FIRE ON FIRE

"Do you still desire to abandon this pack, your mate and responsibilities for this abomination; this human?!" A deep voice, angry and faceless aged man asked the young man who stood before me.

The only thing I see was his back. Huge, strong, sturdy with dark wavy hair that laid short on his neck.

This person, this man who was always in my dreams... who is he?

"Yes. I love Eliza and I'm willing to give up everything for her including the alpha title." He said as my eyes widened.

He was an alpha? A werewolf?

I gasped softly when I felt him hold my hand before my eyes went to the finely crafted ring made of twigs on both our hands.

We were married.

"Cursed be your love! For as long as you love that woman, you will be met with an endless tragedy." The elder said as the werewolf beside me squeezed my hand.

"If loving her means I have to die... I will never stop loving Eliza." His words echoed deep inside my weak heart.

"Charlie!" Lea's voice dragged me out of my dream.

I sat up as I panted, sweat surprisingly escaping my skin as Lea rushed to my side with a bag of blood.

I grabbed the bag, sinking my teeth into it to satisfy the unbearable thirst my body was suffering from.

"I need more." I demanded as I threw the bag while Lea gave me another.

I drank up to five bags before I felt full and ended my last drop with a burp.

"You've been unusually thirsty these days, are you okay?" Lea asked with a deep concern in her voice.

I stared into Lea's brown eyes that popped out more with her melanin skin, her curly hair disheveled and held back by a yellow hairband loosely.

I couldn't lie to those eyes that always held good intentions towards me.

"I've been having these dreams." I started as I placed my hand on my chest.

"Dreams? What are they usually about?" Lea asked as she sat on the bed, close to myself.

"Death. Betrayal. Cruelty. Cold. Hate. War. It's always a dark place that I always endlessly drown in and can't seem to escape no matter how fast or how hard I run. It's always painful and it makes my heart ache." I confessed as I touched my chest hard.

"Do you always suffer in those dreams?" Lea asked and I shook my head.

"Sometimes things are so bad I can't even imagine but when that hand touches me. When that hand touches my skin and clings for comfort..." My hand went to my face. "It's like time stops and the pain doesn't matter. I feel so at peace and at home in those arms." 

I hugged myself as I pictured that man who always stayed with me, wrapping his hands around me as his scent closed my nostril.

"Charlie you're spacing out again." Lea said as I jerked.

"I'm really sorry. I don't understand why I keep on having these dreams about someone I've never met." I freaked out as Lea held my hand.

"It's okay Charlie. Just breathe." Lea said as I nodded, copying her motion as I breathed.

I felt better doing this before I breathed out and stared into her eyes.

"How long have you been having these dreams?" Lea asked as I closed my eyes.

"Twenty seven years by next week." I said as Lea gasped.

"Twenty seven years!" Lea's British accent deepened when shee exclaimed as I touched my forehead.

"Why didn't tell me?! I could have done something about it." Lea questioned as I shook my head.

"It wasn't much of a problem. The dreams always repeated and I couldn't hear anything till just last month. It's recently they started changing and to be honest, I don't want the dreams to stop." I confessed with honest as Lea folded her arms.

"Why?" She asked as my eyes weakened.

My hand touched my chest as my lips curled to a soft smile.

"Those dreams make me remember how I felt when I was... human." I said as I clenched my fist around my chest.

Those dreams were the only thing that gave my cold body warmth. They heated my body and my mind even though I knew it wasn't real.

I accepted it wasn't real.

"Charlie be honest with me..." Lea said as she placed her hand above mine. "If you could ever be human again, would you take the chance?"

Why was Lea asking me this question?

A longtime ago I wished to be human, I craved it with desperation but I couldn't.

The humans feared even the kindest of our kind because they couldn't understand us and we hunted humans down because of our instincts as hunters and our thirst for the crimson fluid that flowed in living things.

The higher the creature whose blood is fed on, the stronger the vampire; that was why they hunted humans than live their lives feeding on animal blood.

Years and years of being hunted down, lied and cheated by humans, betrayed and used had me repulsed by the thought of being human.

"That desire died along with the hunters I turned to ash." I said as I stood up from my bed.

I grabbed the glass bottle in my room, pouring the whiskey that had a little bit of negative B inside as I sipped on it slowly.

"That was a long time ago Charlie. It is time to forgive and forget."

"Humans killed my husband! They killed Jordan! Hope's father for what?! Because he was a human who fell in love with a vampire?!" I asked as I gulped down the alcohol.

"Charlie..."

"Lea can we not discuss this. I'm far too tired for this and I also need to get ready for work." I said as Lea sighed.

She stood up as my eyes followed her movements to the door before she stopped.

"Jordan's been dead for centuries Charlie. Stop living in the past when you have a future here." Lea said before she left, closing the door quietly behind her.

I threw the glass cup on the wall in anger as I ran my hand through my hair with a frustrated grunt.

Lea Bennett, my closest friend was a witch.

Her people were hunted down, tried unfairly for having influence in the human world and persecuted.

They were burned, hung, decapitated and served as feed for livestocks and their children left in hiding only for the cycle to repeat over and over again.

The cruelty of knowing her twin sister was murdered because she had generously healed a human should have been enough to teach Lea humans don't need pity.

They looked weak but once a little power entered their hands, they were bitter and selfish creatures.

We creatures of darkness had our own wickedness but it has its end and it has a beginning.

Lea was cursed with immortality as a result of wanting to learn black magic to protect her kind but her clan knew the dangers and rejected her.

The times that have passed was enough for Lea to perfect in the black arts as my mother Larissa Willows did.

Thinking about my mother, I haven't seen her since my siblings hunted her down for turning us into vampires while I remained in the shadows, creating a path for myself.

My eyes went to the painting on the nightstand beside my bed.

I sat down, picking it up as the memories with Jordan played in my head.

In all my memories, Jordan always smiled.

There was barely a day he wasn't making awkward jokes or imagining a world where every creature ever created could live together.

But all good things must come to an end.

Watching the humans kill my husband when the sun hadn't turned him to ash was painful for me in my vulnerable state.

He wasn't a vampire. He didn't want to be and that was why he lived everyday like was going to leave me... and he did.

It was those days with him that Hope was born. My daughter and my blood.

Hope was a hybrid. Having both the powers of a vampire and that of a witch from her grandmother; she lived by my side till the war that had us all scattered.

It's been quite a long time since I last saw my family and the one who has always been here with me from the start was Lea.

I have to make sure to apologize for being a little too hard on her especially since she was right.

Jordan was dead. I have a lot of suitors so it was time to move.

It was time to move on and explore the world that has changed with time. An era where human hunted desperately for the supernatural is over.

This was an era called... change.