Forever Young

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

“I don’t want you seeing that boy anymore.” Richard’s statement was unequivocal, an order rather than a suggestion. They were pulling into the garage after having dropped Robbie off at his home.

“Richard, I won’t stop seeing him, and technically, he’s not a boy.” There was no way Richard could make him. Of course, he felt horrible about what had happened, what he’d done to poor Robbie, but he’d be more careful. He’d make sure in the future he didn’t put Robbie at risk.

“Dammit, Colt, don’t you realize you almost killed him? I can’t believe you. And you’re just lucky. If you’d severed his artery, I’d have never been able to heal him. He’d have bled to death before we could’ve gotten him into surgery.”

Colt huffed and reached for the door handle. Richard grabbed hold of his opposite arm and held him in place. “Wait!”

“I’m done talking about this, and I’m sick of you acting like you’re actually my father. It doesn’t help when you lecture me.” Colt turned to look at him, glaring directly into Richard’s eyes. “I’m a hundred f*****g sixty years old! I’m not some teenage punk you can boss around.”

“You’re a baby, and you’re acting like one. Think of the boy, Colt! This isn’t even about you; it’s about him and his safety.”

“I told you, I won’t hurt him!”

“You told me that last night, and look what happened. Until you get strong enough to control your hunger, you can’t be trusted to be alone with him. Listen to me! You can’t even trust yourself.”

Everything Richard was saying was true, and Colt knew it. Whatever had happened out in the open field could easily happen again. It was like he was some sort of Jekyll and Hyde, and for all he knew, it could happen again. He could snap and turn into that bloodthirsty monster that just about murdered Robbie.

“Richard, what’s causing this? Please…”

Richard stared at him for a moment, his expression softening, then he shook his head. “We’ve got to talk. Come inside, and I’ll explain some things to you.”

Now, after all these decades, Colt was discovering there were things Richard hadn’t told him. It made no sense. Yet when Christian was there earlier, he’d alluded to the fact that there were others. Who were they? Was he talking about other vampires? And just where did Christian come from? Richard had known nothing about him before tonight.

“Yeah,” Colt agreed. “I’ve got some questions.”

It was already five o’clock, less than two hours until the sun came up. He got out of the car and followed Richard inside. They went into the kitchen, and Richard took a seat at the table, motioning for Colt to do the same. Colt was too keyed up to sit. Instead he paced back and forth across the kitchen a few times, trying to gather his thoughts. “First of all, who the hell is Christian?”

“Christian’s my brother,” Richard responded, his voice even. “My biological brother.”

“What? Your brother is also a vampire?”

“Colt, sit down, please.”

“I don’t wanna sit. Dammit, Richard, why am I now just learning about this? What else have you kept from me?” He was raising his voice, and as he did so, it must’ve alerted Brendan, who made a sudden appearance in the archway.

“Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, Brendan.” Richard offered a reassuring smile. “Colt and I need a few minutes, if you don’t mind.”

Brendan gave Colt a warning look, then turned back to Richard and nodded. “If you need me, I’ll be in the bedroom,” His protectiveness of Richard was usually endearing, but tonight it just annoyed Colt. He rolled his eyes in disgust.

“You’ve never liked him,” Richard stated after Brendan had left the room.

“It’s not that, Richard. I just…well, I want what you have. Can’t you even try to understand? Robbie’s the first person I’ve met who’s made me feel this way. Not since James have I had these desires. I can’t explain it, but I think that’s why I lost control. It was like when I got excited, I just wanted him so bad. I just had to have him…all of him.”

“And maybe he’s the one. Only time will tell, but until you’re strong enough to control those desires, you can’t be trusted. Colt, I’m trying to protect you as much as Robbie.”

“Okay. I get that. Really, I do.” Colt hopped up onto the kitchen counter, sitting there with his legs dangling over, and leaned his head back against the upper cupboard.

“But I can’t have you chaperoning my dates. Speaking of which, how did you know?

Were you spying on me tonight?”

“Well, that’s kind of hard to answer. I’m not exactly sure how I knew, but I wasn’t spying. I sensed something was wrong, and I went out looking for you.”

Colt nodded. He understood what Richard was talking about. As mentor and protégé, he and Richard shared a connection. He could sense when Richard was in trouble; it was some sort of unexplained telepathy. What he didn’t get was how Richard had found him so quickly. Did he have some kind of vampiric GPS? “Tell me about Christian. How can you be biological brothers and both vampires? Was he the one who converted you?”

Richard shook his head. “No, Colt, I was never converted and neither was Christian. We’re brothers, and we were both born as vampires.”

“Vampires are not born, Richard. They’re created! Vampires are humans who’ve received the dark gift, the blood of another vampire. You’re talking nonsense now.”

Richard pushed his chair back and stood, taking a step closer to Colt. “No, not all vampires. Those of us like Christian and me, we were never fully human. Our father is vampire, and our mothers are human. We were born this way.”

What Richard was saying flew in the face of everything Colt had grown to believe about his own existence. He knew his own story, how Richard had converted him, saved him on the battlefield as he lay dying. He’d fed Colt his blood, and by taking it, Colt had been transformed. His body died and was born again as an immortal, nocturnal creature. When Colt had questioned Richard about his own conversion, Richard had remained aloof. He’d never shared his story, never talked about his own maker. Now it was clear. It was obvious why Richard had never spoken of his mentor, because he had none.

“You’re saying that you had a human mother, and she mated with a vampire.

You’re their offspring?”

“Christian and I both. Yes, although he has a different mother.”

“This is so f****d up.” Colt sighed and leapt off the counter, resuming his pacing.

“And you didn’t think this little piece of information was important enough to mention to me, like maybe a century ago?”

“There are reasons I’ve been so guarded about my past, but I think it’s time for you to know everything.”

“No f*****g kidding. Richard, you’ve lied to me. You told me specifically that vampires and humans could not mate.”

He shook his head. “I told you no such thing. I simply did not correct you when you jumped to inaccurate conclusions. There was no reason for you to know…”

“Richard, you created me. You are my maker, my father. What more reason do I need than that? Don’t I have a right to know who I really am?” Colt didn’t like being lied to. He didn’t like the secrecy and deception, and he felt his temper getting the better of him. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “If you and Christian are brothers, why do you appear so much older than him? You’re both immortals, so why’d he stop aging in his thirties yet you look forty?”

“The concept of immortality is a myth, Colt. If there is such a thing as an immortal creature, I’ve yet to encounter one of them. Everything has the capability of dying. No being is exempt from the threat of annihilation. I was born some four hundred years before Christian. Being half-vampire, we are also half-human, and therefore we age.

The process has been retarded, though. The best I’ve been able to calculate, I age approximately one year to every fifty of my human counterparts.”

“So instead of living eighty human years, you are likely to live four thousand?”

“More or less.” Richard shrugged. “But even those vampires who are purebred, for lack of a better term, are susceptible to death. There are ways to kill a vampire. Believe me, I know. My father is dead. And there are groups of people, organizations, if you will, who exist for the sole purpose of destroying all vampires.”

“Vampire slayers?” Colt’s jaw unhinged. “This is crazy. It sounds like one of those made-for-TV dramas.”

“It’s real, Colt. It’s very real, and for this very reason, nearly a millennia ago, vampires like my father chose to breed with humans. He knew it was only a matter of time until he’d be tracked down and extinguished…”

“So why didn’t he just create more vampires—the good ole fashioned way, like you did with me and Brendan?”

“A half-breed has certain advantages that a pure vampire doesn’t. We can tolerate daylight. We appear more human. We can eat human food. When my father was alive, part of my responsibility was to protect him while he slept. Creating more vampires would not have helped him. More vampires would have resulted in more human deaths, drawing the attention of the Matarians.”

“The Matarians?”

“Matarian are humans who’ve been trained to identify and eliminate vampires.

Well, that was their original objective. It appears that they’ve recently shifted their focus, and by ‘recently’ I mean within the last century. Nowadays they seem intent upon rooting out all supernatural beings.”

“What other supernatural beings are there?”

Richard laughed. “You can’t be that naïve. Certainly you’ve lived long enough to know life consists of more than what meets the eye. You’ve seen ghosts and witches and perhaps even werewolves.”

“I’ve seen them, sure. In movies. Good God, Richard, you’re saying all these stories, these myths—they’re real? What about Dracula? You told me yourself he was just a fiction and that Bram Stoker was an idiot.”

Rolling his eyes, Richard tsked. “Dracula is fiction, but with every supernatural creature, there is accompanying lore. Stoker created a fictional vampire, but this was perhaps because at the time there were indeed vampires dwelling in Romania. Thanks to the Matarians, this population has all but vanished. Worldwide, I doubt there are more than a handful of pure vampires in existence. Those of us who’ve survived are the ones who’ve mastered the art of hiding in plain sight, and we are all Los Luzes, the light ones.”

“Half-breeds?”

“Yes, the Matarian labeled us ‘the light ones’ or ‘day walkers’ because we are impervious to sunlight, unlike our makers.”

Colt shook his head. “But that’s not true. I can’t stand the sun, and you don’t like it much either.”

“We’re still nocturnal, but daylight will not kill us. Our skin will burn, but we don’t instantly burst into flames, and you’ll discover as you age that your tolerance for sunlight will increase.”

“And you said we can eat human food, but I never have. Since the moment of my conversion, I’ve never eaten so much as a bite. I didn’t even know I could, and why would I?”

“You don’t need food, but your body will tolerate it. I’ll spare you the details, suffice to say that consuming it is far more pleasant than the purging that’s required afterward.”

Colt grimaced at the thought. But at least this news had positive implications for his relationship with Robbie. They’d be able to go on dinner dates. He might even be able to see Robbie during the daytime, under certain conditions. His distasteful expression was quickly replaced with a grin.

“What’re you smiling about? You’re thinking about the boy again, aren’t you?”

“Richard,” the timbre of his voice rose with his excitement, “this is fantastic news. I might be able to have a real relationship with Robbie, a normal relationship.”

“Normal? Like the way you ripped into his jugular tonight? Colt, you’ve a long way to go to get to normal.”

Richard’s pessimism didn’t dissuade him. Colt was too preoccupied with visions of walks along the beach, sunrises and sunsets, and the multitude of other experiences he’d resigned himself to never feeling again. The information Richard had given him was life-altering. He saw himself in a whole new light, a human light, and he wasn’t about to let a little thing like Matarian vampire slayers damper his enthusiasm.

“Are you even listening, Colt? There are people out there—lots of them—intent upon our destruction. In every major city, all across this country—all around the world, they’re actively scouring police records, missing persons reports, newspaper articles, Internet social networks. They exist for one purpose and one purpose only—to kill!

They want to kill us, Colt, and once they’ve targeted us, there is nothing, I mean nothing, that can stop them!”

Colt rolled his eyes. “Richard, please. Must you be so dramatic? You said yourself you’ve avoided the Matarians—or whatever the hell you call them—for a thousand years. Why are you so freaked out now?”

Richard stalked over to him and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Because of you, Colt. Because of what you did tonight when you attacked that boy. All it’s going to take is one human asking questions. I saw what they did to my father, and for three centuries thereafter I remained in deep seclusion. I hated myself for being unable to protect him. I hated myself for surviving! We have a family now, Colt. And we have a decent life…and God! You know how much I love Brendan… and you. Please don’t jeopardize this. I beg you.”

Colt sobered as he stared into his mentor’s eyes. He’d never seen Richard so emotional, so animated about his feelings. “I do understand, Richard. I understand now more than ever before how deeply you love Brendan because that’s exactly how I feel about Robbie. It’s like I’ve been waiting for him all these years, and at last I’ve found him. It just about killed me tonight when I realized I’d hurt him.”

Richard slowly nodded. “And that passion inside of you, that hunger you experienced, it’s not going to go away. But this is so different than it was all those years ago with Brendan. It’s now nearly impossible. Everything’s so integrated. Robbie will never be able to just disappear without a whole lot of people noticing.

“Colt, when I felt that hunger for Brendan, the same you now feel for Robbie, it was very easy. I knew we were destined for each other. We’d bonded, and he was clearly my soul mate. I craved him, craved feeding from him, have him feed from me, and that’s exactly what we did.

“When you plunged your fangs into that boy’s neck tonight, you weren’t trying to kill him. You were taking him, and had we not intervened, you’d have given yourself in return. Colt, you weren’t attacking Robbie; you were making love to him!”

Colt stood there astonished, his mouth agape. Yes! Yes, it’s true. It all made sense. It was his arousal that piqued his thirst. It was his desire to be one with Robbie that had caused him to do what he’d done. He nodded his head, still staring into Richard’s eyes.

“He’s the one. Robbie’s my mate.”

“And he’s only eighteen,” Richard whispered. “He’s only eighteen years old.”