Beautiful Creatures.

Chapter 7

(Saint and Isabella.)

Sometimes when the heart is crying you will see no tears, just the cracking within like wood set ablaze in a bonfire, or the cracking of ice over a frozen lake as spring arises. That's how Isdabella felt, the first time her heart broke.

Isabella had met Saint on one of her walks around the city. It was a pleasant day. The type of day where the sun and wind playfully rivalled in the atmosphere, none overpowering the other, but settling down into a cooperative flow.

Isabella had let her hair unwind and drop below her shoulders. She had spent hours with a hot comb to get those curls just right, heating the hot comb over the coal and feeling the heat of it wrinkle her scalp as it curled each golden strand. Curls were the beauty standards and she tortured her straight hair until it twisted to conform to what was now socially acceptable for a respectable woman of her era.

She should have worn a hat to protect her curls and the milky white of her skin, but she had not expected it to be a windy day.

Thinking about Saint, Isdabella smiled, his love was toxic. Toxic as the tobacco the men stuffed into pipes and smoked, it was something that could kill you slowly.

She passed the library, a huge building with the exterior design of a Catholic monastery. Everyone stepped lightly as they came closer to the library, the need for silence inside had subconsciously filtered out to the people on the sidewalk.

Her feet trailed along the concrete pavement. Dainty pink, satin slippers with bows going up her legs and tied just above the knees. Long, cream skirt over white stockings, with frills at the ankle and a cotton pink blouse, tucked into the slim waist of her skirt, buttoned all the way to under her frilled chin. Short fluffed sleeves at the edge of long, white gloves, the skirt flared at the hips to give that curvy figure that made a woman desirable.

She was like a delicate doll, that was bought for collection and not for play.

Through the park she went, where white ducks, swam across a round pond. Flowers were on display in various locations along the smooth lawn grass, in circular patches of land, encircled by whitewashed stones.

She saw the tents of the men who had returned from war and had found themselves homeless, pitched across the lawn and women from the salvation army, who visited daily to feed and give them medical care.

She remembered her Grandfather who had returned from war a raging Lunatic. He told her tales of men drinking other men's blood, soldiers who after being wounded to death suddenly got up and walk away, so many horrors that had left permanent terrors in his bloodshot eyes.

Of course, nobody believed him and he drank his life away, a drunkard with an overactive imagination, who either had fallen or flung himself from the roof.

The day before he died he had grabbed Isdabella's hand at the dinner table and said to her.

"Be careful Isdabella. We are always being watched. I don't know who Sirri or Raytard is, but a soldier told me once, that we are direct descendants of a cursed bloodline."

His eyes were looking all over the room as if he expected someone to jump out at him.

"Let go Grandpa you are hurting me."

Isabella had said, her wrist was getting red under his powerful grip. They were having dinner alone, Isdabella's Father and Mother had gone to a fundraiser for orphans.

The next day he had was dead.

Isdabella had thought nothing of his warning, she had gotten used to his mad ramblings. In fact, who would want to hurt her, she was a tutor of Infants with wealthy parents like herself. It was not customary for a lady of her class to be working, but Europe, like the rest of the world was evolving and giving women more freedom.

She crossed the road that lead outside of the park. Carriages were parked on both sides with the family crest of the privileged families to which they belonged. The horses lifted their heads, then lowered them as she passed them by. Mixing with the crowd along the cobbled stone streets, she went by the market and smelled the staleness of cabbages, mixed with sun-kissed fruits. All sorts of scents bombarded her as she kept going.

What really was her Grandfather so fearful of? She thought. They were Stanton's, one of the most prominent families in Europe and it was their position in the City Council that should be feared.

Isdabella saw the restaurant up ahead. She would meet Saint there, she had secretly been dating him for a year now. Whenever she went to meet him, she could not expose herself by taking the family carriage, so she walked.

Too bad about the curls. She thought, wrapping her hair into a messy ponytail . Two curls came down to frame either side of her beautiful face and she appeared glamorous again.

Saint had planned a quiet dinner, it was obvious he had money, he took her to expensive restaurants and gave her expensive presents. However, her Father would not have approved of him because he was a foreigner and not a son of an established family of the soil. Isdabella didn't care about Saint's family background. To be honest she knew nothing about him except that he was a travelling businessman, with diamond mines in Africa. She knew that she loved him and for her, that was enough.

Isdabella entered the restaurant. What a difference the cosy setting made from the hustled and bustled confusion out the long glass windows. All the tables were covered with a cherry, red tablecloth, each having silver embroidered centrepieces with silver candle holders. The musicians were on a stage to the side, the music was calm and sweet like a kiss on the cheek. Chandeliers were in the ceiling and the walls were painted black, which gave the room the illusion that it was bigger than it was. The walls were a perpetual stretch of the night sky under which lovers would cosy up to each other. The perfect ambience.

Isdabella saw Saint sitting in a far corner. He was a handsome man. His longish, black hair was held in a ponytail at the back of his white neck, some waves escaping to fall over his full eyebrows. His green eyes were lazy and cool. He saw her as she came closer and he stood, all 6 feet 2 inches of him to greet her.

"Isdabella how are you, my love?"

Saint asked. He came around to pull out the chair for her and as she sat, he went back to seat himself.

He was a romantic guy who could melt your heart with poetry and stroke it with the melody his fingers would provoke when going over the keys of a piano.

"Fine thank you, Saint."

"May I order for you?"

There was a lurking danger in the stiffness of his broad shoulders that made her excited, instead of fearful. She felt the echoing sound of her heart in her chest, like footsteps on the floor.

"Yes thank you."

Saint ordered and the meal was attractive as it was tasty. The waiter stood in a quiet corner waiting to refill their wine glasses if needed.

Saint looked at her, he smelled that green, apple perfume she preferred and that feminine scent specific to her that made him want to strip her naked and make endless love to her.

He recalled just arriving in Europe and was taking a casual stroll around the city, he was looking for a night of pleasure with any supernatural female creature who was willing. They lived in secret societies, a world within a world. However there were establishments across the globe, bars, sports clubs, and residents, having markings and signs that only another Creature could decode. You just had to know what you were looking for. Places exclusively for their kind, that were not suspicious to humans. He was heading to one of these places, when a specific scent reached out and wrapped around him, then infiltrated him. Making him forget his search for a one-night stand.

He had followed the scent and it led him to her. For days he followed her from a safe distance, watched her every move, she had kidnapped his heart and he didn't want it back. The feelings grew stronger daily. He finally decided that faith was not playing with him and this human, beautiful, female was his eternal mate.

Saint fingered the engagement ring in his pocket, he needed her Father's blessing to marry her, and that would have been the proper way. That however would have been almost impossible. Isdabella had suggested that after this dinner they run off to the Priest and get married, she was beyond the age of eighteen to make her own decisions.

"My Father will be angry of course."

Isdabella had said.

"However he can do nothing after we hand him our marriage certificate."

Saint had laughed at her plan, but Isdabella was not joking.

"At least he will be comforted that I am rich."

Saint had joked. He knew this about Isdabella, that once she made up her mind she would not change it. Saint agreed because there was no way he was willing to give up this once-in-a-lifetime type of love.

He wasn't really worried about Isdabella's Father. Saint was worried that he would marry her without telling her what he was.

Where Isdabella was human, Saint was a pure-blooded werewolf.