Eternity The Beginning

Eternity: The Beginning

Copyright © 2007 Felicity Heaton

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The right of Felicity Heaton to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published July 2007

First Edition

All characters in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Edited by Felicity Heaton

Cover by Felicity Heaton

Eternity: The Beginning – F E Heaton

986 BC was the year that I discovered the true meaning
of immortality. It was not the afterlife that my Pharaoh
believed in but a dark gift given to those deemed worthy
by the creature murdering them.

I was worthy, though I did not know the man who killed
me and then granted me my afterlife.

I was left to discover my terrible power alone.

“Brother? Is that you?”

Hyperion pushed the rickety door closed and leaned heavily against it, causing the old wooden beams to strain under his weight. He sighed and swallowed. His mouth was drier than the desert outside and no matter what he drank, nothing quenched his thirst. It only made him feel sick.

“It is I,” he said and wearily moved to a low stool beside the cooking pot. He stared at the bubbling contents. The sight of it turned his stomach.

His eyes automatically moved to his sister when she entered. His tongue traced his lips, wetting them as best it could, and his stomach growled with hunger. He could hear everything, the wind outside, the rush of her blood and her heart as it pounded hard but steady against her chest, and the soft swish of her muslin dress. He could smell her sweet fragrance and the slight salty tang of sweat that laced it. He could smell her blood.

He stood sharply when she went to sit near him and moved to the other side of the room.

He shouldn’t have come back.

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Eternity: The Beginning – F E Heaton

Clenching his fists, he frowned when sharp pain ran up his arms. He uncurled his hands to see a row of half moon shaped puncture marks in his palms and then

stared at his fingernails. His eyes widened in horror at the sight of the pointed, elongated claws they had become. Just what was it that the man had done to him?

“You are hurt,” Ineru said behind him and he froze when she placed her hand on his shoulder.

The sound of her heartbeat filled his ears.

His chest heaved with the desire to kill her.

His eyes closed at the heady sensation of pleasure it promised.

She brushed her fingers over the wound on his throat and he moved away from her, throwing her hand off him and growling.

“What kind of sorcery is this?” he whispered to himself when the bones of his face shifted. He raised his fingers up, feeling the sharp points of his teeth. What had he become? Was he one of them now?

The man had almost killed him and only then had he been offered salvation. He had taken it, all too eager to live, but in the process something inside him had died.

His fingers clenched his chest and he listened to the eerie silence inside of him.

He’d died.

He realised that now.

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Eternity: The Beginning – F E Heaton

The man that had been so desperate to live had sold his soul and now he was doomed to an eternity of life. But not life. No. He was walking death. The intense hunger inside of him told him that. It clouded his mind with the memory of how blood had tasted on his lips, on his tongue, and whispered to him how sweet it would be to feed, to take the life of someone to further his own, to live off their death. It was a primal need, something impossible to ignore. It was ravenous. It was

intoxicating. It was demanding a kill and he was

sickeningly happy to cooperate.

He wanted it.

He wanted to taste the blood again, wanted the feeling of it spreading through him and breathing life into his tired body.

He wanted the pleasure it brought, feelings he’d only ever felt during sex, and had never thought possible from anything else.

Placing some distance between himself and his sister, he struggled for control and won.

“It was not a plague that killed our mother,” he said and heard Ineru gasp. He resisted his desire to face her, knowing that the demon he had become was still visible.

He could feel his teeth scraping against his tongue as he spoke. He remembered how sharp the man’s had felt, how painful they’d been in his neck. But the pain had quickly disappeared, chased away by the shadow of

death that had filled him and the cold dread of what was coming. He hadn’t hesitated in that moment. He’d taken everything the man had offered with him, not even

stopping to ask what the consequences were.

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“But it must be…such devastation.”

“It is death that comes for them. Not the merciful kind that takes us in our sleep, but the violent kind. It is a creature of the underworld that feeds on the blood of the living to sustain it in eternity.”

He looked down at his hand and saw his fingernails had returned to normal. Raising his hand, he felt his teeth and found they were blunt again.

He turned to face Ineru, unable to miss the fear in her eyes when he did so.

“How is it you know all of this?” She frowned at him, her beautiful countenance marred by it, and suddenly he realised that eternity without her was a life of torture and pain.

How could he go on without her?

He couldn’t leave her alone in the world. She wouldn’t make it without him. She needed him now more than

she had ever done.

She would understand if he told her.

She was the reason he’d wanted to live after all. She was the reason he had chosen to receive the dark gift he had been offered.

“I have become like them,” he said and moved to block her path when she went to run. She stopped dead, her eyes showing too much white for his liking and the erratic pattern of her heart speaking words to his hunger. She was scared of him. She was scared and it only made the hunger inside of him intensify. “Please, 4

Eternity: The Beginning – F E Heaton

my sister, do not fear me. It was either death or an immortal but cursed life, and I could not leave you.”

“For me?” She sounded as though she’d tried but failed to say the first part of her sentence. He knew what she was asking.

“I would do anything for you, sweet Ineru.” He held his arms out to her, hoping she would come to him and not reject him. He didn’t want her to fear him, not only because she was his only kin but because it made him have to fight against his new instincts even more. “I would never hurt you, my only love.”

He closed his eyes when she stepped into his embrace, her forehead resting against his neck and her hands against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her and breathing her in.

“We must leave this place. It is no longer safe for us.”

He stroked her hair and waited to see what her response would be.

She pulled back and looked at him with wide eyes.

“You will leave me,” she said and he shook his head, able to sense the fear that went with those words. “Not now, but in many years to come I will be old and die, but you will still be immortal.”

He sighed and wiped the tear from her cheek. “Then I will end my life when yours ends.”

She smiled and then it faded from her face and her look became serious.

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“Take me with you,” she said, her fingers grasping almost painfully at his chest, making his instinct rush to the forefront and forcing him to consider what she was asking of him. Could he do that, like the man had done to him? Could he make her one like him? Her eyes were wild, her voice laced with desperation. He could smell the panic as it mixed in with her scent, intoxicating him.

“Make me one, too.”

He pushed away from the temptation she’d offered him and found the strength to shake his head.

“No, sweet sister. I could not condemn you to a life as a creature of darkness. Even if I had the heart to, I do not know how.”

She frowned, her eyes silently pleading him. “You must remember what he said or did to you to make you this way. If you are truly one of them, then you must have the power to change me too.”

“We cannot know that. I am new to this life. I do not know the laws or ways. I may kill you.”

“Then you will have to kill yourself and we shall still be together in the afterlife.” She moved away from him and looked around the room. Her eyes fixed on something beside the fire. “If you will not change me, I will kill myself and force you to do it.”

His stomach flipped and twisted. “No!”

He caught hold of her and his demonic visage emerged.

Before he had a second to consider what he was doing, he’d bitten down on her neck and was drawing great gulps of blood from her. She writhed in his arms and instinct made him hold her tighter. He tried to remember 6

Eternity: The Beginning – F E Heaton

what the man had done to him, knowing that he was

fast running out of time. Her heartbeat began to slow and she became weak in his arms. He released her neck and bit into his wrist. The blood bloomed and ran down his arm. He stared at the trail of red and then at Ineru’s ashen face where she rested limp in his arms. He

couldn’t live without her.

Bringing his wrist to her mouth, he pressed it against her lips.

“Drink from me, take what I am offering you,” he said and listened to her heart slowing. “You have to drink now, Ineru.”

She opened her mouth the tiniest amount and her

tongue poked out, small and pink. It brushed against the cut and became red. He watched it disappear into her mouth. She licked her lips drowsily and then drew in a deep, shuddering breath.

He growled in pain when she bit into his wrist, her hands coming up to hold it against her mouth. She drank deep, drawing his blood from him and making desire like he’d never felt before race through his veins. He held her tightly when she finally succumbed to sleep and carried her to her bed, gently laying her down on it.

He stared at her and then at his wrist. In the darkness, he could see the blood staining it. He could smell it. It called to him, begging him to lick it clean. He lowered his head and raised his arm at the same time, letting them meet in the middle. Wrapping his lips around the wound, he closed his eyes and licked it, savouring the taste of his own blood.

He opened his eyes and looked at Ineru.

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Eternity: The Beginning – F E Heaton

Now he had to wait. Her death had abated his hunger. It had taken him a full day to awake from his own death.

By tomorrow night, he would know if he had been

successful.

Then eternity would be theirs for the taking.

Sitting down by the fire, he licked his lips clean while he stared blankly at the flames. They created patterns in front of his eyes. His focus remained with his thoughts for a few minutes and then he looked down at his

bloodied wrist. The blood was black in the dim light but the sight of it still made him feel sick. What had he done? In the heat of the moment, he’d known exactly how to make her like him. It had been instinct.

He glanced at Ineru where she lay on the bed and his stomach lurched. His teeth itched with the taste of her blood. It lingered in his mouth, taunting him, tempting him. How could he have granted her wish so easily, condemning her to a life as a shadow?

His stomach twisted again. He pressed his hand against it, his face contorting in pain. Intense hunger swept through him, even worse than before. His canines