Chapter 3 Darker Gifts

He watched her through her window, with an evil grin splitting across his pale features. Muddy brown eyes glimmered with glee as he continued his observations with the object of his obsession completely unaware as she had been for so many years. He still felt the underlying resentment and anger that had festered like an infected wound in his black soul for the past three years.

He smirked at his victory having finally found her after she had the gall to move with her family. If his brother had not been following one of the girl's family members as he had instructed, he was certain she would have been lost for years to come. The thought made his smirk fall from his face, his eyes darkening with his rage, fists clenched so hard his knuckles turned white.

He would punish her for her audacity, and then he would punish those she called family for taking her from him all this time. They had come between him and what he desired most, and he would not let that stand. He felt no pain as his nails dug into the skin of his palms, his heart sang with joy at the thoughts of their agonized screams.

Ever since her fourteenth birthday which she shared with that moronic twin of hers, he had been irrevocably entranced. She had smiled at him and had taken his hand when he had fallen over. It was that moment when he decided that she would be his and his alone. He knew he had to have her as the green-eyed monster that was his jealously raged within him when he had watched her let go of his hand and run to another.

He would have had her then had it not been for that infuriating watchdog that was her father. The man had caught him so many times over the next year of his life as he watched her waiting for his chance to strike. The barbarian had threatened him to stay away from what he now claimed was his. He did not know how the man kept finding him whenever he would watch, but he knew it was bothersome to have such an obstacle in his path, so he took care of it.

The last time he had been run off by the larger male he had broken his wrist in a warning. It was a warning he would not heed and a warning he did not care for. How dare that man try to warn him off and injure his person? How dare that oaf stand in the way of him claiming what was rightfully his? Well, that fool had lit a rage inside his heart that would only be quenched with his blood, and that was exactly what he got.

The next time that neanderthal had seen him it had been his last. He reveled at the fact that his grinning face had been the last one that the barbarian had seen as he ended his pathetic existence. He had relished in the man's dying screams as the only thought that had run through his mind was how he had looked the dead man in the eyes, his dull blue eyes, and told him that now he would go and get what was his and no one would stand in his way.

Just the thought of how he had run the burly man's truck off the road filled him with glee. The exhilaration at the memory of standing over his body, having drugged him with a paralytic he had stolen from his mother. The euphoria that coursed through his veins as he had beaten the man till his last breath still sang through them now.

Of course, it had not lasted long as the night he attempted to retrieve his prize he had been thwarted once more by the girl's disgusting family. They had whisked her away in the middle of the night far from his sight and he had raged. Oh, how he had raged, he tore that house apart brick by brick and incinerated what remained, his knuckles still flaunted the scars from that night and man did he wear them with pride.

He vowed to find her and destroy those who would dare keep her from him, but no matter how hard he searched it was as if she had fallen off the face of the earth and that just fed his anger and resentment. He took pleasure in punishing girls who looked like her, but he was never satisfied as they were mere pale imitations, and he desired the real thing.

It was an act of genius on his part when he learned of the cousin the girl had. The dim-witted daughter to that loathsome woman's sister, he growled at the thought. It had been his luck that he was able to persuade his brother and manipulate him into taking a liking to the cousin. With his brother as obsessed as he was it was only a matter of time before that witless wench led him back to what was his.

For three years he had waited and for three years he had stewed in his contempt and his wrath, and now finally on this revoltingly sunny day, she is finally within his grasp once more. And this time he would ensure she would not slip through his fingers again and that no one would stand in his way.

She would finally be his and that thought sent a perverse chuckle through his entire body allowing that sinister grin to return across his pale face. Soon he will collect what is his but until then he will give her this day to be free and spend with her family. He would give her this day to enjoy and then she would be all his. This day is his gift to her.

"Happy Birthday my love, soon we will be together and no one else will have you," he growled ominously, with a final chuckle he slipped into the darkness of the forest that surrounded her home. Only the echoes of his evil laughter drifting in the wind was the only proof that he was ever there...