by Bocco, Diana
She exhaled, her soul surrendering. It was a lost battle, trying to deny how she felt. It had been a lost battle for a long time—maybe from the time he touched her. She had been denying her feelings because they seemed like a betrayal to the entire human race, but denying them was a betrayal to her own soul.
The night got darker and deeper as the first spatters of rain hit the window.
“Because I’m supposed to hate you,” she finally conceded.
He gave her a pointed look, his eyes unreadable in the silence of the room. “And do you?”
The storm outside matched the one raging on inside her. She felt the urge to open a window, let the storm in to embrace them both—but she didn’t move.
“I’ve tried… I… No.” She took a deep breath. “Remember a while ago, when I said I was yours?”
The silver in his eyes seemed to sparkle with unread emotions. “Yes,” he said.
“I meant it,” she finally said and as the words came out, relief washed over her.
Marcus straightened up, his hand reaching for the back of her head. When his lips closed on hers, there was a gentleness there that brought tears to her eyes. The warmth of his touch spread over her and her chest contracted.
“I came here to kill you,” she said when he finally broke the kiss.
He inched away and stayed silent, waiting for her words.
“You… humankind is more or less gone. We were hoping to rebuild, survive somehow. We thought maybe if the king was dead, it would help. I don’t know.”
“And you were the appointed killer?”
“It was my idea.”
He got up and turned around, walking a few steps, away from her and towards the window. “What now?”
What now? The question thundered around in her head. She had no answer for that. “I don’t know, Marcus. Everybody I love is suffering, hiding, fading away… I don’t want them to die.”
He turned around to face her. He had never looked more human and more magical than he did at that moment. “Even if you could kill me, that would only open the door for Patrick to take over.”
She got up, stumbling slightly. Her legs were slowly returning to normal. “I don’t want you to die anymore.”
He smiled his half smile. “Well, that’s a relief.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense, Marcus. It’s not like we can truly be together and pretend we’re the same. Or pretend the world isn’t dying around us. I don’t even know who… what… you really are.”
He moved with the speed of lightning, materializing in front of her before she even realized he had moved. “You mean things like this?” He grabbed her chin and pushed her head slightly backwards so he could lock eyes with her. “It’s all an illusion, Belle. It doesn’t really matter.” He noticed her trying to speak and he placed a finger on her lips to prevent it. “But I can answer any questions you have.”
Questions. She had a world of them. And now that she had told him the truth about her presence in the compound, she was finally free to ask them. Except that suddenly, she didn’t care. She just wanted to stay there, close to him, pretending the world outside didn’t exist.
He smiled. “Well?”
His fingers traced her face, as if he was savoring the memory of her skin. It was almost easy to forget he wasn’t human in moments like those. Almost. Because deep down, there was a war raging in her soul. There was no way she could keep denying what she felt for him. And yet she also couldn’t deny what that meant for everybody else out there, counting on her to do something.
She swallowed hard. “I want to know why me? Where are the female vampires?”
Marcus rubbed his neck. “I don’t have a real answer for the first question, Belle. There’s something special about you.”
“Because you can’t charm me?”
“That’s only part of it,” he said. “I guess you could say I was intrigued from the beginning. And that’s not something that happens often.”
“What about my other question?”
“There haven’t been any female vampires since the sixteenth century,” he said. “We had a big outbreak of the void and it affected the females of our species much more rapidly. There haven’t been any female vampires since then.”
A chill ran through her. “So you’ve been without a partner all this time?”
His eyes probed into hers. “Until now.”
She let the words wash over her. There was a roughness to him that she respected—the kind that came from suffering and surviving. The kind she felt too. So hearing him confess that he also felt something at the other end of the spectrum was a revelation. One that was just as unexpected as it was welcomed.
He lay down on the bed and signaled for her to come along. Before she moved, before she let him touch her, there was one thing she needed to know. Something only he could answer.
“What about the rest of the world?”
He didn’t ask the obvious “what about it” follow-up question. He didn’t blink or look confused or try to ignore the reality behind her words.
“How much do you know?” he asked instead.
She shook her head, a cold shiver finding her way down her spine and into her chest.
“Not much. Communications were down before we got details of what was happening in other countries.”
He studied her face for a moment. “Some countries held on longer than others. We’re still fighting small pockets of resistance in Europe. Some. Here and there.” He paused, probably waiting for her to absorb the impact of the revelation. “It’s over, Belle. Unless there’s some secret conspiracy being set up somewhere, we don’t expect things to change.”
It’s over. Humanity, the chance for a return to “normal,” a future… Over.
“How many are left?”
She couldn’t push herself to use the word “humans.”
“I don’t know. A few million, spread over the world. It wasn’t just the invasion that killed so many humans. Many killed each other after, or died of disease or starvation. I suspect there are many more like you, hiding away and waiting for the right moment to surface.”
More like her. Planning something impossible and then failing to even try anyway.
They talked for hours that night. About his past, the history of his kind, and the wars he’d seen and fought. About the dreams he had of a peaceful Earth and how exterminating the human race had never been his intention. He offered no excuses or apologies. Instead, he told her the truth about how he’d planned on becoming the ruling species and somehow finding a way to make it work for humans. She cringed at the words but part of her understood. His species had been around longer than hers. For most of that time, they had lived a life of misery, hiding and surviving as they could, hunted and persecuted. She hated the idea with a passion but in reality, they probably had more of a right to the planet than humans did. It didn’t excuse the killing, the hunting and the near extermination of the human race.
It excused nothing.
But she understood all the same because she could hear the honesty in his voice.
He’d lived a long life, and while there was a lot of magnificence to it, there was also a lot of pain. Death had been a constant companion. Because she had never thought of vampires as sentient beings before, she had never realized just how much misery you could truly experience through centuries of living in hiding. Five years of living that way had taken a toll on her and those she loved. What would it be like to live a hundred years that way? Two hundred? Always hiding, always searching for food and hoping you’d find some without being discovered. The idea was too horrible to even consider.
She believed every word he told her. In fact, she felt the pain and fever and world-weariness behind every one of those words.
Sometime during the night, he called Miles in to let him know of the break-in. There was no doubt that whoever was letting the rabids in had also let Patrick slip through. Even Isabelle could see that. And the wal
ls had been conveniently unguarded so the vampire could jump in and out without being discovered.
The two vampires talked for just a few minutes while she lay on Marcus’ bed, tangled in the covers. When he came back over to the bed, he traced a finger over her face. “Seems like the rabids are not our only problem anymore.”
She frowned. “And seems like there’s been a lot of break-ins lately.”
He switched positions on the bed, lying on his back and drawing her along with him. “I noticed that too.”
Chapter 20
Belle finally fell asleep in his arms sometime before dawn. He stayed with her, mostly because he was afraid to move and wake her up. She looked exhausted and he felt somewhat guilty because he had been keeping her up at night—either by bringing her into his bed or by taking her to the lab. Not that she needed to be dragged either place—she was more than willing to undress and always eager to head to the lab.
He couldn’t blame her. Now that he knew why she had made her way into the compound, he could blame her even less.
What the hell was he supposed to do with her confession? He’d always known she was keeping secrets, just not which ones. Now he had to wonder whether there were other humans out there with the same objective: hunt the king down and kill him. The kind of humans he would have to execute with a blow, maybe even in front of her.
He looked down at her face, soft and serene against his chest. She was right about one thing: they were worlds apart. He was ready to fight anything and anybody to protect her, but that didn’t change his priorities: save the vampire race. Humans—all except the one in his arms right at that moment—were secondary. He still needed them to stay alive, but maybe even that need would disappear soon enough.
And then what?
Then there was also Patrick and the rabids.
He looked up towards the window. The first hints of daylight were filtering through the drawn curtains. Rain had stopped a few hours ago but he could still smell the dampness in the air.
The night hunters would soon go back into their sleeping hideouts. All of them except the rabids, who would venture into the light, looking to surprise their prey. And while he wasn’t planning on stepping under the sunlight, he was planning on staying up and heading towards the lab with Belle as soon as she woke up.
And once that was under control, he was planning on going out, finding Patrick and skinning him alive.
It was time for his brother to die.
~*~
She woke up to feel Marcus’ arms tight around her. Images and words from the night before slowly rolled into her mind. She’d crossed a line she couldn’t undo—and now that the sun was up, she had no choice but to deal with it.
“How are you feeling?”
Hard to pretend anything with vampire senses around. Marcus could probably sense the slight changes in her breathing or her heartbeat as she woke up. How am I feeling? I have no idea. She was glad there were no secrets between them anymore.
“Still shaken, somewhat. The light doesn’t bother you?” She pointed towards the sunshine spilling into the room. It touched parts of the floor and the walls and grazed one of the pillars of the bed. It was just a tiny fleck of light and she would have completely ignored it at any other time, but it unnerved her right now. Too close to vampire skin.
“Not really, no,” he said. “As long as I don’t stretch my hand into it. About last night…”
“What about it?” she said, hoping he wouldn’t want to revisit anything of what was said just hours before. For some reason, repeating any of it during daylight seemed a lot harder and a lot less real. She wanted time to digest everything, to figure out where to go from there. What she now was—and wasn’t—anymore.
“Why were you outside?”
“What?”
“You were outside, alone, when Patrick found you. Why?”
She didn’t like where the conversation was going, but she especially didn’t like the undertones in Marcus’ voice.
“Trying to find my way back to the lab,” she answered. “I left something behind.”
“You’re not supposed to be out on your own.”
She jumped out of the bed. “I’m not supposed to? You said I wasn’t a prisoner.”
“When did I say that?”
She turned around to face him, fire building up inside her. “When I first got here, you said people here were free to come and go.”
“People, yes. Not you. Not anymore.”
“What does that mean, not me?”
Marcus got up and reached for her, but she jerked her arm away. He anticipated the movement—or he was just fast enough to react to it—and he caught her anyway. Then he let her go a second later, probably because he noticed the fury in her eyes.
“Belle, I can’t risk you putting yourself in danger. I get it, you’re strong. You survived a night on the roads. But things have changed. Next time Patrick comes face to face with you, he’s going to tear you to pieces. Because of who you are, because of me.”
A shiver ran over her skin. He was right, of course, but that didn’t make his words any easier to swallow. “I didn’t know that last night.”
“No, but you knew about the rabids breaking into the compound.”
“What about everybody else?”
“What about them? My guards are doing their best to keep the compound safe, but the only one I’m truly concerned about is you.”
The unspoken words in Marcus’ eyes were almost audible. To hell with everybody else, he was saying. If it came to it, there was no doubt he would walk away from every human in the compound and let them die.
“So they don’t matter, all the people here?” She heard herself saying the words but still felt a pang of sadness as they resonated in the room.
“I’ll protect them if I can, but they’re not my priority. You are. The vampires in this compound are.”
“How generous of you,” she scoffed.
And she realized that was the dark side of him she had been waiting to see. His true vampire side. He was still one hundred percent loyal to his species—and the reason it bothered her so much was that she had been slowly turning her back on hers.
The people back at the farm could all be dead for all she knew. And her major worry today had been whether the sun might touch him.
Traitor, her mind singsonged.
“I’m ready to go back to the lab,” she said, turning around and walking away from him.
“Belle, let’s talk about this.”
She didn’t want to look at him for fear of breaking down, of the words getting to her. “Let’s just go.”
And to her surprise, he said nothing else and instead led her directly to the secret door on the opposite side of the room.
She stepped through it and darkness enveloped her. Because she refused to grab his hand, it took longer than usual to reach the lab. It was a childish reaction, refusing his help, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want to be touched because she wanted to forget—at least for a while—just how good his touch felt. It was hard to be angry with him when he felt so good.
She stumbled for the first few feet through the tunnel, but after a while, the screams of the rabid became clear. They sounded muffled, drugged out into the distance, but they were loud enough to serve as a beacon. The bellowing traveling down the corridors wasn’t as loud as the night before, so the rabid was either still half-dazed from the night before or Cyrus had had to give him another round of tranquilizers. For everybody’s sake, she hoped it wasn’t the second option.
Marcus led her directly to the cell room, rather than the lab. Even though she couldn’t see anything in the darkness of the corridors, the howling getting louder was a clear indication that they were approaching the area where the rabid was held. She was going to complain about not being taken to the lab first, except that as soon as the door slid open, she realized Cyrus was there too.
Even though it was half-drugged, the rabid still reacted to her pres
ence. Its eyes became delirious and its breathing quickened. Struggling to get up, it kept falling down and against the door, legs too weak to sustain it upright. Rage seemed to be building inside it, the bellowing getting louder and more pained. Its hand reached towards her, over and over, grasping through the air towards the impossibly far-away prey—her.
Marcus was standing quietly next to her, but she refused to look over. Instead, she stepped towards Cyrus. Each movement made the rabid more agitated, more desperate.
“I mixed the blood last night, but I was waiting for you to try it out,” he said.
