Escaping Christian

Prologue: Her Freedom

Arsonist's Lullaby - Hozier

__________________________________

What is that god awful smell?

I swallowed my dry heave as an array of scents assaulted my nostrils. Scents that consisted of spices, sweat, overpowering perfumes, and the ass of a cow. Truthfully, that was probably about a quarter of the scents. The market place of Cairo was a questionable place, really. It took me a while before I started getting used to my surroundings, used to the way the people worked, how to respect their culture and how not to offend them in certain spaces. I loved every minute of this place. Well, apart from situations like these.

In my twenty-eight years of life, I hadn't thought I would be spending most of my days digging in Cairo studying the earth, its ruins and the organisms. My dreams had truly come true.

However, I definitely did not expect to be standing a breaths width away from a stinky-ass cow mooing its cowbell off.

I scowled inwardly and moved as far back as I could into the hustling crowd of locals and tourists, keeping my eyes firmly on the man buying a tapestry wall hanger from one of the venders. He was a good-looking guy. He looked homely, probably had a nice girlfriend back at the hotel, probably who he was buying the tapestry for. Good for him. Brunette, tanned skin. Hm. My type... Appearance wise that is.

Now, don't get me wrong. Someone like him - taken - wasn't my type though. I wasn't a home wrecker. But with this one, I felt like I didn't have a choice. I was attracted almost as soon as I saw him. Or smelt him more like.

God dammit Evie would kill me. And so would Amy probably. I haven't seen my best and oldest friend's in over a year, not since our annual vacation. Every year since we all graduated college, and became vampires, we agreed to go on holiday with their other halves and their kids - half-vampire half-humans. It was a nice way to keep in touch if any of us, namely me, decided to fly off the radar for a long period of time. They had lives and families of their own and me? I had work to do. I loved what I did, loved it.

Being a geologist is what I live for, it's what I'd aspired to be even at fifteen years old. I took my master's degree after I graduated and now I have a job people would kill for. My friends are doing what they love and so am I. And unfortunately my job required me to move around the world for usually long periods of time.

I ground the back of my molars as my mind contemplated how I could approach him. Slowly? Calmly? As I pondered on what to do, another few choice words entered my mind. Desperate. Stupid. I'd gone this long without feeding and this is what I'd resulted to. Prowling the streets at.... Oh god, 1:43pm? I am a terrible person. Terrible, terrible person.

No, I am strong. Confident. And I don't care what anyone thinks of me for doing this... Which is a little bit of a lie but I squared my shoulders and stuck to it. Chelsea McDonald doesn't take orders from anyone. Not a single soul.

I swiped my palms down my loose linen trousers - as the dress code around the market place can become confrontational to most men if I were in short shorts, something I discovered two years ago - and my blouse. Like a snake, I was weaving in and out through the crowd, my eyes firmly on the guy buying the long pointless blanket that was probably going to end up in a wardrobe under a pile of shoe boxes.

But as I grew closer and the tiniest of breezes blew his scent my way, nothing mattered other than feeding. Not a thing. My sunglasses covered the widening of my pupils, as it should. I lost the idea of trying to get him calmly or slowly. All logical sense of thinking left me completely. And as I made it beside him, he turned to me, offered me a small polite but hesitant smile clearly observing my forwardness. Then I pulled my sunglasses off and met his eye in only a way a vampire could. With the ability to coerce.