Sacrifice Helle

Chapter 32

I was left alone in another room, Darien sat right outside the door, but I told Vaan to go back to his party, I didn’t want him snooping around. Off course he didn’t like it, but he did it. Maybe because he saw that I was actually considering it. Darien had seen that too and there was a mixture of anger and fear in his eyes. I sat down on a couch. /If I was a vampire… I could stay with Asami all the time. I could sit by her cage. And when she shook off the effect of Vaan’s blood, I would be there for her. Maybe I could run away with her. Would she want a vampire for her sister? The Dark Lord wouldn’t mind not getting HER, I am sure, there are all the others. That’s right, all the others. If Asami is not given, someone else will be, what’s the difference? All the others will die anyway, I didn’t get the impression that they would be set free. All humans will die eventually./ This was hard!

I heard someone knocking on the door and woke up. I had fallen asleep on the couch /Damn it! And I who was supposed to think up a plan…/ I yawned, stretched and rubbed my eyes. Knocking again. I stood up and opened the door. “Done thinking?” Vaan had returned. I didn’t reply. I focused on keeping thoughts away from my head, so that he wouldn’t read anything. Darien was upset. He tried to stay calm, but I knew that he really wanted to get out of here. So did I, but I felt like I couldn’t. “You are tired?”, Vaan asked me. I nodded. “I see. Do you wish to lay down?” I shook my head. I didn’t want to sleep any more, I wanted to reach a conclusion.

Darien’s POV:
Helle looked tired. Vaan asked her if she wished to sleep, but she didn’t. I tried to get eye contact with her, but she only looked at me once, then back at Vaan. /No, Helle, no… Don’t do it! Don’t go there…/ It concerned me a great deal that she even needed time to think about it. If she was to become a vampire… I didn’t know what I would do. I certainly couldn’t stay here. I would have to forget all about her. It hurt to think about it. I hated vampires. I would hate them even more, I would hate Vaan in particular for taking her away from me. Even though Vaan had taken her sister away from her, Helle didn’t seem to hate him, which confused me. How could she not wish to kill him? How could she stay so calm and speak to him? How was it that I didn’t see any sign of hatred in her eyes, even Iselin had hatred in hers, but not Helle. I saw her look at Vaan, she searched for something in his eyes. Did she… Did she care for him? “Let’s sit down”, he said to her. She slowly turned around and walked back into the room, Vaan after her. I stood up and walked over to the door, but couldn’t enter. He sealed it! Vaan turned around and smiled at me. /Private conversation/, he told me. “No! No!”, I shouted as Vaan closed the door in my face. This was it, Vaan was making his final move on her. And with what I had seen so far, she was on the edge. I could only hope now. And wait. I took a deep breath and sat down again. If she gave in… She would be his child… And I would leave, get out of here as fast as possible. Vaan would try to kill me. If she didn’t.. If she stayed human, I would try to convince her of leaving. But if she turned into a vampire… Why did I think about it?! Because I was so afraid that she would. Because then I could never be with her again. And it hurt me already.

Helle’s POV:
Vaan closed the door behind us, I went over to the chough again and sat down. “I didn’t finish my thinking.”, I told him. “You don’t have to decide right away.” He sat down next to me, too close. He laid his arm behind me and played with my hair with his fingers. It gave me goose bumps. I enjoyed it, it was relaxing to be petted with. “You know that I’m a strong vampire. If you became my child, a lot of that strength would become yours.”, he whispered to me. His low voice created an atmosphere of intimacy, lulling me into his world. “I don’t care about strength.” He went silent for a while, then said, “Even so, you would rank high among us, that gives you the privilege to be close to the sacrifice. And to be close to the Lord. You might be allowed to speak to him even. You see, if you stay human, the Lord would not allow you to come that close to him. You are not one of his servants. He would most likely kill you.” “As a vampire I can be close to her…”, my troubled thoughts drowned my words and another thought escaped my lips. “You said before that you knew the feeling of love. Is it so that you would do anything for the one you love?” “The one I love..?” He was silent again. I waited. “The one I love… I did what I could. Still the one I love is dead.” His voice was sad. “Why do you make me talk about that…?”, he whispered. “Why do you make me remember?” “Because I wish to know. I wish to know if you are capable of loving as a vampire. I wish to know how far you can go for someone you love. Because I don’t know.” “It is a sacrifice to become vampire, but you also gain. Most of us did it to gain from it. Iselin gained from it. She was allowed to stay by her sisters side all through the ceremony. She comforted her. You think that was an act of love?” I nodded, “I don’t think Iselin would have let you turn her if she didn’t love her sister that much.” “Then that is how far one can go for someone one love.” “Iselin hates being a vampire. She hates you. Did you know that she wishes to become a human again?” “I know. She hates me for turning her, she hates me for taking her sister. She always hated me, that’s not something new. But she always obeyed me, and she pushed her will through as far as she could, she still does. She hated me as I bit her and she hated me while she drank my blood. She hates me, but still lives with me. She has not yet tried to kill herself, so one can wonder, does she really hate being a vampire?” I looked at my hands in my lap, I searched for an answer in my feelings, mostly I felt calm. Silent inside. I felt so numb. Vaan laid his hand on my cheek and turned my face towards his. I missed the warm sensation such a move should make. As he locked his eyes with mine I wondered if my eyes were ever as blue as his, and if he at all knew how blue they were when he could never see them, when he had no reflection.

“You don’t hate me. Why?” A tear forced itself out from my left eye and ran down my cheek. I placed my hand over his, “I don’t care.” I closed my eyes and continued. “I don’t care who took my sister, I just wanted her back with me.” I shocked myself. I had said ‘wanted’ not ‘want’. I continued, telling myself more than I was telling him, “If I should blame anyone for Asami’s capture I would blame the Dark Lord. Asami’s life is precious to me. Even so, one life is not worth more than the other. And then again, vampires kill more people daily than the Lord claims. I would rather blame God who let creatures like yourself roam the earth. But if all those creatures were banned from earth, Darien would be gone too. And Raphael too most likely. Even humans kill each other, but I can’t hate humans. So why should I hate you? ” “So you will leave your sister here?” Another tear fell from my eyes. “I don’t know.”, I whispered to him. I felt so lost. I buried my face in his neck and cried on his shoulder. A minute or so passed before I could feel his arms around me, hugging me. My tears silenced. I looked up at him and met his eyes. Then he kissed me.

I can’t say that I hadn’t wanted it. Strange how one doesn’t understand ones own feelings. But I had not, in all my distress, forgot what they had said. Raphael: “try to keep a distance”, ”don’t get under his spell”. And Iselin’s: ”Don’t sleep with him, he will turn you.” Tobias: ”He sleeps with every one he sires.” Even Darien’s words to warn me. I just didn’t care any longer.

I kissed him back and left all thought’s outside. His kiss was gentle, like he was testing the ground to check if it was safe to walk on. He broke the kiss and looked down at me. I stared at his lips longing for more. Eyes met again, his cold hand stroke my cheek, so surreal, a movement that showed affection, a touch that was supposed to tell you that someone cared, given to me by a cold, dead being, “Be a vampire with me, Helle, stay with me. Forget about the past and start all over. Be my child.” I didn’t say anything, so he moved in again and kissed me. It felt so good. The thought of Darien forced itself into my mind, but I pushed it back outside. Vaan took my silence as a sign to continue, and deepened the kiss. Not being the most experienced kisser I think I did pretty awful, but he was gentleman enough not to mention anything. When he broke it once again he lifted me up from the couch. He made such little effort in doing so, I felt like a feather in his arms. I didn’t protest, but let him carry me into the next room, his bedroom.

His bed was covered with black silken sheets, it was a bed fit for royalty. I think I had never slept in such a huge bed before. /Wow… Room for 5 at least…./ He gently laid me down and gave me a short kiss before he straightened himself up. I felt the silk on my back and under my arms, smooth, soft. I looked up at him, /What do you want?/ He didn’t answer, but sat down next to me and ran his fingers down my arms, pulling off the clothing on them. Then he kissed my neck. My hands grasped his blonde locks and made him turn to me, we held eye contact for a minute or so before he kissed me once more. He deepened the kiss and I felt his fangs with my tongue. Razor sharp. I was scared to some degree, his fangs reminded me that he was not a human, and that it would take very little for him to kill me. I felt alone when it came to being weak. Even Darien could easily kill me. I broke the kiss this time and sat up. My hands ran behind my back, trying to open up the god damned dress. I wanted it off, not because I enjoyed being naked, but because it wasn’t my dress, it was Iselin’s. And I did not want to be compared to her, or being her. I hated it. “You are nothing like Iselin.”, he said to me. “Then why put this dress on me? Why do I feel like her?” Tears forced themselves out as I desperately tried to get the buttons open, but couldn’t manage. Iselin was nothing like me, but to him maybe we were. Maybe I really should just get out of here, why did I keep ignoring the warnings? “Because inside you really wish to stay.” He moved in next to me and laid his hands on mine behind my back. I pulled my own away and folded them around him, laid my head on his shoulder and tried to stop the tears. I felt him opening up the buttons on the dress and after that he laid his hand on the back of my head. Comforting me.

“Oh fuck it!”

Vaan’s eyes widened in surprise as I pushed him away and brushed my tears away with my hand, whiping them off at the dress which was almost falling off me. “I am your bride tonight am I not? And this is the wedding ceremony sealing us together forever.” My stern eyes forced Vaan to silence, I felt how my breath trembled and practiacly forced it’s way out of my lungs. I wanted to stop breathing, stop tormenting myself. But more than that I wanted to close off my thoughts and somehow I think I managed. I didn’t hear Vaan’s voice inside my head, he never looked at me with understanding eyes, he never again responded to them. Irrationonal thoughts filled up the empty space /Is it really night anyway? Is there a sun on the outside? I think I already forgot how the sunlight feels. I never liked sunlight. Didn’t I? Didn’t I always say that I loved the night? How convenient. How convenient indeed when you are to be a vampire./

It all happened in a trance. I don’t think I had ever experienced anything like it before, completely loosing control like that. Letting my body move by itself, somehow it seemed that it knew better than me what to do so I resigned and merely observed. The dress flowed off me like waves of white water, his white hands blended in them so nicely. I wondered if he noticed that I was not here.

Vaan’s POV:
Something changed in her from the moment she rose up from my arms and looked at me. Her eyes were still, the life in them vanishing. She was far off, trying to kill her mind. It stung in me for some reason. Had I not seen this before somewhere, did I not recognized this feeling from somewhere? Answers to all questions always lie in yourself, as long as you wish to reach out for them you shall have them. She gave herself to me by doing so, her pale hands reached for her neck and unleashed the strap around it, allowing the dress to fall. She failed completely to notice it herself. I moved the dress away and revealed her milky white skin, barely a tone darker than true white. True white like my skin. Her mind was so still, it sounded so empty to me. But she really did it, she gave herself to me. So very differenty from all others. Other humans wished for something. A hope of something. They kept faith and goals. Letting me have them ment merely that I was a pathway for them to something else. The human in front of me went numb before my eyes. What for? To ease the pain of dying? The red hair that I had longed for so long to touch wrapped her naked body in an ocean of flames, but somehow those fading eyes seemed more impotant than pure lust for her, more dominating was her emptyness than her fire.

Helle’s POV:
I suddenly laughed. My blond partner rose his eyebrows in question, clearly he could no longer read my mind. That made me laugh even more. My hair flowed down over my chest, but revealed two pink hard nipples, barely the only proof of my breasts. The irony of the situation overwhelmed me, here I was, naked again, trying to, actually managing to shut of my mind, just like it had been that time. How long ago that felt. My hands moved over his body and I closed my eyes, picturing him in my mind. But his cold flesh reminded me nothing of Darien’s. “Take me then, what are you waiting for? A sign?” “Being with you is reminiscing.” “Oh really? Same here.”

Suddenly he gripped my shoulders with his hands, forced me down below him on the bed and within an eye blink his fangs were at my neck, for one moment he stayed there, feeling my pulse with his fangs, then piercing my skin.