Beautiful Beasts Vol. 01

The following story is called to ride a dark horse.

Just to clear up a few things it takes place in a fantasy world (hi there are vampires, werewolves, fairies, and angels just a walking around of course its a fantasy)

A quick Glossary.

Guardian: Is an angel doomed to walk the earth, unable to withstand contact with others as their empathetic nature causes them to absorb that persons most painful moments. Until they take a mate who becomes their protector and grounds them making the pain bearable.

Vampyre: non-parasitic vampires that feed mostly on blood provided by a blood bank and do not crave human blood or flesh. Though they have been made immortal and given all the markings of a vampire, their humanity managed to remain and keep them from being damned.

Vampire: a bloodthirsty demon once turned fully will never go back. Though some say it is possible for a vampire that has yet to mate to be changed by their mate.

Forager: A vampire who isn't fully turned but yet not a vampyre they forage for food amongst the animal kingdom and occasionally vile humans.

Seekers: Vampyre or vampire that are able to teleport or trace to follow targeted prey. Are stronger, faster and if turned more dangerous than foragers.

Vampire Lords: The closest thing to the devil this world knows. They are evil operating merely for the purpose of evil.

Lycan: A hybrid of werewolf and man. When turned they do not be come a wolf so much as a wolf becomes a man.

*

Chapter 1: I Find I Can't Hide From Your Eyes.

Aira felt eyes on her. Heavy eyes dark chocolate or black, beautiful and otherworldly eyes. Shaking her head she dragged her equally dark eyes back to the man smiling charmingly to her left. Men were always smiling charmingly at Aira; this one however was babbling and smiling.

"So I told Jim that if Kyle didn't have the account reports on my desk by tomorrow morning I was going to fire him which I have the authority to do."

Her companion took a break in his rant to sip his vodka and Aira stirred the straw in her diet coke. She was utterly bored with the workings of the business world. Even if she hadn't been different she would never have been a day laborer. But she played the part of the eager date unwilling to admit the only thing she was eager for was to get the hell out of there.

"And what did Jim say?"

She asked her delicate accent lifting at the end of her sentence. She felt his eyes roam over her body appraisingly. She laughed to herself,

Just my voice. Really? Men are so easy.

"He said I should have fired him today." This for some reason set him aflame with roaring laughter.

Her eyes locked on his and they stared at each other awkwardly for a long moment. Till he coughed and broke the silence.

"So Tosca tells me you work at the Maxwell gallery. Do you work in the Modern section or do you work the door...Sorry what I am asking I guess is um... what is your job there?"

Strike one.

"Well Maxwell's is solely renaissance through Rococo we don't do any Modern works those go to the Guild. I work mostly in restoration."

He stared at her vacantly. And she sipped her diet coke almost gagging on the overwhelmingly sweet liquid.

"I rework damaged pieces and clean works that have been neglected."

Generally talking about art both pacified her and excited her but talking to him about it bored her. He bored her.

"Your accent is so sexy. Are you British?"

"Thank you. I am from Manchester originally then Cambridge and for a short time a little place outside of Dublin."

"So your not from Britain?"

Strike two.

"No no I am. Manchester and Cambridge are in England and then um... Dublin is in Ireland?"

She was waiting for the light of recognition to flicker on in his eyes only she saw nothing no shadows no lights not even a thin network of veins. Suddenly she felt her heartbeat jump up an octave and her ears perked up. The eyes had moved and they were coming towards her stealthily. They didn't belong to a Stalker like she had assumed, they didn't even belong to a hungry forager. They belonged to the one thing she was terrified of the one thing she would destroy given the proper moment and time. This however, a crowded bar at happy hour on a Friday night was neither the proper moment nor the proper time.

"Sorry Josh, I really am but I am not feeling well I am going to have to call it a night."

"It's John and let me get you a cab then." He offered with an exaggerated wink.

But when he turned around with his coat on his arm she was gone.

Strike three.

His eyes scanned the dark club, as her scent hung in the air. He cursed under his breath. How was it possible to let her slip away that easily? She was tiny. Much smaller then he remembered. But the eyes, that same shocking purple. Her skin glowed in that way only guardians did. She was a beauty all right and he would enjoy taming her. He shouldn't have let her get away from him last time. He had been tracking her for close to a millennia. Waiting for her to age. Watching as she turned from an intoxicating girl to a truly remarkable woman. And now she was in front of him. At his bar. In his city. He could have howled with joy. It was time for him to finish what he had started all those years ago. He laughed deep in his throat. A hoarse, dark, menacing laugh. As he watched her bolt from her date. The poor mortal didn't even stand a chance. Spooked or not she would have vanished on him. But that didn't stop him from taking his amusement from the poor confused sucker. He knew the frustration of having Airabelle Garrison run away from you. He sneered to himself 'run all you want little one. I'm coming after ya. And we both know I'm faster.' He chuckled to himself again his green eyes flashing black as his beast slide to the for front. Aira had out run Rowan Reeves for the last time. He could feel it.

"Hey sunshine I moved the furniture around a little bit." Tosca called from deep within their townhouse, as Aira lay sprawled across the floor.

"I noticed, right after I tripped over your fern."

Tosca was in love with anything alive, animals, plants, and so she filled the house with them. As it stood the two roommates had three birds, a cat, two gold fish and seven potted plants.

"Are you mad? You sound mad." Tosca called as she gracefully made her way down the short hallway that separated the living room from their kitchen. Then she stopped short and burst into a roaring giggle.

"You are oddly bendy girl. Freakishly bendy."

Aira realized her leg was pinned flat to the floor underneath her body. Standing she brushed the fuzz off of her expensive suit and stared her roommate down. Tosca's short blonde hair danced along her cheekbones as she laughed and her pale blue eyes sparkled. She was the pale yin to Airas dark yang. One of the only light vampyres Aira had ever come in contact with. Which made her propensity for living creatures even odder given that most vampyre could barely restrain their desire to drain them.

"We have a problem."

"Okay alright I will put it back, on the other side of the door..."

"Tosc the plant is decidedly not my largest concern right now."

"Bad date?"

"Yes actually stop setting me up!"

Tosca moved to interrupt and Aira silenced her with an elegant raise of her palm.

"I am being tracked."

Tosca's generally playful expression turned to one of serious concern.

"How is that even possible, the Lords have no way of knowing where we are, and we have nothing that the Seekers want, your way too strong for a forager."

Aira shook her head, fear creeping into her dark gray eyes.

"It wasn't a vampire. It was a...It was a Lycan. A bloody werewolf."

Tosca drew a deep breath and the two women looked at each other in silence.

"Well you have to call Annika I mean right? We should go home. They can protect us there." Her voice quivered.

"Or we will be leading a clan of ruthless killers to their doorstep. A few vampyre seekers, a hand full of fey and a coven of Guardians are nothing compared to an angry Lycan. Trust me..."

"They can't track us that far, I mean? No. No! We have to go home Aira."

"I understand that after a hundred years of life you believe you understand the inner most workings of the coven..."

Arias voice trailed off as she studied the beautiful girl in front of her, whose very existence Aria was responsible for. Aira had sired many young vampires as companions. Tosca was one of very few that had not become a bloodthirsty monster, and the only one to remain near her for over 100 years. Aira even thought for a while that she would come to be her protector but after a hundred years she still was unable to be touched, with the acceptation of the occasional human. And now she was leading dirty mangy werewolves right to their door.

"T you don't know how powerful they truly are. When I was a girl, they terrorized our small town, just burnt it to the ground. They...well they really only left me alive."

"But we aren't strong enough to protect each other, we need more..."

"No. We are not leading them to the coven...but Annika and a few of the stronger seekers, could move to my parents castle in Manchester."

"They could help protect us and you." It had started as a musing but it was the fear in her eyes that did Aira in more than anything. The soft pleading that those gentle blue eyes were doing.

"Okay we will call home. Rally the troops. But we have to be smart Tosc. We can't just run there, they will follow. Trust me, you have never seen anything this ruthless."

Tosca took Airas tiny hand in her cold pale one.

"You have a small army this time Air. It will be different."

Her throat was closing on her and no sounds would come out as the tears threatened to spill. All she could manage was a look to let Tosca know how much she was hurting her.

"Oh I'm sorry, I don't know how I forgot. Are you okay did you see much?"

Aria shook her head and whispered.

"Not a lot, I will just never get over how much your change pained you."

Tosca shook her head and held up her palms to stop her.

"Not now we have calls to make. You need to rest, I will call the Coven, and all of the seekers I know here and a couple of the foragers I think will be helpful. You sleep. I will need you to call your families people in England once I get the coven in line."

Tosca tilted her head to one side and surveyed the room and then Aira and then the room again.

"You can take the animals but the fern stays I don't need two things with a death wish following me across the Atlantic." she said as she wearily made her way to her room.

Aira ran her fingers lightly over the ponytail of hair at the nape of brothers' neck and giggled. "Really brother you shouldn't dress the part you only encourage mother to act it."

Drake grabbed her bare wrist quickly and she ripped her hand back as if burned. His Dark brown eyes turned and meet her gray ones.

"Aw mon petit ange faible, ainsi froid au contact..."

"Show off just because you inherited Mama's skill with language."

"And you PaPa's inability to feel."

With a sibling whine she stamped her foot. Her long black hair swinging against her narrow, bony back. Her bottom lip jutting out catching on a tiny front fang.

" I can so feel, I feel too much Papa says, and someday I will take a protector and then I can feel like you or Mama or Papa."

"Yes and I will take a bride and she will be perfection, a true vampiress. Beautiful and exotic."

"She might be a guardian."

"And your protector may be a Lycan."

Airabelle stuck her tongue. Her brother knew the young girls' terror of the wild beasts. She stamped her spoiled little foot again and Drake draped her tiny frame over his cloth covered arm, her giggling bouncing off the stone walls of the basement.

"Take it back! Dracoin Garrison take it back! I will never love a Lycan."

He set her tiny seven year-old frame down in front of him smiling at her, a smile that made mortal women melt, but Airabelle knew it as nothing more then her reward for making her brother laugh.

"You shall never take a Lycan, you shall take a perfect vampire like your brother."

With a giggle she smiled up at him adoringly.

"You're half Guardian."

"Aye, but so are you. More so then I and enough for your mate. But he must convince me he is worthy of mon petit ange faible."

The dream shifted.

Aira sat at her grand piano the room was dark and the curtains where down blocking out any traces of the setting sun. Airas fingers glided over the piano and her curtain of long black hair curled down her back. Drake and her father stood in the doorway clapping as she sang softly embarrassed to have to perform for her brother. Knowing that at 13 she was becoming too old to be his pet. A loud howling drowned out her soft soprano and her fingers stopped on the keys horror filling her. Frantically she turned toward her mother on the couch. She knew what that howl meant, and she was nauseous with fear. Angelica Garrisons pale hand lifted from her needlepoint and waved her daughter on. Choosing to ignore the supernatural howling, it would prove a fatal mistake. Tall dark men filled the house quickly destroying her world in their wake. They moved silently and without reason as they stormed into her house ripping curtains off the walls, every movement, the attack of her father, the death of her mother was met with silence from the Lycans and screams from Airabelle. She was hysterical face to face with her worst nightmares they played with her fear chasing her around the house leading her into corners then chasing her out again. When two finally cornered her and her brother in the darkened basement she was immobilized with fear, until the larger lunged at Drakes throat ripping with his grotesquely long fangs. Airabelle jumped between the Lycan and Drake only to be swatted aside by the younger wolf. She heard the elder growl at the action as Drakes lifeless body fell, he turned on the fragile girl crumpled on the floor. "I canna let ye hurt 'er." The pup drawled in a thick accent. The larger older wolf growled deep in his throat.

"Rowan move." He rasped

"Nay. She's but a wee lass, McClough." His body broad but hunched blocked Aira from the elder's view. The Elder moved towards her again and this time the smaller one stopped and just stared into his eyes speaking with out words.

"Fine, keep the mongrel." the elder drawled heavily spitting towards Aira's crumpled heaving body. Then turned and stalked towards the door. His footsteps power heavy signaling the second to follow. There was a fleeting moment during which he didn't obey instead he turned green Lycan eyes to her. She hissed her face morphing from delicate beauty to feline predtoral anger. And he joined the second. As they stalked from the room Aira lay her head against the cold marble and wailed. Her body twisted and pained her young eyes watching as her brothers blood stain the beautiful stone black, her eyes fell closed as her throat burned with the pain, pain she could do nothing to sate. Pain she would feel forever.