Free Read: The Cursed Wound, Book One of the Secret Lives of Angels & Vampires.
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Chapter 2
April 12th
It was perfect! No one to boss her around. Not like here at home. A tiny little avenue with a church, a few houses boarded up and some odd little buildings. Until the strange, tall, dark and shockingly cute homeless guy that just comes out of nowhere shows up and… what the hell? A man like him, stocky and thick muscled, and hiding in an old church. Well, it didn’t matter how he looked. It mattered that he was in the one building she planned to buy and renovate in order to get away from her family. In particular, Mother. Once she received her inheritance, she was done!
Now she had to go through the moves and make everything legal before she could go back! Damn it! Well, she wasn’t about to allow him or anyone… or anything else to ruin her vision. Of course that meant that Nanna would be gone and that was not something she was in a hurry to have happen! Talon had to do it all one step at a time, unfortunately. Nana was her saving grace and the balance the house needed. She was a veritable angel and for some reason Mother rarely challenged her.
As Talon neared the house, she looked for any signs of them leaving. It was the vacation that everyone but her and Nat went on. She’d been waiting for them to leave so she could work and be in her space peacefully for the short time they’d be away on the family yacht.
The drive was bare. No taxis, no suitcases waiting to be loaded in a van, and no one outside taking selfies to let the world know too much information. What the hell?
She pulled the truck around the back of the house to keep it out of view, and to keep Mother from complaining about it being an eyesore.
Rolf’s face though…
He looked like just a run of the mill homeless vet. Like maybe giving him some money could make him go away. Except for his wrist… were those…. bite marks? Were they actual bite marks? They couldn’t be! He was too hunky to be a… the idea caused her to hold her breath for a second. His dark chocolate hair and eyes, and all those muscles and his height… jeez… his height… and arms… really good looking! Not like the skinny mariners her mother picked out for her to go on blind dates with. And he spoke with such a business voice and watched her like he was protecting something. Which made her want to know what was down the hall behind him.
He must have stood at least half as tall as the arch leading out to the rectory, which would be over six feet with the wide shoulders of a soldier. Her tummy flipped at the idea of going back to see him, even if it was to pay him to leave. He didn’t look starving and he didn’t come to her begging for food, or money. Just asked her to leave… nicely, or as nicely as a homeless vet, maybe suffering from some kind of PTSD, could ask.
He must have heard her or seen her coming. But she wasn’t that loud. She was worried about scaring some animal out of hiding. In New Castle it wasn’t uncommon to find a black bear looking for food near homes this time of year. But, if the man had heard her despite her being careful and… having those marks on his hand…
She stopped herself. No. No. Nope. No vampire looked that good! Not the ones she knew of. Not to mention, that was the last thing she needed at the moment. She’d had enough of them to last a lifetime! She shuttered and fought back nauseous anxiety at the thought. The sooner she could leave this house and its ghosts and monsters, the better!
She tried to review his picture in her memory and couldn’t even recall seeing fangs. The last vampire she’d witnessed sure as hell didn’t look or act like him.
Her mother opened the back door to the kitchen from the servant’s entrance to catch her before she could sneak to her room and jarred her back to reality. She sent her the kind of overbearing mom-glare that a rich snob would give a rebellious daughter, she supposed. Why didn’t they leave yet??? They never skipped vacation and they were never late for the dock!
Talon was going to try to park her truck around the back nearest the kitchen door leading out to the terrace, but Mother was on to her. She rolled down her window in silent surrender, and mother issued her customary orders for a lady of her supposed standing. It all fell flat on Talon.
“Dear! I certainly hope you don’t leave that piece of junk in the drive while we’re gone! And please make sure you dress for dinner! Skirts and heels with a camisole and no hair on the shoulders! You know I don’t appreciate jeans at the table!”
“Of course Mother, but I thought you were scheduled to start your cruise today.” Talon had to lower her voice to not make her mother suspicious. She did roll her eyes and huff though. That was normal for her.
“The limo has a flat. It won’t be fixed until after dinner. We’re leaving right after that.” She gave her daughter’s truck a dissatisfied nose wrinkle and shook her head. “Why a daughter of mine refuses to enjoy a good and privileged life is beyond me. There’s some kind of rogue northerner gene in the family line I suppose.” She waved her hand like a wand as if to cast a spell to make all of her daughter and her preferred method of travel to somehow leave. It didn’t work of course. “Oh well, you’re young and there’s still time to change. I know you care about the image and the reputation of this family, even if you don’t show it. You will eventually grow up, I’m sure.”
Talon rolled her eyes and slammed her truck door shut on purpose.
“You’ll need to put that thing away and out of sight before your grandmother’s guests arrive! Preferably out with the trash! Please don’t correct her when she calls you by your given name!”
Talon cringed and fought a scream! She KNOWS Nana doesn’t do that! She’s in a fantasy world! Delusional! Then she took a deep breath and lowered her head in focus and composure. “Mother, first of all, I’m an adult now. Second, Grandmother doesn’t have any problem with my name. Most everyone including Natalie has been calling me that without argument since we were kids and you know it!” She snipped, throwing the tone right back at her anyway. Talon got out of her truck and stood eye to eye with her.
Mother straightened her back, squared her shoulders and raised her voice and her thin nose upwards.
“Tempest Anastasia Leatrice Onoria… Nothina, is on your legal birth certificate. Talon was a hideous joke that should have been forgotten the instant it was uttered! It's a terrible excuse for a name for someone from our lineage. She stressed the identical name to her cousin deliberately, “It is NOT an acceptable name! Your birth name is your correct name and it’s what your father and I so carefully chose before he passed away! It’s an honor to be named after your ancestors no matter how much your bitter old grandmother disapproves of it! Now please don’t argue with me!” Her throat cracked from the indignity of her raised voice.
Talon snerked to herself. Mother trounced inwards to the kitchen and out of sight before Talon could say another word. There was just something funny about Mother unable to handle herself acting like the commoner she was born as.
The bigger problem lay in the fact that Mother considered the lineage they did have as royalty and she forced it on her like an oppressive prison that Talon was supposed to be proud of. She stopped and grew quiet. She’d been raised with the understanding that something was going to happen and change her life at some point, but it was never the golden child future she hoped for. And she prayed everyday that Mother really was just that delusional, stupid and wrong. If Talon was being honest with herself, every word in the conversation between her and mother added that much more weight to the burden of uncertainty in her gut. With each day, month and year the feeling grew.
In the meantime, she always attempted to brush it off with a simpler explanation that she didn’t have to think about. And that truth was that Mother just wished she was someone or something else. She built a world around her life of a person that flat out did not exist and worked to attempt to get her to play a part in it. It wasn’t going to happen. The uncertain thing was that mother genuinely seemed to believe herself and took herself very seriously. Almost like she expected to manifest it. She didn’t act like other crazy people if that’s what it was.
One thing was true, and that was that Mother just didn’t like being like everyone else. And she didn’t like her for wanting to be. Talon took another surrendering breath. Fine, she’d blow off dinner anyway. Mother never came looking for her when she did.
And she did so, taking the last set of steps to the third floor where her books and plans to renovate the church sat in sketches under her bed. She shut her bedroom door and flipped on her light. She’d just grab a snack from the kitchen later. The cook not only called her by her chosen name, but he was always glad to see her and always had leftovers waiting.
Instead of going to the book shelf however, she plopped down on the same old ugly brown Chesterfield sofa that had been in her room since she was allowed to sleep by herself and move out of Nat’s room. Mother had once referred to it as a settee. Gram called it a couch. It was a couch. She pulled out her phone and clicked on her playlist. She turned it up and closed her eyes. 80s oldies helped put her at ease, at least for the moment. Until mother found out and insisted she listened to something ‘evolved.’ Which was funny because Mother didn’t even listen to her own music.
The image of the strange-homeless-yet-not-homeless-man popped back into her mind. His height being his best feature first, she went over his build in her imagination. Large strong square jaw, long broad nose and a solid full set of teeth, and thick arms to go with his wide shoulders. Black t-shirt… crazy good looking… sort of hot even… and a kind of ruggedly handsome clean shaven that could make a girl swoon! But his wrist… what were those marks on his wrists?
She lay quiet watching a dimming streak of sun creep across the floor as it faded. “No. Not a vampire.” They sleep during the day and it was definitely daylight when he was up. Barely daylight. And he didn’t attack her. If he was a vampire he’d most likely have taken her as a snack. The ones she saw when she was a kid were nasty and blood thirsty. Merciless. She prayed again that it was all just a bad dream and she hadn’t seen what she did but she knew she had.
That night of horror had taken years to fade from her mind. It was no easy task to bury the sight of a vampire tearing into the throat of a passer-by on the street! A shudder rocked her shoulders. They took him right in front of the family with an unnerving entitlement! Cold, mean, cruel and just plain shitty!
Her eyes blinked open and she hit the shuffle button. Van Halen’s “How Do You Know When It’s Love” began to play and take her mind off of the dread for a second. But just a second. After all, it wasn’t a secret in this house. It was looked upon with ridiculous pride! Her oldies music had been almost therapeutical… and it was easy to get lost in it… that is until she couldn’t get his image out of her mind.
Tomorrow she’d get up in a non-pushy house, go to her lawyer’s, and then get the ball rolling. With all the money she never spent on clothes or cars or presidential bids or whining and dining donors for elections like her father’s side of the family, she had enough to buy the entire block by now. And that was just what she planned to do. The sooner she got out of here, the better! She went to sleep with her own wishes for a mother she could call “Mom” without being judged or corrected. Or for that matter loved without having to change herself. Of course, that would mean Mother would actually then become a mom and she knew that would never happen.
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