Disclaimer: I don't own Moonlight or anything linked to it.
Category: Moonlight fanfic
Rating: ADULT
Pairings: Josef/OC, Mick/Beth
Summary: Breanna Mabalot has had a shaky past and the only person she has made a point to be close with is her "sister" Ally. When Ally sees that Breanna is taking life too seriously, the girls venture out for a night on the town, and Brea ends up meeting someone who shakes up her world. As life goes on from her earth-shattering experience with Josef Kostan, she finds that more and more peculiarities start to jump out at her- and the well kept secret of her blood will be revealed.
Chapter Eleven
Brea bit hard on the inside of her cheek, attempting to calm herself down while Beth explained to Mick what was going on. The salty, copper taste of blood filled her mouth, and Brea felt her fangs descend on her lower lip with two stinging pricks. A warm hand came down on her lower back, Brea jumped in response.
“Stop biting so hard- you’re making a mess of your mouth,” Josef warned, his tone gentle despite his reprimand. He soothed his fingers under her shirt against the bare skin of her back. Leaning down, he kissed her softly, tasting her abused lips and distracting her mind.
“Brea?” Mick called, breaking up the tender moment of calm.
Swallowing hard, Brea turned from Josef- her hands still grasping him for support- and nodded.
“I just wanted to you to know that I’m doing my best to find your friend. I’m sorry that all of this is happening to you,” Mick told her. He had that look Brea was coming to understand as his guilty look. As if Mick was the cause of her problems- it wasn’t his fault, Brea thought.
“It’s not your fault that I’m in this situation, but I thank you for helping me. I haven’t really made an effort to make friends, other than Ally. She’s been constant, I never thought I needed anyone else. I’m just glad you’re here,” Brea replied, forcing back the tears she felt building.
Josef soothed his hand over her back in one more caress, and then removed it as the private car pulled up to Josef’s labs. The door opened for them and Josef climbed out- extending a hand to Brea; Mick following the gesture for Beth. The hurried into the building and found a main information desk.
“Mr. Kostan,” exclaimed a perky young woman behind the desk, her face lighting up. “How can I help you?”
Josef spared her a glance, “I’m here to pick up some very important papers- research done by Christopher.”
The woman redirected her smile at each person, adjusted her glasses, and typed something into the laptop sitting on her stationary desk. A few clicks and words later the printer to the left of the laptop started spitting out pages silently. She smiled up at Josef and rambled about the excitement of his visit. Josef rejoined playfully about all play and little work while watching the printer pages intently. Brea was fidgeting uncomfortably between Mick and Beth.
“Here you go. Can I do anything else for you, Mr. Kostan?” asked the woman. The way she said the word anything made Brea step closer to Josef in a surprising act of possession.
“No, thank you,” said Josef in response- his amused glance however was directed at Brea.
“Have a nice day,” the woman chirped as they walked out of the building.
Josef folded the papers and put them in his jacket at the curb while the driver pulled the car up.
Once they were all sitting inside the car again, Josef retrieved the papers from his pocket and unfolded them. Brea watched as his eyes zipped from side to side- blurring almost in their haste. He consumed the words quickly, and with each page the look on his face grew more and more serious. When he was done, Josef tossed the packet at Mick and turned to look more carefully at Brea.
“What?” she asked, the suspension finally irritating her into speech.
“I can’t believe this,” Mick muttered, still flipping through the pages and words.
“What?” Brea asked more insistently.
“The compound!” Mick exclaimed suddenly, his eyes jumping to Brea. “I don’t know how this is
possible.”
“If someone doesn‘t -” Brea started, but cut off as Josef opened his mouth to speak.
“You are a vampiric medical marvel. Your blood contains the basic human elements of any other person. However, your blood also has traces of a compound known to reverse vampirism. In addition to the rare botanical DNA found in your system, Christopher has hypothesized that the elements in your blood could be the key to figuring out how vampirism works- in essence how to recreate, strengthen, or destroy vampires.
“Fundamentally, you are the outbreak monkey- though not unaffected by the vampire side of your DNA, you aren’t fully vampire or fully human. More tests would need to be run to figure out the internal balance that being in-between means for your body.” Josef concluded his little explanation with a hard look at Mick who was staring at Brea like she was the answer to all his problems.
“Wait, so I’m some cross between human and vampire because of plant DNA that is mixed with my blood?” Brea didn’t refuse to believe what she was hearing, but every biology class since high school came rushing back. Plant DNA was close to human DNA in design, but have a hybrid strand of DNA that combined them was almost too much to accept.
“Aptly enough, yeah.” Mick threw in. “Listen, Brea-”.
“No Mick,” Josef interjected, stopping Mick’s train of thought before it could come to full speed.
“What?” Brea asked again, she was tired of being left out of the loop.
“Nothing,” Mick said.
“We know why someone is after you now,” Beth stated matter-of-factly, joining the conversation as she handed Brea the packet Mick had given her.
“We also know that it is a vampire, and that they know about the compound- that dramatically cuts the list,” Mick rejoined.
Brea bit her lip and waited for someone to say something else. Josef looked pensive, Mick had a far-off look on his face, and Beth was smiling politely- they didn’t seem all that forthcoming.
“So why and who is after me?” Brea asked.
“Back during the French Revolution when the compound was created, the vampires who had it, made and used it to hide from the fanatics of that time. Unfortunately, the compound was based on a plant that is now extinct, and all plans to clone it, or find a plant from the same phylum have failed. Your blood however, holds the extinct DNA that the compound originates from. The vampires that monopolized the
compound where the richest, most powerful vampires of that region, and they are still around today; their age only adding to the threat they present.
“My ex-wife Coraline was here in LA trying to recreate the formula, she was one of the original seven sibling vampires that held the compound. She was taken by her brother, Lance, back to France- and that was the last I heard about the compound.
“If what Christopher wrote is true, not only can the DNA in your blood recreate the compound, it can enhance it. Lance, and others, would kill to get their hands on you and the compound. My best guess is that Lance has Ally, and that dungeon you saw was his family castle in France,” Mick concluded.
Brea tried her best to take it in stride, listening to everything Mick had to say, but only clinging on to certain parts. His ex-wife was named Coraline, a strangely familiar name. Lance- a French vampire- had her sister in his castle in another country. The story of the seven siblings sounded so familiar, but wrong in some way. It all made sense, but at the same time, Brea felt like something was missing.
“What do we do then?” Brea asked, turning from Mick to Josef. Josef had been silent through Mick’s whole explanation.
“I will do some more digging- find out exactly where the Duvall castle is in France,” stated Mick, redrawing Brea’s concerned attentions.
“Thank you, Mick,” Brea said. Her eyes switched over to Josef- she couldn’t help but stare at him. He had been relatively quite since reading the findings on her blood.
“Isn’t Lance a powerful vampire? Why hasn’t he found Breanna yet? I mean, he managed to get his hands on Ally quickly enough- which means he knows something about her personal life and history. Do you really think it’s safe to continue going to school? Especially with things like today happening? That driver stranding you,” Beth reasoned, her worries written all over her sympathetic face.
Brea could have cringed when Beth said this, especially given the hard look that overtook Josef’s face.
“You were stranded?” Josef’s voice as he asked was pure malice.
“I don’t want to think about that right now. I want to focus on what to do now that we know who has Ally,” Brea said, trying to redirect the flow of conversation, but knowing that would be futile now.
“We will get back to that. Who was your driver?” Josef persisted, his body becoming more rigid with each word.
“Cameron Zeller, okay. I don’t want to worry about some dead-beat limo driver. Josef, I’m really upset right now. Please,” Brea pleaded.
“He’s fired.” Josef stated, wrapping his arms more securely around Brea. He started rubbing circles on her back to ease her tension. “For once, Beth, we are in agreement- Brea, you have to stop attending classes for right now. Take a hiatus. You will be protected at all times on my property.”
He couldn’t possibly expect her to stop going to school. She hated the idea of wasting all the hard-work she had put in that semester- it was already halfway over. What was she supposed to do, sit in bed all day and hide, Brea wondered.
“I can’t just lay around your mansion all day, Josef. And I like school, it’s fulfilling, and I’ve worked really hard this semester. I do not want to throw that all away,” Brea argued.
“Would you rather die?” Josef inquired, his face a contradiction to his harsh words. He looked concerned.
“I just cannot allow my dreams to disappear because someone decided to fuck with my life,” Brea practically shouted. She covered her mouth with her hand a moment after- Brea rarely used swear words. She thought it was distasteful, but feeling cornered and backed into a wall was a feeling she hated. Constantly throughout her childhood foster parents would coerce her into doing things- participating in events while she would have rather been off with Ally in private.
“I’m sorry,” Brea muttered, covering her face with her hands. The stress of the day she was having couldn’t get any worse.
Josef turned her, allowing her to rest against his chest and shoulder. Mick and Beth absolutely quiet.
“What if you did your classes online- through email. I could arrange for a doctor verified illness to incapacitate you, for the moment. I’m sure we could work something out with your teachers, but your safety is important,” Josef whispered into her ear.
Brea nodded, but her head was getting heavy, and she was getting tired. She wanted to say that she would like that, but a yawn came out instead. The limo stopped and Mick and Beth stepped out. Brea looked up and out of the car door- noticing Mick’s office building in the background.
“I’ll let you know if I find out anything else,” Mick promised, shaking Josef’s hand, and offering a kind smile to Brea. Beth waved and called out something about Red Robin, and Brea nodded. The door closed again, and Brea was alone with Josef for the first time all evening.
“Josef, I’m worried.” Brea admitted. She curled one of her fingers around a longish piece of his hair- loving how soft it was, how intimate a gesture it was.
“Everything will work out. Don’t worry, surviving almost half a millennia has taught me a few things. I have my resources,” he assured her, kissing her lips softly.
“Oh that’s right, you’re going to be four-hundred and ninety-eight this year,” Brea commented, remembering what Rita had said.
Josef glanced down at her and their eyes met, “How did you know that?”
“Rita mentioned your party to me,” Brea said, glancing around the comfortable seats and stretching her long legs out on the cushions.
“Making friends with my Freshies?” he asked amused, that familiar glint in his eyes.
“Just one so far,” Brea rejoined, laying her head back against his shoulder. “She told me none of the Freshies are allowed to go, because of the guest list and what being human implies.”
Josef started running his fingers through her hair, watching the strands fall through his fingers as Brea’s eyes closed. Her breathing started to slow and she felt the drowsiness slipping over her.
“I prefer to keep my Freshies for my personal use only. They wouldn’t be hurt at the party, but they would be depleted for several weeks,” Josef explained. His voice had gentled with the slowing of her breathing.
“What am I going to do the night of the party when you’re downstairs entertaining?” Brea questioned aloud, though she wasn’t sure as her thoughts and words were blurring.
“Breanna, would you like to accompany me to the party?” Josef offered, placing another kiss on her head.
She mumbled an “mhmm” and stopped hearing him. She felt herself drifting off to sleep and falling into her reoccurring dream, but she hit a brick wall. It was like someone was keeping her out- something was not letting her into her own dreams. Brea was on the outer-edge of consciousness- her mind a mess of thoughts flowing in opposite directions. Like a timeline she was standing in the middle of- only the timeline was her life, all of her memories.
Everything looked blue, even the visible line that went both backward and forward was a variant shade of blue. It was like standing in a room full of mist and feelings- none of it really made sense, but there was an overall feeling of direction.
Brea glanced forward and stopped breathing. One of the misty shades of blue in front of her was playing out a scene- a recent scene. Brea was watching- through the eyes of her memory- as she met Josef that first night at the club. His sexy, playful self-assurance was in full force and he was watching her with that look of lust she now knew full-well. His eyes were twinkling that sassy way they tended to when he was talking to her flirtatiously.
Brea wasn’t sure what was going on, but she chose to look away from that memory, and when she did- she found herself confronting a more distant memory. Ally was laying on the empty floor of their apartment and she was singing loudly at Brea who was unpacking the moving boxes that had arrived two days after they had moved to in to the LA area. Brea’s breath shuttered out and tears brimmed in her eyes- she remembered that day so well.
Ally’s black hair with purple highlights were curled that day and she had been jazzed about living in a new city- with all the “cute Hollywood hotties” to check out. It hurt Brea to look at her, to know that it was only a memory.
Closing her eyes from the shades of blue, and all the memories assaulting her- Brea tried to puzzle out what was going on. She was fully aware now that she wasn’t awake- not fully- but that she wasn’t dreaming either. She was taking a literal walk down memory lane. Opening her eyes again, Brea noticed the way the blue line was flowing was toward her most recent memories, which meant that going backward would take her to her past. The full realization of what this meant hit her, and Brea started walking in the opposite direction of the flow.
Images of her and Ally in high school; scenes from her most humiliating middle-school moments; blurbs of her pre-adolescence- they were like pretty pictures that she would flip through in a family album- something she had never had. She reached her earliest memory, and stopped. Brea internally fought with herself for a few minutes- she knew it was stupid to be afraid of a memory- it had already happened after-all, but she didn’t really know anything about herself before the incident.
A shimmering blue memory shone in the distance, and Brea screwed her courage to the ground- moving onward. She passed the horrific memory of the incident- it was a dark, sapphire blue that glittered among the rest. Looking forward to that single shimmering memory- Brea pushed through the gauzy feel of the sapphire tragedy and felt her body take a deep breath.
The shimmering expanded the closer Brea got to it, and the memory burst forth in Technicolor. Her mother sat in the white wicker rocker on the wraparound porch to her childhood home. The intense beauty Brea had never quite associated herself with reflected in her mother’s sweet face. It was creamy, smooth and flawless- classic in its authenticity. Her bone structure was lean and petit, but her lips were full and sensuous, her eyes wide with innate happiness, shaped just like those that Brea possessed. Her mother’s eyes were hazel in color, and her hair was long and thick- pulled tightly back in a French braid. Brea could connect to that face, to that woman. She knew her- she felt her in her heart.
Her mother started singing softly, the words lost to her, but the sight heartbreakingly clear. They looked so happy, so natural. A man stepped out and Brea laid eyes on her father. Tall and very rugged. Brea could not seem much of herself in him- his hair was fair, his eyes were dark brown, his build was bulky, and his features were all large and awkward. He wore a plaid shirt and jeans with heavy, brown work boots on his feet. His hair was short and haphazard and he walked with a steady gait that bespoke confidence. To Brea, he seemed like the polar opposite of her mother who was soft and willowy in persona.
Suddenly, when her father spoke- she was able to listen.
“Brielle, I don’t think we are safe here any longer,” her father stated, his voice rich with a deep timber. He scratched at the facial hair that was a few days growth, worry wrinkling his face.
“Caden, he will not find us this time. We are in too remote a place, and we did all we can to remain hidden here. We trust those that we work with- we know that they will keep our identities safe. I want Breanna to have a life here. I want her to know that she is safe to live a normal life. This was our dream, Caden. Come sit with me, take part in our family,” Brielle begged, holding out a free arm to him.
They seemed so precious, so happy in their tenuous safety. Brea thought about that- about the fact that they were in danger from someone. Even as a baby they must have known, somehow they must have known she was special. How? How did she end up with the compound in her blood?
Brea stepped back from the still image of the end of that memory. She was such a cute baby- she looked so normal. What happened to change all that? How did whoever was looking for them manage to discover them?
With a start Brea became conscious again. Glancing up startled by the hand on her shoulder, Brea saw Josef trying to wake her. The limo was stopped and they were back at the mansion- back in the present.
“Are you okay?” Josef asked, confused to her reaction.
“Josef, I just remembered something. Something happened when I fell asleep, I couldn’t dream. I was in this place that was all blue and it was like I was able to pick through my memories. I remember so much more now. I know who my parents are. Josef I know their names,” Brea bubbled, sitting up in her seat. She felt buoyant and ecstatic- she wasn’t just “that Mabalot girl” anymore.
Josef’s attention intensified, and he told her they would talk when they were inside. He opened the door and got out, offering her his hand, which she eagerly accepted. They walked at regular pace, despite Brea’s desire to run up the steps and inside.
Josef led the way to his private study and went to the sleek, steel mini-fridge full of O-Negative. Usually he saved it for emergency- bagged blood wasn’t nearly the delicacy Freshies offered- but he didn’t have the time or privacy for that venture. He downed a bag and a half before turning back to Brea.
“What are their names?” First thing first, Josef was pragmatic.
“Brielle and Caden,” Brea recited. Saying it made it more real, she thought.
“Brielle?” The way Josef whispered it, he sounded like he was remembering something.
“Do you know her?” Breanna exclaimed excitedly.
A dark look came over Josef’s face, his eyes hazing silver for a moment of anger. His fangs drew down low on his lips and his body became stiff. He ripped viciously into the packet of blood he was holding, draining it sans glass.
“Josef what is it? What’s wrong?”
He remained mute for a few more moments until his emotions were under control and his fangs and eyes retracted to their usual.
“It makes perfect sense now. Breanna, Brielle is a vampire, one of the oldest. She is the first of the seven siblings in the Duvall family line. The necklace you clutch to is an heirloom from your family’s past history. I knew your mother back when she still held tight to her family and the viciousness associated with them. Two hundred years ago when I met Coraline- your aunt and Mick’s ex-wife- she introduced me to her family.
“I didn’t know that Brielle had broken off from Lance, or left France at all. This is all news to me. I was told she was somewhere in hiding in Europe- but that was over a hundred years ago.” Josef explained with a hard edge to his voice.
Brea walked over to where he stood tall and unyielding and wrapped her arms around his waist, looking up into his eyes.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Breanna, the only thing I truly know about your mother is that when I met her, she was a cold-heartless bitch with a thirst for the kill,” Josef whispered lethally, as if the idea of her was something to fear.
“But that can’t be her. She wasn’t like that in my memory. She was so gentle and kind- she was loving and happy. She can’t be the same person.”
Brea was begging him with her eyes and he would have done anything to answer otherwise, but he knew he had to be honest, “What are the odds that it’s all a coincidence- that Lance is after you, and that he had a sister Brielle, just as you have a mother named Brielle? And how do you explain the necklace?”
Tears welled up in Brea’s eyes and she bit angrily down on her tongue- forcing physical pain to hide her emotional torture.
“I cannot believe that I finally remember them and it turns out I was better off not knowing,” Brea whispered through tears, “I wish Ally were here.”
The crying came full force and Brea sobbed against Josef- his face softening and his body yielding to wrap around her- arms holding her in a supportive embrace. He murmured words to low to hear, and rubbed circles on her back while kissing her head.
“Josef?” Breanna said into his shoulder.
“Yes?”
“Will you just hold me like this forever,” Brea asked weakly.
“I’m the right person to ask, since I literally have forever,” he teased lightly, but turning serious. “I’ll hold you for as long as you want.” He answered carrying her in his arms to the leather chair behind his mahogany desk.
“Thank you,” Brea replied, laying her head in the crook of his neck and falling asleep to the soothing scent of his cologne.
Author's Note: Hey everyone, it's been awhile I know. I've been teaching a Freshman Workshop and going to school full-time so my updates are few and far between- but I'm hoping that will change over winter break- still about a month and a half away. Thanks for the reviews. Enjoy. EK!
