Haunting Dreams
Once I had the rarest Rose
That ever deigned to bloom
Cruel winter chilled the bud
And stole my flower too soon
Oh loneliness,
Oh hopelessness
To search the ends of time
For there is in all the world
No greater love than mine
“Love song for a Vampire” - Annie Lennox
~~~~~~~~~~
Dorothea was awakened by the sound of a sizzling pan in the kitchen, two rooms away.
Still groggy from the previous night of sleep - and not sleep, as the sweet soreness between her thighs reminded her - she cracked one eye open.
“Jacob…?” she groaned, as she reached out to the other side of the bed.
The tip of her fingers only met cold silk, instead of the warm softness of his body.
Stretching her arms, she took a deep breath as her nostrils picked up the intense smells coming from the kitchen: dried aromatic herbs, vegetables cooking in olive oil, the bread warming up in the toaster...and a strong, pungent, metallic smell that had nothing to do with food.
At least not the one destined to her.
Dorothea couldn’t help the reveling smile that stretched on her face: he was always up before her, always making breakfast for her, always making sure that “his impish little human” was well fed and sated.
She shivered, as she grabbed for her robe - still unceremoniously on the floor, along with the rest of her nightwear- and quickly donned it over her bare skin, making way toward the kitchen trying to be as quiet as a mouse.
But she smirked: she knew Jacob had already heard her the moment she had called for him, and yet, he always pretended to be caught by surprise, to give her the illusion of the advantage.
It was part of the little game they had been playing with each other ever since they had met for the first time….the first time for her, at least.
When she crossed the kitchen’s threshold, she was welcomed by the soft lights of perfumed candles, instead of the bright one of the lamps, and she was grateful for that: Jacob knew she was still adjusting to her enhanced senses, and always took all the precautions so that she wouldn’t feel any discomfort.
Scanning the kitchen, she found him, busy at the stove, and she took a moment to take in the view.
He was dressed in a white shirt, crisp and tensed over his solid shoulder blades. Her eyes wandered over his strong arms, his sleeves rolled up halfway so as not to get stained; over his broad back, barely contained by the garment and yet impeccable in its cut; and then trailed down, stopping for a brief moment over his black wool trousers.
She bit her lip, noticing how tight the fabric was, wrapping his firm legs as if it was painted directly on his skin.
Her heart made a small jump in her chest as she trailed off in her thoughts for a moment, her memories running back to a few hours earlier when she had gripped at those buttocks to push him deeper and deeper inside her.
A low, husky chuckle coming from the Master Vampire brought her back to reality, and Dorothea shuffled toward him, hiding her face against his back.
“What’s so funny, Jacob?” she asked, her cheeks turning a deep red colour as she tiptoed behind him and wrapped her arms around his strong torso, feeling his muscles underneath her arms.
She brushed her lips against the shirt and inhaled his cologne, the perfume of smoked wood and leather so strong it was almost intoxicating.
“Evening, Goldilocks” he purred, his voice a low vibrato that sent shivers of pleasure down her spine and made her heart jump in her chest once more. He chuckled at that. “A little hiccup-y, today, love?”
Dorothea snorted. “As if you didn’t know already,” she said, unable to stop the grin that spread on her lips.
He tilted his face, looking just above his shoulder and giving her a playful smirk, his eyes hooded with a teasing light to them.
Another leap in her chest.
And he chuckled again.
“Yes, that’s definitely a hiccup. I’ll need to take a look at it, later on, Dot,” he whispered, as he poured wine in the pan and let the alcohol evaporate. “I can’t let my fellow bloodsucking friends hear my darling’s heart dancing like that.”
She gently poked him in his ribs, eliciting another bout of laughter from the vampire. “Because you know everything about dancing, right?”
Jacob chuckled as he added some stock to the pan; then, he dried his hands in a towel, before turning to face her.
With a mischievous smile, he took her small hand in his own and made her twirl around on her spot, her giggles the melody of his heart, before gently dragging her toward him, as she plopped against his chest.
“As if you didn’t know already, love” he husked, echoing her earlier words as he tilted her face toward him, allowing their lips to meet in a sweet kiss that tasted of autumn and spices, licorice and cinnamon mixing together as he caressed the tip of her tongue with his own.
Dorothea could feel a faint trace of a metallic taste in his mouth, ever-present in all their effusions, but she didn’t give it much thought.
It was a part of him, just like his dark hair and his hazel eyes, or the cheeky smile he always had for her.
And she wouldn’t want him in any other way.
When Jacob broke the kiss, to allow his little human to draw breath, his large hand found its way to her face and caressed her cheek, his thumb brushing against the freckles on her nose with loving attention.
He moved aside a stray lock of pale hair and looked at her face with the warmest gaze, before lowering toward her and giving her another sweet kiss, lingering against her lips.
“Do you have any pain?” he inquired, marking each word with a soft peck, one of his hands wandering to the curve of her breast, where a mark - his mark - stood above her heart, red and tender.
Dorothea shook her head.
“Not more than any other time,” she answered, pouting as she gripped at his shirt. ”You didn’t drink much, though. And not as you usually do.”
Jacob smirked, kissing the pout away. “I know, but tonight I need to be as sharp as ever at the Council….although, when I come back, I'll rectify my unforgivable behavior, love, you can rest assured of that,” he murmured, raising his eyebrows in a silent demand as a lascivous smirk graced his lips.
Dorothea sucked in a sharp breath, knowing what it meant, as her cheeks once more turned on fire.
“Did you sleep well?” He asked, between kisses, “You tossed around quite a lot and I heard you call your brother,”
Dorothea froze on her spot, gripping his white shirt and biting her lip.
Her brother Adam. Her twin. The one she had left behind when she had crossed the threshold that had led her back into the Master Vampire’s arms. Knowing there was no point in hiding her emotions, she nuzzled her face against his chest, kissing it through the fabric, as her heart sped up again, this time with disquiet.
“I...I dreamed of Adam, at first. We were at the skating rink at the Tower,” she whispered, as she tried to remember all the details. “He was with Viola and Victor, and we were all skating together. Adam had booked the whole skating rink for all of us, and Viola kept falling on her butt,”
Jacob rested his cheek on the top of her head, cradling against his chest as he listened intently, his own mind thinking about the Viola he had once known. He had to bite back a chuckle as he imagined her skating and plopping on the hard ice: there was something extremely hilarious in imagining that serious tough inventor he had met, back in the time when he was still human, gracelessly tumbling while pirouetting away.
“That sounds nice, love,” he commented. “What else?”
Dorothea tensed, her hands grabbing at his shirt stronger now as if to find the courage to talk.
“I….I dreamt of him again,” she murmured, furrowing her brows as she tried to remember.
Jacob’s eyes widened, as his hold on her grew stronger, his face becoming a mask of barely concealed wrath.
Him. The Hunter. The one that had been following him for more than a century.
“Tell me,” he demanded with a low voice that carried the growl born deep within his chest.
The young woman swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry.
“I...I was doing my rounds, warming up and he was there, on the side, sitting and watching me.” She pouted, as she raised her face to look at the vampire in the eye, a pained expression painted on her features. “I could see his green eyes so clearly. He was smiling at me, Jacob. He...he was looking at me as if he had known me my entire life - as if he had known me beyond this life. And I knew that smile.”
She rested her forehead against his chest, feeling the telltale sign of the headaches that always followed those dreams.
“I remember him reaching out to me on the rink, and that’s when everything changed. I wasn’t skating anymore, but walking with him in this pompous dress that truly looked more like something the actors in 'Victoria' would wear. We had reached an old Manor, and that’s when he told me that he would bring me back into my father’s arms, back where I belong. And something kept tugging at the back of my mind that I should know why he would say that, and yet I can’t find a reason. I don’t even know him.”
The vampire’s eyes flashed in a cold fury, while his lips twitched as he drowned another feral growl in the back of his throat.
“It was a dream, love,” he murmured reassuringly. “Nothing more than that.”
She shook her head, her lips quivering, as she tried to remember, screwing her eyes shut trying to grasp at what she had seen while asleep.
“That’s the thing: it felt like a memory, not like a dream,” she whispered, as she felt the pain drilling in her skull.“But why him? Why don’t I ever dream of you? Why always him?”
The vampire sighed, gently cooing her. as he made her rest her head against his chest, one large hand cradling it as the other rubbed her back in a soothing motion.
His eyes lit up with fury, and he was grateful that his own heart was long dead inside his chest.
She didn’t need to know the wrath that he felt in his lost soul.
Even after more than 150 years, Byron Harrison - because he knew that the man in Dorothea’s dream was none other than that damn Damphyr- was still haunting them.
“I don’t know,”Jacob lied. “But we will find a way to get rid of it, Dot. I promise you that.”
‘And I will find a way to get rid of him. Permanently,’
--------------------------
So.
All this talk about Vampires and Werewolves the gave me the courage to actually share something I have written months ago (that I had already shared with some of my friends in Rosa on Discord) when I was first starting to entertain a preternatural AU for Dottie and Jacob, and like a toddler, I decided to try my hand by writing them as vampires - or rather, Jacob as a vampire and Dorothea as a normal human (for the time being, lol).
I had a whole plot jotted down, with the whole story being set in Modern Times rather than Victorian, but as I said, I later discarded the whole idea in favour of my Werewolves!AU.
I still might write more about them in this AU, tho, if the Muses come knocking on my door, because I adore Vampires just as much as I adore Werewolves (although Werewolves always have a special place in my heart).
Anyway, the whole plot was very much inspired by my most favourite of movies, Coppola's “Dracula by Bram Stoker” from 1992, because that movie truly shaped my interests and has left an enormous mark in me.
However, I was quite happy with this piece, and decided to share it here anyway, because it’s short, so it’s not too much hassle to read!
So, along with a moodboard, here you have “Haunting Dreams”!
Hope you will like this! <3
-Nemo Turunen