father didn’t dare venture back out, not even to recover the body of his only son. Fear paralyzed both my parents. But not me.
I was finally able to sneak out of the house. While I did not venture far past our home, I still held out hope that I would soon spot my brother coming home. Alive and well.
That night, I saw no one approach our home and decided to seek comfort in our horses in the barn.
I took another sip of my drink, now noticing that my knee was no longer bare, but covered by Silas’s hand. It was a reassuring presence, a comforting one, so I allowed it. I watched him motion to Kait for another round of our refreshment. My mouth was dry. The memories were fresh, immortalized. Even as centuries went by… I could still feel the sting of betrayal, sadness, and just… so much pain.
Upon opening the barn doors, I expected to hear the gentle neighs and huffs from our two horses, but what met me instead was a pungent stench of iron. Blood. I rushed to light the lamp in the corner of the barn and immediately regretted it upon seeing the scene before me.
“Fuuuck! Turn it OFF!” A hiss pierced the silence in the barn.
There was blood everywhere. Puddles smeared across the floorboards and in the middle was a man who looked so much like my brother, yet not at all. His hair was matted with blood that made his black hair shine. His skin was sickly and drained of color. When he looked up at me, I knew something was terribly wrong. His soft amber orbs were now a frightening ruby red.
“B-Brother! You’re alive!”
“Go away. Stay away. I—I cannot have you here!” The creature, my brother, demanded. His voice was guttural, strained, and heartbreaking. Like every word that left his lips was inflicting physical pain.
“No, I will get Father and he will bring you in. We will find a healer to tend to you,” I commanded.
He dropped to his knees and wheezed, digging his nails into the wood. It was then that I allowed my eyes to land on the corpses around him. Our horses were dead, their necks limp. Their large bodies were covered in many punctures, which made me wonder where the blood was. There should have been so much more from such large creatures, I thought.
“Lotus…” my brother groaned. “I am so sorry.”
Before I could peel my eyes away from the poor creatures, I felt a terrible sting on my wrist. My brother had yanked my arm and pulled me to him before he bit me. My skin was pierced with teeth so sharp I thought they were needles. And as the blood began to spill, I watched my brother lap it up. His eyes wild with a hunger that terrified me.
When I tried to pull away, I… I….
Silas squeezed my knee gently. “You don’t have to keep going, Lotus. I-I’m so sorry.”
I bowed my head and turned my wrist to show him the two marks across my skin. A memento from my final moments, my branding in addition to the dashes below my collarbone. “He broke my neck to finish what he had started.”
The air between us was thick, but as the words finally settled, I looked up at Silas with a small smile across my lips. An offering of a piece of me to him. Despite his interrogation the last time we were here, he now sat stiff beside me. His hand didn’t move while his eyes lowered from mine. I didn’t know what he was thinking. I was trying to settle my own mind from retracing the memory further. I could never forget that night. I could never forget my brother, but I hoped that the fragment I shared would settle any lingering suspicions that Silas had about me.
“I hope this is enough for now,” I said before bringing my glass back to my lips, finishing the last drops of blood before swiftly moving on to the next glass beside me.
As Lotus spoke, I battled against the urge to pull her into me. My hand on her knee was pushing it enough, but I didn’t dare move it away when she didn’t appear to reject its presence. If I didn’t feel like a dick before for berating her with questions about her identity, then I definitely felt like one now.
Fucking Christ… her own brother…
It wasn’t uncommon to see waves of vampires plaguing villages back then. From her retelling, I could finally piece together that we were similar in age, not only in appearance, but existence as well. It was even more evident in the way that her modern tongue slipped into an accent I was no stranger to. Scottish, maybe?
But when she asked if it was enough, I gritted my teeth and pulled my hand from her leg only to set it over her hand that wrapped tightly around the glass still full of her drink.
“I’m so sorry…” I said again. “I’m sorry for my fucked up—everything! You don’t owe me anything. Look, I may not get the makeup,” I admitted as I motioned to her face with a tip of my chin. “But I will not beg you for an explanation. Not unless you offer it.”
I watched her lips remain spread into a gentle smile while her eyes looked upon our covered hands. After a quiet moment, she looked upat me. My gods—that was a smile men would ride into battle for. I savored every single one she shared with me, storing it in my memory.
What she shared with me was a gift because I knew many who suffered, who did not choose this, and certainly did not offer their story up freely. There was too much pain tied with their turning.
This time the space between us felt less tense. Having shared pieces of each other felt like we were more equal. She wasn’t defensive when I asked her questions, and she even came back with questions of her own.
Talking with her was so easy that before we knew it, the usual late night crowd filled the space of the bar. I concentrated on letting the noise around us dampen until all I heard was the woman seated beside me. When I watched her lips curl and eyes crease as she spoke about something that excited her, I realized that I really couldn’t get tired of just watching her exist. Even as the live music from the stage became louder, all I heard was her. Maybe now was as good a time as any to bring up the night I still couldn’t stop thinking about.
“Hey,” I started, leaning forward as I nudged her knee with mine. “Don’t know if we covered this yet, but I hope I didn’t make things weird for us when I kissed you.”
Her lips parted slightly, allowing yet another peek of her pointed canines. She tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and shrugged. “It was a good kiss.”
