Chapter 7: Rejected? - Yildiz

My body has become a livewire, every synapse firing at hyperspeed sending my senses into overdrive. My body feels hot and flushed as if I’ve been basking in the sun for hours. My heart has picked up speed and my mouth is salivating. My body is in such a state of overload I can’t move. I’m completely frozen, as a thousand questions race through my mind. Now that I am in close proximity to his scent, I can pick up the metallic undertone in his scent, but far more intense than what I’ve scented before.

My animai is a sanguidae?! Why is he here? Why did he stop me? And how in the name of the Gods did his body shatter my sword?! I might have killed him! I have so much I want to ask I don’t know where to begin.

“Not her,” comes his deep and warm voice that elicits a shiver from me.

“What?” I whisper, trying to process that fact I’ve finally heard his voice and what he meant by what he said. I take what’s left of my katana and place it back in its scabbard.

“I can’t let you hurt her, and as much as he deserves your punishment, I can’t let you hurt him either,” he says, turning to face me. His form towers over me at 7’4” and his aura is the brightest I’ve ever seen. Its shade of blood red is as rich and thick as blood itself, but I can still make out the flecks of silver buried within. They appear almost hidden as if the red is trying to mask them, so they almost look as though they’re moving in and out of focus. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and for the first time in my life, I curse my mother for making me blind. What I wouldn’t give to see the face of my animai.

Before I can find the words to respond to him, or before my body can throw itself at him as it yearns to do, he turns around and lays his hand over the leader’s head and in an instant his heartbeat slows, and he drops to the ground. Did he just knock him out? The young woman kneels by the man, her heart now racing as she begins to panic.

“He’s unharmed. He’s just asleep, I promise,” my animai assures her. She looks up at him and I can see her hands moving fast in front of her, and now it all makes sense. Why she never spoke. She’s mute. Since he spoke to her using words, I take that to mean she’s not deaf. Human folklore dictates that when a human becomes a vampire all human ailments or ‘disabilities’ are healed. That’s not the case with sanguidaes. Illnesses of any kind will certainly be healed, but deformities or disabilities will not. I wonder if the leader turned her believing it would give her, her voice back.

“My signing skills are a little lacking, but I think she said something about if he dies, she dies,” he says in a calm voice. He’s speaking to me, yet he’s not so much as glancing in my direction. My animai is standing not two feet away and not once has he acted as though he’s just found his soulmate. He seems so unbothered by my presence. Does he not feel the bond between us? Oh Gods, is he underage?

“Fortunately for you, I’m fluent in all forms of sign language,” I say, trying to focus on the task at hand and not how much I want to wrap my arms around him. I’m just able to make out his body tensing in response to my speech. Ah ha! So he does feel the bond. So then why is he acting like he doesn’t? Then again, I haven’t said anything either. It just seems unprofessional to jump on my animai when I have four sanguidae writhing in pain while one is unconscious, and another begs for his life. I still have a duty to uphold.

I walk over and kneel down before the young woman and place my hands around hers, “What is your name?” I ask. I keep my hands on hers and feel their movement as she attempts to communicate.

“Amber,” she says through NZSL.

I smile, “I’m sorry to meet you under these circumstances, Amber.”

“Are you blind?” she slowly signs, indicating her surprise and confusion.

I nod, “Yes, I am.” As I answer her I hear my animai’s intake of breath. If he’s going to have problems with my blindness, he’ll just have to get over it.

“If you’re blind, then how can you understand her?” asks my animai curiously.

“It’s called tactile sign language. It’s how someone deaf, mute, and blind can communicate. I can’t see the words she signs, but I can feel them,” I smile in reassurance.

“I never wanted to hurt anyone, but the hunger was too much. Simon takes care of me. I know he does horrible things, but he’s good to me,” Amber signs, “He… he would even give me the hearts,” she slowly signs. I may not be able to see her face, but I can feel the shame coming through her hands. Those who learn to speak with their hands are quite adept at channelling their emotions through them too, one just has to be willing to notice.

I take this moment to examine her aura and Simon’s a little closer and I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before. I must be losing my touch. The faint matching cyan blue buried in Simon and Amber's auras. They’re animais, but they’ve not completed the bond, they wouldn’t even know what it is. For that matching hue to appear they must have mated but not marked one another. Their instincts probably encouraged them to mark one another, but perhaps feared that was just their hunger talking.

“Amber. I won’t hurt Simon, by law I can’t. He’s your animai. It’s what we supernaturals call soulmates, and he is yours. He still needs to be punished for his crimes, but I can promise he will not be killed. We do not believe in splitting up souls.”

“I don’t understand,” she signs.

I’m about to answer when I notice how quiet it has become.

I turn to look behind me to notice the four sanguidae who were writhing on the ground are now gone. I never even heard them leave, that’s not possible. They would have been in too much pain to even get up. Suddenly I feel Amber’s hands vanish from between mine, and when I look back, Simon and Amber are also gone.

“Where are they?” I question.

“Nowhere you need to worry about,” says my animai.

I get to my feet, “You sent them away? How? Sanguidae don’t possess that kind of power,” I argue suspiciously.

“I’m not that kind of sanguidae,” he says, a tone of disgust in his voice. As he turns his back on me I reach out grabbing his forearm, and instantly a fiery sensation shoots through my hand and up my arm; its heat enveloping me from the inside.

“What do you mean, ‘not that kind of sanguidae’? What kind of sanguidae are you?” I question curiously.

Too fast for me to react, his hands are around my upper arms causing a significant amount of pressure to actually hurt me, and yet a part of me wants him to tighten his grip. But beyond my heady need for the man holding me in place, some part of my brain manages to keep working. He’s stronger and faster than a sanguidae and even me. Bloodstone doesn’t faze him, and my sword shattered on impact with his body. He can teleport beings with a simple wave of his hand, and he himself can teleport. He’s over seven feet tall and his aura is almost as bright as my mother's, brighter in fact.

“I’m the first. Is that what you wanted to hear?” he hisses, his words full of disgust, but they don’t seem to be directed at me.

“You’re the progenitor of the sanguidae…” I breathe in disbelief. I was so overwhelmed by the bond; it confused my senses too much to notice the power radiating off him. It’s almost God-like.

His grip loosens and he lets me go, “I will handle the sanguidae you encountered today. They are my responsibility. They will not bother anyone anymore,” he promises, avoiding my question.

“It’s you isn’t it? The reason why sanguidae are always handled before we can get to them. You get to them first. They come from you, so you feel obligated to take care of them,” I surmise, feeling one of the greatest unsolved questions we’ve encountered in our existence finally being answered.

“You’re very observant for a blind woman,” he says with amusement.

I frown at his comment. “I see more than you think I do, and you’re avoiding my question. Afraid of getting caught out on a lie?” I taunt.

“You need to leave. There’s nothing for you here. Your mission has ended, so return home and forget all that happened today,” he says in a hard voice.

“You can’t be serious,” I say in bewilderment.

“Was there something in my tone that screamed ‘joke’ to you?” he asks in annoyance.

“Don’t you know who I am to you?” I ask sadly, stepping closer.

“I know exactly who and what you are, and I can promise it’s something I intend to fix,” he says in a hard voice. I step back recoiling from his words as if I’ve been slapped. Indescribable pain lances through me, and I feel an unfamiliar tightness in my chest.

“Are you saying you don’t want me?” I whisper, trying to keep the hurt out of my voice.

I hear his sharp intake of breath, “Your mother has made a grave mistake and I intend to fix it. I don’t know why she would do something so cruel to you. Perhaps she got bored,” he says offhandedly.

“My mother does not make mistakes,” I say in a strong voice. I don’t like how he’s speaking about her.

“You can’t be that gullible and naïve. I thought irshiusts were better than that,” he says, a tone of disappointment in his voice.

Oh, now I’m pissed. I launch myself at him, pinning him to a nearby tree with my forearm against his chest. The force of both our bodies caused the tree to crack and the impact of my body connecting with his sent a shockwave of pain through my arm. I think it's broken. Fortunately, the contact from our bond is soothing the ache in my arm.

“You’ve just met me and don’t know anything about me, and your first assumption is I’m gullible and naïve because I say my mother does not make mistakes. I never said she was infallible, no one is, not even the Gods. But her gift to see whose hearts belong together is not something I question because she is never wrong. It is her gift; it is what defines her and that I trust explicitly. So don’t make assumptions about me before getting to know me and do not insult my mother in my presence,” I say in a strong forceful voice.

With incredible ease, he pulls my arm from his chest, the pain in my arm vanishing entirely as his large hand wraps around my arm while he gently pushes me back, “Seems there’s a first time for everything. Whatever she hoped for us, will not be. I won’t allow it,” he says, walking away from me, leaving my heart aching worse than my arm. Actually, my arm doesn’t hurt at all now.

“Will you at least tell me your name?” I ask, refusing to let him hear the pain in my voice.

He sighs, “Osiah. My name is Osiah, and the sooner you’re free of your bond to me, the better your life will be.”

Before I can say anything, he vanishes, leaving me feeling dejected and alone. I have no idea how to find him or if I’ll ever see him again. All I have is a name and a lingering scent to remind me he’s even real. Actually, it seems I have more than that. Even though he’s gone, there are wisps of his aura still lingering around me wherever he stood. I’ve never seen that before. No one’s aura does that, not even the Gods.

I find a large rock and perch myself on it and think over everything that’s just happened. A simple mission to handle rogue sanguidae turned into me finally meeting my animai and it was not at all how I hoped it would be. My animai is a sanguidae, the very first sanguidae in fact. He has God-like attributes, such as the fact he’s stronger than me and can teleport beings and my sword was no match for him.

If he is the first sanguidae, then how did he come into creation? Was he made by a God like all supernaturals, and if so, why? Is this why the origins of sanguidae were hidden from us? Was it my destiny to understand their origins by being fated to the progenitor of their species? I stand by my words, I do not believe my mother makes mistakes, but I have to wonder what the hell she was thinking when she did this.

I at least thought when I met my animai he would be happy to meet me, that he would hold me and claim me as his. Instead, he called our pairing a mistake and said he’s going to fix it. It’s like he couldn’t get away from me fast enough and the pain that causes me is excruciating. If he doesn’t want me, then why didn’t he just reject me? Somehow meeting my animai has brought with it more questions than answers and unexpected pain. If I have any hope of getting to the bottom of this then I need help, and only one person can help me. I need to reach out to my mother for answers. She made this bond, so if anyone can give me guidance it’s her.

I have no idea how long I’ve been perched on this rock, as my mind became nothing but a storm of questions and worries, but thankfully I’m pulled from my thoughts when I can hear fast-approaching feet and a familiar comforting scent.

“What did I miss?” asks Beste as her glittering coquelicot aura comes into my line of sight.

“A lot,” I say, rubbing my face.

“Yildiz? Are you alright?” she asks, coming and kneeling before me, resting her hands on my knees, “You look drained. Are you hurt?” she asks, looking me over.

I shake my head, “Not physically. It’s a long story, but the sanguidae will no longer be a problem,” I explain.

“I can tell they were here, but where are they now?”

“I don’t know, but I know they’re being handled. I’ll explain on the way home,” I say, getting to my feet, “How did everything go with that venator?”

She stands with me, “I may have done something a little dishonest,” he says cheekily.

“Oh?” I ask curiously.

“The mutolupus turned out to be from the Tane-rore Pack.”

I blink in surprise, “He’s a long way from home, they’re based all the way in Rotorua.”

She nods, “He was visiting friends. Unbeknownst to him a venator had been following him since he left his pack and had been waiting to get him alone,” she says with disdain.

“Was he badly hurt?”

“Nothing he won’t recover from,” she assures me, “As for the venator, well… let’s say I got a little creative.”

I stop and cross my arms, “Beste, what did you do?” I ask sternly.

She chuckles, “Knocked him out and placed him with the corpses we found. I was sure to make it look like he did it. Two birds, one stone. The authorities will have their killer and questions answered and there’s one less venator going around murdering supernaturals,” she says proudly.

I shake my head, “That’s cold. Brilliant, but cold.”

She throws her head back and laughs, slinging her arm around my shoulders, “Then I am a brilliant ice queen. Now, tell me what happened with the sanguidae.”

“You’re going to want to brace yourself for this.”