“What?” Charlotte tried harder to pull away from him, an overwhelming hurt bubbling underneath her words. It was a different kind of hurt. He couldn’t stand it. “I don’t need you to fix me. I need you to stay with me! Please!”
“I cannot stay.” He moved slowly toward her again. “You are very sick and growing sicker. Soon, you will mentally begin to lose yourself as that woman did. Her fate will be yours, which is why I am leaving tomorrow…with Sarah. I want you to know why I won’t be here when you wake up. I cannot lie to you. I cannot stand the guilt.” He heard an immediate reaction within her thoughts, so he answered it. “You cannot follow us. I’m doing this because I love you.”
She began backing away slowly from him. She was afraid, he sensed. Afraid of him. Human intuition was so keen. So quick. Like a rabbit sensing a snake in the grass. He experienced the same with every one of his victims.
He quickly opened his arms to her. “Come to me, Lottie.”
“No.” Her eyebrows pulled together as more tears rolled down her reddening face. “You can’t leave! I promise I’ll be fine.” But another addiction-pain waved through her body and she bent in half, crying out.
“You won’t,” he countered, sadness tightening up the muscles in his throat. He knew she wasn’t about to let her guard down. Not now. Her addiction was heavy. He could see the need for him build again in the look in her eye, but she was fighting it.
“Come here to me. I’ll make it better.” He beckoned again.
“No!” she hollered. She resisted with every ounce of strength within her, tears dripping off the point of her chin.
Her pulse slammed louder in his ears as tiny beads of sweat, almost microscopic, formed along her forehead and at the hollow of her throat. It was absolutely arousing.
“Forgive me, then.” He whispered and flew toward her.
Charlotte screamed as she somehow managed to dodge him, racing for the gate. It was only inches before her, her hand outstretched for the wrought iron as he grabbed at her ankle. She screeched as he yanked her back, her face falling to the grass, her chin slamming hard into the dirt. It must have split open, because the vinous scent of iron, copper, salt, and life hit him square in the chest. He dragged her toward him as she continued to kick and cry, and gripped her tightly underneath the arms. Valek whirled Lottie around to face him.
“Please! Please stop!”
Fresh blood poured from her mouth, as she had also bitten her tongue upon the impact. He could really see it then, the mirror image of him –the beast she would become if he ever gave in to her deepest desire. She looked the part; pale, beautiful, and covered in blood. He vowed silently to himself he would never usher her into that sort of hell –into becoming the very thing he hated most. Himself.
Before Valek could see her move, something plunged deep into his chest. He hissed, releasing her at once as an abrupt tinge of pain bubbled up and out of the open wound. He glanced down to see a large crude hunk of wood protruding from his center.
He moaned in pain, the borrowed blood from his veins seeping down his clothes. He wrapped his claw around the makeshift stake. “You are quite the Vampire hunter, Lottie,” he murmured darkly before ripping it from himself. Fast, so that he would not draw out the sting any longer than he needed to. Lurching forward, he dropped to his knees. Bending in half, he tore open his shirt to watch as the wound sewed itself up, the cascade of blood remaining along his chest and stomach.
Valek yanked off his overcoat and shirt, tossing them to the grass, before he looked up to find nothing but the silence of the empty courtyard. Charlotte had learned a thing or two from so many years with him, that was for sure. She had already taken off, her fevered thoughts still audible, however. She was running. He could make out her rapid pulse, her breaths hastily flying from her as her footfalls slammed into the packed snow.
* * *
Charlotte burst through the threshold, slamming the front door back on its hinges. Immediately, Sarah poked her head out from the library, book in hand. Charlotte glanced down to see that she was clutching the Anatomy of Vampires: Volume Two.
“Backstabber,” she hissed at the Witch.
“What on earth are you talking about?”
With hot tears streaming down her face, fists balled up at her sides, Charlotte seethed. “If you were really my friend, you wouldn’t be doing this! Why would you try and take him away from me? Why can’t I come with you?”
She didn’t let Sarah reply before she bolted up the staircase, tearing open the door to the upstairs bathroom, and slammed it closed as hard as she could. It caused all of the surrounding walls to shake.
Charlotte gripped the sides of the marble sink, gazing at her grubby image in the mirror. Along her lips and down her chin and neck ran her own blood. Her tongue swelled inside her mouth, but no pain, not even her scar, matched the pain on the inside. Her breathing was fevered and broken. Streaks of dirt smeared down her skin.
She pushed through her tearstained frustrated sobs to turn the hot water faucet in the modest bathtub that must have been at least eighty years old. Like everything else in that house, it was antique, porcelain with pretty fixtures and beastly feat. Violently, she yanked off her dress, now grass-stained and packed with dirt and blood, and threw it to the floor. How could he do this? And with whom was he leaving her? The likes of Lusian? Did he really think he was keeping her safe by doing that? She continued to sob, but the tears ran dry. She’d run out.
Large spouts of steam began to cloud the small room. It eclipsed the mirror in fog so thick she couldn’t see her reflection anymore. It didn’t matter. She detested the sight of herself anyway.
She didn’t get into the bath. Naked, she leaned forward with her hands gripped to the brim of the tub, her head hanging down between her shoulders. Defeated. Devastated. Once Valek made up his mind, there was no changing it back. She knew that very well. Her scar wasn’t the thing tormenting her most now. It was the utter deceit from the only one she’d ever trusted. Too much to take. She wanted to tear a hole in her flesh and rip out her beating heart, just so she wouldn’t have to feel it anymore.
Finally, she put one leg in and then the other, wading through the hot water. She reached over and closed the curtain around herself, hoping to block out the rest of the world. She flicked the knob that let the water run through the showerhead and buried her face in her hands. The rest of the tears she thought were no longer there commenced again. For a few moments, she was away from the world –alone with herself and the quiet of the running water. She focused only on her breathing. It was the only thing left. In and out. She couldn’t lose herself –couldn’t let herself fall away. She needed to fight. In and out.
From the other end of the room, she heard the knob turn, the door creaking open. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t even look toward it, already knowing who it was. She was surprised, however, by her own bravery. Slowly, he entered, the door closing almost silently behind him. Charlotte could make out his silhouette behind the shower curtain as she peered out from in between her fingers still covering her face. The edges of his body were fuzzy in the waves of steam.
“Lottie?”
Her heart crawled up into her throat as she watched him move nearer to the bathtub, realizing just how vulnerable she was. So, maybe she wasn’t so brave after all. Her face started to grow hot, all words eluding her as she dropped her hands to her sides. Should she reach for a towel? Scream at him to leave once and for all?
Her legs stayed frozen as the shower plummeted around her, her pulse hammering in her ears as she watched the shadow of his claw reach up and pull back the curtain. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. It was as if he was moving in slow motion. She began to tremble, willing him to leave.
There he stood, his snowy eyes fixed on hers, but filled with deep sorrow. It created a crease in between his eyebrows. He stared at her for a few more silent moments, a thick bed of dark eyelashes cradling the depth of his icy stare.
Befor
e Charlotte could think of something to say, Valek stepped in with her. She looked up at him, confusion and slight embarrassment filling her as he refused to remove his gaze from her own. All of her rational thought disappeared. She would forever be enraptured by that stare.
The water rained over him, causing his strands of dark brown hair to cling to his face and neck. Charlotte’s breath caught in her chest and she remained immobile and embarrassed, unsure of what to do next. That eternal sadness didn’t leave his face as he grasped the back of her head and pulled her forward, crushing her to him with a kiss she knew he meant as a goodbye.
Reservations left her as she reached up, knotting her fingers in the locks of his hair, her lips moving slickly against his. She couldn’t breathe. Her whole body started to quake with the utter nerves of what was happening. She bear before him in every sense of the word. Valek’s other hand moved to the small of her back, pressing her tighter to him.
Finally pulling away from her, Valek placed both of his hands to the sides of her face, almost bending so that his gaze would meet her same eye level.
“What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly.
“You’re upset with me.”
“No,” she said. “I’m upset…period.”
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He cupped her cheek with his cool palm, a stark contrast to the heat of the water. “Why are flushing so?” he chuckled. “You have no reason to be embarrassed, Charlotte. You’re beautiful.”
She opened her mouth to say something but her throat constricted. “You shouldn’t be here. Sarah wouldn’t like it. You’re too close.”
“You’re pulse is going wild,” he mused, his eyes narrowing. His hand slid down between her breasts, lingering over her sternum and he was right. Her heart slammed to life. “Do I really have such an effect on you?”
“H-haven’t you noticed before?”
“Yes. But it is still nice knowing. Are you…all right with me here? Like this?”
“I’m fine,” she gulped. She wasn’t able to control her breathing anymore. “Is it…what you expected?”
“It is exactly what I expected, modest little doll. I knew you’d be frightened.” He turned his hand to graze her cheek with his knuckles, trailing them down her bare shoulders. “You’re playing with fire. You know what happens when you make me feel this way—”
“But this is working. I’m consoling you, aren’t I? You’re not as fraught as you were moments ago.”
Charlotte sobered. He was, in fact, still leaving. Her heart sank again until he hooked his finger under her chin and lifted her face to his.
“Lottie, I love you more than this existence itself.” His words were broken, almost like they were sobs, though he refused to cry. “This is not a ‘goodbye’. It is not even a ‘goodbye for now’. It’s an ‘I’ll be back soon’.”
Charlotte’s heart constricted, new tears beginning down her face. She couldn’t understand why he was refusing to take her with them.
“It is far too dangerous. I would feel better knowing that you were safe within these walls.” His claws ran down the length of her arm again, sending shivers up her back. Valek reached for the brass knob, turning the water off. Charlotte wracked her brain to come up with her next move. Hugging her arms tightly around herself, a chill suddenly crept in to the room, causing all of the microscopic hairs on her body to bristle. She was in utter disbelief and complete panic. Everything inside of her told her it was a bad idea.
Pants and hair sopping, Valek stepped from the bath and grabbed one of the ruby-colored towels. She stood there, holding herself together as he extended one of his hands to help her out of the tub and draped the oversized towel around her shoulders, wrapping it around her so it enveloped her completely. He swept her from her feet in one fluid motion. She watched silver streams of water run like metallic veins down his face, perfect in all its sorrow. He continued to gaze at her as he carried her from the bathroom and into the hallway.
Charlotte’s heart plunged into her stomach, her fingers twisting in his hair. “Don’t! They’ll see,” she protested, curling up into a smaller ball in his arms.
“They won’t. And I don’t care.”
He continued down that same corridor she knew so well and through the double doors into his bedroom. Charlotte noticed immediately that the bewitchments over the bed had changed from little stars to streams and streams of glimmering currents of varied light and color, more glorious than the aurora borealis. She knew exactly who’d put them there. Worse was that the rest of the room was illuminated by hundreds of candles in every shape and size. What was Sarah trying to do? Suddenly, her stomach did a back flip. Her nerve endings became electric as her gaze shot to Valek’s face. Oxygen didn’t come so easily this time.
Though she had expected to find a smirk there, he was all but light-hearted. Instead, his face looked hard and strained, like he was deliberating something very serious.
Gently, he placed her down on the bed, the towel still hugged around her. Charlotte studied him as he stood before her in the pale stream of the nighttime glow, his pearly skin almost illuminated. She could see his sculpted form through the shadows drenched in dancing golden light. His hair stuck in thick wet wavy locks to his jagged marble cheek. He was a holy vision and all she wanted to do was sin in the worst of ways. She could barely stop herself from reaching for him.
“L-lottie, I, umm….”
She’d never seen her Vampire this way. Normally so even-keeled, she could see he was completely at odds with himself now. He was going to pieces, just as she was. She knew this couldn’t be easy for him, either. The only other time they had ever been apart from each other in her life was when she was very small and he had been called to a neighboring Occult to help with some magical epidemic inflicting their people. She remembered how difficult that had been, and it was so many years ago. And of course, when she’d been taken from him most recently.
“Lottie,” he began again, nearing the bed. She could see his spine go rigid, as if he was forcing himself to remain in one piece. She knew how he hated when his emotions got the best of him. He sucked in a deep breath through his nose. “I want you to trust me. I hope you trust me—”
“I do,” Charlotte said impulsively and a little too quickly. She clenched her jaw to suppress another outburst.
“I need to stop going on like this. As if I were human. As if I had no power in this situation. I don’t have to play the cards we’ve been dealt. I know I can change our hand. You need to let me try.”
Charlotte bit her lower lip and nodded. Something about that hurt. She was human. Did he feel like she had no power in this—like she was helpless? In all her life, Charlotte had never been helpless. She could fight.
“More importantly, I want to stop feeling guilty. I do not want to deny what this is anymore.”
Charlotte sat up, a different kind of heat rolling through her. In fact, she had completely forgotten about her scar. “Nothing about what this is should cause you guilt.” She pushed out the words that were increasingly difficult to say. “You are mine.” She held her palm, the one with the line in it that proved this to be fact. Her other hand still clutched the towel intact around her. “If others object, it is because they don’t understand and I don’t care. I don’t want them to understand.”
Charlotte grabbed his face and pulled his mouth to hers, feeling one of his hands move in between her shoulder blades to support her to him. Her fingers quickly moved down to the buttons of his shirt, hastily undoing them, but he stopped her, already moving her back toward the bed. Her scar began its transgression at the base of her throat, the burning starting out faint, though getting worse by the second.
“Listen to me carefully, Lottie.” His voice wavered and began to change. It grew deeper and rougher with each word he spoke. “When you wake tomorrow, I will be gone. But know I will be thinking of you each and every moment I am away. I am just as afraid as you are.”
*
* *
He gazed directly into her fearful eyes before biting down, fiercely clinging to her throat. Her garbled screams were drowned out by her rapid pulsations in his ears as it gushed over his tongue. Normally, he was always very careful…gentle. But this time, he needed to drink enough to knock her out, to give him and Sarah enough time to be a safe distance away. He was certain she was going to try and follow them in spite of his warnings.
Her pulse continued to pound rapidly, like the hum of a thousand angry hornets in his ears, as he held her in his arms. He lurched forward over her, still gripping her tightly. Her protests finally began to quiet as her body grew limp. Her pulse was slowing as well. Suddenly the world around him seemed too quiet and he knew she was almost gone. It proved to be very difficult, as her seeping savory life provoked him to stay stuck there. But he forced himself free.
He tore away, coming up for air, craning his head as the remaining blood slipped down the back of his throat and he could feel his eyes shift back to normalcy again. That was the one thing he had the most trouble revealing to her; the way he did know how to love her was not the way she, as a human being, so desired. Her needs were not misguided, or wrong in any fashion. They were natural, normal, and beautiful. He recalled distantly they he felt when he, himself, was human. In his mind, he had made love to her a hundred times before. For every time she sacrificed a bit of her life to him, that was what it meant. Connection. Love.
Charlotte lay there cradled in his arms, her skin aglow as he wrapped her among the pallid sheets, her breathing slight and staggered. The thick bed of eyelashes sealed her pretty eyelids shut. Her pulse beat faintly, like the wings of a dying butterfly.
Of Blood and Magic Page 30
