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xx The M e n a g e r i e of the L i v i n g Dead xx
Chapter 1. Forbidden Fruit.
Pardus shook the boy off of him, looking annoyed, probably at having been taken on an impromptu carousel ride, or at least something that made his head spin just the same. “Iris,” he growled in warning.
Iris didn’t heed the threatening tone and tugged on the sleeve of his older brother’s shirt. “Pardus! PardusPardusPardusPar—”
“What is it?” Pardus demanded, wrenching his arm from his sibling’s small grasp. The person beside him stifled a giggle. Pardus shot him a harmless glare.
“Pardus…” Iris turned and ran a few feet away, immersing himself in the shadows beneath a large apple tree. The tree was at least three times Iris’s height. “Pardus, shift me up there!” He pointed into the leafy boughs.
Pardus raised a dark eyebrow, hands on his hips. “Why?”
Iris pouted. “Because I don’t know how to shift yet!”
Pardus sighed, rolling his eyes. They were identical to his brother’s, golden, though tilted in a more catlike way and fringed with black lashes. “Why do you want to go up in the tree?”
“Because I want that!” Iris turned his nose skyward and pointed more precisely, at a healthy round apple, the red contrasting sharply against the green leaves.
Pardus moved to his brother’s side, with only the rippling of the grass to indicate that he’d even physically crossed the distance between them at all. He followed his little brother’s gaze, and when he spied the apple he adopted a rather revolted expression. “Why in the world would you want that? Do you even know what that is?”
Iris smiled proudly. “Of course I do! It’s an apple, silly.”
“Okay, and why do you want it?”
“I want to eat it.”
“Why?!” Pardus demanded, the word quickly becoming much too accustomed to his tongue.
“I want to know what it tastes like. Mira said that it’s really good.”
“But Mira is a human. You should be biting her, not an apple!”
“Paaarduusss…” Pleadingly.
“Iiiriiiisss…” Mockingly.
Iris pouted again, stamping his foot on the grass. “Please, Pardus! Just take me up there!”
“No. I will not allow you to poison yourself with such garbage.”
Iris sighed, sitting down on the ground, and started to cry.
“Pardus, must you be so hard on him?” The third party came up beside his friend, putting a hand on Pardus’s shoulder. His voice was cool and propitiating. “How much harm can an apple do him?”
“You wouldn’t know,” Pardus told him sharply, baring his fangs.
“Lexi!” Iris turned and clung to Alexander’s pants. “Take me up the tree! Please!” He sniffled, his eyes red-rimmed and his round face wet. “You can do it! You can climb trees!”
Pardus gave his friend a hard stare. “You do that and I’ll kill you.”
Alexander smiled sweetly, baring his own sharp teeth. He had more fangs than his friend, and a wolfish snarl to match, though the latter lay dormant in his store of expressions for the moment. Now his tan face was smooth and calm. “You can’t shelter him forever.”
“He hasn’t even reached his second triennial birthday! He’s too young,” Pardus argued. “And he’s being ridiculous; why would he need to eat an apple? It’s going to make him sick.”
“That’s a lesson he’ll just have to learn for himself,” Alexander rejoined. “Give him a chance.” He leaned down, pushing the bronze circlet on his forehead up a little. He gestured for Iris to climb on his back, which the young vampire did, with a happy smile. With animal-like dexterity, Alexander leapt up the tree, situating himself on the designated branch with the chosen fruit.
Iris carefully slid off of Alexander’s back, giving him a kiss on the cheek in thanks, and went to fetch the apple. Alexander smiled at the little vampire, waiting until he’d retrieved his prize to carry him back down the tree. As Pardus began ranting about the dangers of befriending werewolves and their bad influences on young minds, Iris held the apple in his small hands, staring at it admiringly, rubbing the smooth, red skin with his dimpled fingers. Then he brought the fruit to his lips and bared his teeth, sinking his small fangs into the apple.
The juice dribbled down his chin and he instinctively latched onto the bite mark he’d made, sucking the nectar from the apple. It was surprisingly sweet as it hit his tongue. He closed his eyes and continued suckling the fruit. It was more difficult a feat than feeding off of a person or an animal, and it surely wasn’t as satisfying, but there was some exotic mystery behind the apple juice that made him want more.
And then it was snatched from his mouth. His eyes flew open with a swish of purplish lashes, and he whined, reaching for the red fruit. “Pardus!” he cried. “Give it back!” But no sooner had he started jumping for the apple than a fever tore through his body, and his stomach twisted cruelly. He gasped and curled in on himself, whimpering in pain.
Pardus huffed, tossing the punctured apple aside and leaning down to scoop his brother into his arms. He glared at Alexander. “Are you happy now? He’s sick.”
Alexander followed Pardus into the castle, glancing back across the vacant, flat courtyard, over the green grass and dirt paths, to the apple tree standing tall and proud somewhere near the center. He caught the faint whiff of flowers, hundreds of them, riding on the breeze that passed through the spacious area, swirling and dancing and teasing, imploring him to join them in a world he wasn’t meant to be a part of. A world of life, glorious, bountiful life only made so by the promise of sweet, silent death. And then it was gone, and he turned his back on the courtyard, trailing his friend. “He needed to learn this, sooner or later,” the werewolf said, pushing a strand of blonde hair away from his pretty face. The cool shadows of the castle welcomed them.
“Learn what?” Pardus demanded.
“The lesson that everyone has to learn, about the forbidden fruit.”
“Forbidden fruit?”
“Yes, everyone has one, something that they want so badly but aren’t meant to have. This is just the first of many in his life.”
Pardus was quiet, and then snapped, “Don’t pretend that you understand everything about the life of a vampire.”
Alexander drew up beside Pardus, his usually serene expression stony. “It doesn’t pertain to only vampires, and you know it. It pertains to every immortal creature. Nothing lasts forever, nothing except an immortal’s wretched life. As everything else withers around them, they live on. Even if they manage to catch hold of something good, something that will never die, just like them, that thing can never stay with them forever. It’s impossible. You know that we’ll never stay close forever, that someday I’ll move on and you’ll move on and we’ll never once spare each other a passing thought.”
“I…won’t…” Pardus bit his lip, holding his brother tighter.
“You will.”
“No, I won’t forget you.”
“Well, then I’ll forget you. And then I’ll be your forbidden fruit.”
Pardus stopped walking, and Alexander swept past him. Pardus shook his head, and then continued on his way to Iris’s bedchamber. “Must you be so harsh?” he asked quietly.
“Reality is harsh, Pardus.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to rub it in my face! Let me live in blissful denial as I please! And when the day comes for me to face reality, let me suffer then!”
Alexander shook his head, and muttered something about hopeless-romantic vampire idealists.
Iris sighed quietly and closed his eyes, turning his face into Pardus’s chest. The pain was beginning to ebb, but the fierceness of it still lingered in his mind, frightening him. And all the while, he longed for another taste of that forbidden fruit, just one more.
