Creatus

It was only four-thirty, but the sun was fading behind the buildings and the temperature was dropping fast. Most tourists had already left for the warmth of their hotel rooms, so he and Kristina would have the park to themselves.

Derrick located a secluded spot under a deciduous tree, overlooking Boston Harbor. He layered one of the afghans on the grass and then held his hand out to Kristina. Lowering his body to the ground, he pulled her down beside him. He folded the other blanket around her shoulders and then wrapped his arms around her. The warmth in his body cranked up a notch as she leaned against him. For several minutes, they stared out over the water.

In a matter of moments, the nighttime sky had transitioned from the pastel periwinkle color of the day to a deep indigo. Only a sliver of the moon rested above the horizon as if an artist had used the smallest brush he owned and just whisked a thin white line onto his canvas.

Sweeping Kristina’s hair off her shoulder, Derrick pressed his lips against the side of her neck and inhaled the fresh clean scent of her skin. She rarely wore perfume, which was fine with him since he had such an acute sense of smell. He appreciated her natural aroma along with a hint of raspberry, which must come from her body wash. He’d always been able to pick her out among a crowd, even if she was out of his line of sight.

“I have something for you,” he whispered. “No matter what you decide, it’s yours, and I want you to have it.”

Kristina turned in his arms, pulling her knees up in front of her and wrapping her arms around them. She lifted her head to look at him, and he couldn’t resist kissing those delicate pink lips. Just a soft kiss, but it sent a shockwave through his system again. What would he do if she left him? His kind didn’t fall twice. Yes, there was no doubt he loved Kristina. And his heart would break if she didn’t return that love. She was human. Capable of loving and leaving. His parents had warned him, his brother had cautioned him, even Vic had begged him to reconsider when he’d even mentioned Kristina in passing.

Kristina pulled her head back abruptly. “Are you okay?”

He nodded, realizing a tear had fallen. He’d never cried in his life, had never shed a tear. Even when Janelle had died in front of him. All he felt was hatred. But the thought of losing Kristina… the worst possible loss for his kind. “I’m fine.”

“Derrick. No matter what your secret is, I don’t care. I want to stay with you.”

“But you don’t even know me,” he countered.

“Yes, I do. And I feel something I’ve never felt. For anyone.” She lifted his hand and pulled it to her lips. “Talk to me please.”

“There’s so much… I don’t even know where to start. But first of all, I have something for you.” He reached inside his jacket, pulled out the tiny black box he’d had for six years, and held it out for her.

Kristina eyed it warily. “Um… well… this is fast.”

A laugh shot out of his throat before he could contain it. She was just so darn cute, and again, he couldn’t help but wonder why it had taken her jumping off a bridge to send him into action. How had he lived so long without her beside him? “It’s not an engagement ring. Besides, marriage isn’t what matters in my world anyway. A commitment is a commitment. A piece of paper means nothing.”

She reached from under her blanket and opened the velvet box. Her eyes widened as she recognized the ring. “Oh, my God! How did you—” Tears burst from her eyes. “My mother’s ring—actually, my grandmother’s ring. I sold it when I was sixteen.”

Derrick brushed her hair away from her face and kissed her forehead. “I know. I made sure no one could beat my bid.”

Laughter and tears erupted again. “Oh, God. Thank you. I’ve regretted selling it every day of my life.” She slipped the ring onto her right-hand ring finger and then moved to her knees in front of him. “Thank you, Derrick. Thank you for everything. What would I have done without you?”

“Kristina,” he said, his tone serious, wondering where to start. He tilted her face to him, holding on to her. He’d jump right in, he decided, hope she wouldn’t hate him, or think he was a freak as his brother had teased. “I knew your mother. Janelle and I worked together. She was so sweet, so kind.” Kristina’s eyes grew wide again, so he rushed to continue. “We were just friends.” He inhaled a deep breath as he watched a tear roll down her cheek. He rushed to get his explanation out before she ran away from him. “We’d interned together. And I’d been held up that night. I’d been fighting with my brother. I should have been there, stopped that man. I should have killed him—”

She pressed her hand against the side of his face. “It’s not your fault.” She shook her head as she obviously tried to make sense of everything. “You knew my mother? Did you…were you—”

He shook his head fiercely. “No. Nothing. Just friends. I’d made a commitment to protect her, though, and I failed.” He lifted Kristina’s hand to his lips. “When my kind fall… in love, I mean… we fall completely. It’s not like a human falls in love. It only happens once. When we decide that we want to be with someone… and then make love, there’s a connection. Because of that, though not completely uncommon, casual sex is rare. We only pursue someone we want to be with forever.”

She narrowed her eyes, tilting her head. “So you’ve never ‘fallen’ for a woman.”

“Not in that way… until now.”

Her mouth dropped open a fraction. “But we haven’t… or did we?”

“No, no. God no. The kiss. Just our kiss. It’s unusual, but I’ve heard it happens. If the desire is strong to be together.” He sighed. “So much to explain. We got off track. You’re not upset that your mother and I were friends?”

Kristina gave a dismissive shrug. “I always thought you knew us. The way you looked at me in the alley, the way you were so upset when you pulled that man away from my mother. I recognized you weren’t a random stranger.”

He released a titter of relief. “Okay… well, that takes a load off my mind. My brother insisted you wouldn’t be able to handle that, let alone the rest of the details.” He brushed her hair back and rested his hand against her cheek. Just maybe, he hoped. Perhaps she’d be okay with everything else he had to confess to her. Though his brother thought she’d be upset, Derrick assumed she could live with the fact that her mother and he had worked together. The rest of his secrets, however, might not be as easy to accept.

“I’ve always known you’re different, Derrick.” She ran her fingers down his jawline, a feather light stroke that sent his heart soaring, ready to take flight. “Will you talk to me now?”

He nodded and decided just to spill it all out at once. “We call ourselves creatus. From the Latin word meaning ‘created’. When my kind came here, there was a lot of confusion about what we were and where we came from. But the fact of the matter was, even we didn’t know. We came to this world about four thousand years ago, on what you might call an ark, in an attempt to escape our world we theorize. According to my elders, we were directed to this planet. Only two elders escorted hundreds of toddlers and then destroyed all evidence of our arrival and our technology, taking up residence among humans.

“Everything seemed fine, according to our history, which we are taught in our private schools. Until our diet and strength became known.” Derrick paused to let her catch up with his earlier comment about their eating requirements. “Cooked meats and grains are poisonous to our system, as they are to humans. But for some reason, the carcinogens don’t affect humans the way they affect us. It takes years to kill you in the form of heart disease and other maladies, but for us, we get deathly ill and usually die within weeks.

“When humans witnessed us eating raw red meat, they assumed we were blood drinkers and began to hunt us as demons. In order to protect ourselves, we had to kill and go into hiding.”

“Derrick,” Kristina cut in, “are you telling me you really are a vampire?”

Derrick drew her hand to his chest and held it there without saying a word for a couple of seconds. “Do you feel that?” She nodded. “The myths are just that, myths. I have a heart; it pumps blood through my system. Just because we eat raw red meat, people assume we drink blood. Have you seen anyone eat a rare steak?”

“Yes… ewww…”

He blew out a breath, and a white puff of smoke encircled them, as the temperature was dropping fast. “Can you handle this, Kristina?”

She bobbed her head. “Yes. My mother actually ate her steak pretty rare.”

“I know…” He sighed and continued, “We are actually a peaceful race, and contrary to popular belief, we are not immortal, and a bullet will kill us just as any other being. We are, however, extremely strong. We estimate