A Vampire Story: Belago's Kiss

Belago kissed me and I knew immediately that something was horribly wrong. Leaning down, he looked into my eyes with a half-smile on his lips. A brilliant glint of silver flashed in his gray eyes. Pulling me close, he kissed me again. His lips were soft and cool. Something sinister ran through my veins as I stood there frozen in time, enraptured by everything that he was and everything that he was not.

Belago was not fully human. Perhaps he once was, but not any more. With my hand against his chest, my heart skipped a beat as I felt nothing beneath my fingers through his silk shirt except cool skin and the absence of a heartbeat. I want to run, but I couldn't. His kiss felt like an alternating current of hot lava and ice and I felt like I was melting, falling, descending. He was the most glorious man I'd ever seen, handsome, tall and muscular with the regal bearings of a king and a face so spectacular that it could stir the souls of the dead.

I should not have followed Belago that night, but something compelled me to go wherever it was that he was taking me. I wanted to know him, to know where he went at night, why he always wore black and why his beautiful eyes always looked so deep and sad as if they held the chaos of the world in their depths.

His kiss overpowered me and I knew there was nothing that he would ask of me that I would not do. When I fell from his embrace with his kiss still rattling in my soul, he took my hand, leading me deeper into the woods. I followed in a trance. The night was cool and a gentle breeze danced through the branches of the trees. The moon illuminated our footsteps, creating a pathway to everything and nothingness. I followed mindlessly, drifting like an apparition as he walked me into a destiny unknown.

He stopped near a tall tree, took my face in his hands and looked into my eyes. "Do you want this, Olivia?" I looked up at him confused. "Do I want what?", I whispered in a voice that barely escaped my lips. His answer sent another surge of lava and ice through my veins. "Immortality." His voice was like a deep whisper rising above the breeze.

Looking into Belago's eyes, I saw only truth. No lies. No illusions. I felt the deadness of his soul and the power of his own immortality and I wanted what he offered me and so I answered, "Yes, I want it."

As he kissed me again and his blazing cool lips traveled down the side of my face to my neck, I threw my head back in anticipation and as I felt his teeth pierce the tender skin of my neck and the trickle of my own warm, crimson blood, I smiled up at the moon and took what Belago gave me willingly and with great pleasure.