Warning: Gay Father/Son incest here!
Author's Note: Hey Readers! I know it has been an extremely long time, but I just could not be satisfied (still not satisfied) with this chapter no matter how many times I rewrote it. Here it is though, just in time for the New Year. I hope you all enjoy!
I love to hear from all of you, so please leave your comments and feedback. Also, I usually try to reply and give updates in the comment area, so it's a good idea to scan through there.
*****
After that blissful, earth-shattering experience in the dining hall, I had woken up an hour later, tucked snugly in bed, only to discover that Papa was gone. All that he had left behind was his scent on the sheets and the fragrant full-bloomed red rose set atop a short note.
Trouble is brewing. Must attend to my duties. Be back soon.
Love,
Papa
That had been nearly three weeks ago, and that rose lies dead upon the nightstand. This was the longest time that we had ever gone without seeing each other, and it was starting to fuck with my nerves. It did not help matters that just a few days after Papa had vanished, some disturbing changes had taken place in our home. The security was beefed up to unprecedented proportions, Alec Ramsey (Uncle Ramsey to me) had basically moved in, and I was no longer allowed to leave the premises. To say I was pissed was an understatement. To say that I was scared shitless that something had happened to Papa? Well...that was a fact.
I looked around the room, our room, and all I could see were my things scattered amongst his. All I could smell was him, all around me, but he was not here. My chest ached with a deep hollowness, and frustrated tears were pricking my eyes.
Shit! I needed to get out of the house! I needed some fresh air before I lashed out and killed something!
I strode from the dimly lit room to the pitch-black darkness of the hallways, singularly focused on running out the back door. Uncle Ramsey caught me just ten feet from the curtain shrouded double doors that led out to the patio and the vast acres of land behind the house.
I wrenched my arm from his hold with a snarl.
"Erin." He said my name calmly with just a hint of warning.
Normally, I would have heeded that warning. Uncle Ramsey was Papa's right hand man and his Head of Enforcer, but more than that, he was like a second father to me. He had doted on me just as much as Papa had done, so aside from Papa, I loved and trusted him most in the world. At the moment, however, he was also the person I was most angry with. It was him who had brought the news that took my father away. I suspected that he was also the only person who knew where Papa was, but he would not share the information, nor would he go searching for him.
"I need some fresh air!" I bit out.
"So wait until dark, when me and my men can accompany you." He placated.
"I don't want company. Especially not yours." A flicker of hurt and annoyance crossed his face at my words, and I had to tamp down the feeling of guilt threatening to rise. I knew that he kept me in the dark only because he wished to protect me, as Papa probably willed it, but it was frustrating nonetheless. I had Papa as my lover for little more than a day and a half, and now he was simply gone.
"Your father wouldn't want you to put yourself at risk."
I deliberately met his eyes-something he had been uncomfortable with since he caught Papa fucking me in the dining hall-and ground out, "I. Don't. Fucking. Care."
He took a step forward, his nose flaring in anger, and I matched his movement with a forward step of my own. My hands clenched into fists at my sides until they hurt, eyes challenging his blackening ones. I was ready for a fight, and though I was not an experienced soldier like he was, Papa had ensured that I was more than decent in combat. I would be able to hold my own for a while, even if Uncle Ramsey would eventually hand me a sound ass-kicking. He HAD been the one to teach me nearly all I knew of fighting, after all.
We stood at an impasse for long moments before I finally saw him give in and sigh with exasperation. I was both a bit disappointed that I would not get to blow off some steam and relieved that I would not have to take him on, because recovering for the resulting injuries would have seriously sucked. I took a deep breath to calm myself, as he looked at his watch and then barked into his walkie-talkie for the human security team to "Get down here!"
I rolled my eyes and groaned.
"Don't give me any of that, Erin. You're father would kill me if he found out I left your side for any length of time." He tapped his watch and continued, "The sun will set in, approximately, two hours, so the humans will protect you for that time. I will watch from here, so DO NOT think to stray far from them or I will beat your ass black and blue!"
I reached for the French doors and stepped out into the waning day, the guards hurrying after me as they slung on their weapons and tried to assimilate the orders Uncle Ramsey was issuing. It would have been a freeing experience, stepping out of the house for the first time in three weeks, if it were not the fact that I felt so empty inside.
-P&I-
There was a chill blowing through the air, and the approaching storm clouds were like an ominous caveat of danger to come. The sky was a beautiful array of dark grey cloud broken in areas with vibrant pinks and oranges of the setting sun, but I could not find it in myself to care. The only thing, the only PERSON, that occupied my thoughts was Papa.
I tried to blink away the tears that stung my eyes, but they fell down my face in rivulets until I accepted that I about to have a breakdown. To think that something had happened to him...The rough sob was ripped from my chest before I could think to stop it, and then I was bawling in earnest into the crook of my right arm.
"Mr. Eirickson?" One of the bodyguards inquired hesitantly.
I shook my head and tried to stifle the tears, but that only made me hiccup and cry harder, my body shaking with it. Fuck trying to stem the tears like a man! Fuck trying to have a modicum of pride! The dull pang of my perceived loss of him was crippling.
Then there was a sudden shift in the air, a snap of twigs behind the copse of trees near the pond, and then his scent drifted to me. The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up, tears temporarily forgotten. The bodyguards began to surround me.
Instincts told me to run, but the scent of him was like a drug. Just the smell and my chest felt ready to burst with immeasurable pleasure, a heaven of its own that drew me like a moth to light.
I squinted through the trees and saw him, but he was changed. He looked dirty, rangier, and the gleam in his eyes looked crazed. Still, I took a step forward, relieved and exultant at finally being able to see him. He mirrored my move, coming out just a little from the shadow of the trees.
I gasped at the state he was in. His clothes were in tatters and his feet were bare. His sun-tanned skin had a sickly pallor to it, and his cheeks looked hollowed. He reminded me of a hungry beast, one that seemed to hunger for me, if the intent dark stare he directed towards me meant anything. Both fear and delight suffused me. That thing in the shadows was MY Papa, however much he had been changed.
I felt a tug on my sleeves and John (the human bodyguard charged with guarding me since I was in elementary) urged, "We have to get back into the house, Mr. Eirickson!"
And then another guard started to shout into his radio. "He's here! His father is here! Get Ramsey, now!"
GGGRRRLLL!
The hair-raising growl resembled that of a lion, and for a moment everyone stopped to look in the direction of the trees. The flurry of activities and the threat of losing his prey maddened the creature that looked like my father. He had stepped out completely from the shadows, fangs and claws bared, his face a horrifying contortion of menace. He growled more viciously as the sun, though blanketed by the thick clouds, started to burn his sensitive skin. Harold's words came back to me at the sight:
"Rogues are vampires that have given into bloodlust too many times to reclaim sanity. They are constantly looking for victims to sate their thirst, becoming more beast than man... They look the part too."
I had never seen a Rogue in my life and had only the descriptions of Papa, Uncle Ramsey, and Harold to go by, but it struck me that with the way Papa was looking then, he could have passed for a Rogue.
One minute he was standing at the edge of the trees, and the next minute he was behind me. I sucked in a sharp breath when his strong arm banded 'round my middle and yanked me into him.
"Mine!" He growled through gritted teeth. His voice was guttural and inhuman.