Chapter seven: Ethan

Chapter seven: Ethan

My obnoxious sister, Lindsey, was the first to greet me at the door, eager to be the primary one to set my nerves on overdrive. A wicked smile appeared on her face, as if she was glad to see me in utter pain. I inhaled a much needed amount of fresh air. Any second now, I’d hear some kind of smart remark from her. 

“What happened this time Ethan, did your new girlfriend lose her temper and bite you?”

I followed the direction in which my sister was staring, and realized her comment was directed towards Jessie.

“Not at all, Lindsey, and she isn’t my girlfriend. This would be Jessie, the

dhampire, mother had mentioned for you to be nice to.”

Lindsey shrugged her shoulders and swirled around to enter the main doors. “Does it really make a difference Ethan, at one point or another; she’ll end up in your bed.”

I stood frozen in place. An uneasy laugh escaped my mouth. I would have to get back at her for that one. I turned to face Jessie, who was staring at me with a face of pure murder. And just like that I was saved by the bell, when I heard my younger brother, Robert, call my name from inside.

I placed my hand over Jessie’s shoulder, as I lightly pushed her towards the entrance of the main house.

“Jesus Ethan, what happened to you?” Robert asked, when I reached the lounge area.

He shut his book, got up from his seat by the fire and strolled over to where I stood. Lindsey on the other hand crossed the room to where Robert was seated and dumped herself onto the abandoned armchair.

My sister hadn’t always had an attitude problem. In fact from what I could remember she was always one of the happiest growing up. But all that had changed the night she turned into a vampire.

She had been eighteen for a few months and in her mind she was now free to do what she wanted. She was beginning to become a little bit of a rebel, mostly because of a few new humans she had become acquainted with. My father at the time didn’t mind the three of us being friends with the human world, mostly because we weren’t vampires yet, and the taste for blood wasn’t in our veins. He believed it would be something of a good thing to be part of nineteenth century society, with everything in the world changing. But when I turned twenty-three years old, my father began to notice a change in my behavior, that was when he pulled the plug and detached us from the mortal world.

Father had spent weeks on end trying to explain to Lindsey that it was no longer safe to spend time with her mortal friends and she had to deal with the fact that a lot was about to change. A new chapter in her life was about to begin, the moment I turned my brother and sister would turn shortly after.

But that wasn’t a good enough reason for my sister, she was sure that she wouldn’t be a danger to any of her friends and that her time to become a vampire wouldn’t happen until a few days after I turned.

Boy was she mistaken. On the fourteenth of October, eighteen-eighty-one, a day before I turned, Lindsey escaped, ran away from the castle. She had planned it with a few friends to pick her up about twenty miles away in a small town. She had left a note addressed to my mother. As much as she understood my father’s wished to stay away from the humans, she needed to spend just a little more time with them, to say good-bye. The truth was she hadn’t wanted to say good-bye to her friends as much as she said. A couple of weeks after her eighteenth birthday Lindsey had attended a ball and that was where she came into acquaints with Milton Black, a young man in his twenties, whom had just came into a large fortune, and had promised Lindsey a new life, a better life if she would marry him.

Lindsey had never told Milton the truth about who she was and what she would become. It had been one of my father’s most important rules, to keep our family and our business a secret. 

Determined to spend just a few more days with a man she believed herself to be in love with. The end result was that the moment I changed, so did Robert and Lindsey. I never really got the rest of the story of what happened to Lindsey. The few days that she was gone, all I could remember was what I was told by my mother and father.

She had been gone for a good ten days, and when my father finally did locate her and returned home, she was no longer the same girl I grew up to know. There was a sinister look upon her face and she had hatred inside her for everyone. She was never again, my sweet little Lindsey. 

My memories of the past were pushed aside by my little brother waving his hands in front of my face. “Hello, earth to Ethan, anyone home.”

“Yeah sorry, was just thinking of something. What were we talking about again?”

With a look of astonishment, Robert frantically pointed towards my injured shoulder.

“Well first off, you can explain what the bloody hell happened to your arm?”

I pulled off my blood stained t-shirt to examine how bad the wound really was. “We ran into a group of Eretniks, on our way back.” As I had imagined my left shoulder had been completely thorn apart. Blood and flesh oozed out of it.

He marched over to the bar and pulled out a clean white cloth and rinsed it in water. “Does it hurt much?” he asked, as he approached.

“Like a b***h.” I winched when he reached over and placed the wet towel on the wound.

“That is so disgusting.”

I heard Jessie exclaim, completely forgetting that she was in the room with us. I turned to face her. “You’ll have to get over it, because here you’ll see a lot worst then this.”

My brother snaked passed me, and made a bee-lined straight to her. He gently garbed her hand in his and raised it to his lips, softly placing a kiss over her perfect skin. “What beauty is this that I may be so lucky to feast my eyes upon?”

I was going to be sick. There was no stopping my brother when he began complementing a woman. If we didn’t stop him soon, everyone in the whole room would be nauseas with his charm.

“Will you introduce me, brother?” He asked.

And this is why I believed my brother would be single for the rest of his immortal life. Much had changed within the centuries. People were rude and hurtful to others,   they also didn’t care if they knew you before speaking to you, but my brother still believed it to be disrespectful to talk to anyone without a proper introduction. For him it was the only right way.

“Are you serious? You do know we don’t live in the eighteenth century anymore.”

If looks could kill, Robert’s eyes would be burning a whole straight through me. It was kind of an uneasy feeling. I had never seen Robert so raveled by a girl. It was almost disturbing.

I forced my body forward. I could hate him for making me do this. I proceeded with the proper introduction. “Ms. Jessie Sinclair, will you allow me to introduce you to my youngest brother, Prince Robert White, second in line to the throne of the Guardians Knights, second born son of our Royal Majesty King Cameron White and Queen Stella White, and Royal pain in my a*s.”

As if completely ignoring my insult, his perfect white teeth appeared with his brilliant smile. “Jessie is a wonderful name, is it short for Jessica or perhaps Jessalyn?” He intertwined his arm with hers and strolled over to a love seat by the stained glass window.

She shook her head, “No, it’s just Jessie.”

“Nevertheless, it’s a beautiful name.”

I couldn’t bear anymore of it, “Where is Uncle with the medical kit?” I barked. My brother turned at the demand for my Uncle.

“He hasn’t arrived yet,” taking a seat next to Jessie, “he went up to the castle about an hour ago, apparently one of the dhampire’s was assaulted by one of the new vampires. It was quite a mess over there.”

I fumbled over to a vacant armchair by the fire and pressed the wet cloth to my wound. It was the third time in a month that a vampire had gotten into a fight with a dhampire at the castle, it was becoming a joke. I hadn’t understood why my father believed it was a good idea to mix the two. A pure blood vampire and a mutt living under the same roof, was always sure to start something.

On the other hand I was glad that we didn’t have to always deal with it. Since the move to the main house, things were a lot more peaceful. My father decided it would be best to leave the castle for the guardian’s in training. It was big enough to house over one thousand vampires and still have room for a training ground, medical center, and school.

The main door to the house opened, and the distinctive voices of Derek, and Ciara filled the hallway towards us. Ciara was the first to step in followed by Derek and soon after my Uncle with a medical kit in his hand and grim look on his face.

I looked up to my Uncle, who was heading my way. He placed the kit on the floor next to the armchair that I was sitting at and began to examine my wound. His exhausted expression had more to do with the long hours he spent at the castle cleaning up the wounds of other vampires then a lack of sleep.

“Hard night!” he asked, as he began cleaning the wound.

“You like pretty beat up yourself,” I answered with a chuckle.

“What happened?

I began to tell my Uncle the events of the night in full detail, flinching every now and then as he cleaned and closed up the bite marks on my shoulder. He handed me a dark colored bottle. I knew what it contained, but I was positive that for any none immortal in the room, the bottles contents was a total mystery.

When I was done accounting my story to my Uncle, I turned my glaze over to where Jessie and Robert were seated, eavesdropping on my brother’s conversation with our new house guest. I became a little amused to hear that she was curious of what I was drinking.

“It’s blood!” I answered the question before my brother had a chance.

I watched as she swallowed the bail back, and the pink in her cheeks began to darken into the prefect shade of red. I couldn’t help but smile, I knew I could get under her skin and I had to admit I enjoyed doing it. “Would you like a taste?” I asked her pointing the bottle in her direction.

She hissed, “You’re disgusting!”

I pretended to be shocked, “I’m disgusting, because I drink a bottle of blood. I guess that means that everyone in this room aside for yourself, Ms. Sinclair, is disgusting, because we all drink the red stuff.

She was about to rebuttal when she realized that everyone in the room was now staring her way.

“I didn’t mean them, just you.”

“Really! Why only me, may I ask?”

She got up off the seat now, my brother following her steps. “Because you are making it your goal to make me sick,” she took a step forward. “I don’t see anyone else in the room picking on me because I’m a human, but you.”

Another challenge, hadn’t she learned from the last time she attempted to get in my face, and here she was moving her way closer to me with attitude.

If she wanted a challenge, then a challenge is what she’d get. I rose from where I sat. “Let’s get one thing straight...”

“That’s enough Ethan.” My Uncle stepped in front of me, holding me back from getting any closer to Jessie. “I just came back from a mess at the castle, the last thing I need is to clean up one over here, am I making myself clear!”

“Chrystal!” I spat.

My gaze shifted from my Uncle, to Jessie, and then back to my Uncle, who held a firm grip on my good shoulder.

“Oh damn, and hear I thought I’d get to enjoy a good fight.” I heard Lindsey complain behind me. “It’s been such a long time, I was kind of hoping Ethan would get his face slapped by a girl this time.”

“Actually he got a pretty nice punch, just a few hours ago,” Ciara murmured, before slapping her hands to her lips.

“Really, and I missed it,” Lindsey mocked, as she got up from her seat and walked across the room to where Jessie stood. She turned to face Ciara who was standing only a few feet away. “And who do I have the pleasure of saying thank you to for that?” she asked, turning her gaze over to Jessie.

The room stood quiet, but I was sure everyone could hear the rage boiling inside of me. It was bad enough that our new guest already hated me, but now I had my odious sister adding fuel to the fire.

She placed her hand gently on Jessie’s shoulder, “I believe we have a great thing in common, and we should be the best of friends because of it,” She whispered into Jessie’s ear, before letting out a menacing laugh.

Reviews

[garrshaw]

Well done, Tanya. You are quite masterful at dialogue.

[Tanya]

Thank you Garrshaw, for the review.