Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

“Iwas a knight,” Hans told me, and my eyebrows shot up.

“A knight? An actual knight? On horseback with a sword?!”

“Not exactly. I missed the Crusades luckily, otherwise I’d have likely been butchered in the Holy Land on a battlefield drenched in blood. I managed to miss that stage of it, but yes. I was a member of the Knights Templar. I really did have an impressive sword. I still have it actually.”

I saw the humour on his face and it made me laugh.

“You’re blessed with impressive swords then, Hans.”

“Indeed.”

I flicked my attention back to his story with absolute fascination, like a girl hearing a fairy tale.

“You were really a knight of the Knights Templar?”

“I was, yes. A servant of God helping pilgrims in their travels to worship. At least for a short while. We were considered old at a much younger age back then.”

There was something in his words that was so serious underneath the smile. It gave me a flutter.

“You were a holy man before you became a vampire?”

“I still am. Still, after over seven hundred years, the pursuit of faith still captivates me, but the more I know, the more I realise I don’t know a thing.” He paused. “It’s been hard to reconcile the lifestyle of a vampire with my previous incarnation, but I think I’m doing an ok job of it.”

I knew a little about the Knights Templar through history lessons at school. I knew they were powerful, and robed with powerful red crosses on their chests.

I also knew they were persecuted by the royals across the empire and destroyed for their sins.

“Fake sins,” Hans interjected. “There was very little truth in any of it, they just wanted us dead and buried.”

He cleared his throat and continued. “I was thirty-two years old when I became a vampire. The experience most definitely wasn’t one I’d been expecting.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure I wouldn’t have either.” I laughed, and took a sip of wine. “I may have watched almost every vampire movie ever made, but I didn’t believe they existed. Not for real.”

My vampire lover looked at me with a glint in his eyes.

“Ah, yes, Katherine, but the world exists very differently now. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t believe in vampires, but that I didn’t believe a vampire would come for me. We were a lot more alive with myths and legends. We had no internet to distract us, it was all about tales around a campfire, whispered through the generations.”

“So, what happened?” I asked him. “Who made you a vampire?”

“A friend. Someone I knew closely and had done for years, or so I thought. I had no idea that he was a vampire, even after all that time. He kept it very well hidden.” He laughed. “We’ve become an awful lot closer since.”

My mind whirred, remembering the people comment about the blood houses. Was the he a friend, or a friend? The idea was a surprisingly hot one.

Hans smiled. “He was purely a friend at that point. I had no experience of being bisexual at that time. Lord Neville was just a gentleman I knew through the Church, and talked through the gospels with. I’d spent many evenings at his manor, enjoying his company. Evenings, of course. It never occurred to me that I’d never once seen him in the day.”

Purely a friend at that point.I wondered if that was still the case now.

“I’ve had sex with Edwin, yes,” Hans answered. “We’ve shared some blood games, and had some fun times biting and chasing. Quite a different friendship than the one we started with, but nothing less genuine or valid.”

My mind was spinning at the thought of seven hundred years of religion and philosophy, and Hans being turned into a vampire by a Lord named Edwin. The sensation gave me a sense of doom, somehow. It reminded me of my mum and grandma preaching to me about being a good girl at the cost of everything else. Praying to God every single weekend without fail, but judging and scorning everyone around them.

Hans swirled the wine in his wine glass.

“Don’t judge anything by them. They aren’t an accurate representation.”

I didn’t want to delve into Mum and Grandma, so took a sip of wine and turned the topic back to him.

“What happened to you?”

“A lot of the Knights Templar were tortured, little one. Me included. The royals and their minions tried to force a confession of fake sins from me, but even until the very end, I wouldn’t give in.”

His words gave me a vile shudder. He nodded his head at my thoughts.

“Yes. I was beaten, and whipped, and stretched on a rack. Starved and lashed and burnt.”

I despised the idea of people hurting him.

“And your friend saved you?” I whispered. “Thank God for that.”

“Yes,” Hans said. “Quite literally. I was crucified in the church grounds and left for dead. Edwin appeared at midnight and cut me free.”

I let out a breath, not knowing quite what to say. Hans kept on talking.

“He bit my neck and drank from me, and then he slashed his wrist and offered it to me. Drink his blood and live, or refuse and die. My choice, he said. So, I drank from him. I wasn’t ready to leave this world behind.”

It was like a thousand scratches on my skin when he said that. My whole body was alive with the sensation.

“Did it hurt?”

“Yes, but not as much as being tortured, I can assure you of that.” He was grinning, even though the memory still clearly hurt. “My body died, and that was a horrific experience, being fully conscious all the way through as your flesh gives up, but bizarrely it was quite liberating. A once in an immortal lifetime’s experience.”

Hans smiled, as though the story was done. Just like that.

“So, yes,” he said. “In answer to your earlier question, I was tortured as a religious knight, crucified in the church grounds for being a sinner, and Lord Edwin Neville, the vampire, came along and saved me.”

I tried to digest it. “When did this happen?”

“1309.”

“Wow, ok. And where?”

There was a quizzical look on his face, as though I was asking the obvious.

“Garway church,” he said, and my stomach dropped to the pit of me.

“Garway? Honestly?”

“Yes, but you already know the exact spot, don’t you? You’ve spent a great many times sitting in that place, listening to the hymns from the chapel with your mother and grandmother inside.”

At the top of the graveyard, looking down at the northern windows.

I could see it vividly.

“That’s right,” Hans told me. “Give your instincts more credit, little one.”

“But I don’t get it,” I said. “How could I know what happened there in 1309? I don’t understand.”

Hans took my hand across the table. His fingers looked as gorgeous as ever in mine.

“One of the most important things you’ll ever learn, is that it’s more often the soul that has the answers. Listen with your soul and not your ears.”

He took his hand away and I took another swig of wine, trying to focus on the orchestral quartet just a few feet away from us. The room was… heavy. The energy in the pit of me was… scared. It felt so horrible – the thought of Hans there, hanging on a crucifix, tortured, with blood pouring down his legs.

He switched the tone. “You can ask Edwin what happened yourself when you meet him. He’ll be able to recount the tale better than me, I’m sure.”

My eyes widened. “He’s still alive?”

“Oh, yes. And he’s still as funny as ever. His sense of humour has never changed. You’ll like him. I’m sure you’ll get on well.”

I jumped in my seat as the waitress appeared with our steaks.

“Anything else I can get you?” she asked, but we both shook our heads. “Enjoy your meals,” she said with a smile, totally oblivious, and walked away.

I looked at the meat on my plate, feeling a bit sick at the sight of it. Blood and flesh.

“Come on, eat up,” Hans said. “You’ll enjoy it when you get started. Don’t let my tales put you off.”

How could they not? The thought of chewing on steak made my stomach churn.

“Believe me,” he said. “You’ll be seeing a lot worse than blood oozing from a steak as time goes on.”

We’d barely even scratched at the surface of the vampire’s long journey, but the initial instalment had me reeling. I tried to compose myself, my fingers jittery as I picked up my knife and fork. I tried to eat, and my body managed it, even though my mind was still twisted in stories.

“Anyway, that’s enough of me for now,” Hans said, switching the focus again. “Let’s talk about you.”

I pulled a face in confusion, still chewing until I swallowed.

“I’m hardly a vampire with seven hundred years of stories,” I replied. “There’s nothing much to say on my side. I grew up in Orcop. Went to school. Lived with Mum and Grandma in the village. You know all this anyway though, don’t you? You said it yourself. You’ve been watching me my whole life.”

He smiled. “Yes.”

“So, why ask me?”

He laughed at that. “Because you’re squirming in your seat, so freaked out that you’re paler than I am.”

I laughed back. “Is it that obvious?”

“It is, yes. So let’s change the topic. Onto you and your past, or onto some aspects of our… present.”

He had the power to flick the moods between us like light switches. He was a master of energies and tones.

“It’s all right,” he said. “The past is the past, and time moves in cycles. Turn your attention to the now.”

His eyes were lustful and deep with desire, and there was no point denying it. The magnetism between us was still burning strong, even under the nausea. If anything, his history made me more attracted to him, like something profound was going on under the surface. Some kind of knowing. Wanting. Craving.

“Tell me what turns you on, little one. Truly, deeply, from the depths of your fantasies.”

I felt shy in my seat all of a sudden.

“I… I don’t really know yet.”

He laughed again. “I don’t believe you.”

I shrugged, striving for honesty. “Ok, so what do you want me to say? The thought of a blood house and some filthy hot people getting bitten for fun? Running across cobblestones while you chase me, so out of breath and desperate I can’t get away? You fucking my pussy so hard I can barely stand it while you suck my blood like a monster?”

“Yes. If that’s the truth of it.”

“You know that’s the truth of it. You’ve seen how excited I get.”

He flashed me a gorgeous white smile.

“Yes. I just wanted to hear you say it out loud. I love it when you speak like that.”

It was just like being in my dreams again, but my fantasies had more of an eerie quality to them when they were out in the open, even with the thrum of the restaurant trying to mute out my words.

I looked at my steak, trying to focus again on what I should be eating, but it was pointless. My body was already buzzing with need. My excitement was already making me wet, my thighs clammy.

“Keep on eating that steak,” Hans said. “You’ll need your strength for later.”

I grabbed hold of his statement with both hands.

“Why? What are you going to do to me?”

“I’m still deciding. I’ll let your body guide me on that, but I do have a penchant for the chase. There is a great thrill to blood being taken that way, in chase and submission, even if it’s only playacting. As I said earlier, a lot of blood players like consensual non-consent. It’s quite a staple fantasy. I know you have it too, Katherine, as do I.” He smiled. “It’s you I want to play the games with now though, little one. You and only you. You drive me so wild I can barely stand it. I could get up and pin you on this table right now or chase you right out of this restaurant. Luckily, I have slightly more restraint than that. I don’t want to end up in a jail cell tonight.”

I nearly dropped my cutlery at the heat in his eyes. My heart was thumping even louder than the quartet. It was the stare he gave me, like the creature in the dark and not the gentleman opposite me. My thighs clenched. My bites throbbed sore. He was speaking to a part of me below the surface.

The part with my feet pounding the cobblestones.

It was the way he was so confident with it, too. The power in his smirk of I know what you need.

“Go with it,” he told me. “Feed your fantasies.”

I was there again… with my back against the door… caught in the stare of a vampire. And wanting him. Needing him. Begging him for his teeth in my throat.

“Don’t worry,” Hans said, just loud enough to be heard over violin and cello. “There is no sin in the pleasure of the chase. There is such a mortal pleasure in the freedom of running free for a lot of people, even if you know it will end in capture. So many years of your life you’ve been constricted, forced to behave and think what you’re supposed to think. But that’s all done now. You can run free.”

“And you’ll chase me…”

“Always.” His tone was so primal. “You liked that, didn’t you? You ran with such spirit. It was beautiful.”

I remembered the panting. My heaving chest. His hand between my legs.

And that’s what I wanted now. I wanted to run, away from here, and the images of the past, and the tight reins of my mind. I wanted the fear of the vampire opposite me in the most beautiful of ways, and the certainty of knowing that no matter how fast I ran, he would catch me.

I was his now.

Under the spell of a vampire named Hans.

The strangest urge possessed me. A flash of rebellion so strong it was straight from the core of my soul, fighting against the do as you’re told orders of my past, hissed by my mother and grandmother like I was just a stupid little girl.

Hans tipped his head, reading my thoughts.

“Run now, if you want to.”

But did I want to? Did I want to leave this plush restaurant and dash away into the London streets on a mission to outrun him? My body answered for me – my spirit ready to flee.

Yes, I did.

I shot him a smile before I stood up from my chair and walked away. I flashed him a backwards glance over my shoulder once I reached the doorway, and then I rushed away.

My stilettos were awkward and clacky on the pavement but that just served to make it more dramatic. My heart was already pounding before I’d even crossed the street.

I heard a thought in my mind as I reached the corner, giving one final look to the restaurant behind.

Run, little one. I’ll give you a reasonable head start.

My chest flushed hot and my skin prickled with tingles so beautifully it made me grin.

Grin like a fool in the night. This was crazy. CRAZY, but I did it.

Run, little one, his thoughts came again.

And, oh, how I ran!