So I'm Not a Vampire? Ch. 09

Hey Everyone,

So this is the completely edited version of So, I'm Not a Vampire? Thank you searchingforperfection for helping me edit the entire So I'm Not a Vampire? novellette. Thank you to my beta tester, Fanfare, for reading the entire Peaches series. Without you, I wouldn't have been able to work out those rough edges in the story. Thanks :)

Side note: all future stories I post on Lit are stories that will not be published. If you have questions, concerns, or just want to say hi, feel free to message me.

-Rosi

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Chapter Nine: It's a Nice Day For a Goth Wedding

Um ... um ... um ...

My brain stopped working. It just clocked out as every vampire in the room exploded. I couldn't be sure if they were even speaking in English, because I was still reeling from Bane's words.

I think I heard words like "king" and "council" and "queen" thrown around, but I couldn't be sure. My hair was flying around as vampires zipped around the room like mini tornados. I was also feeling really threatened, and a couple of eyes with flecks of red in them turned my way. I wondered if this was what Bane had meant when he'd told me to be careful?

"The ramifications of your actions will last far beyond this night, habibi," Bane purred silkily.

I whipped my head around to look at him and got a crick in my neck. I winced and rubbed at the muscle. Around us, people were still talking in loud demanding voices, but my ADD kicked in and I hyperfocused on Bane.

How was he talking in my mind? I thought only the Bane cat could do that. And how did he know my name? I don't remember thinking it. Could he just pick whatever memory he wanted out of my mind? That was disconcerting.

"I've always been able to talk to you this way. There's just never been a point."

I turned back to the vampires around us and spoke to him through our weird mind link. "Can't everyone hear us?"

I watched Bane watch the crowd closely, looking for the slightest twitch in anyone's face. "No, I don't think anyone can. But then, no one can do what you're doing right now."

"What do you mean?" This night just kept getting weirder and weirder. Heck! My life was weird. I should be used to it by now.

"You are the only creature I know of that has the ability to hear a vampire's thoughts. Not even other vampires have this ability."

Wait! I could hear a vampire's thoughts? But I'd only heard Bane that one time he'd been in cat form. I hadn't heard anything else, and I sure didn't hear vampire thoughts now.

"I've been using mental barriers, and you haven't been around any other vampire but me until tonight. I'm sure if you focused, you could do it easily. But we don't have time for that now, habibi. You must make a choice. I claimed you as my wife, and that means—"

"Silence!" a man roared from the other side of the room, the sound so loud he cut off Bane's mind message to me.

Shit! I tried to reach out to Bane's mind, but his attention was elsewhere, and suddenly mine was too as a five-foot-five vampire sped across the room and stopped in front of us. The guy was dressed like a punk rocker with spiky brown hair, baggy pants with chains hanging from them, and a Slipknot t-shirt that was torn in different places. He didn't look much older than seventeen, and yet it was his eyes that told me he could have been my great, great, great, great, great grandpa. Or something like that.

The vamp looked sharply at me as a girl slipped next to him and linked their arms. She looked just as young, but she was a few inches taller than him. They were dressed in similar clothes, except she had on a skirt with silver chains and lace-up, knee-high boots. I stared at the girl for a second. There was something ... different about her. I didn't know why, but I'd bet all my new threads that she wasn't a vampire.

"Bane." The teen looked up at him, totally ignoring me. What was I? Chopped liver?

"Luther," Bane returned with the same removed, slightly bored tone.

"Peaches," I threw in for fun. Yup, I just opened my mouth and stupid came out.

Luther turned his eyes on me and all I saw was red in them. I flinched back hard and tried to run, but Bane held me fast. Fucking imbecile didn't realize that I wasn't a vampire and still had blood. It was probably tasty, delicious blood if I smelled like sweet wind, honeysuckle, and other stuff.

Oh why oh why did I want to go to a vamp party? Didn't Buffy and Twilight and the other movies and shows teach me anything? Nothing good ever happens at vampire parties to humans! Granted, I had already died, but I wasn't about to try my luck and do it again.

"Girl," the kid, Luther, addressed me.

"Malika," Bane growled.

"You mean ma'am," I snapped. I wanted to bludgeon myself. See, Peaches got killed because she's stupid and people can easily manipulate her.

The kid's lips twitched in what I hoped was a suppressed smile and not a frown. I'd take being the butt of the party if my blood stayed in my body. I would strip naked and dance around like an idiot if I could walk out of here with the same cell count I'd walked in with.

Red eyes cocked his head and smiled at me. "You're Bane's wife?"

Oh, damn! Bane had declared me his wife. Well, that protected me at least, right? "Yes! Yup! I'm his wife, he's my husband. And you can't kill me, right?"

That was the important thing here: not dying again. I would be Bane's servant, his strumpet, his freaking dog for all I cared. I'd take my life over my pride every day of the week. There were few cases where I wouldn't do that, but getting eaten by a teen in an underground nightclub where people threw up in front of you wasn't one of those cases.

"To be Bane's wife"—red eyes asked carefully—"you do understand what that means, don't you?"

Bane's grip tightened around my waist. I looked around at the vampires staring at us. Casper the friendly vampire was right behind the Luther guy, and standing next to him was the blonde bimbo who'd gotten me into this mess. No, I amended, I got myself into this mess. This wasn't grade school, where the worst thing I'd get was detention or suspension if I let my temper get away with me; these were vampires.

"Peaches." Bane's voice was in my head again. I didn't know what to say to him. Hell, I didn't even know how I was saying what I was saying to him. My brain hurt. I felt like an infant crying in a crib. I just needed someone to pick me up, to guide me and tell me what to do.

I knew that wouldn't happen here. Centuries-old beings looked at me, waiting for me to make a choice. I hated choices. I'd been Undecided for all of my two years at college. I hadn't even chosen to be a manager at Kmart; the job had just been handed to me. Except, I realized, since I'd met Bane, I'd been making all my own choices; stupid, reckless ones, but they were mine.

Change. The unknown. Choices. They bugged me, creeped me out. But here I was again, dealing with it. It was another one-or-the-other choice, this or that, marriage to a vampire or dinner of one.

"I don't understand what that means," I said with far more confidence then I felt, considering I was letting everyone know I was uninformed. "But if it means that everyone stops looking at me like dessert and puts away their fangs, then sure, we're married. "

"Then where is your ring?" the blonde bimbo hissed. "It is custom in human culture to have a ring, is it not?"

I just barely stopped myself from snorting. Yeah, 'cause announcing it to a group of immortals wasn't enough.

"Casper," Bane called out. The other vampire stepped forward and took off a ring, then handed it to him.

It was a silver ring in the shape of vampire teeth. Bane slid it on my ring finger. Yeah, forget the clear princess cut diamond on the platinum band surrounded by two half-carat emeralds. A girl always dreamed about a two dollar fang ring being slipped on her ring finger.

"What is that human saying?" Luther's lips twisted and he looked at me with a mix of amusement, pity, and curiosity. "Ah, yes. I now pronounce you vampire husband and ... unknown wife."

I'm not sure what I expected after that. Actually, that's a lie. I sort of expected something epic to happen. Like I'd magically get pregnant and go into labor because of something sacred, blah, blah, blah. I also sort of expected an outburst. I mean, here I was, some unknown chick marrying a vampire in an underground goth club. That just smelled like a book. It had that texture and feel, if, uh, events could have texture and feel.

The point is, I just expected a climax. A big ass banner in one way or another announcing I was married to a vampire. I didn't get that, and it sort of bummed me out. It made the entire event feel real.

Bane turned to me and smiled faintly. He'd obviously been reading my thoughts, and I didn't doubt almost everyone in the room had too, yet no one did anything. "Wife."

I couldn't help the half shrug I gave him, sort of a "well, this is officially a thing" shrug. "Husband."

In a windowless room, surrounded by hungry vampires with sweaty pits and feet that felt like needles were being forced into them, I was married. No one lunged for my throat and a magical fire didn't suddenly spring into existence and threaten to burn the place down. I realized that the things I expected to be awesome and dangerous were usually safe; it was the safe shit that got me in trouble. Well, that and my big, fat mouth.