FicWad

Helena was washing herself in the shower upstairs. Water spattered on her soapy skin, rinsing it off in bubbly ribbons. She thought about what just happened earlier in the sitting room.
She and Frank had sex. She let Frank have his way with her and she didn’t try to stop him at all.
Don’t you love Gerard? Her mind asked after its long period of silence. Why would you do this to him? He told you he loves you and you go and do this!
I know, I know, Helena said mentally to her brain. I honestly don’t know what I see in Frank.
Well, you better hope that Gerard never finds out or he might kill you or Frank…or both.
Helena nodded to herself. Yes, it was best that Gerard should never find out.
She stepped out of the shower and got dressed. It was already nightfall by the time she came out of the bathroom. She went to her room and saw Gerard still sleeping. She came closer to him and saw a strange-looking garland tied around the bedpost. It was the wolfs bane garland.
No need for that now, thought Helena as she quietly took the garland off. She opened a window and cast it out.
“H-Helena?” said a sleepy Gerard.
She turned and saw Gerard stirring and slowly rising up. Helena felt nervous. What can she tell him?
“I had a strange dream,” he said.
“A-About what?” she asked.
His hazel-green eyes locked to hers, “I dreamt you left. Well, that’s not really true…it was worse.”
“What?” she wondered.
Gerard took a breath and whispered, “I dreamt that you drove a stake through your heart. Because you didn’t want to be around me any longer because of what I did to you. You wanted to be free and if I wasn’t going to give you your freedom, then you would have it in death. I was devastated.”
Helena listened to every word Gerard was saying and she felt the immediate erupting sting of tears. Kill herself? Why would he ever think that?
Gerard continued, “I couldn’t live without you. So I followed you and walked out into the heated daylight. I felt the rays of sunlight burning the flesh of my hand, turning it into bone. Then-“
“Don’t,” Helena touched his face. Gerard looked at her and saw that she was crying. Tears rushed down her face. She looked so sad and so beautiful to him.
“Don’t have dreams like that anymore,” she said, tasting sweet horror and bitter sadness in her mouth. “I won’t leave you. I love you. Don’t. Please.”
Gerard took her in his arms and she began to cry a little harder. He kissed the top of her head and said, “I’ll try. I don’t know why I even had that dream.”
Helena raised her head and captured his lips. He returned the kiss with passion. His tongue gently tapped her lower lip for entrance, which she allowed. Their tongues fought for dominance while they pressed closer.
Helena pulled away, “Gerard…”
“Kiss me,” he softly demanded. “Please.”
Helena obeyed and kissed him again more fiercely. She entangled her hands in his dark hair. Everything that happened before this vanished in thin air. All she wanted was this moment to last for eternity.
Gerard wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed her closer to him. A thought occurred in his head. A thought he had for a long time and he decided to act on it now. He pulled back, “Drink my blood.”
Helena was kind of hesitant by his request. She hasn’t drunk his blood since the day before yesterday. “I-I d-don’t-“
“You have to mark me as your mate,” he said.
Helena blushed like a neon light. My MATE?!
Gerard nodded, “I already marked you as my lover the night before last. Now you have to make your claim on me so other vampires won’t try to steal me away.”
Helena was speechless. Gerard wants her to his mate? Was she ready to transcend from being his fledging to becoming his lover? Questions floated in her mind.
She asked her first question. “Why? Aren’t I just another girl you’ve taken in for your amusement for the next decade or so?”
“Originally you were,” Gerard admitted. “I was just going to leave you to live with Serafina and Tabatha in Masque’s Hall. Becoming another bloodthirsty wanton. But after I made you drink my blood for the first time and especially every time I made love to you, I realized I was about to make a terrible mistake. I didn’t want you to be my fledging. I wanted you to be my lover. My only lover.”
Her second question, “What about the Helena you loved before me?”
“She’ll never come back. She’s dead and that’s all she’ll ever be. What’s important to me now is you and to make sure that you won’t share the same fate as her.”
Her last question, “Do you mean what you said this afternoon? That you love me?”
Gerard leaned forward and said looked at her, “Look inside me.”
“How?” she asked. He didn’t teach her this.
“That’s your next lesson for tonight,” he said. “Use your senses to look inside me or anyone else. Your sight, your touch, anything.”
Helena swallowed and rubbed her hands together to warm them. She placed them on Gerard’s clothed chest and closed her eyes. She concentrated and suddenly she hears the flow of his blood. It was like a rapid ocean roaring in her ears. What amazed her the most is that she can feel the emotions swimming in the blood.
Love. Desire. Want. Devotion.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. He smirked knowingly at her, “Amazing, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she marveled.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Will you?”
Helena was silent for a moment and then she said, “Yes. I want you to be mine. Always.”
Gerard removed her hands from him and took his shirt off. He pulled her close and exposed his pale throat, “Then make me yours.”
Helena licked her lips and kissed the side of his neck, causing him to sigh softly. She then licked the nape and felt her fangs pop out. She opened her mouth and quickly sank her fangs into his neck. He hissed but it was replaced with a moan. She drank in his blood like she would drink in a glass of fine wine.
“Bite deeper,” he said and she obeyed, burying her fangs into his flesh.
As she continued to drink, Helena noticed something changed. The slight sickness of drinking blood must have finally faded away because she didn’t feel any guilt about doing this anymore. Maybe she finally got used to drinking blood.
When she finally felt like she had enough, she pulled back and her fangs popped back in again. She pulled her head back and looked up at Gerard.
Gerard looked at her and smiled, “I am yours.”
She smiled back. He was hers now. Now and forever. She leaned forward and kissed him.
When she pulled back again, she felt so lightheaded that her eyelids felt as heavy as two cinderblocks. W-What’s going o-on…?
Gerard noticed this, “Helena? Are you okay?”
She began to hyperventilate and started to shake.
“Helena!” he exclaimed and Helena fell back on the bed, unconscious.