Immortal Destiny (ch 1-10) by Paige569 (read dune .txt) 📖

life when I was just a helpless girl lost and alone; a common run away. It was 1627 and I had just had my seventeenth birthday. We were a poor family and my father worked on a plantation in what people now call the south. I don't remember much about my father except he was a mean man and my mother was a quiet women who didn't do much besides care to his needs and tend to her children. I also had three sisters and one baby brother growing up.

I remembered always being envious of my older sister Lorena, she had hair the color of rich chocolate that flowed against her creamy skin dancing in her beauty. Every man wanted to marry her and she had her pick of countless suitors.

My younger sister's Sarah and Josephina who were twins, were freckled faced little girls with long brown hair that hung in braids along either sides of their faces. My mother would dress them up in matching outfits and they always reminded me of life size dolls.

My baby brother was just an infant when I had left home. Out of all my siblings he was the only one I checked on throughout his life. Watched him grow, marry and eventually die, such a sad cycle humans have. Though I dare say more pleasant then the one I live in, a cycle of countless murders and endless nights.

My father had promised me to a man, twenty years my senior and I begged to be let out of such an arrangement, he was old and a stranger and more importantly I did not love him.

Back then we didn't have much of a choice in matter, we listened to our father's and did what was asked.

Like many young girls I had planed to merry for love, not convenience.

I knew I could never go through it. So one night when it was still dark and my family lay sleeping in their beds, I kissed my baby brother good bye and ran away taking only clothing and the single piece of jewelry that I owned, a necklace my mother had given me that had once been hers. It was a long silver chain with a shiny oval shaped jewel. It was fake, costume jewelry, but to me the most precious of treasures and greater than any diamonds or sapphires.

When I think of it now I can still feel the mist from that cold early morning running across my face as I ran through the field and into the forest beyond our house. I can feel the underbrush slapping across my legs sending sharp waves of pain as I ran relentlessly and aimlessly. I remember thinking I should be afraid. I had no money, no connections in the world, but instead I felt free. I had roamed these forests my whole life and it was a sanctuary, my sanctuary.

A few weeks later I found myself in a town far away from my old home. I had gotten a job as a laundress and spent my nights washing clothes.

One night on my way to the room I was renting above an old shop, I heard a scuffle coming from the alley a few blocks away from where I was staying. I thought maybe someone was hurt and the curiosity sent me wandering in the direction of the noise.

The haze rolled off the dark alley floor in a thick vapor and I saw a man leaning over a women, his face buried in her neck.

Embarrassed I quickly turned away to leave when suddenly the man was standing in front of me. I looked behind me wondering how he had gotten there so fast and saw the women's limp body laying on the ground.

I went to scream, but the man swiftly covered my mouth with his palm.

"Shh child, I mean you know harm." he whispered into my ear. It was strange, it should have been scary and daunting, but it seemed so intimate the way his breath whispered against my skin making me shutter. His voice was velvet to my ears and he was beautiful like an angel.

His pallid skin and jet black eyes were the most dominant features against his dark hair.

"Now, can I trust you not to scream?" he asked softly.

I nodded my head.

I realized he was probably going to kill me and I was suddenly trembling with fear.

"What's your name child?"

"E.. El..lizabeth." I managed to say through chattering teeth.

"Such a beautiful name," he mused and stroked his hand through my hair.

His face became serious and more beautiful if that was possible. "Now Elizabeth, can I ask you what your doing roaming the streets at this hour? It's dangerous, you never know what can be lurking in the shadows" His smile was sinister.

"I'm just getting off of work, I work as a laundress." I told him.

"You're so young," his voice was disproving, "where is your family?"

"I don't have a family."

"Awe I see," he sighed, "a lost soul, just like me," he laughed quietly to himself, something I wasn't sure I was supposed to notice.

"Please sir, can I go?" I looked at him pleadingly.

"Let me ask you something Elizabeth, are you happy?"

"What do you mean?" I asked my brow furrowed. If he was going to kill me why did he care if I was happy?

"What if I told you I had a gift to offer, a gift of life, power, anything you wanted?"

"I..I don't know sir, I don't know what you want me to say?"

"I want you to make a choice Elizabeth. If you like this life you live of washing clothes and dressing in rags, than I will leave you to it, but if you want something more.... Something beyond anything you ever thought possible than you can come with me, I have been alone for too long little Elizabeth and I could use a companion, a friend."

"So I can go if I wanted to?" I asked.

"Yes, you can go."

I backed away slowly before sprinting into a run hoping it wasn't a game and that at any moment he wasn't about to pounce on me, but he didn't. when I turned around to face him he was already gone.

Months went by and things had only seemed to get harder. I slaved away at the laundry house. Never having time for anything else. The thought of finding love grew more distant and impossible. I often thought about the man I never knew the name of and what he had offered me. I wondered if I had said yes how different my life might be now. Sometimes I thought it was all my imagination, but when I remember the fear I felt I knew it was true.

One night when I was walking home the streets seemed unusually quiet and I knew, I could feel him around me. I don't know how, it was just an instinct a sixth sense and I stopped walking and looked all around and in the dark shadows.

"I know you're there." I called out.

Wind spun across my face and I was abruptly spun around.

"Hello Elie."

I laughed at the name he had called me.

"What?" he asked amused at my laughter.

"Nothing, it's just my mother used to call me Eli."

"Why are you here?" I asked him.

"Well I was wondering, if you had given any more thought about joining me."

I had thought about it, a lot. I part of me knew he would come back, but I was still surprised.

"What would it mean exactly ...to join you?" I asked hesitantly.

"I can't tell you any more than I already have, if you made the weaker decision, I would have to kill you. What I am survives on the basis alone that our world is kept as secret as possible."

"Will it hurt?" I asked.

"Only for a moment,"

I could feel my heart pounding in my chest like it would break through my bones every prolonged moment he awaited his answer. I had to say yes, who wouldn't say yes? He was offering me a life of never worrying. I would have time to find my one true love and he wanted to be my friend. I can't remember the last time I had had a friend since I left home and I was lonely too.

I looked up him and nodded yes.

He lend towards me and I felt his cold breath on the base of my neck.

"Wait." I said so soft it was barely a whisper.

"What is it?" he asked and I could tell he was annoyed.

"What should I call you?"

"You may call me Cyril."

Then I felt a sharp pain as he bit into my neck.


*********************


I haven't thought of that night for centuries. I haven't thought about love for even longer. I was so far from that scared lonely girl wondering the streets at night on her way home from slaving over boiling water as a laundress.


I wonder now I f I had the chance if I would do it again knowing what Cyril had really been offering. A life of darkness and never ending shadows. For the past three hundreds years I have been falling through a deep dark pit and into a blazing fire only the fire was black and there was no light.


Things are different though now. Now I have Marcus shining a light into my dark world and I see no shadow, only light and something else. Love.


chapter 7

An entire week has passed sense I have last seen Marcus. I've considered going out looking for him, but have managed to talk myself out of it every time.

Either too big a risk or Cyril was staring at me in what I was sure to be suspicion.

There was also vile Blake constantly watching me with his every eye ready to catch me with my guard down. He would love all too much to find out this terrible yet wonderful secret I kept, it would both destroy me and empower him at the same time.

Tonight wasn't as dark as most as I sat in the window seat on the second story of the mansion twirling my mother's necklace around my fingers while staring unseeingly into nothingness. For the last few days I have done nothing but sit and stare. Not even going out to hunt. The thirst was still there, a constant ache, but the crave and the hunger were gone.

"Elizabeth."

I tilted my head slightly to make out Cyril standing in the door way with Lucas and Andre in toe.

I glanced at him before returning my gaze out the window.
Before I had a chance to tell him to leave me, that I didn't want to be bothered, he was sitting across from me with his hands resting in his lap.

I looked at the entrance and the door was softly closing with Lucas nor Andre nowhere in sight.

"What plagues you Elizabeth?" he asked.

His tone was neither concerned or worried, just bothered by my distance and strong desired solitude.

I knew Cyril cared for me as much as any damned heart could allow, but our