Lavender Blues

The thick and murky darkness was still surrounding Marie when she came to hours later. It took her a few minutes to realise that the bed she was lying on was not her own. While hers was slightly to small for her and squeaked whenever she moved, this was ridiculously oversized and plush to the point where she sank into it, making moving as difficult as standing up from a beanbag. Once she realised that she was obviously in someone else’s bed, she struggled with the fat comforter and sat up, pushing her hair out of the way to look around the room, blue eyes gazing angrily around the room.



It was a bedroom she guessed, from the bed she was laying on and the large mahogany chest of drawers standing against one of the walls, and a rich persons one at that, judging by the rest of the surroundings. The walls were crimson red with cherry wood framing, and no doubt the scarlet comforter had been chosen to match. The theme of red was carried on throughout the furnishing, the soft chair and ottoman, the bookcase and the mirror all carried traces of red somewhere on them. The general feel of the room was that someone had bathed it in blood and left it to dry that way. Marie slipped from the covers and walked over to the door, fully expecting it to be locked, as she tried to remember the events that had lead up to this. She let out a moan of despair as her mind clicked.



‘Gabriel… the gift… him being at school… oh god’ She thought as she stood frozen, halfway between the bed and the door. Making up her mind to try the door anyway, although she doubted that Gabriel would have made it so easy for her to escape. Strangely enough however, when she twisted the knob the door opened easily. Knowing it couldn’t be that easy Marie stepped out and walked carefully down the hallway that loomed before her, keeping her back pressed against the wall so she could see each way. When she came to a corner she peaked out around it first and then whipped her head back, clamping her hand over her mouth to keep herself quiet when she saw Gabriel talking to another, much older man. She flattened herself against the wall and looked around desperately for a window, a door, anything.



Finding nothing, she stayed still where she was, flattened against the wall, a mouse caught by a wolf. Marie heard the sound of footsteps moving steadily towards her. She started to break out in a sweat. Gabriel was going to find her, he was going to be mad she tried to escape him, and then he would kill her. It didn’t occur to her that Gabriel had shown her nothing but kindness throughout her entire life. She could only think of the fact that he had kidnapped her and was most likely going to rape and viciously murder her in a homicidal rampage.



As she heard the steps getting nearer and nearer, she shut her eyes and waited for him to find her. She knew she should be running, but all she was frozen in fear. Her entire body tensed as she heard the footsteps stop close in front of her. After five seconds of nothing happening, she opened an eyelid a fraction to be confronted with Gabriel’s unblinking stare. She opened the other eye, her body still strung as tightly as a wire. He reached out a hand to touch her cheek and Marie felt herself flinch away from his touch. He leaned in closer to her, pressing his body slowly and thoroughly hers. His lips whispered against the skin of her cheek and strangely, as he did this she felt the tension that had been coiled so deep within her leaving, to be replaced with a coil of what could embarrassingly only be called need. Her eyes fluttered shut once more, although he had done nothing more erotic than press against her and let her feel his hardness against her belly.



He wrapped his hands around her small waist and pulled her even more flush against him. Marie was lost in a cloudy haze, a feeling of rightness she had never experienced with the inexperienced fumbling of her previous boyfriends. She was quickly jumped from this haze however when she felt a sharp bite on her ear. Suddenly realising the position she was in, Marie pushed her hands up and pushed Gabriel away from her.



“What do you think you’re doing?”



“Do not play the innocent with me Marie, you are completely aware of what I want, no, what I need from you.”



“WHAT! You’re not getting any of… that from me! You can’t just kidnap a girl and expect her to… to… you know!”



Marie was blushing like a tomato when she said this. She couldn’t believe he would be so blunt as to just come out and say something like that to her, even if he had made his arousal somewhat clear when he pressed against her before.



“I can expect anything from you that I want little one. After all, you are here, completely helpless, and you cannot deny that you want me.”



“Yes I can! I don’t want you! See! Listen to me –“



Marie’s frantic denials were cut off by Gabriel’s mouth pressing against hers. She clamped hers shut in an attempt to stop him, not so much because she didn’t want him, but because she needed to show herself that she could resist him. Gabriel pulled away slightly with an amused look on his face and then bent his head back down and delicately bit on her bottom lip. Marie gasped at the sharp burst of pain and Gabriel took advantage of this to slip his tongue into the velvety caverns of her mouth. He pulled her closer so she was once again pulled tight against him, her soft curves pressing against his solid muscle, as his tongue imitated a much more intimate coupling.



His hand slipped up from her waist to cup her face and then down again to lift and squeeze a breast through her shirt. Marie was beginning to lose herself in the passion she was feeling. She wrapped her hands around his neck and held his head close to her so she could continue to feast on his lips. His hand was slipping under the bottom of her t-shirt and sliding up, cold against her hot, feverish skin. He cupped her breast in his hand and flicked a hand over the already hard nipple. The sensations that thrummed through her body when he did this were unbearable. Marie breathed out a moan in between kisses. As soon as Gabriel heard it, he stopped kissing her and pulled away. Marie opened her lust-clouded eyes in confusion. Why had he stopped?



He grinned his ever-present sardonic smile, raised an eyebrow and said,



“You were saying you did not want me?”



Marie’s mouth dropped open in shock. She drew back her hand and slapped him across the face as hard as she could.



“Never touch me like that again! I’m not a puppet you can push and pull the strings on and I’ll do whatever you want.”



Marie took advantage of the shock still registered on his face that she would dare slap him and ran down the hallway that Gabriel had just come from. Her lungs were bursting and her legs felt like lead as she ran through the maze-like house, hoping against hope that she was running in the right direction, towards a door that would let her out of this nightmare. She was trapped in a house with a man who made her blood run hot but scared her out of her mind. Marie didn’t know what he was, but whatever he was, it was unnatural. No one could stay the same age for almost a decade, unchanged. And when she had met him this morning, she could swear it had almost looked like he had fangs.



Suddenly she felt her already leaden legs slow. It felt like Marie was wading through thick mud and with every step it got harder and harder to move until she was frozen to the spot. She tried to turn head to see what had happened to her but she couldn’t. Her mind was panicking. She had woken up this morning a normal teenager, expecting a present from a mysterious friend. But now the friend had turned into a monster who had her taken her away from her life and trapped her in his fun house. Just as tears threatened to fall she felt a whippet of wind pass by her and she was free. She stumbled as her tight, ready-to-run muscles were freed from their mid-step position and would have fallen if not for the strong arms that caught her and wrapped around her.



Knowing who was holding her, but not understanding how he had appeared in front of her to catch her Marie let out a strangled scream and struggled, digging her nails into his skin wherever she could and kicking at his shins before bursting into frustrated tears, she events of the day finally catching up with her. Gabriel held her in his tight embrace, stroking her hair and whispering quiet murmurings of comfort into her ear until her sobs quietened into soft whimpering. Marie didn’t know why but she found herself snuggling into his embrace, finding comfort with the person who had caused all of her problems. What was it called, Stockholm syndrome? When you started to like your captors? Her eyes still laced with tears, she turned her head up to face his and asked the question she had been wondering ever since that first night she had met him.



“Why me?”



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Marie wandered aimlessly into the library of the enormous house, not at all surprised when a cosy fire flickered into existence in the hearth as she stepped into the room. She had been living in this gilded cage for almost two weeks now, the fires that appeared out of nowhere, the black wolves that roamed the hallways and her mysterious host who had an uncanny ability to anticipate her needs and thoughts almost before she had thought them had all ceased to worry her.



She padded quietly over to bookshelf, stopping to study her appearance in one of the full-length mirrors that were situated throughout the room. Over the two weeks she had been in the house, her clothing and lifestyle had changed dramatically.



'Most probably because after the first night her own clothes had disappeared to be replaced with clothing of Gabriel’s choice.'



Marie mumbled to herself as she made a face at her reflection. Gone were the tatty but well loved converse, the old thrift store t-shirt and the gypsy skirt she had so loved to twirl around in and feel it swish against her legs. In there place was a wardrobe full of dresses. Dresses of every type: cocktail dresses, ball gowns, tight short skirted flirty ones, long summer gardening ones – if you could imagine a dress, Marie was most likely in possession of it.



Right now she was wearing a white halter neck summer dress with large lavender polka dots and a drop waist that was fitted to her waist and then fell in loose waves to her knees. It was one of Marie’s favourites of all of the dresses in her closet and she wore it with a soft cashmere cardigan. As she walked away from the mirror and began to look through the many bookshelves to find something to read she begrudgingly admitted that like everything else in the wardrobe, she looked fantastic in it.



She pulled out a copy of Pride and Prejudice and ran her finger over the thick leather binding. There was no doubt in Maries mind that she was holding a first edition, she had seen that Gabriel would have nothing but the best. She walked over the plush armchair and snuggled into it, curling her feet underneath her body and settled down to read, completely unaware of the unblinking eye of the camera trained on her, nestle deep in a high corner of the room.







She was beautiful. Sitting in the west library, oblivious to everything but the little world she had created in her head, she was quite simply the most perfect creature he had ever encountered. Gabriel had to restrain himself from shimmering from his study into the library and taking her where she sat. He knew she wasn’t ready to know the truth about what he was, and shimmering in front of her would most likely give his poor little one a heart attack he thought ruefully as he leant back in the black leather chair and stared at the television screens that were implanted into every room.



Gabriel watched from the darkness of his study as she let out a soft yawn from her sweet pink mouth and brushed a lock of her raven’s hair out of her face. She had been with him in his specially designed house that let him walk the daylight as if he were a man. He thanked whoever had designed tinted windows that let in the sun but kept out the UV rays that were so deadly to his kind. They had allowed him the freedom to pretend, if only indoors, that he was a normal man. Admittedly he could walk in the sun, but for long periods it would begin to burn, much like a human. Much like a human exvepting for the fact that when his skin burnt, it peeled and cracked off, his skin seperating from the muscle like a peeled orange. Gabriel had long ago accepted that he was not human, not the same as the others who he walked this earth with, but since Marie had swung into his life with all the innocence and radiance that he did not posses, he had acquired a strange sort of shame about his existence. He found he was reluctant to take her blood as his body craved, afraid to claim her as his mate as he had known she was since the first night that had seemed so long ago for her, but to him was as fresh as yesterday.



He pushed himself off of the leather chair and began to pace as his memories of that night infiltrated his mind. He had barely begun hunting for his nightly prey when his advanced hearing had picked up on an adolescent warbling that had called to him with the power of a sirens song. When he had come across the owner of the voice, beautiful in its childishness, he had been stunned. This little bint had the power to call him away from the burning hunger that usually swept his body as he hunted. As he watched her from the shadows, singing about lavender’s and kings he had known that this child would one day grow into his mate. When her fear from her parents fight had become evident, Gabriel had revealed himself to her, hastily read her thoughts and conjured a gift to give her to ease her mind. Ever since, he had watched over her carefully, each year sending another present to mark not only her birthday but also their anniversary. Finally, when he had seen her grow into the woman he had always known she would be, he could hold himself back no longer. The beast inside of him demanded that he take her; claim her as his own forever.



So he had. On the day of her seventeenth birthday he had stolen her away from her entire life for his own selfish needs. And he didn’t even regret it. Gabriel had seen what Marie’s life was like before he had taken her away from it. It had been a miserable existence, without any of the advantages she would eventually see life with him would offer. He watched as her eyes slowly fluttered shut. Gabriel turned to the television screen to see Maries eye’s fluttering shut, although the little minx was fighting the urge to sleep as best she could. He had been in her thoughts and knew she feared falling asleep in this house, each time fearing that she wouldn’t wake.



He shimmered himself to the door of the library so she wouldn’t be shocked when he suddenly arrived behind her. He had only shimmered in front of her once, the first day she had arrived at the house and had tried to escape him. He had seen her response, and was not willing to risk it again. He silently opened the door and walked through it, shutting it quietly behind him. Her eyes still shut, and her breathing steady Gabriel knew she was sleeping. He was not surprised, Marie had been awake since early this morning and it was now well into the night. She should have been cold in the night air, considering she was wearing nothing but the flimsy white dress he had provided for her, but the heat of the fire had ensured her skin was still warm to the touch. Slowly and carefully, he lifted her into his arms and began to carry his little bundle back to the bedroom.



As he walked she shifted in his arms, still lost deep in a sea of dreams. A lock of hair fell into her face and Gabriel instinctively brushed it away softly, frowning softly when she shivered against his touch. It was one of the disadvantages of his immortality, he could live forever, but the blood beneath his skin ran cold, a frozen, red river. This particular trait was helpful when he was hunting, he somehow never broke a sweat, but at times such as this he wished he could touch and hold someone without them breaking into goose-bumps.



Finally reaching the bedroom, Gabriel released Marie onto the bed and slipped the thick coverlet over body, mentally compelling her to stay asleep. He sat beside her on the bed, silent as ever, and looked down at the young face below him. She turned her head to snuggle deeper into the pillow, revealing her swan-like neck to his dark gaze. Gabriel could almost see the blood rushing through the purple veins just under the skin. He ran a finger over the trail that he knew the veins would follow and before he realised what he was doing, Gabriel’s incisors were pushing against his full bottom lip as he leant down towards the white expanse of flesh that seemed to be calling to him. [I] Go on [/i] the voice in his mind whispered to him [I] taste her… make her yours Gabriel… you’ve waited for her so very long… [/I] He hardly knew what he was doing as he opened his mouth and licked the milky flesh with his sandpaper tongue and then finally sunk his teeth deep into her.



She exploded in his mouth, tasting of dark copper and life and health. He had never tasted anyone better, most people’s blood being tainted by drugs or alcohol or disease nowadays. Gabriel pulled his teeth out and sucked greedily on the life force flowing so freely from her neck, barely noticing when his body spread over hers, undulating his hips hard against hers, revelling in the sensation to his cock. Generally he did not find hunting an erotic experience – after all, are you turned on by your food? – but with Marie there was something undeniably sensual about invading her in this way that made him think about invading her body in other ways. Gabriel was so caught up in hid feeding that the mental hold he had on Marie slipped and shattered. She awoke to the feeling of immense pain in her neck, as well as the vaguely uncomfortable feeling of being squashed. She suddenly realised what the screaming pain in her neck was as she came to consciousness. In all the vampire books se had read, none had ever properly described the pain of having your blood literally sucked out of your veins. It was as if each cell was being scraped from the artery and capillary walls out of her neck.



Marie let out a frightened scream and let her arms and legs flail, trying in vain to push Gabriel off of her. Finally, feeling herself grow dizzy and faint from the loss of blood she grabbed the clock on the bedside table and hit him over the head with it. Gabriel pulled away and glared at her sharply. Marie used her waning strength to push him off of her and scramble away onto the floor. She tried desperately to stand but felt her legs collapsing out from under her. After two more attempts to stand, expecting Gabriel to grab her and finish her off every second, she finally settled for scrambling away on her hands and knees, refusing to look backwards until she reached a dark corner which she curled her body into, knowing she should logically run for a door, but not having the strength. Marie clamped a hand over the still flowing pinpricks on her neck and looked hysterically around the room for Gabriel. When she couldn’t see him anywhere, she wrapped a hand around her knees and slumped her head downwards, the blood loss taking its toll.



Gabriel slipped back into the room with the gauze cloth and tape he had shimmered out to get once he ad been so painfully brought back to reality and realised what he was doing. He knew it was foolish to leave his little one – she truly was his now – alone in the panic she was in, but he couldn’t stand to remember that he had caused her screaming and fear once again. He let out an angry torrent of his native tongue – he had been born a member of Spanish aristocracy in early 1735 – as he saw Marie slumped in a corner as far away from the bed as possible. She was an alarmingly pale colour, not dissimilar to his own skin. However he was undead, and Gabriel had a feeling that if something was not done quickly, Marie would not become so much undead as simply dead. He lifted her into his arms and onto his lap whilst he sat himself on the plush carpet. Her head lolled backwards and he saw the blood caking around the wounds he had created. He quickly ran his tongue over it, knowing the healing agent in his saliva would soon close the wound. Gabriel then dragged a still-sharpened incisor across his wrist and held her mouth open, forcing his blood to drip into her mouth. He dropped the hand that was holding her jaw open down to her throat and stroked the muscles softly, coaxing them to swallow.



Eventually, Marie’s eyes fluttered open, and Gabriel dropped his wrist from her throat, not in time to stop Marie from making spitting out the blood in her mouth, grimacing at the strange metallic taste. She pushed herself out of Gabriel’s arms, standing and staring at him accusingly.



“What the hell are you!?”



Marie screamed, justifiably. Last time she had asked him such a question, he had pushed away from her and left her standing confused in the hallway. Last time, she had tried to escape by breaking open a window or finding a door, but this time Marie stood her ground. Gabriel dropped his hands briefly into his head and mumbled to himself briefly before staring up at her with intense eyes, a vicious red where they should have been white. He pushed himself up and stalked over to one of the plush chairs, sitting and leaning back into it, giving every impression of a lord in his castle. Looking resolutely into the fire that constantly crackled and sparked, be it day or night, summer or winter, Gabriel finally let out the first sentence in her presence since that first day.



“It was 1735, I was twenty three and my name was Santiago Morretti.”