by Pet TorreS
“Only humans are attracted to me,” soon he answered coldly.
“I was human ...” I whispered unhappily and turned my head down.
“Now you aren't any longer,” he replied impatiently. “You have to forget me!”
All I saw in that moment was Eros as he made a giant leap and his body of vampire -man turned into an owl. Then it flew into the sky and disappeared rapidly.
I lowered and crossed my arms over my chest as I was clinging to my despair and my pain.
What I feared had just happened.
I was not in him as he was in me.
CHAPTER 16
I arrived at my father's room without his consent. I went in the direction of his bedroom door. I was furious. My father was surprised at my presence, and then he rose from his chair in a hurry and gazed in the direction of my image.
He knew I was not well at all.
Soon I stopped walking in front of him, in a position to defy him. At that moment I didn’t see him like my father. I had forgotten that detail.
“What happened?” he put his hand on his chin and observed me gravely. My arrogant approach made him perplexed.
But I faced him even more. My cheeks were red in fury. “You told me I could have it all!” I mocked him as I glanced around.
He wrinkled his nose and remained silent. So I insisted, trying to look back at him. My father looked not to want to pay attention to my words.
“Everything I wanted would be in my hands!” My voice became elevated.
“Do you doubt it?” He asked and took his hand away from his chin and condensed his gray eyes in my direction.
My gaze challenged his. “Then why can’t I have ‘the love of Eros’?” My voice sounded angry at this moment. I glanced to one side as I had Eros’s image in my mind.
“You are angry because of this!” He smiled at it all as his gray eyes ran quickly around.
“You never gave yourself the luxury of feeling it! You’re a monster!” I shouted at him and curved my head. Soon my depressing eyes met the floor. I was frustrated at everything.
“Valkyrie, love is the compassion of mortals...We do not need it,” he confessed and sat back on his armchair looking quite annoyed. But he kept his posture like a master of the vampires. He also had forgotten he was my father. In that moment he saw me like a vampire that should be strong and invincible. That is, I shouldn’t be worried about stupid feelings like Love.
“You shouldn’t have done this to me!” I shook my head and compressed my lips in anger. “You commanded Eros to come after me.” I lowered my head, nearly crying.
“You ruined my life ... now I'm a monster!” I said between my teeth as I saw my father was responsible for the whole thing. I imagined he had designed just his happiness and not mine.
“I had no choice. You're my daughter,” Vincent responded. His voice sounded cheerless. At that moment he gave me his gaze of father.
“Now I am condemned to this hell!”
I screamed and shook my head from side to side in the manner of denial, as I made my way in the direction of the door to step out. My father stopped me, closing the door quickly, using only his thought’s force. I stopped walking and turned my body to face him. I saw him sitting waiting for me to be calm. I held back my tears. I did not want to cry in front of him.
“That’s how you repay your father?” He asked, rose from his chair, walked to his open window and looked up at the cloudy sky. His day was going not good. He hated to argue with me.
“I gave you immortality!”
“And you took my happiness!” Rapidly I screamed again.
This made me release all my anger at him. I couldn’t forgive him at that occasion. So I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on something good. But it was in vain because I continued annoyed.
“Is your happiness found in a trivial love for a vampire?” He asked sarcastically. My father desired to make me see his world without indigence. The master of the vampires wanted me to be like him and think of everything like him did.
“I lost my mother ...”
Soon I lowered my head as I said him that.
“It's not her who you're thinking about now!” He affirmed to emphasize my bitterness. My father looked at me. “You're too young, you'll have many passions,” he confessed filled with wisdom.
After that Vincent turned back and snapped his fingers, making the door open.
“Now go!”
His voice sounded like a vampire master and not like my father's voice. I stared in his direction as I remained voiceless. So he looked away. Looking thinking of something depressive. Maybe he imagined he would never meet a daughter like me, so stupid and foolish.
“One day you will thank me for everything I have done for you,” he confessed, still keeping his back to me. His wine cape protected his backside. His long black hair practically touched his waistline. My father was a very handsome vampire.
At this split second, I turned and crossed the passage without saying anything. My silence was the correct attitude on my part.
CHAPTER 17
Staying at the castle at that time, it was something irrelevant to me. My desire was to fade away and disappear forever from that place and never see anyone, not even Eros.
My life had lost purpose from the moment Eros told me those things, telling me to forget him, as if that were possible. The only way I found to destroy that love that was killing me was to leave. I had to leave to exist.
I walked against the lake. All my despair I deposited there, staring at it. That dark and still water...my life looked exactly like it.
A strong wind touched my pale face. My hair followed its steps, wildly. I felt like I was anesthetized. I did not pay attention to what was happening around me.
My first tears of blood rolled down my face and I didn't feel them.
I took several steps forward to dip my feet into the lake water, where I moved on, walking slowly. My body was consumed unhurriedly by the dark water of the lake. It came up to my waist, but I continued walking and it covered my face ... my head…
Afterward I disappeared completely.
Hours passed by and I did not react in the depths of the lake. I wanted it to make me close my eyes forever.
A huge snake, seven feet long, came creeping around the lake, entered the water and went to the bottom, moving with agility. It came against my loose body, as I was swaying from one side to the other. The serpent entwined its body around mine and took me back to the edge of the lake where I was dragged back up to the surface. The snake transformed from a crawling animal and took the form of a vampire.
Bizak took me in his arms. I stood with my head down, as I was unconscious.
My loose arms shook with his steps. He could move with such speed. Although he was a vampire, he preferred to walk without haste and keep me in his arms for more time, enjoying my splendid face. Our clothes were soaked with water. Pasted to our bodies, my dress in ivory was stained. The material had darkened due to the lake water.
Bizak took me back to the castle. The dry trees swayed from side to side and among them was an owl which was watching all our movements.
It watched Bizak walking ahead as he carried my body.
The owl flew up in the other direction, against the cloudy sky and disappeared into a gray smoke that appeared in the air.
~~~
Minutes later…
Bizak took me straight to my bedroom where I was placed under the care of Valeska. She changed my clothes and put me into my bed to rest. I slept less than I was expected to.
When I opened my eyes, I could see her sitting at my side, looking at me. At a glance I had a vision of my mother as if she were there beside me.
“Mom!” I murmured and looked up at Valeska.
“It's me....Valeska,” she said and approached me, put her hand on my head and stroked my hair affectionately. “How are you?”
“...Well...” with difficulty I responded.
“Bizak
took you out of the lake,” she said as her gaze was on me.
“Was he there?” I asked and sat on my bed after that. My body was dolorous and my heart too much.
“Yes.” She looked at me. “What did you want to do? Die?”
Nevertheless I did not answer her question. I put down my face as I realized everything had gone wrong.
“You cannot die ...You are ‘immortal’!” She asserted and her voice was serious.
“There must be a way...” but I declared during that, staring at her pale face of vampire.
“Why do you want to die?” she asked me then.
“My life makes no sense ...” My eyes ran around. I confessed as my thoughts were on Eros and his hard words. He knew perfectly how to ruin my life.
“You're like this because of him?” She faced my unhappy demeanor. “Did you talk to him?”
“Yes, it was even worse than I thought,” I confessed her, even not looking at her face. But my heart was full of pain. My love for Eros looked without a solution forever.
What should be needed to do to try to change it? What?
“What did you tell to him?”
My sigh invaded our converse first. “All I feel for him.”
“What did he say to you?” Valeska asked. She was anxiously awaiting my answer.
“He told me I must forget him,” I responded and my eyes met the ground another time.
“So you do it!” she said, rose from my bed and walked across my room.
“He does not deserve your love. He does not deserve anyone's love,” she declared coldly.
“Why do you say that? You encouraged me to go talk to him...”
I was confused at the change of Valeska’s behavior, with her assumptions involving Eros. The day before, she seemed to want to join Eros and me.
“I thought it would be different with you...” she finally said.
“Different! What?” I requested her as I was perplexed at her words. A strange mystery looked to come over our converse.
“He would be attracted to you, even though you are a vampire.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“I didn’t want to discourage you,” she sat on my bed again and held my hands. “You've fallen in love with him. I had no courage to tell you all that I knew.”
“Why are only humans attracted to him?” I asked in agony. But Valeska gazed at my face again and her gray eyes gave me a silent advice.
“Didn’t you ask him this?"
“I had no chance, he flew away.”
“I also don’t know, he never said why.”
“I should have declared my love for him when I was human. Maybe everything would be different now,” I murmured.
“Or not,” she challenged. “You don’t know for sure if he was attracted to you when you were still human.”
“You’re right. If I was human I would not have the assurance of his love,” I agreed.
~~~
Hours later…
We shared dinner without the presence of Eros. It was the first time that his chair was empty after my arrival at that castle.
Inside me, I knew why he didn’t appear at dinner. He didn’t want to face me. Probably Eros thought I was being a burden in his life. Those thoughts made me feel worse. I had lost not only his love but his friendship.
The zeal he had for me when we were on Earth. All his approaches had always been very important in my life.
Perhaps I wouldn't have them any longer.
CHAPTER 18
Vincent requested my humble presence in the main room of his enormous castle. When I arrived, my eyes widened in surprise in the direction of the wild animals that were in his company. I really didn’t expect for that.
Soon, I looked in front and saw my father was sitting on his extraordinary vast armchair and on his lap was a white tiger. Between his feet was a huge snake wrapped around them and on his right shoulder was a dark owl.
Well, the snake I knew it was Bizak. The owl also, it was the unmistakable Eros. But the white tiger, which was white in name only, because all the wild animals in the castle were as dark as night, who was it?
They took a human within some seconds, so I approached my father little by little.
Now I knew Valeska was the white tiger.
It was as I had imagined on the sly.
The three servants of my father remained standing at his side, looking like stone soldiers that couldn’t step out of their places, not after their master’s orders.
“You have called for me?” I asked, after my eyes had been fixed on my father’s image, sitting tranquilly in his seat.
“Yes!” my father said with a serene voice. “Do you like my collection of wild animals?” his arms moved together with his question in the direction of me and a small smile came out of his mouth.
“That's why you called for me?” asked back.
“Don't you like what you see?” He shook his pale chin at something and lowered his pale hands just in the direction of his chair’s arms.
Gravely I asked him after a fit of duty. “Can you get straight to the point, my father? I think I have not much time for this.”
My father’s face became crucial. His words sounded as an order into my ears. “I want to see what you can become.”
So I looked to him and asked back. “How can I do this?”
His shoulders trembled at me. I should discover it by myself. I was his descendant and should be smart like him. “Think of an animal that you wish to be.”
“Uh ... what should I do now?” I asked him, thinking quickly.
“Did you think of one?” he asked then, following imagining I had done the right thing with my mentality.
“Yes!” I responded rapidly and then I remained in silence as my thinking traced Eros’s image as well. In this moment, I imagined he was embracing me with a lot of force.
Vincent got up and stood in front of me. His wine long cape made perfect movements before my eyes.
He held my arms gently and looked into my questioning face.
“Close your eyes and control the strength of your mind, with the purpose of your desire to be accomplished.”
I did everything my master - father ordered me.
Then I narrowed my eyes and focused on what I wished to be.
Seconds later, my body became a dark image, an animal with fur and yellow eyes.
I had turned into a pretty black panther.
“Magnificent!”
My father and master exclaimed, pleased with my choice. I was an extraordinary animal.
Everybody in there was watching my performance.
I walked from one side to other, rapidly, my claws held firmly onto the ceiling wall. I only stopped making my acrobatics when I felt tired.
Then I stopped walking in the middle of the great room and came back into my human form.
It required an extraordinary amount of energy and I had little left.
CHAPTER 19
“Nothing fine to be done here!” Valeska exclaimed after a fit of a tedious minute. She was sitting in one of the chairs beside me and Bizak was sitting in other before us. We were sharing our glasses of red wines while conversing about things that looked not very interesting to our ears. Even hearing Valeska’s voice, I had removed my gaze from her image and fixed it on Eros’s attractive representation. He was standing before the open window in the huge living room. His gray eyes were parked at something out of the castle. The atmosphere with Valeska, Bizak and me sounded not to fill him with enthusiasm. Eros denied himself to be with us in those instants.
“We can take part in a game of the kiss.” Bizak supposed. “I think it can be fine, folks.”
Valeska’s gaze got a great glow. She soon agreed with his radiant idea. “That is great! For an extended time, we have not played this game any longer.”
“Valkyrie, do you know this game?” Bizak’s voice asked me as his eyes scampered at my face. “I hope so.”
“Well, I
have never heard of this before.” My voice said back, while my gaze again ran in the direction of Eros. But he looked not to pay attention to our converse, or he pretended it very well.
“But that does not prevent you from trying to play this game for the first time, right?” Bizak insisted another time with his well-bred voice. His questions were extremely strong and almost convincing.
“Oh, Bizak is right.” Valeska entered in the converse for the second time. Her hand touched mine and shook it in animation. “Valkyrie, you will love this funny game!”
“I hope so.” Declared with a fragile voice. I was still a little confused if I should take part in this game. Mainly after Valeska and Bizak had exchanged malicious smiles and looks between themselves.
“Okay then,” Valeska stated after a vigorous movement in her seat. Her hand pulled her dark-red dress skirt to one side and her right leg became more visible. “Let’s start our amusing game!”
For the period of that, her gray eyes were running in the direction of Eros and she saw him still there, congested before the taciturn window.
“Eros, do you want to play this game with us?”
He took away his gaze from the panorama out of the palace and ended up glancing at Valeska’s image.
“What is the game?” asked back with full seriousness.
“Game of the kiss.” Smiled at him with her pointed white teeth. “This game is wonderful!”
Eros remained grave as his gaze flew over my face and after Bizak’s. I continued looking sternly at his face as I waited for his answer.
“Okay.” Informed us, and his body won charming movements as he started to walk in our direction. “I hope this game is really fine.”
He took a seat beside Bizak and facing Valeska and me.
“Okay, dear vampires!” Valeska shouted. “Now let’s begin our fun!”
Subsequent to that, her hands moved up and invisible powers made things become visible. There were a bat, a rat, a snake, a stone and some cards on a black small table.
“Who of you will choose the first card?” She requested, looking at the three of us.