17: Wheel in the Sky

Dying is not what most people think it is-nothing flashes before your eyes, there’s no white light or what have you. The only thing I felt was pain, the blood flowing through my shirt and fingers, making them sticky and beginning to form a coat on my clothes. I couldn’t see much beyond the few feet in front of me, the sun had long such set and darkness had fallen on swift wings. There was one sound: my blood pulsing like it was right in my ears. Eventually I made it to the grass hill where I fell, too weak to walk another step.
While I lay there, certain I was destined to die, he came to me, and I was so convinced I was gone for he looked like an angel: his hair was golden, like wheat, his eyes were a deep dark blue-think of the deepest, darkest part of the ocean-and his smile was serene and calm as he looked down at me. As he whispered his questions, the first I answered verbally, the second nonverbally since I was too weak to speak, he picked me up gracefully and we flew through the forest, again convincing me that if I wasn’t dead yet then I was very close to it.
The cabin wasn’t much different from my own-lit sparsely by a few lanterns-three shadows stood about: one very tall, male, against the far wall, one slightly shorter, male, hunched over a table, the last was medium height, obviously female from the shape of her body, who was crushing something on a long bench opposite the door. The instant we entered, the female led the smaller male outside and the taller one came to us. Again, I felt like I was looking at angel: his hair was rich brown, his build was like that of a laborer and his eyes were golden. He quietly explained what would happen, what I would become, yet didn’t have to. I must have implied I didn’t care by then for he changed me.
It took me just over a year, but my priority was exactly the same: getting my angel back. Tristan showed me what she had become-one of us-and my mind could not conceive it for quite some time. Me being one of these beasts was one thing, but my angel, my Rose? It didn’t seem possible…Yet it was.
Of course, this gave me hope. Stupid, foolish hope that what we once had we could have again, despite being what we were. I watched from afar-and then HE came to be. If I thought I had known pain before, I knew I had known nothing. Webster’s didn’t have a word close to what I felt, more than any physical pain, I wished more than anything that I had died that cold April night.
Instead of making those around me suffer, I ran. I was wild, reckless, though careful enough to not be noticed. Soon as I was, I took off again. For the past six years, all I had felt was love for my Rose, now all I felt was an uncontrollable rage, a fire that burned inside me and was not going to be vanquished easily. Most of this anger was directed at inanimate objects though more than once a bystander or two was the target instead. I never forgave myself for those-especially the entire family I had destroyed.
This life took its toll on me and one fateful night, Tristan and I were reunited. Now though he was very different looking-his hair was dark brown, his eyes a light brown, hazel. He was dressed in hiking clothes rather than the fine suit I’d first seen him in. For the longest time, we stood and stared-I was a mess, my clothes drenched in blood, my hair matted down with the sticky substance, I looked like something out of a horror movie.
Like a murderer out of a horror movie-which more less I was.
Finally, I fell to my knees, at his waist, grabbed him tightly, and begged him to either save me again or kill me-by then, I didn’t care which. He agreed to the first thing and led me to a hotel room where he was staying. After I was showered, shaved, and cleaned up, we waited until sun-up-well, I waited, Tristan slept soundly-before we left to the coven I had left behind nearly fifty years ago.
Added to the coven were three more: Luke’s mate, Sarah, a striking strawberry blonde that was an inch or so taller than 5’7’’ Lisa, and David and Michael-which left me breathless. It didn’t seem fair-that an entire generation was trapped in this world. Thankfully, Jonathan welcomed me back with open arms.
Then, there were the doctors-again, over time many more had come. The experiments that Tristan had started shortly before I had taken off had seriously gotten better-now they were changing vampires into humans again on a daily basis and were keeping them alive.
I wished I could have felt the gratefulness that the ones he changed did but I was still in too much pain over my loss. Fortunately, the entire coven seemed to know and aside from the occasional slip up by Michael no one dared say the name of my pain.