Love Journal of a King

Warning: Sexual Content

Chapter Three:

‘It was a month before we became lovers. One night, I slipped into her house in the darkest hours of the night as was my custom, and I found her standing there by her bed with her back to me, breath-taking in her nakedness, her small delicate fingers running through her long flowing hair. She turned towards me, the shadowy figure by the sliding door, my hungry eyes watching as her small bare breasts, barely covered by her silky hair, came into view. My gaze inevitably travelled downwards when she was fully facing me and it took only moments for me to remember how to move. I strode towards her, my silver eyes catching the moonlight so she gasped and took an involuntary step back onto her flat bed.

I stopped, realizing my mistake, turning away back into the shadows as she asked quietly, without much fear, “What are you, my mysterious night visitor?” I sighed and glanced at her, still standing and so beautiful I ached to hold her.

“I have been called many things, my sweet one, but know this, I will never, ever bring harm to you. I admit, you captured my heart and I am unable to leave you in peace willingly, but if that is truly what you wish, I will respect that and I will never return” I replied just as quietly, my chest tight with anguish. She was silent for a long time before she beckoned for me to come closer. “You are some being not of this world, a being us mortals should never lay eyes upon, but you have chosen to bless me with your beauty and offer me your heart!” she said in a gasp, after seeing my pale face and molten silver eyes in the weak light of the moon.

‘To this I had no words, I only stepped up close to her, hesitantly reaching out to run my hand from her neck down to the moist dip between her legs. She moaned, head tilting back, throat bare and tempting. I worked her with my fingers until her knees buckled and I had to catch her with my free hand, slowly lowering her back onto the bed. Her hair spread out beneath her like a fan, her tilted black eyes narrowed as she gasped for breath, staring up at me in wonder, cheeks flushed with her pleasure.

‘The thirst rose up in me so strongly, I even started to lean down towards her vulnerable throat, but pulled up sharply, closing my eyes for a few seconds to clear my mind. I thrust my fingers deeper into her small willing body, my palm cupping her and rubbing her in time with them so she all but screamed and thrashed about on the soft sheets. When she reached orgasm, I leaned down to kiss her full lips, undressing as she drifted on the aftershocks of pleasure. Then I slid into her, taking her over and over again until the threat of dawn forced me to leave her, exhausted and trembling, lying amongst her stained sheets and drifting off to a much needed sleep.

‘Three months passed, of which I still made my nightly visits, but quickly realized she had fallen pregnant. It had never even occurred to me that she, a mere mortal, could bare my child. Her stomach soon became rounded, a large bump growing way too fast. Six months came to pass since the first night of our love-making, and she gave birth. The village of course, shunned her, a widowed woman having some foreigner’s child. It was deeply frowned upon by everyone. She found it difficult just to go and buy food at the market and soon started using her own gardens to grow her own food to avoid the villagers altogether.

‘Sometimes they came to spy upon the mysterious stranger visiting her house nearly every night, though they never caught sight of my face, of that I made sure of, but it always made me extremely uneasy to know they were there, watching our every move. I could feel their fear and anger, sense their suspicion.

‘We had a beautiful daughter, who we named Sakura, after the tree that I used to stand under in the garden, a tree I was very fond of for it was an amazing creation from mother nature. Ichigo would be worried in the early days, thinking our child wouldn’t last, for she seemed weak and never wanted to feed as much as a normal baby would.

‘I would assure her the baby was fine, settle the baby down in her basket, and make love to Ichigo for a few hours. When my love was fast asleep, I took Sakura into my arms and fed her my blood, of which she found very appeasing.

‘As the years passed, and Sakura reached her fifth birthday, Ichigo became frantic for our daughter’s health once more, for she had developed a strong aversion to daylight and seemed to have abnormal strength and speed at times, and at other times seemed weak and ready to collapse. I wished with all my heart that I could stay there and help look after her, but the house was too open, too bright, the rooms poorly protected from the sun.

‘In these years, I tried to convince Ichigo to leave Japan with me, but she always refused, too scared to leave her home, and I hadn’t the heart to force her out of it. Even though her parents had disowned her and wanted nothing to do with their strange granddaughter, Ichigo remained for them most of all.

‘Antonio and Ruby visited too sometimes, curious about the woman that had captured my heart, the mortal that had given me a child. Though a woman Ruby was, she had no motherly instincts, no interest in children, but bestowed expensive gifts upon her little niece. Antonio was different, he loved her almost as much as I did, and I could tell that he yearned for his own family, his own child to raise and cherish. He would sit with her in his lap for hours, making her giggle and allowing her to play with his thick black hair with her small, stubby baby hands.

‘The peace was eventually shattered into a million pieces. The villagers had watched me and my siblings, only visiting at night, never seen by day. They had watched as Ichigo withdrew even more, never appearing in the day even to tend to her garden until the sun was set low in the sky. They watched her daughter locked away and only allowed out when the night had come, her child innocence not seeming to touch their hearts as they witnessed her play in the garden at night, running just a little too fast for her age. For ten years they watched this little family only come out as the sun set, never coming into the village, never speaking to anyone, having foreigners from some distant, strange land visiting them. Their suspicion grew, along with their fear that they had demons living amongst them, that the night visitor had somehow turned Ichigo into a demon too, and she had bore his demon child.

‘Just a few days after Sakura’s tenth birthday, the villagers forced their way into the house in the middle of the day, and I, locked beneath the Earth and dead to the world, had no inkling of the danger they were in.

‘I awoke that night with dread knotting my stomach, though I had no idea why. I called for Antonio and Ruby to awaken and accompany me to the house. We arrived to a crumbling, burnt mess that used to be a house and the small mob of blood-thirsty men were lingering nearby, waiting for the demon to return and see the fall of his demonic family. I just stood there, hoping and praying that they had escaped, though I knew they hadn’t. I walked around the structure, still smouldering in places, and spotted the crisp burnt bodies lying just outside of the house in the back garden. Blood tears streamed from eyes, and I cried out, sinking to my knees at the sight of their burnt, headless bodies. One womanly figure, the other tiny and clinging to the other.

‘I looked around wildly, and found their heads, untouched by the flames of the fire, placed beneath the Sakura tree. I could not tear my eyes away from their blank faces. The sight of their black eyes staring back at me would haunt me for the rest of my eternal life. The weight of their loss was heavy on my heart, I could barely stand on my own two feet. I, the immortal, unable to hold myself upright.

‘Antonio had to pull me upwards, holding me tightly, “The men, they are returning to finish the job” he whispered to me urgently, and I looked over at the mob of thirty to forty men coming storming towards us. Anger began to creep through my body, temporarily replacing the grief and despair, and I shoved Antonio away from me, holding out my arms to the mortals that came with torches and swords.

‘My siblings stood just behind me, ready to support me whether they really wanted to or not. When the men reached us, they only hesitated for a moment before rushing us. We darted out of the way of their hasty attacks, and I landed behind them after soaring over their heads, snapping the neck of the first man I laid eyes on. They scattered, trying to keep track of our movements in the light of their blazing torches, but we moved too fast for them to keep up. I would grab one, rip out his throat with my deadly fangs, throw him aside and move onto the next. My siblings did the same, though far more calm and collected. If I wasn’t ripping out throats, I was ripping off limbs, pulling out organs, anything to feed the rage boiling inside of me.

‘When the men lay in bits and pieces at our feet, I was still not satisfied, and if Antonio had not been there to stop me I would have carried my hateful vengeance down into the rest of the village, and no man, woman or child would have been safe.’

At this last sentence, Ray stopped, his eyes wet with tears at the memory even though it had been so long ago. No matter how much time went by, the pain never seemed to fade. He pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed at his reddening eyes, looking blankly down at the faint red stains on the soft whiteness afterwards.

He stood up and walked over to the window, looking out at the dark streets and wondering whether Rikki would return soon. He needed his love, his beautiful blue eyes, his soft mouth. It made his heart ache at not having him right there when he needed him, to hold and get lost in his arms, making the painful memories disappear, if only for a short while. He sighed and headed up to the attic, climbing the ladder with ease and lifting himself up through the small hole in the ceiling. Zackary was perched on the edge of a box, an antique clock in his hands.

“Reminiscing again?” Ray asked quietly, walking over to sit on another box beside him. Zack nodded and glanced over at him before looking back down at the clock, the hands frozen on its face, never to tick away time again. “Such beautiful things mortals make, how did they ever figure out how to capture time on such a small device?” Zack murmured, gaze distant as if he wasn’t really talking to his father at all.

Ray smiled a small, sad smile and took the clock out of his hands, peering at it’s dusty surface. “There are many things in this world that amaze me, but I choose not to dwell on it. To live as long as I have, to have seen everything that has been invented over the years and watch the mortals grow smarter, it can drive you insane in the end. My obsession has always been love, not material things” he replied, handing the clock back to Zack, who took it with a more clearer expression, frowning thoughtfully at Ray as he mulled over his words.

“Are you saying I need to stop looking through this stuff and get a new obsession?” he asked, chucking the antique back into the box he’d found it in, where it landed with a  hard thud. Ray nodded, standing up and putting his hand on his son’s shoulder. “You have never shown much interest in finding a mate, unlike your sister, who I admit, treats it more like a sport. You need company, better than ours…a more intimate company. Not just someone to lay with, someone to be with, to stay with for the many, long years ahead of you”.

Zack groaned but nodded, all of a sudden feeling like his was merely fifteen years old again. Yes, he had had a few lovers in the past, but he never saw them again. A one-night stand was good enough for him. He’d never really thought about what it would be like to actually spend his life with someone. It sounded kind of dull to him, and all he could picture was chains holding him back. Ray shook his head and strolled back over to the hatch, lowering himself through it without another word, leaving his son to think things over.

He returned to his desk, staring down at his own elegant writing, the blank sheets of paper waiting ever patiently before him, pen laid beside them ready to scribble away once more. With a little hesitation, he sat back down, picked up his pen and sat there for a while just gazing at the white paper,  unable to think of where to start the next chapter of his life.

There was so much to write, so much he’d have to miss out so as to not to drag it out too long, yet he sat there without a thought in his mind on what to write. He was startled out of his thoughts when he felt the rising of the sun, deep in his old bones, and blinked over at the window. Had the hours really passed so quickly as he had sat there, still as a statue, lost in thought?

Ray placed his pen gently on top of the blank paper and stood up to close the blinds and the heavy curtains, and then he undressed, leaving his clothes draped across the back of his chair and crawled into his large bed, safe and warm under the covers, still thinking about Ichigo’s beautiful smile and her black dead eyes, a dark gaze that chilled his soul.