by Lucy Lyons
Her father glanced at her, confusion on his face. He didn’t know how to treat her, now. She stood with vampires. The betrayal in his eyes nearly killed her. “We can’t tell everyone everything. If one of us was ever captured, we can’t risk all our secrets coming to light at once.”
That made sense, at least. She didn’t like it, but it made sense.
“I thought you were dead,” her father said angrily. “I swore my revenge and I gathered every other group of hunters I knew, and we finally managed to bring our attack here, only to find that you,” he jabbed at Desmond with his gun, “stole her. You stole her, broke her, charmed her. You monster! You should have just killed her! Now she’s worse than dead.”
Desmond hunched his shoulders, preparing to lunge and attack. Maximus braced himself against the earth, snatching up his gun.
Viktoria had never known her father to miss a single target in his life. She was always amazed at his accuracy, but this was one bullet that never needed firing.
“Don’t!” she said, and thrust herself between them.
“Get out of the way!” both men snarled in unison, but she stood her ground.
“No! Dad, look!”
Viktoria snatched at her collar and yanked it down.
Maximus glanced at her blankly, and then his face blanched, devoid of color. He looked again, harder. She knew exactly what he wasn’t seeing. She had no bite mark.
“I’m not charmed,” Viktoria said desperately. She spread her arms. “I never was. The vampires took me because they thought I was a Willow. I am. I always will be. But I pretended not to be so I could try to escape. But Desmond didn’t let me leave. But he protected me, too! He was kind to me and made sure that I had what I needed. He told me about himself. About being a vampire. I understand now.” She saw that all this was going right over her father’s head. “You can’t hurt him!”
“I can do what I want,” her father growled. “Move. Now.”
“No!” she shouted.
From behind, she felt Desmond’s fingers clasp around hers. He didn’t try to pull her away, though. All he did was hold on.
Closing her eyes to soak in some of his support, Viktoria opened them again to look right into her father’s eyes.
“Everyone is wrong. Vampires and humans. Things aren’t meant to be this way. Humans were unfair to vampires.”
Maximus scowled. “That’s…”
She talked right over him. “That doesn’t mean things should have ended up this way, but vampires…” Even she could hardly believe she was about to say this, but she knew it to be true, now. “Vampires are not evil for being what they are, not any more than humans are evil for being what they are. I don’t understand it, either. I don’t have to. All I know is that this battle is wrong. It needs to stop. This arrangement is wrong, and we have to find a different way.”
“What other way is there, Viktoria? You’re just a teenager! You can’t pretend that you understand anything of the way the world works.” Her father frowned sadly at her like she was the worst disappointment in the world. It stung bitterly, especially when she remembered how proud of her he used to be, but she shoved the pain away.
“But I’m not the teenager that I was when I left, Dad,” she said quietly. “I’ve seen a lot more of the vampires than you ever will, hunting them.”
Maximus shook his head. His entire body shook, and his fingers trembled against his pistol. “Give me my daughter back, you monster.”
Desmond spoke solemnly. “That’s her choice to make.”
Viktoria didn’t need to think, although she felt like she should have with every eye in the surrounding forest on her. She knew deep inside that she was born to love humans, as a human. She loved her father. But she was now free to choose what she loved, and her choice surprised even her.
No words were needed. She stepped back, away from her father and into Desmond’s grasp. His arm wrapped around her waist tightly, and he didn’t let go of her this time.
The look of betrayal on her father’s face deepened, and he shook his head. “Viktoria. I…Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said simply. “Desmond protected me. I told you that. But he did more than just protect me. He went out of his way to provide for me. I was made a part of what goes on here, and it’s… not wrong. It’s different but it’s not wrong.” Her voice shook and she took a deep breath. “Desmond’s done right by me, and I want to do right by him. Please, Dad. Don’t fight anymore. Please. Take your hunters home.”
“And what? Let his kind continue to ruin lives?”
“No,” Desmond spoke up again. “We will have to come to some sort of agreement. Whatever the Swifts do, the other vampire families will follow. I can’t promise you immediate peace, or that everyone will commit. However, I can promise you that I will try.”
“And why would you do that?”
“Because that’s what Viktoria wants,” Desmond said, looking at her. She felt her heart pound as she looked into his eyes. “If it will make her happy, I’ll do it. And honestly, I’m tired of fighting. I’m just as tired as you. We are the same in that regard.”
Maximus just shook his head. Then, he turned on his heel and walked away. He walked away, his shoulders braced as if he expected to be attacked from behind, but no vampire made any move at all.
The same couldn’t be said for the hunters. They had lost friends and loved ones, and they weren’t going to give up the fight so easily.
Viktoria saw a blur of movement and her eyes snapped towards the figure who was moving apart from the rest. It was a hunter she didn’t recognize, shouldering his rifle.
“No!” she said, horrified.
The shot went off, deafening in the clearing before the fortress. Viktoria whipped around just in time to see a vampire falter and collapse to its knees, flesh smoking from the silver embedded in its shoulder.
Her father whipped around and shouted, “No! Hold your fire! If any one of you hits my daughter by accident, you’ll wish a vampire got ahold of you!”
Despite his words, another hunter raised up their pistols, and three broke ranks to rush forward. Maximus stood where he was for a moment, his mouth open as he started to lose control of his people.
Viktoria looked around desperately, but there was nothing she could do. Then, she felt Desmond release her. The vampire king leapt forward to meet the three running hunters head on, but he didn’t hurt them. Before they could even begin to try to attack him, he grabbed two in his powerful arms and brought them back over to Maximus. Maximus flinched away, but all Desmond did was drop the attackers and leap away again to fetch the third.
That one, he held onto by the neck and brought before Maximus, just out of his reach. “If I wanted to,” Desmond said, without a hint of threat at all in his voice, “I could have killed all of these fools. I chose not to. I am choosing peace. I cannot promise I’ll never kill another hunter out of self-defense, but I won’t kill anymore of you right now.”
Maximus said nothing, his face hard.
Desmond dropped the third hunter and turned to walk back to his own side. “The fighting stops now,” is all he said.
It took the better half of the day for the rest of the fighting to completely stop around the fortress. None of the hunters were allowed to go back inside. Instead, the vampires spread word amongst themselves and they began to non-lethally gather up the hunters fighting them and dump them back outside for Maximus to explain the situation to them. No one was happy.
Viktoria knew that no one was going to be happy for a very long time. A great period of adjustment stretched out before them all, and it was terrifying. Still, she knew it had to be faced.
Maximus finally stood in front of the remnants of his hunters, looking right at Viktoria. He shook his head a little bit, and then started to head back down the mountain.
“You’ll be hearing from us,” she called after him. “I promise, Dad. We’ll get something worked out.
”
He didn’t say a word…but he did raise his hand to let her know that he heard her.
Viktoria felt movement beside her, and she turned slightly just in time to see Desmond reaching out for her. His rough, cold hand wrapped around her face, and then his body pressed against her as his lips came down to rest upon hers.
It was a strange thing, to kiss a vampire. His skin was cold and firm, and his metallic scent wreathed around her, but she kissed him back and let her eyes fall shut as warmth gathered in her stomach.
Finally, Desmond drew away and looked at her in the eyes. “This is going to be a very hard thing to do, Viktoria,” he said. “It’s almost madness. Changing the future ahead of us. What are we going to do?”
Her mind furiously at work, she replied, “A better arrangement. We’ll make one. Maybe one where prisoners are offered up to vampires, and no one ever gets killed. We’ll have to talk about it.”
“And no one is ever going to be happy all the time.”
“Someone will be,” Viktoria said quietly. “You’ve done nothing but try to make me happy the whole time I’ve been here. I see that now.”
Desmond gave a little growl. “It took you long enough,” he said, and then he kissed her again.
This time, she wrapped her arms around his neck. The future was uncertain but she had made her stand, and she knew that, Desmond Swift at her side, there would come a day when humans and vampires could truly live in peace. After all, if a hunter could find her place amongst the vampires, anything was possible.
The End
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