51. Old Flame

Lilith

I came downstairs in Erics shirt and some large socks. I knew it wasn’t appropriate, but I wanted coffee, and it was early. I had slept horribly. When I woke, Eric was not there no doubt mad at me for my coldness the night before. Kali, who was being kind to me and not pushy at all tried to encourage me. “It will be okay Lilith, Eric is mated to you, he can’t exactly leave you.” That didn’t help. If anything it made me feel worse like he was only here out of obligation. “Oh, stop it. You know he doesn’t hate you or resent you. He is old and you are the best thing to happen to him.” Kali made me snort.

She was never like this with me. I couldn’t help but wonder why? “I am so nice to you because you are a good human to me. You have been letting me have so much time to be me. You also have been doing your fare share of good bad things, which you know I love. Plus you got us into a pack, which honestly feels amazing at least for me. It is like I can feel everyone not like there emotions or anything, but I can actually talk to others. We never had it so good.” I was happy she was so happy.

“Eric will understand about Bowie. He was horrible to the two of us. Who knows maybe he knows how to deal with something like him. I know you tell everyone and even yourself sometimes it was an amicable breakup, but don’t do that with Eric. He needs to know it all. Don’t give him the story you tell Juliet and Rob and sometimes yourself. I know the truth and if you lie I will tell Eric what really happened, so be honest. I don’t want to have to tattle on you.” I sighed she was right. I knew what I told others about Bowie.

I even tried to convince myself that it was a good separation, it had gotten easier to lie about the truth especially since he was gone in prison. I walked into the dark kitchen. Of course, no one was awake yet. It was early, I walked to the coffee machine setting it up, I leaned against the marble counter watching the pot fill up. “Lilith it is early for a Saturday.” I nearly jumped out of my skin. I turned around to see Eric at the small table. He had a bunch of snack wrappers and a large cup. “What are you doing in the kitchen so early?” I asked. He smiled. “I could ask you the same thing.” I nodded. “Valid, anyways, I had a bad sleep and got up early, it is better being tired then having nightmares.”

“So, want to tell me why you are up early?” I asked. “Yes, see my beautiful mate she had nightmares last night and woke me up at around 3am by choking me. After that I couldn’t manage to get back to sleep.” My face fell. I couldn’t believe I had done that. I felt guilty. I never wanted to do that to Eric. He had done so much for me, and I felt indebted to him in a way, and this is what I fucking do. Stupid fucking Bowie. He shows up and I get violent with someone I care so deeply about. “Lilith it is really okay, you didn’t hurt me or anything, and you were asleep, you didn’t even wake up when I got you off.”

I still felt horrible I had even done that, even if it didn’t hurt him. “Are you ready to talk about this now?” He asked. I could tell he was concerned by the infliction in his tone. I nodded and sat down across from him. Which was not where I normally sat. Most of the time I sat in his lap, but I felt bad about my actions and ashamed and I just wanted to punish myself for it. “Lilith come here.” He scooted away from the table and patted his lap. I smiled a little and got up and taking my seat in his lap. “I know you feel bad, but that doesn’t mean you get to pull away from me.” I smiled again softly.

He always knew what to say and do. A maturity thing maybe. Kali chimed in “Yeah because he is old.” I tried to hide my laugh. He may be older, but one thing was for sure he was hot. “I don’t know where to start Eric?” I said earnestly. There was so much baggage to unpack. “The beginning would be a good place.” I let out a breath and nodded. “So, first thing you need to know is Bowie is a Dhampir, a half vampire half human.” Eric pinched his brows together. “I thought the vampires died out like a century ago how could he be one.” I stared at him.

“They didn’t there is just very very few of them, anyways Bowie is a Dhampir, we had some things in common that bonded us and made it easy to connect in the beginning. His mother and mine were both raped and fell pregnant with us so we could commiserate over that together, only Bowie's mom died in childbirth. Rob found him and took him in like the rest of us. He helped him.” I felt Erics shoulders tense up. “Anyways, we met when I was taken in by Rob, we became close. When I was 16, we started dating. It was fun at first. We committed our crimes. Rob taught me to steal cars but Bowie, he taught me motorcycles.” Eric was listening intently.

“Rob never approved of the relationship, I don’t know if it was because he was older or if it was because of what he was, but he didn’t. Bowie began to start to get extremely possessive of me. It is in a Dhampir’s nature from my understanding. They like to fixate. If I wanted alone time, he would become irate. If I took jobs without him, he would be downright enraged. He hated that I would not stay with him. School became hard because I made it clear to him, I didn’t want him picking me up from school. There were valid reasons for that. Anyways you get the picture he wanted me with him every second of every day.”

I sighed and went on “He started interfering with my training with Rob, he didn’t want anyone to touch his precious object. He was like Gollum with the fucking ring. But this was getting progressively worse. And before you ask, yes, he was biting me during this time. He did it often enough and sometimes it was consensual but other times it was a full-on attack, and it hurt, it is not like in the movies, there is nothing sensual or sexual about it. It hurts and it hurts bad. Rob hated it, I tried to keep it from him, I really did, I didn’t want him to get hurt.”

“Dhampir's are strong, especially if they consume blood, like freakishly so not to mention faster than you can imagine. So, I hid it from Rob after he saw the first bite. I don’t heal like you, as you know. If you can believe it, I wore a lot of long sleeves and pants then. Well, Rob moved him into drugs, he was okay doing the worst of the jobs. I never wanted to be a part of that, it didn’t matter to Bowie though. He dragged me with him one night. It didn’t go as planned though and Bowie killed the guys there and gorged on blood. He was insane, like full on drunk or high or something.”

“I think he just had to much blood. It had been an offhanded comment about me, and he had lost his fucking mind and just went animal on them. I watched him stunned for a moment, but when he reached the fourth guy I quietly left. I didn’t want to see anymore. Yes, they were armed but with his speed he had taken the guns first before feeding. Like I said I tried to leave. I had it. I had made it maybe a block when Bowie caught up to me. He seemed like he was possessed or something. I don’t even know if he remembers this part or anything, because like I said he was completely out of it. There was 7 large men in that warehouse.”

Eric could tell I was stalling. “Lilith what happened next? I breathed out this was the hard part. “He bit my neck and bad, like I thought he would kill me. His hands still covered in blood ran all over like he was groping me over my clothes. I had made it clear I was not ready for anything like that. But he tried to slide his hand in my pants and Kali took control then. She shifted there was no way he would try to sleep with my wolf. He had never bitten her, but he was angry he couldn’t have me, and that Kali was in my place.” I took a breath this was a long story.

“He was enraged that she would choose then to shift, and he bit her, and it was aggressive, he took chucks out of body, and she tried to run, and she managed to get a little way away from him before he caught her. Blood makes them more powerful, and he had a bunch of it. He managed to get his arms around her and squeeze her so tightly. I worried he would kill her. He did break her ribs; He was screaming for me to change back but Kali wouldn’t pass out. It was dumb luck that flashing lights appeared. Now I hate cops, but this was my only chance and Kali knew it to. I shifted at the right moment. So, I was naked and covered in blood and hurt very badly. Bowie took off but I got help from the police and ended up in the hospital.”

I leaned into Eric. “Rob came and I don’t know what happened next, just I didn’t see Bowie anymore and then found out a few weeks later he was in jail. Obviously, we were over, and I healed and recovered, but it was just not great. I don’t know why he was in jail, I figured it had to do with some kind of crime or something, but I don’t know. And I know I could have looked up his crime, but I didn’t want to have anything to do with Bowie ever again and I still don’t.”