by Myers, J. L.
Caius smeared blood in a wide circle before me, and began scribing a symbol into its center. It was a sort of jagged bolt with a line through the middle.
A knot of cold unfurled within my chest. I needed to know what Marcus’s involvement had been in all of this, and why. I needed to understand. But fear of what was to come formed a question on my lips. “What are you going to do to me?”
Caius smeared his blood-caked hands across his gray pants, moving toward me. Then with little effort he cradled my body, lifting me off the dank ground. I tried to struggle against his grasp, but he was so strong, and my body was still so weak. The chains clanked, dragging along the stone ground, long enough to reach the spot where Caius paused. He lowered my body to the middle of the blood-painted circle. His hungry eyes traveled from my face and down my neck. “I am going to…”
A crash beyond the solid door caused me to jump. Caius’s words died on his tongue.
Kendrick, was my first thought. Only it couldn’t be him. If he had even received my text, he could never have found me in this expansive castle. He didn’t know who had trapped me. He had nothing. No clues to go on.
“Looks like we have a visitor,” Caius said. He didn’t look at all surprised, only expectant and in total control.
The cold knot within my chest grew, sending ice shards through my bones. Marcus.
Caius moved, stepping back into the shadows and leaving a clear path between me and the doorway. What was he doing? Had I been wrong, again? Was Marcus the one calling the shots?
There was sloshing and splashes, footsteps drawing nearer and nearer. My slow-beating heart, still restrained by poison, sank with total despair. There was one set of footsteps, one person approaching.
The latch bolted to the door lifted with a creak and the solid door flung open. My breath caught in my throat as someone leaped into the light, arms outstretched toward me. No, no, no!
“Amelia!” Kendrick cried. His hair was plastered with sweat to his forehead and his soggy jeans clung to his shins. His panicked eyes registered only me.
Caius moved from the shadows in a blur of ashen gray, porcelain, and red to collide with Kendrick’s side. My best friend stumbled, the wind crushed from his lungs. He never reached the ground. Caius already had him by the throat and was driving him back against the wall. A thwack sounded with the connection. Kendrick’s eyes grew wide, glimpsing his attacker.
It was the only hesitation Caius needed. He lifted Kendrick off the ground, eyes locking on his prey. “Do not move, or speak.” The intensity of his silvery eyes was like an impressive electrical storm, alive and commanding.
Torment contorted Kendrick’s face, but he didn’t move or speak. Deathly shivers cascaded down my spine. I wanted to scream, to cry out. But I couldn’t. Fear drained my mouth of all moisture, leaving it as dry as sandpaper.
Caius slowly lowered my best friend’s feet to the ground, and released his clenched fingers from his shoulders. “It did not have to end this way,” he said shaking his head. “But now that you are here…” With a pin-centered spin Caius turned. A smug smile curved his thin lips. “It may intrigue you to know, my dear, that Kendrick has been helping me all this time, reporting back to me with your developmental progress.” His chuckle was dry and goose-bump raising. “It was his interference alone that brought you to me.”
The last part I already knew from Kendrick’s confession. Still my eyes shifted to my best friend, desperate for him to negate the other allegation. His face was set in a torturous grimace. But he couldn’t respond. As I watched him, clouds shifted from my mind. I remembered the strange call Kendrick had received at the psychic and arts fair back home. He had been talking to Caius. More lies… A tiny part of me wanted to hate Kendrick, to blame him for everything. But I couldn’t. He was my best friend and I loved him. I would always love him, no matter what he did to me, knowingly or not. And really, no matter what Caius claimed, it was my own actions that had delivered me into harm’s way, no one else’s.
“Without Kendrick, this would not have been possible,” Caius remarked with satisfaction. “He has been a useful minion.” His last words were mumbled, low and emotionless. “Up until now…”
“No!” I choked out, coughing. “C-Caius, please. Do whatever you w-want to me.” I spluttered again, my throat clenching in retaliation. “I won’t f-fight it. J-just don’t hurt Kendrick.”
“Brave words, my dear.” A proud smile lit Caius’s age-wrinkled face and he stepped forward. “But you are not in any position to bargain.” He knelt, touching my cheek with bony fingers. “Now, it is time.”
My skin crawled at his touch, tiny bugs pinching my flesh. Knowing compliance wouldn’t save Kendrick’s life, I tried to jerk away, tugging weakly at my restraints.
Caius chuckled. “You may as well stop struggling. It will do you no good.”
Fear seeped from my extremities to my core. Inside my head the word ‘remember’ resurfaced. It pulsed against the walls around my memories, chipping away at the solid bricks. “What the hell are you going to do to me?” I demanded again.
Razor-sharp fangs protruded from between Caius’s smiling lips. “I am going to drain every drop of your delicious blood until the point your heart stops beating and you die.” His deadly tone raked over me while his face beamed with ambition. “Your life’s flame will not extinguish without meaning. Your gift of eternal life will grant me the stepping stone I require to save—.” At his broken off words he shook his head. “The reason matters not.”
For a split second the image of Madame Rosalie invaded my vision, along with her chilling words. “Beware the blood that runs in your veins.”
The crazy old woman had been right about everything. And I had been totally skeptical and dismissive, ignoring her warnings of my demise. My death… It was inevitable now. Beware the blood that runs in your veins. It had been tainted since my first breath. Now, according to Caius and after everything he had done, it might bestow immortality? Though it seemed immortal blood would not save me from death. Caius had made that abundantly clear.
“Though, I will miss feeding from you.” Caius licked his lips. “Testing your blood these last few weeks has been quite enjoyable.”
The remaining bricks blocking my memories suddenly crumbled with Caius’s words. Everything that had eluded my mind suddenly flooded back, like shattered glass reforming into one crystalline piece. Within the reflected projection, a series of events I had somehow forgotten rose. The evenings I had only vaguely glimpsed earlier were now crystal clear. Caius had sat across his desk from me, using the compulsion of his eyes to distort reality. Some nights he’d made me believe we’d enjoyed harmless meals, while others he’d erased the whole encounter. But nothing about those nights had been harmless. My stomach swelled. The images were so violating that I had to fight the urge to retch. Each night Caius had rendered me into a comatose state. He’d pulled back the cascade of my hair to press his open lips to my neck. Each time his fangs had broken my skin. Pain I couldn’t consciously respond to had followed, searing through me as he drank my blood.
I lifted a muscle-aching hand to my neck, causing my chains to rattle. New images were unfolding. They now rotated like they were spinning on the glass faces of a revolving door. My dreamscape with Ty, the last time I’d seen or even talked to him. He had noticed the bite marks then, and I had shrugged off his finding. I’d been so totally caught up with the only task I had to accomplish, that I’d somehow forgotten. Now I remembered everything. I said I didn’t want him anymore, and that I wanted to stay at the Armaya. And, oh my God, how could I? I said that I didn’t love him. Pain pulsed through my heart. It felt like a dagger was slicing into the slow-beating muscle, then ripping down until it hit my guts. I doubled over, cracking my skull against the stone floor. Fresh throbbing pain had my brain pulsing against my skull. I glared up at Caius kneeling over me and tried to scream. My weakening voice choked on a sob. “Y-you and Marcus, you were b-both compelling me.”
Caius’s smile broadened. “Well, to be honest, my dear, you made it more than easy.”
My tearing eyes shifted to Kendrick. He was still standing motionless, pinned against the stone wall by an invisible force. A pained expression was plastered across his face, and his fingers twitched beside his frozen body.
Caius fished into the pocket of his stained pants, retrieving a small, glass vial. “Now, open your mouth,” he demanded.
It was the same vial I had discovered, hidden within the base of the grandfather clock in Caius’s office. The silver liquid inside caught the dim light from the naked bulb. It glistened almost magically, a rainbow-spectrum of colors. Except the vial—unlike the day I had uncovered it—was almost empty. The same magnetism I had felt when I’d first discovered the vial called to me now. It beckoned me as though its contents somehow belonged to me, were somehow a part of me. The eerie sensation was alluring and familiar, like I had experience it before ever discovering the vial. But where and when, I couldn’t recall.
“That’s not an herbal remedy, is it?” My eyes were scanning the room again, searching futilely for anything. There had to be a weapon or a way to break the restraints, something to save my life, or at least Kendrick’s. There was the empty jar that had been filled with blood and the fragmented remains of my iPhone. Both were well out of reach. There was nothing else.
Caius was tipping the vial, forcing the liquid to flow back and forth. His eyes watched. He seemed entranced by its beauty. “No. This is…” He hesitated for the briefest moment. “Ancient vampire blood. It will complete the conversion of your own blood.” Anticipation brightened his wrinkle-rimmed eyes and his tongue slid over his gleaming fangs. “Without this, your death would be no more than a satisfying meal.” He turned the cap, removing it from the vial then grasped my cheeks, crooking my face up. “Drink!”
My lips pinned shut for a split second, then released, hurling spit directly into my enemy’s face. “Fuck you!”
Caius flinched away, swiping the spit from his face with his sleeve. A roar reverberated from his chest, “insolent child!” And he spun, violently throwing a clenched fist across my cheek.
A crack sounded with a shot of pain through my jaw. I crumpled with a thud to the mold-tacked ground. My jaw hung, aching and almost swaying. It was broken. The bone cracked through and dislocated.
Kendrick growled and his trembling fingers tensed. They were trying to curl into fists. Still he couldn’t move.
Now weight pressed against my chest. Caius’s knees pinned me to the ground. He struck out, grasping my cheeks to forcefully pry my hanging jaw wide open. My eyes glazed as pain-spiked tears blurred my vision. A second later, a few drops of liquid fell into my mouth. Instantaneously the taste of ice-cold metal exploded on my tongue. It soaked through my flesh like pure acid. Tingles traversed through my body, and my throat constricted. Every one of my muscles ached with bone-deep fatigue.
I knew I had experienced this same sensation before. With my resurfaced memories, I knew it had been almost every night. The blood Caius had supplied in his office had provided a similar sensation, absorbing through my flesh. But its potency had been watered down. Regular blood spiked with this silver liquid he claimed to be ancient vampire blood. He’d been drugging me the whole time. All the pieces were coming together. Everything he’d done had been for this moment. So I could come to this point…and die.
Caius cradled my limp body and knelt within the painted circle. My mind screamed for me to move. To fight the monster who trapped me with his arms. But my body remained paralyzed, a prisoner of flesh and bone. Inside I was striking out with limbs, nails and teeth. But any connection to actual movement was lost. Marcus’s poison still had a debilitating grip on me, and Caius’s drugging only complemented my total immobilization.
Caius tilted my head and brushed back my hair, exposing my neck. Kendrick’s breathing became louder and desperate. Fear snaked through my soul. He was next in line to die, and it was my fault. I had been the one to lead him here. “Kendrick,” I cried. “I’m so s-sorry. P-please forgive me.”
Caius closed the distance between my neck and his parted mouth. He hovered momentarily, taking a deep breath. The sound of Kendrick’s raspy breath was interrupted with the last words I would ever hear. “Enjoy the show.”
I heard the smack of his tongue across his lips. Then they closed over my neck. Horror seeped through my veins, and an everlasting moment seemed to pass before his fangs tore through my flesh. A fleeting gasp escaped my lips, while an inextinguishable fire bloomed from the punctures. It swarmed my skin, striking inward with cutting pain that was so real I almost thought I was being stabbed. Vampire bites were meant to elicit a sensation of ecstasy. Except not when the victim was a vampire too. We weren’t made to feed off each other. The pain continued to radiate throughout my entire body as his arms constricted, clutching my paralyzed form tighter and tighter with every sickening gulp. Now I knew first-hand how Elena had felt on The Vampire Diaries when Klaus had ripped into her neck, killing her. Only this wasn’t a TV show. This was real life, my life.
When the searing pain within my body began to dull, my internal screams to fight faded. Without the current of blood filling my veins, violent shivers took hold of me. My body was giving up.
With shallow contractions, my slow-beating heart faltered. My mind wavered as my body began to fail. The crushing pain of imminent death faded. As my eyes fluttered shut, a fleeting memory of the boy I loved floated across the backs of my eyelids. Lush greenery filled with the sound of singing birds surrounded me. The warm afternoon sun broke like lace through the treetops. Instantly I knew what I was seeing, and were I was. This was the memory of my last dreamscape with Ty.
He materialized before me. Dejection painted his expression, riddled by the grief I had caused. He moved within a split second to crush me against his bare chest. His lips covered mine. Then he spoke the words I had heard for the very first time. “Amelia, I love you.”
Breath escaped my lungs now, just at it had then at his proximity and touch. A part of me had still wanted and yearned for every part of him, and still did now. But my lips had spat without permission as I pushed him away. “Well I don’t love you!”
Ice cold tears escaped my eyes. Now he would never know the truth. Never know that my feelings for him were still as irrefutable and irrevocable as ever. Never know that I would give anything just to be in his arms and feel the warmth of his lips one last time. The knowledge was more excruciating than knowing my fate, more excruciating than the returning physical pain. Now he would never know the truth. The memory faded, dissipating like a cloud of smoke. A final whisper blew through my lips. “Ty, I love you.”
Déjà vu slapped me like another concrete blow from my uncle’s hand. The night I’d learned I was a vampire, I had woken from a nightmare. All those months ago in Anchorage I’d seen this very cell and the monster who would take my life. The second I’d woken it had been gone. But now I couldn’t forget it. The monster was not some faceless creature. It was my very own uncle. Grasping at the remaining fragments of the nightmare, I gasped. There’d been more to that nightmare than the monster. The boy I loved, the very same boy I’d dreamt about before I had ever even met him…was Ty.
The room began to blur and spin. Knowledge couldn’t save me now, nothing could. Unable to blink, my eyes stared up at the dusty light bulb. Blood loss pressed in on me. I was so deathly cold. The edge of my vision turned black, light being eaten away by a stain that looked like blotted ink. Then empty darkness took hold.
This is it. I’m dying.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
An eternity passed in this dark void as death clawed at me, trying to claim my soul. The beat of my heart faded. It became so weak, so slow, it was almost non-existent. The point of no return was closing in. Then something changed. The taste of fresh blood hit my tongue. It dripped steadily into my mouth and down my throat, spreading and absorbing gradually throughout my entire
body. The ice shards freezing my insides began to thaw as I slowly came awake. Involuntary twitches undulated from my head down to my toes. The rich, peppery blood hypnotized me. Before, the dying thrum of my heart had been ready to quit. Now it grew in strength and speed.
Without any form of rational thought, but through primal necessity alone, my body responded. The monster inside of me awakened. My arms reached up, gripping tight to the lean torso of a male. His arms held me, and now mine prevented his escape. With my eyelids too heavy to lift, I pressed my lips to his neck. Then with a crack, my jaw re-fused. I sunk my fangs into his bleeding flesh. The muscles along his broad shoulders and neck bunched with a throaty gasp. But he didn’t struggle. He didn’t even attempt to pull away.
A greater surge of blood now flooded my mouth. Each mouthful further returned life to my deprived body. And I needed more. With my body still repairing from its comatose state, I craved every single mouth-watering drop. Warm tingles kindled my heart, spreading like wildfire to encase my entire body. The sensation didn’t stop there. Instead it continued to grow. Snaking from my own flesh, the warmth swallowed the person my arms still restrained. Without warning, a sonic boom exploded with a glorious blinding light, splitting from our connected bodies. Even through my dropped eyelids a piercing sting attacked my eyes. A sudden pulse shot through my brain. It felt as though the organ was somehow expanding, almost doubling in size. Yet it was still crammed within the solid plates of my skull.
I will give my life for you. The deep voice shrouded with grief rose in my mind. It wasn’t my own. It was Kendrick’s. I will die for you.
The life of his blood was still streaming from his neck and into my mouth. His arms loosened around me. Then they fell slack, hitting the stone floor with a thud.
I’m killing him.
The realization rattled me to my very core. Abruptly I broke my fangs’ hold on his neck and pushed off his lap. My eyes flung open. My heart, now coursing with pure, fresh blood, Kendrick’s blood, hammered against my ribs. Kendrick was slumped before me, motionless. Blood-tinged tears streamed down my face. “What have I freaking done?” I scrambled ahead and violently shook my best friend’s shoulders. “Kendrick! Kendrick!” He didn’t respond. “Dammit, don’t die on me.”
