My Burning Desire

“You?” I can hear the cautiousness in his rough voice. Quiet, like he wanted no one to hear.

I look around my surroundings, expecting there to be people waiting intently to hear what we have to say.

There wasn’t. Just a prolonging silence.

“Me?”

My room comes into view as I seep out of my sleeping state slowly.

It has been the same dream, every day since my eighteenth birthday.

There was a strong feeling in me that said the man I continuously saw in my dreams was my mate. But I can never really see his features. Or maybe I can, and I just cannot remember them.

I sigh and sit up remembering that it is almost my birthday already. I’m getting older and maybe just a day closer to finding my soul mate.

I finish my morning routine with a long look at myself in the restroom mirror. I don’t want the burden of living by myself and paying bills, so I live with my mother, although even if I did try to leave, she wouldn’t let me.

I glance at my dresser clock on my way to the bedroom door and see that I woke up just in time for a quick breakfast.

I hurry into the kitchen and scramble up some food for myself. The sickening taste of nothing had me feeling nauseated, but I swallow the feeling.

Throwing my dishes in the sink, I rush to my room and change as fast as I can. My keys got lost for a second before I see them sitting on the kitchen counter.

I quickly situate myself inside my car before I back out of the driveway and head to my boring work.

-

“Hey, Evans!”

I stop and turn to see my co-worker waving at me with a large smile. My lips curve upward as I take in her presence.

“Emma, hey. What’s up?” I ask her as she came closer to me. We both start towards the entrance of our job.

“Nothing, totally regretting applying for this job, though,” she grumbles and looks straight ahead with fierce eyes.

I laugh and nod. “Same here, but you always say that. Why don’t you quit?”

She looks at me like I’m out of my mind. I hold up my hands defensively. “For the money, obviously,” she says while rolling her eyes.

“Obviously,” I repeat with a smile and sigh when we enter the store. We both work in retail, and it’s a pretty busy place surprisingly.

“Well, have fun Evans,” she mutters as she walks into the back room deflated.

“There’s no such thing,” I reply too late, but follow her, nonetheless.

-

A deep sigh resounds from me as I walk back to my car after a long day. The sun was out and getting ready to set, but as I sat in my car a sudden pain went through my head and I instantly clutch it. “Son of a-”

At the same moment my phone starts to ring. I grab it and answer frustrated, “What?”

“Hey, calm down. Did you forget again?” My mother’s voice came through the phone and calmly asks me.

I sigh heavily and rub my eyes. “Yeah, sorry.”

“How many times am I going to have to remind you before you remember?” Her voice was urgent and evidently worried.

“I’m sorry, mother. I just got off my shift, I’m heading home now.” I put the car key into the ignition and start it up.

There was silence for a while, and I knew she was biting her nails.

“Okay, be careful,” her voice wobbled and then she hung up.

She always gets worried for no reason. It was not like I would die right that second. I roll my eyes at her needless worrying and drive off.

-

I pull into the driveway quickly, making a loud noise with my tires as I turn.

The front door flew open and before I could even blink my mother was standing in front of the door to my car. I open the driver door, grabbing all my things on the way out.

“Here, I did it for you,” she says as she offers me a cup. A dark liquid swirls around inside tempting me and urging me to gulp it down.

I roll my eyes at her motherliness. “Why? I can do it by myself.”

“I know you can, but you can't think properly when you get like this so you can't do it correctly.” She held out the cup further. I shut the car door.

“Fine,” I give in. I grab the cup and look at its contents. The red liquid splashes around as I move it, its smell so sweet and alluring.

I feel my fangs extend, tilt the cup back, and let the blood run down my throat. The sweet taste clung to my taste buds demanding me for more.

I lick the blood from my lips and retract my fangs after cleaning them. “I want more.”

She smiles at me knowingly. “Go,” she urged me towards the tree lining.

I get ready to speed towards the nearest beating of a heart, but a hand gripped my shoulder stopping me. I turn to see my mother looking up at me worriedly.

“There are hunters. Be careful, and don’t get near them.” Her eyes bore into mine, silently threatening me.

I nod and once her hand was gone so was I. The trees were a blur, all that was going through my head was the beating of a heart getting closer, and closer, and closer with every step I took.

My home was in the middle of a forest. It had a paved driveway leading to my house, but it was only there to someone who knew where to look.

Humans were not our friend, and they were not somebody we wanted discovering us. Our race was one that lived in secret, along with every other supernatural creature that lives.

The Royals from every unknown race had agreed it be best to not bother them. Eventually, humans will go extinct and then we can live without stress of them finding us, plus it was no harm to anyone that we do not bother them.

Although they do not know our weakness, it was also law that we do not touch them - in a sense of killing them.

I stop as soon as I catch sight of a lively deer. Its ears perk up as it hears my slight movement.

It looks around for a while waiting to hear something else - a small step, a sound of a tree branch breaking, or a leaf crunching. I have been hunting for too long to slip up now, though.

The deer still sensed danger though; it never relaxed to continue eating and stood still awaiting more movement.

I take the chance to run and jump on the animal, quickly snapping its neck. My fangs burrow into its body before the blood can lose its taste.

The warm blood slides down my throat thickly all the while feeling my body release the tension I had been building.

I toss the carcass aside for the time being, licking my teeth, and savoring the taste of blood. It had been two days since I last fed and the consequences had finally caught up to me.

I lay against the bark of a tree, enjoying the silence of the forest. and eminiscing on how I was turned by my, now, mother. She once told me about how she wanted a kid and I just happened to be the perfect one.

She changed me at age of eighteen - the same day as my birthday. The next day was when the same dream came to haunt me. I was eternally stuck in my high school body, the change gave me even more defined features making me even more irresistible - or so my mother says.

I finished high school a hundred and four years ago, and because of what I was I was constantly changing jobs. If I stayed for too long humans would start asking questions as to why I never seemed to age or change appearances.

My mother explained my new world to me the year after my turning. After a hundred years, I already knew all I could know. But most of all, I knew solidarity.

Anything that could eventually expose me was a threat and something I could not have in my life. All I know is my mother and I did not question the point of my loneliness because it was pure common sense.

I have lived for one hundred and five years without my mate. It was agonizing to know that there was someone out there who would accept and love you for eternity, but you could not find them.

“Hey! There’s one over here!”

My ears quickly pick up the sudden noise.

Humans. I could smell them from where I was, and they were getting closer.

I stand silently and pick up the deer, my muscles tensing with the heavy weight. I crouch and jump, my hand gripping a thick tree branch. I adjust myself and scale a little higher to be able to wrap my arm around the branch until I could hold on as comfortably as possible. My feet rest on the rough bark and I pull them up to me to try and make myself smaller.

The branch bends with the combined weight, but it does not break. I was high enough to not be detected by the mindless humans. With their dull senses I should be perfectly hidden.

Soon enough they arrive at the spot I had been resting at. There were three hunters all holding onto a hunting rifle looking around for signs of life.

“Look here,” one crouches down and studies the leaves and dirt where the deer had once laid. He picks up what looks to be dirt and inspects it. “It’s blood.”

Another crouches to investigate and nods in agreement.

Crap.

“It’s hurt... I don’t see a trail anywhere,” the third one says as he surveys the forest floor.

It was only a dot of blood. Maybe they didn’t have dull senses.

“And here!” The first man exclaims as he crouches near where I was sitting at the tree before. “The leaves are crushed and it feels a bit warm.”

Are you serious?

“Maybe the deer was laying there?” One questions.

“There’s no blood.”

“Maybe another hunter was here.”

“Maybe.”

They mumble to themselves and finally retreat into the abyss of trees, the echoes of their voices bouncing as they walk further away.

“Well that was close,” I mutter and jump down from the tree, landing on my feet.

I dig a hole for the deer, quickly bury it into the dirt, and speed home.

“All done?” A voice greets me as I close the front door and make my way to the kitchen.

“Yeah,” I say as I lean against the wall watching her cook. “I saw hunters.”

Her head snaps towards me so quick it would have definitely broken if she was human. “And?” Her gaze held her usual worry.

“They didn’t see me. I don’t think they would suspect us anyway, it’s not like they know we even exist,” I mutter.

“No, they don’t. But it’s better to be safe than sorry,” she replies while letting out a sigh of relief.

My eyes roll at her response. “I don't have to be sorry to anyone,” I retort her with a snarl.

She looks up at me with hard eyes and I calm down only a little. I continued watching her cook in silence. I once asked her a long time ago why she cooks and she had only replied, “No reason, I just get bored.”

It was a lie, and a horrible lie at that. She eats it too and when I questioned that as well, she simply replied, “The taste.”

I tried it once, but it was so bland; there was nothing to enjoy. I am sure she tastes the same thing, but she will not tell me her reasons. At times, I remember my human life and how I always enjoyed everything. But I took for granted the taste of food. I never thought there would come a day where I would have to live without it. I am living in a completely different world now.

Although, they were times in the past where I would get nostalgic and ask my mother to cook something for me, and even though it tasted like nothing, I would eat it. I would try and remember my human life.

It has been one hundred and four years. My real family is past dead and all I have now is Riyma. My vampire mother.

I left Riyma to cook as I walk away and into my room. For the most part I spend all my time alone thinking 'I want to know what it is like to hold somebody and call them mine'.

In my mind it felt as though I was born to be this. If all of this never happened, I would never have believed in true soul mates. But now, in this life, I can find who I am meant to be with.

As I lay in bed, I felt myself drifting to sleep at the thought of finding my mate.

What it would feel like.

And what we would become.

[edited]

-bun