But what kind of a life will he live? Because I know him. He’ll be lost, lonely despite all those who love him.
I don’t know how much time has passed. I keep vomiting, and though my vision is blurred, I can smell that I’m puking blood. My body is growing weaker and weaker.
And then, I can see slightly. Bermon has a hand on Mercy’s shoulder, forcing her to stop pacing. They’re talking in hushed tones, and I can’t hear what they’re saying.
Footsteps sound, and I glance over to the foot of the bed. Wait. Bed? Am I in a different room? Wasn’t I on a table before? I can’t even remember anymore. Everything is all fuzzy and hazy.
My father stands there, wearing a brown suit. His eyes look every bit as red as mine even though he’s a demon and not a vampire.
I shake my head, or at least I try to shake my head. “You…” I croak out. “You can’t be here.”
“Can’t I?” he asks idly.
He taps his long fingers against the footboard before walking around the bed to stand beside me. Disappointment shines in his eyes as he appraises me, but then I realize that’s all for show. Sure enough, he tilts back his head and begins to laugh.
“You would think it’s funny that I’m dying,” I spit out, struggling to sit up, not really managing. Between words, I spit out blood, the flecks of red staining the sheet covering me. Why would the werewolves drape a white sheet over me? It’s stained with blood all over, and the white reminds me of a shroud. A burial cloth.
I’m dying.
I’ve known this, and I know it, but each time I think it again, it comes as a shock.
What has brought me to this point?
Hatred. Love. Both of them have brought me here, to the point of death.
“You are dying,” Father says matter-of-factly. “You’ve rejected me for so very long, rejected yourself even. Don’t you see? Can’t you accept what you are finally? You are so much more than a pathetic little lovesick child. You are my daughter, and you have more of me than you realize. If you would have allowed me to give you lessons, if you would have accepted your demonic side as eagerly as you had your vampire side—”
“You’re wrong,” I spit out, spitting out blood along with my venomous words. “I didn’t truly accept my vampire side either.”
“I know,” he snaps back. “You wanted to pretend that you’re nothing more than a human with some magic. You never drank blood to the point of being truly full. You never knew what peace that could bring you.”
"Peace? There is no peace. A vampire can't truly satiate her bloodthirst. What would you know about bloodthirst anyhow?" I demand, somehow able to sit up now. My body still feels alien, but I have a slight measure of control now.
Unless none of this is real. My father, my body, all of it. A trick of the mind. Maybe another sign that my body is dying. Maybe my mind is dying too.
“Some demons like to partake in other dietary delights,” my father says with a strange glint in his eyes. “Did it never occur to you to wonder how your mother and I first met?”
My stomach roils, but for the first time, I manage to suppress my gag reflex. “I really don’t want to know,” I mumble.
"Yes, well, do you wish you had listened to me? I would have gratefully preferred for you to have attended Hellsmouth Academy."
I furrow my brow. I didn’t even know there is an academy with that name.
“It’s in Hell, and it’s perfect for demons. It’s not at all what you are used to. In fact, to do well, skipping classes is encouraged as is not turning in assignments, but then again, demons don’t play by the rules, do they? No, they create the rules and then break them.”
“How can you learn if you don’t attend class?” I ask, confused. I don’t really want to know the answer, but I am a bit curious all the same.
“Wouldn’t you like to know? But you would have learned how to survive this… predicament,” Father says, lowering and then raising his hand to encompass my sickness. If this even is a sickness. Whatever this is.
“And I suppose it’s too late for me?” I mumble. “You’ve come to laugh and gloat and lord over me that I made the wrong choices in my life, but you’re wrong. I didn’t. I am here because I choose to be. My choice. My life. My…”
I so want to tell him about Julian and me, about our love, about how it will stand the test of time, that we don’t even both need to be alive for our love to grow, but I don’t. I hold back. Julian and I have told only a precious few about our love, and my father does not deserve to know.
“You actually are not past the point of no return yet, but in a matter of moments, you will be,” Father says, his tone completely emotionless.
He doesn’t care if I live or die. That’s not a surprise at all.
“If you won’t join me and my cause, you might as well be dead.” Father throws back his head and begins to laugh again.
“You need me,” I mumble, wanting to argue, wanting to live for Julian’s sake more than my own.
“Ah, but you are wrong. Alliances can be forged without a marriage, and the demons will rise and claim this world.”
“I’m sure they’ve tried and failed before.”
“Yes, we have tried before, and yes, we’ve failed, but together, with the living vampires we’ve been amassing, we are all but assured victory. We can—”
“The living vampires don’t need demons to control us,” I spit out. “We’re our own species, and we don’t need to be evil. We can—”
"No? Vampires are evil, and demons are evil. That means living vampires are doubly so. You can pretend all you like to be better than the others, but you're no different. You are weak because you deny who you are. Embrace yourself. Love yourself, Romelia."
Father leans down, gripping my shoulders with his claws.
“If you don’t accept and love who you are, Romelia, how can you possibly try to pretend that you love another?”
“No!” I shriek. “No! I can love! I do love! You know nothing about love, Father! You’re a ball of hatred!”
My father slowly turns into wisps of black smoke that fade away into nothingness. I’m still trying to scream at him, to rant against him, but I realize the hallucination is over. I’m lying down yet, having never sat up in the first place, and my vision is turning black around the edges. I can only see straight ahead of me, and I lack the strength to turn my head to either side to see if Mercy and Bermon are still in the room. A faint buzzing sound fills my ears, and it’s so utterly strange to hear nothing else, nothing at all.
Not even my own heartbeat.
Death. It’s coming for me. I have no idea if the father I hallucinated is right, that I have moments before I’ve crossed the point of no return and will die, but I do know that death cannot be that far off for me.
As the darkness closes in, I feel cold, so very cold, far colder than I have ever felt before in my entire life. My thoughts turn darker, darker even than my vision.
Death might be Julian’s and my only chance at living with peace. There might not be another way for us to be together, not in this world. Maybe one day, all will be able to love whom they wish without judgment or fear of retribution, but for now, the world isn't ready for a vampire to love a werewolf and vice versa.
This world can't handle Julian and me. This world can't handle love.
And that is far more heartbreaking than the thought of leaving Julian.
Julian… Why couldn’t I have hallucinated you? I would love to slip away into oblivion held in your arms. To die with your kiss on my lips. To have the echo of your lips saying I love you one last time.
I’m so sorry, Julian. I don’t want to leave you, but maybe, maybe I’m going to a place you can follow. Maybe on the other side, we can be together, and we can be happy. We can be free.
Free to love one another. Free to be together.
Free to live.
Julian, you are my life, and I know I am yours. Do not mourn me, and do not cry. Join me if you wish, but
do not stop. You can live with your parents, with your friends, with your siblings. I will wait for you. I'll always wait for you.
But if you join me now, I won’t blame you. I’ll embrace you, and we can start anew. All I need is you. You are all I need.
Peace in death.
Dimly, I can feel my body shake, but it’s different this time. Hands are on me. I think someone might be standing over me, talking, screaming maybe, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. My body is half gone, my mind too, and then.
It’s over.
I breathe my last, and I die.
Chapter 16
Julian
Actually, Constantine isn’t the only one I hate. The only vampire, maybe, but there is more hatred in my heart.
Romelia’s father.
A demon.
He has no love for his daughter, and I’m certain that whatever is going on with Mercy, that he could help. He won’t, though, not even if his daughter begged him to. The demon only cares about himself and his own agenda.
Maybe it’s time for that to change.
As I start to leave the battlefield behind, doubt starts to creep in. Tyra came to find me. She wanted to bring me to Romelia. Where is she?
My hand goes to my pocket. My phone. It’s not there. I’m not sure where it is. Maybe during the fighting, it fell out.
For a long moment, I am torn. Should I try to find Romelia? But her father is the true ringmaster of all of this death, including Mercy and her fight for life. That demon has so much blood on his hands. He has to see the light.
Going to see him might prove to be a death sentence, especially if he realizes who I am in regards to his daughter, but so be it. My life is forfeit for the sake of Romelia, and if I can save Mercy by talking to him, maybe I can free Romelia as well. My love deserves to either have a father who will fight for her or no father at all. My dad can serve as her dad too.
That realization has me cursing myself as I break out into a run. I never should have kept Romelia from my family. Yes, I did it to protect them, but in doing so, I robbed them of the chance of getting to know their daughter-in-law. While the rest of the world isn't ready to accept my love, a werewolf loving a vampire, I know deep down that my parents might be shocked at first, but they would love her as I do.
Anger fuels me. Long ago, Romelia told me where her parents live, and while I have never been there or anywhere close to that place, I still head there as quickly as I can, which, yes, means I am soon racing through demon territory while in wolf form.
With deliberate care, I measure my paces, glancing at the house numbers on the mailboxes at the end of the long cobblestoned driveways. The houses are far apart, the land well-maintained probably by servants, each place practically a plantation with massive buildings, mansions, castles even.
Finally, I come to the place, and I turn into my human form. With shoulders back and head held high, I march straight up to the front door.
Her father is already there, leaning against a marble pillar. He appraises me without a word.
“You’re Romelia’s father,” I spit out.
He does not react at all.
“Do you know who I am?” I ask.
“I don’t rightly care,” he says offhandedly. “You’re trespassing, and my wife—”
“You’re the ringleader.”
“Of what circus?” he asks, finally injecting a bit of emotion into his words. He sounds amused.
“You’re the reason why the vampires and werewolves are fighting not just here, not just the two academies, but all over the world. All of that bloodshed, and it’s for the living vampires? You want them to rise up? Why?”
“You mentioned my daughter,” he says idly. “How is it that a werewolf knows her name?”
“You need to stop this,” I hiss.
“Stop what? The fighting? I’m afraid that’s just impossible, and even if it were possible, I’m afraid I don’t want to. I’ve been working on this for a long, long time. It took Caterina far longer to get pregnant than I would have preferred, but I chose her because of her ruthlessness. I thought for certain that our child would be the one to launch this war, to be the figurehead of the movement, to be the one to reign Hell on Earth, but no. My daughter doesn’t love herself. She can’t accept either part of herself, of her identity, and she thinks that she can just ignore who she is and pretend to be… I don’t even know what she’s pretending to be. Human? A shifter?”
Her father narrows his ruby-red eyes. They do look like rubies, emotionless, void of all feelings. They don't contain any feelings at all, and it's more than a little unnerving to be the subject of his gaze.
"Is that why you're here? Because of her? For her sake? Are you some of the reasons why she is so very utterly weak?"
I lift my chin. “Sir, you need to end this war, stop the fighting. For her sake.”
“Sir? You’re calling me sir, but you don’t mean any respect, do you? No, you came here looking for a fight, isn’t that right?”
I don’t back down or retreat a step even though the demon stalks toward me. As much as I can, I try to hide any sense of fear because, like it or not, I am frightened of the demon. He’s so very old and powerful, and I’m just a teenager. I haven’t even finished the academy, and I’ve barely started to live.
And yet, I’ve lived more deeply and loved more fully than so many others, and that includes the demon looming above me.
“Yes,” I say evenly. “If I have to, I will fight you. You and me. One on one. A battle. Whoever wins… If I win, you will stop the war. You will find a way to. If you win, you can—”
“Any fight that I partake in is to the death,” he says lazily. “If you were to win, which you won’t, but let’s just pretend for a moment that you somehow win, that will mean I am dead. How can I do anything if I am dead?”
I gulp. “You will have to… You can, ah…”
“Sign an affidavit stating what? That the fighting is to end? That the war is over? I don’t think you understand how wars are fought and won, and I don’t think that this war can just be ended, not when there already is so much anger and hatred between the two sides, and that started long before I planned this little idea of mine.”
I grit my teeth. “There’s more to the world than anger and hatred.”
“Is that so?” The demon laughs. “Oh, I have to disagree with you there. Just look at the humans! All of their wars!”
“Not all of their wars were just humans fighting humans,” I spit out. “Adolf Hitler—”
“Yes, yes, he wasn’t a human, but that didn’t matter. The world had been poised and ready for another great war, and he delivered it. It’s been far too long since there’s been a massive war effort, and now, the vampires and the werewolves can fight. The living vampires will rise from the ashes and help to pave the way for the demons—”
“What if the living vampires turn against their fathers and kill off the demons?” I ask.
“Bold of you to assume that the living vampires can accomplish such a feat. Believe what you want, wolf, but I don’t face any fear. I also do love my daughter despite her being a disappointment. She will either join me, or she will die.”
My heart sinks. “You would kill her yourself?” I ask. “You—”
“I don’t need to,” her father dares to utter. “She will die.”
“You won’t let her die,” I say loudly, too loudly. “You want her to be the face of your… of your war, your effort, whatever. You need her!”
“Do I?” He chuckles. “I lived how many centuries without her? I think I can manage just fine without her.”
“You don’t deserve her,” I mutter darkly.
“Ah. I thought so. You love her. How utterly ridiculous. I thought I smelled… Yes, you love her. You’re the reason why she’s been refusing Constantine. How far and low can she sink? Unfathomable! Inconceivable! My own daughter truly does think of herself as… as what? A shifter? Has she even mastered that ability ye
t? She’s not nearly as strong as she could be, and I blame you for that. I have half a mind to kill you right here and now where you stand.”
“Your daughter would never forgive you if you do.”
“You have no idea.” Romelia’s father laughs and laughs.
My fingers are claws. My teeth are fangs. I haven’t consciously shifted them, and my wolf longs to be out, to rip and tear the demon into shreds, but I hold back.
"Down, wolf." The demon laughs again. "If you strike me down, Romelia will hate you. You know she will. She might claim to hate me, but she doesn't. That's why she's weak. She won't allow herself to hate or feel true anger or rage. She's too busy being afraid that she'll lose herself, but that's where her true self lies—with her emotions. When she finally loses herself, she can be reborn again as someone stronger, someone capable. Until then… she's weak. She's a fool, and fools die."
“She won’t die,” I insist.
“Oh, no? She won’t, will she? Are you going to be the one to protect her? To fight off the grim reaper? To spare her soul? She might love you, wolf, but that won’t mean a thing. She can try to ignore what she is, but she can’t change the fact that she’s part demon.”
“Fight me already!” I shout. “Fight me, and then you can free her.”
“I already told you, wolf. I fight to the death. You will not win.” He cocks his head to the side. “Do you want to die? Do you have a death wish? Do you love her that much that you would…”
“Yes. I would die for her.”
“But you wouldn’t die for her. You would…” Her father shakes his head. “What of your pack? I assume they don’t know. Is she to be your new pack? A pack of two… What would happen if something should befall one? Should befall her? A pack of one… That would make a werewolf turn insane, wouldn’t it?”
“Nothing will happen to Romelia,” I say firmly.
Blood Haven: Year Three: A Mayhem of Magic World Story Page 10
