Bleeding Love (30 page)

“Why do we have
to wait?” he asked with a petulant frown covering his face.

She stopped in
her tracks and waited for him to catch up to her side. She sighed. Usually they
would be holding hands and kissing. However they weren’t acting like that
today. She had a feeling she knew how this was going to end, that they were just
prolonging the inevitable. But she didn’t want to abandon all hope.

“I hope you two
haven't been waiting for too long,” Adrienne's familiar voice said, lightening
the tension enveloping the whole area. “And I hope you weren't bored out of
your mind.” She walked up to the couple. Xavier, Aiden, and Brianna trailed
behind her.

“Far from it,” Yvonne
answered, rolling her eyes then smirking. “I'm going to tell him,”

Xavier tightened
his grip on Adrienne's hand, and then immediately, she knew what the blonde
vampire meant. She was going to show Tristan what she was capable of,
what 
they
 were capable of, the strength, the speed, the
mind–reading. He needed to know if they were going to be able to remain a
couple. Curious but worried at the same time, she whispered a question into
Xavier's ear.

“Can she do that?”

He answered back,”
If things don't go as planned, we'll erase part of his memory.”

“I forgot about
that option.”

She was smiling,
suddenly remembering the night of her debut. That was when most of her
questions were answered by Brianna.

Her friend had
found out about the existence of vampires when she was attacked by some
criminal vampire. She had been saved by the good guys, and then given the
choice by Adie’s father to retain her knowledge and help their kind. Most who
found out about vampires had their memory altered to remove the knowledge of
their kind.

They kept this
option to a minimum since taking away a person's memories and thoughts was like
removing a part of his life from him. As much as they didn't want to do that to
Tristan, they had no choice if the revelations didn’t go well.

“We're ready when
you are.”

Nodding, Yvonne
headed for the nearest tree and placed the palms of her hands against the
trunk. Looking at Tristan, she smiled at him before she pushed and sent the
whole tree crashing down onto the ground. Adrienne and Xavier, who were slowly
bending into a crouching position, immediately frowned when they read the
human's mind.

What the hell
is she doing?
Tristan
looked at Adrienne and Xavier, they just stood their, watching Ivy. In the
blink of an eye she stood before him. She’d moved to fast for him to see her.
“What is going on? Yvonne, what are you doing? How can you move like that? Did
you guys rig that tree? I don’t understand.” Tristan took a step back from his
girlfriend and looked at Adrienne. “Adie, what’s going on?”

“Talk to Yvonne,
Tristan. I can’t really help you with this.” She tried to smile at him
encouragingly.

“Tristan,” Yvonne
called to him.

When he turned to
face her again, she smiled, showing her fangs. “I am a vampire,” she said simply.

Tristan laughed.
When he realized that no one was laughing with him, he looked at her with wild
eyes. He turned to his long time friend, considered the man at her side.
“Xavier too, huh, Adie?”

In answer, Xavier
grinned, showing fang.

Tristan took another
step back. “Adie?” He quickly glanced at his best gal pal. “What’s going on
here?” He looked over at Brianna, then at Aiden who was also smiling, showing
fang

Adrienne stepped
forward, holding out her hand. “Its okay, Tristan, I’m a vampire too.”

No. She can't
be, Yvonne and Xavier were vampires…he understood that, it even made a weird
kind of sense. Considering they kind of kept out of the sun, Yvonne didn’t like
heavy kissing…obviously because of the fangs.
He groaned.
Shit, so they must have
turned Adie into one of the living dead. And he’d gone with Yvonne to bring his
friends demon lover back to her side. And Aiden.
A quick glance at Bree’s
boyfriend showed fangs too.
Damn him!

Immediately
Tristan bolted. Dashing wildly as his arms continuously flailed in the air. No
one, not even a professional wrestler, was strong enough to push a
deeply–rooted tree out of the ground. Nor could they move that fast. He didn't want
to know anything else. He just wanted out of here. He was scared out of his
mind, and the only thing he wanted was to reach his car and drive off. When he
was an arm's reach away, he felt a strong gust of wind push him forward, he
tumbled and fell. Before he knew it, Xavier was leaning over him.

“I'm sorry,” the
black–haired male said.

Darkness closed in
upon Tristan, and he lost all consciousness. When he woke up a few moments
later Adrienne, Xavier, Yvonne, Aidan, and Brianna stood in front of him. He
quickly stood up and moved beside the blonde female. “Did I fall,” he asked as
he tried to snake his arm around Ivy’s slim waist, but she pulled away from his
grasp. He looked at her with a questioning glare. “Why'd you do that?”

Yvonne, whose
head was bent down, muttered, “We're over.”

Tristan, in that
moment, felt like a heavy weight had been dropped on his shoulders. He wondered
why she’d said those words with provocation. They hadn’t been fighting. In
fact, he thought that everything was going well for the two of them. It hadn't
even been a month, and she wanted to break up already. Scratch that. She’d
already broken up with him. “Why?”

“We're not going
to work out. You and I cannot happen,” she answered, eyeing Brianna and Aidan
warily. “Can you guys take me into town; you can drop me off at the mall.”

“We have to talk,
Ivy,” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder which she quickly shook away. “Don't
push me away just like this.”

“You pushed me
away first.”

“What the hell
does that mean?” Tristan asked, his voice threatening, as he ran a hand through
his mocha–colored hair.

In the background,
Xavier and Adrienne were furtively glancing at Aidan and Brianna. They read Bree's
thoughts and saw that worry clouded her brain. Tristan was a human who had
feelings for a vampire. Brianna was in the same situation, although hers was
even worse. She was 
in love
 with a vampire, and how long would
their relationship last? He'd be as beautiful and flawless fifty years from
now. In five decades, her hair would be graying, and her face would start to
wrinkle. She knew what would eventually happen and what she had to do. But she
couldn't bring herself to break up with him. She loved him too much, so she
kept quiet.

“I don't have to
explain to you why we're not together anymore,” the blonde then said, getting
in Tristan's car and slamming the door closed.

“What's wrong
with you, woman?” Tristan was on the brink of pulling the hairs on his head
out. “First you break up with me without a decent reason, and now you're
abusing my car!”

“Just take me
home, Tryst.”

He breathed out a
sigh. They were really over now. “Can't we fix things?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“I said no.”

“Pretty please?”

“No.”

“Pretty please
with a cherry on top?”

“Suck your own
cherry, Tryst! I said no. What don't you understand about that word?”

The human
emanated a low growl from deep within his chest. Why was she being so
hardheaded? Especially after all they'd done together? They traveled to Europe
together. Didn't that mean anything?

“Fine. Consider
this the last time I take you anywhere.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Then what are
you waiting for? Why aren't you driving yet?” she demanded.

Slamming his own
car door closed, Tristan turned the engine on and sped off.

When the couple
had moved out of site, Brianna turned to face Aidan, and he saw fear clouding
her eyes. Smoothing a hand over her cheek, he asked her why she looked worried.

“Did you see what
happened a while ago?” she asked her boyfriend.

Aidan nodded his
head.

“That's going to
happen to us, isn’t it.”

In that moment,
his eyes turned a bloody shade of red, as he squeezed his shoulders to steady
himself up. “No, it's not.”

“Seriously, Aidan.”
Brianna was looking away from him now. “We're not like Xavier and Adrienne.”

The people
mentioned remained silent in the background, arms around each other. They could
read Brianna's thoughts. They didn’t agree with her, but it was up to Aiden to
make this point.

“We're not going
to break up. You aren’t going to be freaked by what I am, you already know I’m
a vampire.”

Bree rolled her
eyes. “That’s not what I mean and you know it. You won’t age, I will. There's no
way for us to stay together for very long.”

“There's an
alternative,” answered Adrienne, looking up to meet Xavier's eyes. “It's a big
sacrifice, but it's still very possible.”

“Adrienne, you
can't seriously mean…” Xavier's eyes told her to keep quiet. “No, he can't.”

“Yes, he can if
she's willing to give up everything else,” she insisted.

“I can't,
Adrienne,” it was Aidan who spoke this time. “I might lose control.”

Brianna looked at
her friends, frowning. “What are you guys saying?” Her gaze moved from one
vampire to another. “I'm lost.”

Xavier ran his fingers through
his shaggy mop of hair. He moved his other hand from Adrienne's shoulder to her
hip. He then pulled her closer and set her in front of him, so now he was
hugging her from the back.

Despite her boyfriend’s
nervous actions, Adrienne rolled her eyes.
“Just bite
her, Aidan.” Her eyes turned crimson. “Turn her.”

“She'll lose her
family.”

“She won’t loose
them, she just won’t be able to tell them anything about her new life. And she'll
gain more,” Adrienne quickly quipped, turning to her best friend. “You have a
choice to make here, Brianna.”

“There's no
choice,” Xavier's voice was firm.

“Xavier, there is
a choice–” Adrienne started to argue.

“I want to be
like you guys,” Brianna cut in, interrupting Adrienne’s willingness to fight
for her friend. She turned to her boyfriend. “I want to be with you, Aidan.”

“You don't know
what you're saying,” He shook his head at her. “You'll have to adjust to a new
life. You'll have to leave your family. You'll have to leave this place sooner
or later. You'll have a craving for blood. Do you want that?”

“I want you.
Everything else doesn’t matter,” she replied seriously.

Aidan turned to
look at his best friend, Xavier, intending to ask him for advice. He knew he
was being selfish, but he wanted to turn her into a vampire. He loved her. He
lived for her. Like what the
Twilight
poster said, 'If you can
live forever, what do you live for?' For Aiden Cross, that answer was Brianna. He
lived for Brianna. When he realized that, he know he didn’t have to ask his
best friend’s advice. He knew what the right thing to do was. He turned to
Bree, starting toward her. “There's no turning back,” he warned. Slowly closing
the distance between them.

“I know,” she
whispered.

“Aidan, stop,” Xavier
commanded, and his friend obliged. “Think about this first.”

Before Aidan
could respond to that, Adrienne stepped in front of her fiancé. She wasn't
really a hopeless romantic, but she knew the importance of love in a person's
life, that life cannot exist without love. She knew how Brianna felt about
Aiden, and what the vampire felt for her best friend. She would fight Xavier
for their happiness.

“Imagine life
without a mate, Xavier,” Adrienne whispered, her fingers playing with the
strands o hair on his nape. “Imagine how life would be if we didn’t have each
other.”

Frowning and
knowing she had won this, Xavier answered, “I can't imagine life without you,
Adie, You know I need you.”

“That's how Bree
feels,” she said simply. “How Aiden feels.”

Xavier then
thinned his lips since he knew Adrienne's father wasn't going to like this.

His fiancé
pressed the issue, “Put yourself in their place.”

“I hate the fact
that you're making sense,” he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “But the
rest is up to Brianna and Aidan. We don't have a say in this anymore.”

“We'll see you
guys in a few hours?” Adrienne then asked. “Xavier and I just want to run through
the forest.”

“We'll see you,” Aidan
answered, slowly pulling Bree away from the other two vampires.

Hopping on
Aidan's back, Brianna circled his neck loosely with her arms, and when she said,
“Go.” Aiden sped off into a darker, more secluded part of the forest. They ran
past trees, stones, and a few animals here and there. When he felt that they
were far enough from civilization, he stopped and carefully helped her down.