Ch. 3

"Eloise," a ghastly voice whispered into my mind.

My eyes shot open, staring at Julian who was now knelt next to my bed. "Hey there sunshine. Hurry up and take this pill before your mom wakes up." I opened my mouth to protest but he just tossed it into my mouth and covered it with his hand. I swallowed it beginning to cough and watched as Julian turned into a big cloud of smoke.

Tiny little squeaks erupted as a milky white bat stared at me, it's piercing golden eyes letting me know he'd transformed to hide. He quickly crawled to my hand, impatiently nudging me as he tried to gain entrance to the blankets to hide. My eyes softened as I instead picked him up, my cutesy voice coming out," look at you! You're so... so adorable! With those big goofy ears and pretty fuzzy fuzz." I let out a few awws, pinching and poking at his cute little face.

Julian began to squeak at me in protest, surely cursing my existence if I had been able to understand him. He finally reached his limit as I reached out to scratch his belly, retaliating with a bite to the side of my hand. I screamed in surprised, dropping him.

Julian huffed loudly, taking advantage of the momen and quickly crawling beneath the blankets. He almost seemed to huff and squeal to himself. I rubbed my hand and grumbled back at him.

Suddenly a pain struck my chest, and I began going into a coughing fit. It felt as if my lungs wanted to leave my body and I would have no issue in helping them out. My mother's loud footsteps stormed up the staircase and she flung the door open.

Her hair was faded with age, her face wrinkled with a lifetime that hadn't been good to her. Anger quickly crossed her face as she pushed me onto my back, squishing poor little Julian in the process. A muffled squeak escaped him and my mother looked around sniffing the air as if catching his scent. Vampires gave off a distinctly strong scent, like wet earth and vanilla mixed.

I panicked and became more dramatic, pounding on my chest to get her attention. Her head snapped back to me again and she sighed hard," I can't believe you're sick again. Bills don't pay themselves Eloise. Your father and I wouldn't have bothered having you if you were going to be so much trouble." She shook her head in disapproval," I'll let Delmar know you're not coming today... better hope he doesn't come here and personally drag you to work, like last time."

She left my room, slamming the door loudly. I lifted myself off of Julian, allowing him to crawl from beneath me and breath freely.

I lay there coughing myself to what felt like death. Even if I hadn't, I wouldn't know what to say. My parents had no love for me, servants rarely loved their children. We were just an extra mouth to feed and when we couldn't go to work we became even more worthless. The only thing we were good for was a paycheck. I was underage so I had no choice but to give them most of my earnings.

Over the years I had managed to save up change, keeping a few tips that visiting members from other packs had given me as well. I had barely anything that was mine. Exactly three outfits, one pair of shoes, and a few knickknacks Gerwulf had given to me over the years along with the pictures we had taken together.

We fell into an uncomfortable silence as we waited.

Eventually my parents retreating footsteps and the front door slamming came. Julian crawled off to the foot of my bed, wasting no time as he evaporated into a cloud of smoke before reforming. He made his way to me with a potion that insisted I immediately take.

I stared hard at him as my coughing fit suddenly ended. He had boyishly good looks. His face was masculine in the right spots and youthful in other. Hell even his mouth that was slightly cut back further into face didn't bother me. His eyebrow eventually raised," do I have something on my face?" He gave his toothy grin, seeming amused by my wandering eyes.

"No, I'm just admiring your looks. I didn't realize last night how handsome you are," I blurted out, quickly covering my mouth with my boney fingers as my face became flushed. I don't know what had come over me. Possibly knowing my life would restart had given me some much needed confidence.

Julian's eyes slightly widened and he looked off awkwardly to the side. I had never seen a vampire before, let alone a blushing one. Color slowly flooded to his face like ink bleeding through paper. His skin almost looked bruised. "Please don't say such things in front of Gerwulf," he mumbled," I'd like to keep my head."

"Why on earth would he care? I'm no longer his servant! Who I might feel attracted to is no longer any of his business," a small flash of anger flooded me. Had he become as bad as his brothers?

"You were his... servant?" Julian's jaw clenched and he cursed to himself, running his fingers through his raven locks," I'm suddenly feeling like I care less about listening to his demands."

I looked at him in confusion and slowly sat up, putting some distance between us," when do we leave?" Julian sighed, the color slowly removing itself from his face," soon. You should probably start packing your things. He plans to attack at midday with wolves, and during the night he'll release the vampires if needed. I'll be staying with you instead of fighting. Until we reach the borders of Ash Walker consider me your humble servant." He gave a dramatic bow and hand twirl, going to my window and closing the curtain as sunlight threatened to leak in.

"So..." I awkwardly began. I slipped into the bathroom and changed into one of my only other outfits. A pair of shorts that showed off my legs and a loose tank top. We were going to be moving a lot. I couldn't imagine trying to run away in jeans. "If you're smuggling me away today, then why is Gerwulf also planning to attack the city at the same time?"

Julian looked up from his spot at my rickety dresser, trying his best to remove my belongings from the drawers and almost looking disheartened by the nearly empty drawers. "There's something we need to retrieve... an artifact that was left behind by his mother," he absentmindedly mumbled and looked distressed as he now opening any drawer finding barely anything in them and some empty.

"Something wrong?" I raised a brow and folded my arms as I lay against the doorway. He didn't respond, his movements speeding up to a point I could barely see his hands as he zipped around my room, only making a small pile on the bed.

"Is this seriously all you have?" he asked bluntly.

I could only nod and empty my school bag of the books and stuffing what little little clothing and belongings I had into it," we can't afford a good meal most of the time. Everything else seems like such a waste to buy. Most of my clothing is secondhand from other servants. My parents only buy what is necessary."

Julian almost seemed stunned by my words, watching as I packed my bag easily, a little room still open at the top. His eyes started to slowly soften as he looked at me and I tried my best to ignore the feeling of his eyes on my legs.

I took one last good look around the room on my own before sighing and heading downstairs. Though I couldn't hear his footsteps I knew Julian had followed me closely as I struggled with difficulty to move the couch to the side. He knelt down to my level, putting his hand underneath and lifting it completely up like it was a feather," what's so important you need to move this?" His eyes analyzed the floorboards and watched me carefully.

I rapped my fist against a slightly discolored piece of wood over and over, only pulling stopping when my knuckles turned a bright red and slowly began to show small signs of bleeding. I paid no attention to Julian, being so unused to having a vampire for company I didn't even think about the blood or what it would do to him.

I continued to pry the now loose piece of wood back, grabbing a cardboard shoe box that had seen much much better days. It jingled as I placed it into my backpack, having my life savings inside of it. I turned to Julian, meeting his eyes. His lip was turned into a slight snarl and his eyes were almost black with how dilated his pupils had become.

My eyes widened in horror as he reached out and snatched my now bleeding knuckles, bringing my hand to his mouth. A long spade tongue flopped out of his mouth, licking over the cut. Just as quickly his mouth clamped down.

An odd mix of emotions crossed me. I was definitely afraid of what was happening to me, but at the same time I couldn't ignore how absolutely aroused I was feeling. Was I really so lonely and desperate that having a vampire drink my blood was now turning me on? This only seemed to make him purr deeply like a lion.

I stared hard into his eyes, watching as he was fighting with his inner demon for control, eventually pulling away and dropping the couch with a loud thud. He scrambled backwards, wiping at his mouth in disgust," your blood is so sweet, werewolves aren't supposed to taste like this." He mumbled on, trying to reason with himself as I just stared at my hand in awe. The wounds were healed and had been replaced with teeth marks and a deep bruising.

Julian was breathing heavily, as was I. The tension in the room was thick as our eyes met. It felt like electrical static between us as I forgot about the painful feeling in my hand and crawled quicker than I ever had in my life until we were so close I could smell his now coppery breath.

"Eloise," Julian's deep voice came in almost a whisper," you need to back away or-"

I was instantly in his lap, feeling too overcome with new emotions to control myself. He wasted no time pulling me in and connecting our lips together. I tried my best moving my lips with his. Never had I been kissed before, so suffice to say I was less than confident in my movements.

Julian however seemed to love every moment as he just pulled me in tighter. A glimmer of jealousy crossed through my mind the more I realized just how good he was at kissing and I briefly thought of all the women he'd kissed in his lifetime.

Why did I care though? I'm supposed to be hopelessly in love with Gerwulf. I opened my mouth as a small frustrated growl left my lips. Julian quickly pulled me from my thoughts as he took it for an invitation to deepen the kiss. His tongue entered my mouth and I moaned.

Much too quickly the kiss became too heated. Julian swiftly lay me onto the ground as he didn't dare to break our connection. His kissing moved from my mouth down to my exposed shoulders and neck. His long arms gripped at my thighs and I let out a loud moan. What was happening? Why was I responding like this to a man who was a stranger.

My mind couldn't even process thoughts correctly as he ground himself against my shorts. I could feel how absolutely erect he already was. Somehow just from simple kissing he was already excited by me. I placed my hand on his chest trying to gently push back against him.

"Julian," I sounded so out of breath as he began to nip and suck the spot where it was customary to bare a mark.

"Yes, Eloise?" He responded in a way that sounded like a purr almost as he said my name.

"We need to stop, I'm not ready for this," I quickly spoke and he stopped kissing me. He sat up and graciously helped me to stand as my legs wobbled.

"I know you're a virgin. I wouldn't dream of giving you an experience in a place..." he gestures around and I could only laugh, pulling away from him.

"Let's just get back to packing, okay?" I steal a glance at him, seeing his eyes clearly filled with lust as he nodded silently.