His once flawless face was now marred by three thick scars that traced from the side of his skull down his neck. Being a vampire they should have healed, but something told me that wounds from The Dark don’t heal very easily whether physical or emotional. I almost didn’t recognize him, but his broken smile still carried a fractured piece of the vampire he once was.
For a moment I stared in complete shock. Did he hear my tearful confession to Robin? Would he lash out at me at any moment? Would he tell me I was a liar?
Then, without even thinking, my body acted on its own and took the last few steps between us and fell into his arms. I hugged him as tight as I could, like I was worried he would disappear. I hadn’t realized how much I missed him until this very moment.
“What happened to you?” I looked up at his pained face and traced my fingers along his fresh scars.
“I got a haircut.” He gave a fake smile and ran his hand across his shaved head. His once beautifully disheveled hair was gone. No longer did he look like the playful, curious Dmitry I remembered. He was a whole new vampire and like Robin, I could tell, he was forever changed by the events that had happened. Just as I was.
We stared at each other somewhat awkwardly, neither of us knowing what to say. I could sense Arrick’s anguish as he watched our embrace, so I gave Dmitry once last squeeze and let him go. Sadly, some part of me felt like that might be the last hug I would ever give him.
We all sat down and I told them everything. From the moment I arrived at Naos to the instant I jumped into the portal after Ana and accepted death as I lay dying under the large tree. They each sat silently, listening as I told my story.
“So, you can control dark stones?” Dmitry asked, his curious nature slightly returning.
“It looks like it.” I had pulled them out from under my shirt and displayed them in my palm.
“I have read very little about these. No one seems to know anything about them. Only myths and legends,” Robin said curiously. “Nobody ever lived to…” She stopped herself. Her eyebrows arced up in shock.
“Say it,” I commanded. “We can’t figure any of this out if we are too afraid to even talk about it.”
She swallowed hard and continued. “No one has ever lived to talk about it. At least not that I know of.” Dmitry nodded as she spoke.
I stuffed the stones back under my shirt. I could feel how uncomfortable they were making everyone feel and I wasn’t sure I wanted to see any of them looking at me the way Bennett had. Like I was some sort of monster. Like I would somehow turn into a member of The Dark.
Robin and I sat close to each other on my old antique couch. The fabric no longer glistened with the rich threaded designs and the wood no longer gleamed from fresh polish. It was dusty, its edges marred and darkened, but it was still sturdy. Still strong enough to hold our weight. I found myself thinking that I felt very much the same way. I was beaten and broken. I might look frail, but I could still hold my ground if I needed to.
“What does he want with you?” Arrick asked.
“I don’t know, but he seems to know something I don’t.” I hated the idea that another secret was being kept from me. Story of my life. Was everything I knew a lie?
Arrick feeling my frustration tried to sooth me. “That doesn’t mean anyone is keeping anything from you. He’s an evil bastard and I have no doubt that he has spies everywhere.”
Dmitry nodded in agreement. “Like Ana.”
His words seemed to make the air in the room thicker and I found myself immediately directing my eyes to the floor not wanting to talk about it. I had enough problems on my hands that I didn’t need to add her back to the mix. I wasn’t even sure she was Ana anymore.
“He’s right,” Arrick said.
“Mhm,” Robin agreed.
“You guys didn’t see her. I don’t know what Baal did to her, but she’s not Ana anymore. She didn’t even recognize me. I know I should hate her and want her dead. Part of me still does, but something is just off.”
Arrick began to pace back and forth across the room and Dmitry crouched at the fireplace, poking at the small embers, encouraging them to grow.
“Where is everyone else?” I didn’t really direct the question toward anyone, hoping that someone would answer. Dmitry immediately averted his eyes when I looked at him and Robin’s body tensed. “I need to know.”
Robin looked at me like she was going to speak, but tears filled her eyes, clinging precariously on the edge of her lashes. I had never seen my dear friend look so defeated and scared.
Her answer was no more than a whisper. “They are all gone.”
My jaw dropped in shock. I couldn’t believe it. “Everyone?” I looked to Dmitry for an answer as Robin fell into my shoulder in sobs.
He stood, his eyes shifting across the room like an answer was hidden somewhere for him. As he turned, the growing fire danced across his new features. I felt like I had lost the Dmitry I once knew - and in a way I had. This vampire who stood with sorrow in his eyes before me, looked like a stranger. I had so many things I wanted to talk to him about, but it didn’t feel right. Would this Dmitry forgive me for fleeing the Palace without a word? Would he forgive me for killing his brother? I was just defending myself; he had to have known that.
Dmitry cleared his throat, kicking me out of my thoughts. “We haven’t found them all.” A question mark formed in my expression and he exhaled heavily. “The bodies.”
“Oh.” Robin’s body stiffened and I squeezed her against me. “Well, that doesn’t mean they can’t still be alive.”
“Claire…” I could see in Dmitry’s eyes that he wanted to protest, but he didn’t have it in him, so he sat heavily on the ground and stared into the orange flames.
“I survived, didn’t I? I doubt Nicolae, and Evilyn would go down without a fight - and definitely not Fox! If they didn’t make it -” I hated the thought, “then there would be piles of Dark vampires lying in their wake.” My words convinced even myself and steadied my breathing. I had to believe there was hope. If I, or we, gave up even a little we would lose before the true battle even started.
“You think so?” Robin asked. There was a hesitant rise of hope in her voice. I nodded in response. “We haven’t found my parents. Do you think they made it?”
“I do.” I wanted to believe that as much as she did. Until we found proof otherwise, we had to believe they were still alive. All of them.
“Baal was definitely after me. He could have taken people in to question my whereabouts when he couldn’t find me here.” I hated to admit that I was the reason for another catastrophe. “He seemed to know something…” I said again remembering the glint in his eyes and I shuddered.
“They attacked on the same night,” Arrick blurted matter-of-factly, and we all looked to him in confusion. He had said so little since I had told my story I was beginning to worry about what was going on in his head.
“Yeah, so?” Robin’s voice croaked from my shoulder.
“I don’t know what it means. I just realized it.”
“Do you think we were the only two places that were attacked?” I regretted asking the question as soon as it left my lips. It was a terrifying thought and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer, but my friends’ faces mirrored by fears.
“How could they be in so many places at once?” Robin sat up wiping her eyes. I was glad to see that she wasn’t crying anymore, but our conversation wasn’t headed in a direction that would make any of us feel any better.
“I think there are a lot more of them then we think there are,” Dmitry announced without emotion. I knew in my gut that he was probably right.
“It’s not just that.” I swallowed hard. “But they can do things that we can’t. They can get places a lot quicker then we can. I don’t know how those portal things work, but they are obviously a method of transportation.”
“And you said Ana jumped in before you did?”
I nodded.
“Then wher
e the hell is she?” Arrick asked in frustration.
“My guess.” Dmitry announced and we all looked to him. “Those portals take you where you want to go. Claire wanted to be here. Obviously.” He looked to Arrick. “And Ana wanted to be somewhere else. Most likely some hideout of theirs or something.”
“So, you think that portal felt where I wanted to be and took me there?”
“If you can control them, then yeah, that’s what I think.”
I recalled the thoughts I had while I traveled in that endless dark void. I had wanted to be with Arrick. It had brought me to him. I met his gaze and his expression revealed he knew what I was feeling. I wanted to be with him and that made him incredibly happy.
“So there are more of them than we can count and they can use portals to travel anywhere they want?” Robin sounded exasperated, breaking the warm gaze that connected Arrick and I.
“I don’t know, Robin.” My tone grew sharp even though I hadn’t meant it to. “All I know is that we shouldn’t stay here. If there is no one left here,” I winched at my words even though I spoke the truth, “Then are only option is to go back to Naos. My parents are there, they’ll know what to do.”
“Who is going to defend the city if we leave?” Dmitry questioned.
“Well, we need to find out if the High Council is still in-tact. That’s a good place to start,” I offered.
Dmitry nodded. “If they were just after you then there may be a good chance that the other cities in the region were untouched. Those vampire lords will need to be contacted. There has to be some sort of protocol for situations like this.”
I watched Dmitry walk about the room strategizing as he talked to himself. We had to get some kind of plan together. We couldn’t just flounder around helplessly.
“Who is directing the search party?” I asked Robin.
“Some of Fox’s guards survived the attack as well as some servants. They are all scouring the palace and the entire grounds,” she replied mechanically.
“Okay, that’s good. We need to know the areas they have covered and widen our search if needed. And maybe even recheck some areas just to be thorough.”
I grabbed onto her shoulder with she didn’t reply. “Okay?”
She nodded.
I held back a sigh. “Can you do this for me, Robin?” I thought giving her something to keep her busy would help her grief.
“Yes.” Her smile broke through the sadness on her face and she rose to join in on Dmitry’s strategizing.
I rose to speak with Arrick in private and caught him as he stared out into the darkness of the night from my balcony. This is where I had first seen him. On a beautifully starry night, much like this one, but also so very different.
“Was the city attacked?” I held my breath, waiting for him to answer.
“No.”
I sighed in relief and smiled. “Then we can get Liz and my mom, well my human mom I mean and bring them to Naos with us.” I turned to leave and tell Robin and Dmitry my plan when I felt a lingering dread within Arrick, “Hey, are you okay?”
“They didn’t attack the city.”
“Yeah, that’s a good thing.”
He shook his head. “Not entirely.”
“What do you mean?”
“Claire…,” Arrick looked at me as if he were going to yell, but the anger in his expression didn’t reach his voice. “You’ve encountered these monsters. You’ve seen Baal. Do you really think they would leave thousands upon thousands of humans alive?”
After he had put it like that I had started to doubt my answer. “Well, what reason would they have then?”
“Food,” Dmitry said with disgust from behind me, making me jump. “They kept them alive for food. They are going to wipe every vampire from the planet that opposes them and then they are going to hunt down humans as they did in the Dark Ages.”
“Wolves after lambs,” Arrick sighed into the night and Dmitry nodded. “They enjoy the hunt, the torture and the kill. With us gone and the power of all the regions they can do as they please and live as the Gods they think they are.”
“They were supposed to have all died out in the Dark Ages,” Robin added, joining us on the balcony. “I know the story of the Dark Ages. Nicolae fought against them. When the last of their kind died, he brought peace to the world and divided the land into regions and gifting them to the vampire warlords who fought beside him.”
I remembered how Robin had told me some of the story of the Dark Ages the night I met Arrick and was bonded to him as my Blood Mate. That night, she sounded so proud of Nicolae and the vampires of our history and how they fought against the savage animals that shared our bloodline. Now, it felt more like they were a completely different creature. It was scary to think we shared anything with them, but they were once like us. The glory of battle, the taste of blood and the deliciousness of victory proved to be too sweet for them. It had darkened their souls and mutated them into something else.
Could that happen to me? I had started to enjoy killing The Dark vampires. I had started to embrace the vicious nature that sweltered inside me. Did this mean that I could change into one of them? Is that why I could control the stones?
“They obviously didn’t kill them all,” Dmitry said coolly.
“I just don’t get it,” Robin huffed and slapped her hands onto the stone railing of the balcony. “How could she do it?” Her voice shrieked in frustration.
“How could who, do what?” Dmitry asked.
“Nyx! How could she allow things like them to even exist? How could she let them kill our families, my parents?” I rushed to console her, but she pushed me away, “No! I know they are gone. I can feel it. I feel empty.” She sobbed fitfully. “How could she make them so powerful and give us nothing to defend ourselves?”
“They are not creatures of Nyx, Robin. You should know that.” Dmitry laid a hand on her shoulder. Whereas she pushed me away, she allowed this. There was something newly affectionate about his touch. Then he saw me staring and his hand retreated. Surprisingly, I wasn’t jealous at all.
“Do you really believe Nyx had a hand in making them? They created themselves. Products of their own monstrous nature.”
“He’s right,” Arrick chimed in. “They follow another belief. Another God.”
“Baal,” Robin said blankly. “How can we go against a God? Even if we do go back to Naos and join with Claire’s parents, what good will that do? What chance does any vampire have against a God?”
I felt a little hurt by Robin’s words, but I knew she had reached her breaking point. “There’s always a chance. I survived, didn’t I? And how do we even know Baal is really a God?”
“Yes,” Dmitry said quizzically. I could almost see the wheels spinning in his head. “She has a point.”
“What proof do we have that he is? Other than that he says he is.”
“There is only one way to find out,” Arrick chimed in, feeling the hope that our idea was breeding.
“How?” Robin asked.
“Kill him,” Arrick and Dmitry said in unison.
“Okay, well how are we going to do that?”
“Something tells me Nyx didn’t leave us defenseless.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“She did give us you, didn’t she?” Dmitry said. “You are Nyx’s weapon against Baal.” He sounded almost like an evil scientist, his eyes wild.
Each of my three friends’ eyes locked onto me in complete shock as realization hit them. I could control dark stones, I could travel through evil’s portals, and I had survived an encounter with Baal. There had never been a vampire like me before. The extent of my abilities could be limitless.
In that instant I knew one thing.
It was me against the army of The Dark.
The stone statue of Nyx flashed in my mind, her sword pointed fiercely into the night sky and her hand outstretched to her followers below, lifting them up to fight beside her.
Closing my ey
es, I prayed, mentally offering my hand to hers. I knew I couldn’t fight this battle alone and I needed to be strong. War was looming on the horizon and it was time to fight.
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