Deadly Beautiful. by Vivian Vargas (little readers .txt) 📖

comforting. I was no longer afraid of the big bad forest as he led me back to my house and put me to bed, planting a wintry kiss on my forehead before I closed my eyes and slept. I dreamed of the mysterious man with red eyes all that night.


***********

Whitney
For about a month, I was living quite decently in the hotel. I wasn’t making much money, but I did work for the roof over my head. I was saving up my money for a reason I never really knew. Those four hundred pounds I took from my mother turned into five hundred, then after a few months, it was made into seven hundred. I stashed all my earnings in my hotel room, split up in different places in case I got robbed, that way I wont lose all my money. It was just in case money.
I made several friends there. Other maids. That was something I wasn’t quite expecting. They were all friendly, hard-working women. Women with bunions on their feet and calluses on their hands. Women with three or four children at home, children that they really cared for to be slaving their asses in order to put something on their plate and clothes on their backs. I adored them all and I looked up to them. I was happier here, more at peace. There was no uncaring mother in my life, no pervert hounding my heels
I made especially good friends with a Druid girl named Sasha. She’s a tall, reed-thin girl with short blonde hair, huge cow brown eyes and a tired, lack-luster face. Druids are still considered human, but with magical abilities no human possesses. The old term for Druids were Witches or Wizard, but they have been condemned as prejudicial terms, taboo, like the “n” word. Sasha could do a lot of crazy things I never knew could happen. Why she is working as a bloody maid, I don’t know, but she is certainly one cool bitch.
I never made friends with anybody from the Night Clan. I don’t think I have ever even made acquaintances with those people. I was once face-to-face with a werewolf, which was pretty fucking scary. But the werewolf just looked at me and snorted, walking away and twitching his big furry tail. And a vampire once came to school to talk about his recollections on World War 2. He was super-hot. I mean like oh my god if only the school recruited him for a strip tease that would really make eight hours of wasted time worth it. But the fanged asshole was so bloody conceited he came across his reflection in my professors’ desk mirror and actually became so immersed in it that he forgot about his speech.
A lot people have things against any non-human thing in the Night Clan, especially religious nuts. But not me. What should I have anything against them? I am quite unreligious. I cannot call myself Atheist, because I do believe in God to an extent, but I’m not completely sold on the notion on a higher power. When times are bad, I pray to whatever is out there. I don’t say “Dear God” or whatever. But I talked to Him or Her like they were my buddy. I would ask me to help me out please. Do something God, if you were really out there. Anything.

*****
Sasha was the one who introduced me to George. Accidentally of course. She intended on only taking me to what she called a party, meaning, a Druid ritual. The Druids were chanting some freaky hubaloo to their Sun Goddess or whatever the bloody hell it was. I didn’t participate, (I had plenty fun eating the hor de vours and drinking the wine), but to enter the ritual I had to wear Druid “guest” garb. It was nothing but a red partially see-through slip that was black underwear was visible through.
I had no idea until I caught George’s attention.
“You know, these Druids should really think about a different fabric when making those guest slips.” He said as he came up to me. He was wearing a red slip too but he was smart enough to wear shorts underneath. I saw his hairy belly though. “But they use these fabrics as a symbol of self-love. All humans should love one another, Druids should love one another. Humans should love Druids, and Druids should love humans, no matter how either one looks.”
I took a good look at him and realized I was probably showing a little more than I certainly wanted to. He laughed when he saw my reaction, and then crawled in a little closer to me. His aura kind of made me shiver.
“Don’t worry.” He breathed into my ear, “It doesn’t look bad on you at all.”

****
George, obviously, was no Druid. But some of his family was married to them. Sasha was supposed to be cousin-in-law, which is why he was at that party. He loved the art of magic, and was fascinated as the Druids conjured it over and over again. He always wanted to be one, but if you don’t have the magic in your blood, there was no way you could try. I noted that some of the Druid women eyed him with dirty looks, but at that time I simply chose to ignore it. I didn’t particularly enjoy George’s company, because I had a bad feeling about him, but I could not deny that I was attracted to him. Sometimes, even women think with their groin instead of their heads.
He was pretty cute, in a nerdy kind of way. He was tall and thin with reddish brown hair and nice blue eyes. He wore stylish Prada eyeglasses and the watch on his wrist looked very expensive. He was clean cut and he smelled good, and all of the above attracted me. Shallow much? Don’t even mention it. I am young and quite retarded.
He asked me for my name. I told him. He asked me where I come from. I told him. He asked me about my life. I told him everything. There was something about him that made me talk too much. I simply could not shut the fuck up. Or maybe it wasn’t him at all, maybe it was just the wine, but I knew I shouldn’t tell him such things. Who would want to know that I was almost raped by my mother’s sleazy boyfriend? Who would want to know that I ran away from home to escape that abuse and neglect? Who would want to know that my life in Cumberland was shit?
George did. George wanted to know everything about me. All for the wrong reasons.

*****************
Morgan

I stopped Fannie at the spot of the forest where I first met Liam. I tied her reign to a low branch, giving her another piece of apple to soothe her nerves. I had to admit I was a little nervous also. The prospect of meeting Liam always made me jittery.
The wind died down. The leaves on the very same oak tree where I have first seen Liam stilled. The moonlight cast a milky glow on the hearth beneath my feet, making it appear as a beautiful dark emerald color. I waited for him a little impatiently, my heart beating ever so quickly. I always wondered if he could hear my heartbeat. Vampires do have an extraordinary sense of hearing. Liam once told me that he could hear my normal heartbeat if he concentrated on that and that only. Could he hear my ridiculously rapid one now?
I heard a twig snap and nearly leaped out of my skin. I gripped Fannie’s reign tighter in an effort not to scream out. There’s a number of things in these woods that could harm me, not only werewolves and vampires. I only come out here alone, at night, because I am always quick to believe that Liam, my crimson eyed savior, would find me and keep me safe. But I was doubting my beliefs now, when the bushes started to rustle and the creaking sound of something formidable and large came closer and closer…
“You look lovely tonight, Morgan.” Said a deep, affluent voice, rich with that cool shrewdness that I have become so accustomed to these past years. The cobra charming the human, I thought.
Liam lurked out of the bushes looking more put together than I did. He daintily brushed off a piece of fern from his shoulder and straightened out his breeches. He looked up, smiling widely as he took me in, his sharp, long fangs gleaming in the moonlight. He came closer and every one of his perfect, handsome features were thrown into the light.
I cannot say enough how frighteningly red his eyes are. They are his most dominate feature. They were evenly set in his chiseled, angular face, almond-shaped and slightly double-lidded, but framed with beautifully thick eyelashes. His brow was strong and furrowed, his forehead high and topped with an elegant widow’s peak hairline. His dark chestnut colored hair fell past his dimpled chin and was tied at the nape of his neck. His nose was perfect, with small nostrils and a smooth bridge. His mouth was flawlessly full. His skin was pale, as white as the very moon. As white as a dead corpse, but smooth and spotless, not a blemish on it. He was simply a beautiful thing, so handsome that it was hard to think of anything other than that when I was around him.
He rushed to me with blinding speed. How could he perform such a feat I will never truly know, but it was remarkable. How was it that humans seemed so shamefully feeble compared to these wonderful creatures?
He bowed to me and kissed my hand, making me blush. His blood red eyes never left mines, and the very action sent a series of chills up my spine.
“I’m going to miss that.” He whispered, stroking a cold finger along my reddened cheeks. I could not help but feel that area of skin burn where his icy finger touched me. He let his hand drop, and then stuffed them in the pockets of his breeches. He was staring at me now, his expression a little pained.
“What’s wrong Liam?” I accidentally blurted out. I did not mean to say it, because I knew I should not ask of his wellbeing. A human has no business trying to pry into a vampire’s mind. At least, that’s how Liam felt. When we met on occasions like this, it was always about me, how I was fairing, if I were feeling well, if I were happy. On a rarity Liam talked of himself, but truthfully I hardly knew anything about him.
However, I did know that Liam is more than two centuries old. When he was human, he worked as a mercenary, taking some goods to his family back home and was ambushed by a gang of thieves. They stabbed him in the stomach and took all of his merchandise, leaving him to die. A vampire named Arthur found him and saved him by siring him. He had a wife and three little babes, all whom he outlived. He told me that he let his family believe he was dead because he could not bear the idea of them knowing he turned into a bloodsucking monster. Two centuries ago vampires were much less socially accepted than they are now, and if they had a way to kill him, they certainly would have.
Unfortunately that’s all he told me. When I tried breaking down the wall of obscurity around him that protected him from the pain and guilt he bore upon the fate of his family, all he did