Eternal: Chapter Three, Part 5

“How are you handling your hunger?” the woman asked after a long, breaking the long pause.

Exhaustion weighed heavy on me and I wished we could skip to what I wanted to discuss. “I’m handling it well, though the lack of fresh air around here isn’t helping anything.”

“Elaborate.”

Speaking with my hands, I did my best to simplify what wasn’t so simple. “My element finds nutrients in energy—mostly sounds, people’s thoughts, emotions, so on—and my vampire is sated by those nutrients.”

“How, though?” the presiding vampire asked, sitting forward on his elbows.

Shrugging, I admitted, “It’s really complicated, and I only understand the basics of it aside from it works.”

“Interesting.” After a moment, he sat back again. “We cannot leave you in Mr. Valmoritim’s custody, as he has disregarded Council rulings and has proven himself a poor role model. Instead, we would like to place you in the temporary custody of Councilmember Emaline Walters until another vampire has been found to raise you,” he said in a way that made it clear he didn’t see my opinion of the option as mattering. It did; he just didn’t know it yet.

“May I offer another option?” I asked, holding his eyes steadily, despite my exhaustion.

Leaning forward, he amusedly inquired, “What would this other option be?”

“The way I understand things,” I said, “personal dealings with an elemental are against your rulings because it will interfere or alter our destinies. Am I correct in this understanding?”

“Yes,” he said slowly.

“So then, by that logic, if I’m still able to accomplish what I’m destined for, none of this should be a problem. Is this an accurate assumption?”

The seven vampires below him glanced up, intrigued and concerned. Whatever he said now would become law. “In a large part, yes.”

“Then I propose you suspend any rulings on these events for three years, allowing me to do what I’m supposed to do,” I said, looking at all eight of them in turn, ending with the presiding vampire. “If, at the end of that time, there has been significant advancement in the direction my movement is supposed to go in, all charges are dropped. If, however, I fail, or have been unable to make significant progress, then you can press any and all charges. How does that sound?”

He was pensive at first; he didn’t look at me, though several of the others did between watching him, trying to guess at his reaction. “We shall confer and when you return with the others, you shall hear our verdict.”

“Very well, then.” It was better than no.

Eternal: Chapter Three, Part 2

“We shall begin the proceedings on this first night in May, of the human year 2015,” the presiding vampire, the one seated above the rest, stated in a dramatically disinterested voice. His dark eyes were scanning over a document before him, then they glinted at us as he continued, “We shall begin with the reading of your charges. Step forward when your name is called.”

“Valetta Bevinston,” the centermost councilmember began; Valetta took a step forward, her head up but her eyes diverted. “You are being charged with conspiring against Council rulings and being an accessory to unlawful conduct. Do you understand the charges brought against you?” His dark eyes bore into her.

“I do.”

“Very well, then,” he said, monotonously. “Mitchell Jameson.”

He stepped forward, changing places with Valetta. The vampire read the same list of charges, to which Mitchell agreed he understood. I watched, everything feeling as though it was happening in slow motion. This was happening because of me. They encouraged us, kept our secret, and now they were being charged as felons. It wasn’t right; I wanted to make this go away, to plot a way to fix things. But the vampire’s silky, monotonous voice demanded absolute attention and any attempt to do otherwise was thwarted the moment he spoke again.

“Drei Valmoritim.” My eyes followed Drei as he stepped forward, my plotting forgotten. Unlike Mitchell and Valetta, he didn’t look down, but stared at the vampire, awaiting the list of charges he faced. He knew, already, what rules he had broken, and the consequences. He wasn’t going fight them; he wouldn’t deny any of it. Despite the situation, that thought delighted me briefly. Drei wouldn’t deny me; even if that was our undoing, it was the greatest thing he could have done. The feeling, though, disappeared as the vampire began reading the charges.

“You are being charged with conspiring against Council rulings, jeopardizing an elemental’s purpose, seducing a mortal, seducing an elemental, feeding on a mortal, feeding on an elemental, and two acts of high treason: turning a mortal and turning an elemental.” My heart sank with each item. “Do you understand the charges brought against you?”

“I do,” Drei replied stonily, his face set like marble. Shadows didn’t dance across his features, but he appeared just as menacing as the others. I wished I could appear strong like him in this place; I’d even settle for the subdued guiltiness of Valetta and Mitchell. But all I continued to feel was ill and crushingly guilty.

“Abriel Jones.” Drei stepped back to the far side of Mitchell as I took his place, glancing down the line of shadowy figures before me before diverting my eyes to my feet. “Sir,” he said, turning to face the presiding vampire. “You wished to handle this one?”

“Yes, Tudor,” he replied before turning his attention away from the document before him. “Miss Jones, how long has it been since you were turned?”

“Roughly a year and a couple of weeks,” I answered, looking up at him as he leaned forward, more of his face coming into the lantern light.

“Were you given a choice in the matter?”

“Will it change anything?”

“In the case of your charges and the outcome in regards to you, it will,” he said, his black eyes studying me carefully. I was about to glance over my shoulder at Drei when he snapped at me to answer him. Yeah, they definitely knew how to be delicate about this sort of thing.

“No,” I whispered, unable to return my gaze to him.

“Miss Jones, you are then free of charges as an innocent, for the time being. If our interrogations to follow should find you otherwise, the charge will be of falsifying information and seduction of a vampire,” he said before sitting back again. “Should your status remain that of an innocent, during your interrogation, we will also deliberate what shall be done about you.” Was I really so much of a burden something had to be done about me? If I were in a better state I probably would have argued with him. I was their burden because they deemed me so, not because I had to be. “Do you understand your situation?”

“I do.”

“Adjourn to the hallway,” Tudor instructed. “You shall be summoned one at a time for your interrogations. We shall begin with Valetta Bevinston.”

In the hallway, Mitchell paced anxiously, glancing towards the door, concerned with how Valetta was faring. Drei leaned elegantly against a wall, his hands buried in his pockets, his eyes closed in meditation. Between Drei’s resignation and Mitchell’s nerves, I didn’t have focus enough to figure out how I was feeling amidst this mess. By now, I was fairly certain my nerves were shot and I was faintly worried about how Valetta was doing, how Mitchell would do next, and Drei after him, but I had no clue as to what the vast majority of me was feeling.

I sat curled in the corner, my head resting in my arms. This whole experience was tiring and the lack of fresh air wasn’t helping my hunger—now a fairly large part in my distraction. If anything, it only starved me faster.

Mentally shaking myself, I pried my mind from thoughts of my hunger and tried listening to whatever was happening to Valetta. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to concentrate long enough to pull the conversation to me. Their emotions were drawing too much of my element’s attention, seeking anything that resembled what it usually relied on to satiate me.

Eternal: Chapter One, Part 3

We went walking almost nightly after that. The only nights we didn’t was when Drei had other things to do, but then he’d let me open the windows in the apartment and do as I liked, so long as I didn’t leave. He still wasn’t sure why I wasn’t constantly hungry anymore, and didn’t want something to happen when he wasn’t there. I didn’t hold his worries against him; I loved him, and somewhat knew how he could be before I told him as much. Despite everything in our past—the fights, the separation, the disagreements—I couldn’t fathom loving anyone else as much as I did him.

Before Drei had come to some conclusion about my hunger “issue,” I had guessed it was heavily rooted in my element; it was the only thing that really made sense considering how intense it was now. His conclusion reflected this.

“Your element and your vampire inhabit the same space, obviously,” Drei said one evening at breakfast. “It makes sense they would share everything else, including your nutrition. When your element is sated, which happens when it is being actively used as much as I can tell, your vampire is also sated.”

“But not vice versa?” I asked.

“No, because your element cannot draw nutrients as your vampire does.”

“So how does my element draw nutrients?” That was the concept I didn’t understand. Drei shrugged in response; because he didn’t have an answer, I still had to drink a mug of animal blood once a week to ensure I was receiving all of the nutrients I needed. Though I had grown accustomed to the taste, it wasn’t something I had learned to enjoy consuming.

It took a long time for me to figure it out, but I eventually did discover how my element drew nutrients. When we went walking, my element automatically began exploring everything, reaching out to hear, see, and feel various things and people in the surrounding area; by doing this, my element was extracting energy from people, plants, animals, sound, anything and everything, basically. It never drew so much from any one thing to be disruptive, but it drew enough that by the end of our walk, I had nutrition enough to fulfill my needs.

I thought about telling Drei, but he seemed satisfied enough having pieced together what he had. Besides, I doubted it would dissuade him from my weekly blood requirement.

Oftentimes, I would fall asleep in Drei’s arms around sunrise, though I knew he would leave again to wait for his phone calls. Part of me was concerned with how many calls he had been taking lately, considering he’d never been much for chatting. I chose to trust him. If it continued on much longer, I would ask about it again, I decided. I had a right to know, and it would be better to ask than to do nothing and let the nerves build until they exploded. We had already been there once before; I didn’t think either of us was too keen on revisiting.