Jason had found Niki crying at the park after his shift at the club. He always passes the park on his way back to the Circus, but tonight he heard crying and went in search of the person. So here he was sitting next to Niki, a beautiful shoulder length blonde haired woman that had to be in her mid twenties, lightly tanned skin with freckles across her nose and cheeks with tear filled brown eyes. She was a shifter as well, a snow leopard by her scent. A slender woman, maybe a few inches shorter than himself. At the moment he had his arm around her shoulders, waiting for her to calm down enough to talk about what happened to her.
With a few more sniffs, Niki took a deep breath, "Sorry about that Jason, I got your shirt all wet," she dabbed at her eyes with the shoulder of her shirt sleeve.
"Hey it's okay Niki, now are you ready to tell me what happened?" he said. She leaned back against the park bench and nodded.
"It's my Mom, she's going to die soon and going to leave my little brother, Kale and I. She's the only family we have, except for a bunch of her friends. We like them and all, but there's no one else compared to her, she raised me and I can't see the world without her in it," she got out.
Jason's heart went out to her, "I'm sorry about that Niki, does she have cancer or something?"
"No!" she huffed and quickly jumped off of the park bench and waved her arms, "She's a damn vampire! She can't die! Plus being an Ancient, the only way to kill an Ancient is to cut off the head and burn the heart to ashes!" she wiped at her eyes again. "But she can't take not having her mate anymore, she says she hurts to much so she's going to have some other Ancients kill her tomorrow night," she whispered and remembered back to what her mother and she said.
~~Niki had overheard over the phone her mother talking about saying her goodbyes to her family and the world to go to the afterlife to meet her mate. When her mother noticed she was on the other side of the doorway, she ended the call and met her outside.
"How could you leave us! Were you ever going to tell us?!"
"It would've been easier, so there was no confrontation like this Nikita," her mother looked so sad looking down at her. "I wish to stay, but I can't go on any longer. It hurts so much. Every day is a struggle, for so many years it now has caught up to me little one. You'll understand one day why I have to do this," her mother went to cup her face with one of her own, but she was just so angry that she slapped her mother's hand away and ran off out of the condo. Not caring where she ended up.~~
"My Mom has raised me since I was four, my parents and her were friends, but they were killed by an anti-were group. So she took me in as her own. Then Kale when he was a newborn, found abandoned in a dumpster, he's five now. I just don't get it, that she would leave us, when she's healthy and can live on to stay with us. But then again, for the past three years, she just seems like an empty shell most of the time. She used to paint all the time, bake, go out dancing with me, laugh all the time. But now she just reads old scrolls about adventures and sleeps all the time. She's giving up, I hate seeing her like this!" she plopped back down next to him.
"Has she lost a husband? My boss says that when he and his lover lost their girlfriend a couple of hundred years ago, it was the most painful thing to go through. Is that what happened?" he wondered.
She was silent for a minute, but shook her head no. "My Mom never married, never had a boyfriend. But I have seen a man every night come around the same time and go into her room. I know she pays him to come every night, at least since we've been in town for the past three weeks, just to lay down next to her, to hold her. Whenever we move there's always a new man for the period we are in that city or something. But she told me when she was telling me about the birds and the bees, you know the regular stuff as well as if I want, wait for my mate, whoever it may be. She said that she is still waiting for hers, that she's saving herself for him and only him. You see, when she was younger she seen how happy the other Ancient Vampires were when they found their mates, and had a spell put on her, that she couldn't have sex with anyone other than her mate."
"Wait, so your mom is still a virgin? A vampire virgin?" he questioned. But she nodded. "Damn that must suck, I lost mine in high school, so what happens if she does have sex with someone else other than her mate anyway?"
"She can't at all. When a touch gets too intimate she and the person that tries it burns from the inside out. But there's only one mate for an Ancient, the only way to figure if that persons her mate is that her eyes would glow bright as well as getting back her sex drive and the mate will look to no other but her for love. Mom has seen all her Ancient friends mated, she's the only Ancient left not mated. She's looked all over the world, a way to help out is for their scent to be in the same continent, so she could follow the scent to find him, but never found him. With no sex drive, she gets violent sometimes, she said after her thousandth year was when she would need to kill or beat something to keep herself in check. But now she just seems sad, hurt, disappointed and lonely. I want to help her, so I thought that since this place is so full of power, that it'd be a good place to look for her mate. I didn't tell her that, I told her I wanted to travel here stay for a bit and check out the college, so she had us move here to make me happy," she explained.
Next to her Jason was shocked and still absorbing information that she was telling him.
"When you say your mom is an Ancient and a thousand years, does that mean she's one of the oldest vampires alive or something?"
Nodding, "She was born way before the Gods of this day and age, she doesn't quite remember exactly, but she's been keeping a journal for every year that goes by. So that she keeps sane and to read us a story of her past each night before we go to bed. So I would say if going by journals she has, it would be seven thousand three hundred and twenty-five."
"Holy crap! Your mom is ANCIENT!!!" Jason shouted and held his head with both hands in disbelief. He couldn't see anyone staying alive for that long, Jean-Claude and Asher were hundreds of years old, but Belle Morte was the oldest he knew. Niki's mom must have seen and done a lot in her time. "Oh yeah when you said your mom saved herself since she was young, how young are we talkin?"
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
"She was a twenty-two born vampire, so she's still a virgin. Mom knows stuff by watching others, and watching porno's when we go to sex stores and stuff but she doesn't get aroused or anything. So she kinda beats the forty year old virgin dude from the movie. Now she says she's saving herself for her mate in the afterlife, since she didn't find him in this world, he should be in the next."
Jason thought her mom was freaking hard core, having abstinence for thousands of years, she must be uber powerful too. He was sure she could beat anyone she went up against, he was sure his boss and any other vamp in town, or the world. The Ancient Vampires seemed like the big honchos.
"Well since you guys live here for the time being and trying to hook your mom up with her mate, why don't we put together a big party and have all the supers in town come? Then your mom can see if he's there and she won't have to go. I mean my boss is the Master of the City and can get something together really fast and he loves to do that kind of stuff. So what do you think? Want to give it a go?"
Niki was looking at him in a new light. He didn't even know her or her mom personally and he wanted to help them out? Such an awesome guy. With a little squeal, Niki threw herself on him with her arms around his shoulders and giving him a big kiss on his lips she said, "That would be great! Thank you Jason! You could save my mom yet! We have to get started! I have to tell Mom, we-dammit! Tomorrow night she's supposed to go! We have to convince her to wait one more week, we can get everything together for the end of the week right Jason?"
Jason thought about it. It was short notice, but he was sure with everyone's help they could get it all set up in time for the end of the week. As long as her mom agreed to it, cause that was the only plan he had. "I'm sure we can."
***********************************************************************************************
When Niki said 'we' would try to convince her mom, he didn't think that he'd have to go to their condo with her. But that's where they were now, walking in the front door of the condo a few blocks down from the park where he found her crying.
In the condo it was full of paintings hung on the wall, professional looking ones, of landscapes, people, places from all over the world. Then he remembered that Niki said her mom was a painter, so maybe these were all of hers. Yep, had to be, since there was a painting of Niki and a little boy about five years old, her little brother he guessed.
Everywhere else in the condo was clean, comfortable, toys and a record player was playing somewhere in the house with violin music. Not the classical stuff, but old village folk music stuff that sounded sad yet uplifting at the same time. Some toys were laying on surfaces, books on coffee tables. Passing a kitchen, he noticed the smell of chocolate chip cookies.
Walking down a hallway behind Niki, she stopped in the doorway of one of the rooms. Coming up behind Niki, he looked inside the room. A kid's room, the theme was an island with murals all over the walls of giant pillars, a volcano in the background, an ocean, wild flowers and wild mustangs running on green rolling hills. The room was clean, the window was open across the room to let in a nice cool night breeze. The kids' bed was empty, but to the side of it in the corner was a woman and little boy in a beautifully craved rocking chair with intricate markings reading from a worn leather bound journal that had stitching in the front that read '1215'. The story seemed to be about an adventure, treasures and sword fighting.
The woman looked to be twenty-five or so, with long wavy brown hair, a bit of it up behind her head. Tendrils of it framing forest green eyes and a few freckles on her cheeks. Full curves tucked in a navy blue three quarter sleeved dress with a v neck and a bit of a slit up one side to move easier. A bronze necklace resting over her full bosom with a violet gem in the center, a matching anklet on her left bare foot. Athletic as well, sleek muscles in her arms and legs, seemed to be about the same height as him if she were standing. She was a real beauty, but somehow she wasn't his type, when he thought about type, his mind kept going to Niki.
In her arms was a little boy, the one in the painting down the hall, with shoulder length brown thick hair, with mismatched eyes, one blue and one brown. He wore loose fitting blue pants and a gray long sleeved shirt, so long it covered his hands. Intent on the story as it was told from the woman, he was cradled in her embrace and kept an eye on her face as she talked. Occasionally she'd point out pictures and run her fingers through his hair.
When the boy started to yawn and grow more tired, she ended the story and set the journal on the nightstand next to the lamp there. Taking the boy more securely in her arms, she got up from the rocking chair and swung him in her arms as if her arms were a cradle and began to sing a lullaby. It was one he'd never heard before, plus it was in a language he didn't recognize, but her voice was soothing and angelic. Soon the boy was falling deeper into slumber. She was tucking the boy into the bed when he snuggled and peeked his eyes open to look up at the woman.
"I love you Mathair (Mother)" he whispered.
The woman smiled and reached down to kiss the top of his head.
"Agus brea liom tu mac (And I love you son)," she whispered back. When she pulled away, the boy was softly snoring. She shut off the bed side lamp and gazed lovingly at him before she turned and head towards him and Niki.
They moved aside while the woman came out of the room and shut the door softly. A moment later she was hugging Niki close, Niki's head in the crook of the woman's neck.