Chapter 5: Newborn Love, Newborn Hate.

ERIC’S POV

Luke wasn’t thrilled. To put it extremely mildly. It took me all night to convince him not to kill Jane himself. He was all calm and tranquil on the outside when I told him I wasn’t killing Jane. That warned me. Then I got to the part about love…and well I barely got the word love out before his mind was showing violent images of Jane that made me shudder. If it were anyone else but Jane in those pictures, I would have laughed.
    “What are you thinking Eric” Luke said all calm. Raging images in his head were the only indicator of his fury. As usual. It was his charm that invited the prey of course. His ability to appear tranquil, happy and carefree while lusting for the kill.
    “A human? Really? Love?” he choked a little on the last word and made it into a sneer. I looked up at him from my hands where I was holding my head. I felt like a student getting in trouble. I’d never been the cause of Luke’s anger before. I tried to make my pleading a glare.
    “I don’t see how it’s any of your business. I was just warning you to stay away, and telling you not to expect me to kill her.” I said, placing a sneer on the word kill. As If I could kill Jane. Despite the pulse, the obvious violet red she burned out I wasn’t going to let the inconsequential thing like that blood lust make me kill the only light in this life that I hadn’t even known was dark. Luke threw his hands up, the first sign of any emotion. The his expression turned thoughtful and I looked out for any images that might alert me to the direction of his thoughts. Then he looked up at me startled and a flurry of images too fast to see went through his head. Then it was blank and his face was composed, but he looked like he was under some effort, like he was restraining a pack of elephants from exploding through his mind. It was almost comical except I knew that meant he was hiding something from me.
    “Luke” I said, cautioning now “Don’t hide stuff from a mind reader” I said feigning casualness “You’ll make yourself the first vampire to have a headache”
He scowled.
    “It’s sickening” he muttered.
     “What is?” I probed. He made an odd face between a grimace and a sneer.
    “How you’re all happier and smiley now after that bitch” He said the word inviting me to challenge him. I growled but just walked away before my temper had me tearing off his arm or something. It was hard to be so casual when below there was the endless panic. Luke was hiding something. Luke wasn’t going to take the fact that I was in love lightly. I knew him too well for that. He would most definitely take advantage of the fact that the object of my affection was a weak human. So why in hell my face pulled into a smile when I realized I was headed to Jane’s house was beyond me. I found a car in a parking lot that looked roughly similar to the car I had taken her on our first “date”. Hopefully she wouldn’t notice. Then again would she care I was stealing cars now she knew I was of the undead? I got to the front of her house and rang the buzzer for her apartment. Her voice crackled on the speaker.
    “Who is it?” she sounded stressed and anxious.
    “Hey baby” I said with a short laugh. She made a disgusted sound but let me in. I probed the apartment building until I found the images coming from her mind. She was fussing over herself in the mirror. It made me laugh, but I felt a twinge of something else too. The apartment door opened and she was there. I studied her face with a strange sense of relief.
    “You know the baby thing doesn’t really work for you” she said smirking but with a hint of fear flashing in her eyes. I put my arms around her and whispered in her ear.
    “Sorry.” she shivered and tried to pull away. And I let her, a little offended.
    “It’s already cold enough” she said as an explanation. I saw the familiar dizziness of her thoughts and smiled. I was having an affect then. She walked in to the kitchen then pivoted and leaned against the counter her eyes wary, her thoughts filled with images including the ones of me with that vile Alexis Manger.
    “So” she said cautiously “What’s up?” she said, finishing with a grin that made me automatically grin in response. Her question threw me off a little though. I didn’t exactly have a reason to be here. I shrugged.
    “Just chilling” I mimicked her teenage lingo. She giggled and moved a hesitant step closer to me.
    “You know I was thinking” she said. I groaned.
    “Not again” I teased. She grimaced but went on
    “How come you seem to know everything?” she asked. I grinned
    “I’m just amazing. Don’t let it make you feel insignificant” I laughed.
    “No, I mean, how come you act sometimes like you can hear what I’m…what everyone’s thinking?” She said.
    “Well I can read minds. That might explain it” she gawked at me.
    “More like images really” I amended. “It’s like I only get one side of the brain. The imagery half” I said. She nodded assessing that. She took my hand shaking her head. The warmth in my hand felt amazing.
    “It’s so weird” she said, as she led me into to living room and at on the couch. I curled up against her. “Being in love with a vampire and all” she finished slowly assessing my reaction for any sign of anger or offence. I grinned to reassure her
    “You’re in love with me?” I asked hopefully. All that fear I read from her, all that reluctance and revulsion, and anger. I’d never see her have any loving images except before she saw me for what I was. She pursed her lips.
    “Yes” she said slowly. “It might seem silly to say it, all things considered, but…I don’t know how else to describe the feeling” She said blushing. I put my hand against the warmth in her cheek. An unfamiliar warming feeling shot through my dead heart and I gasped inaudibly in shock. It was literally shocking, her effect on me. How that declaration had my head spinning. It was revolting. I’d learnt to hate love, just like Luke. But everything was overturned now that I was in love. She smiled.
    “I had another thought” The image of that thought came out before her words and I stiffened in surprise “Couldn’t you like…drink animal blood instead…Does it work the same way? Wouldn’t it be the same? I learnt in the chemistry lab that animal blood is actually extremely similar to humans, just the DNA is different” She was rushing the words and looking down. I hadn’t ever considered that. Whenever I passed by an animal it always smelled so…unappealing. Never thought of as food…I could smell the blood, the scent but it was so undesirable. But. Slowly and stoically my mind began to consider it. It was possible…wasn’t it? I was shaking my head involuntarily.
    “Would you prefer if I hunted that way?” I whispered just loud enough for her to hear. I heard her swallow. I considered doing this for her…instead of turning away from the undesirable scent drinking and satisfying thirst from it. An inconvenience that I would take if she would be a
little less frightening. Stop the images? The nightmares I knew she’d been having? Stop her from flinching from me? What was I thinking? How would I do this? A million thoughts for and against were racing in one part of my mind, while I awaited her answer.
    “It would…make me more comfortable” she said quietly. I couldn’t believe I was considering doing this for a woman. For an insignificant human. But she wasn’t insignificant. She was, the cliché “my world”. I understood all the gooey lines. It was like she was the only thing that mattered. In truth, she was the only damn thing I loved in this world. It was ridiculous. But there was nothing I could do about it. No matter how much I had pretended, no how much I will pretend casualness around her, pretend not to be all head over heels for her. Anything she wanted, I was going to give. Even if she only hinted she wanted it. It was hers. Like there was another completely different person taking birth in me, and changing me. Luke was going to hate this newborn me. But Luke didn’t matter. She mattered. All this reasoning took only a second, and I shrugged
    “Okay” I said. “I guess I could try it. It is interesting probably won’t work.” I nudged her playfully, but gently, ever reminding myself to be careful. “I’m not doing it for you though”  Right. She relaxed and laughed and threw her arms around me.
    “Good vampire” she laughed. I laughed too. That has got to be the first time I was described as good. I hugged her back reveling in the contact
    “I am now apparently” I kissed her cheek amazingly not bothered by the way the blood pulsed so invitingly in her veins “Thanks to you”
And for once she didn’t shiver at the contact. I looked up and my arms tightened instinctively. The lowest of hisses escaped from my mouth. She couldn’t hear. Luke was raised on the window ledge his eyes burning. Images of us flashed angrily at me. I got ready to defend her. His thoughts were lethal. Though he tried to disguise the images of his plan. He meant to smash through that window and kill my Jane.