by Raven Steele
“Why weren’t you with her?” I tried to keep my voice even.
Emma stepped forward. “She was sleeping, something she rarely does. I didn’t want to wake her.”
Rebecca stared at the floor at my feet, her eyes full of guilt and remorse. I didn’t blame her for crashing. She was probably exhausted and injured from the fight with the mutants.
"It was daytime so it couldn’t have been vampires,” I said, thinking out loud. “So who was it?"
"We're not sure," Rebecca answered. "They were regular thugs, but they were definitely targeting her. I tried to catch one to ask, but they ran away. Could’ve been Victor or Bastian’s men."
"They weren't Victor's," Roman and Emma said at the same time.
I shook my head, frustrated and tired of people defending him. "Has everyone forgotten all the horrible things he’s done? Rhino dust? Torturing Oz? Killing Kristen? Any of that ring a bell?”
“He saved your life,” Amy said. “He’s good now.”
Because I didn’t know how to respond, I merely exhaled a long breath and stepped close to Emma. "Where are you hurt?"
She lifted her shirt showing me her smooth stomach. Very carefully, she peeled back a large bandage. Three angry claw marks had been raked across her flesh. A few drops of blood escaped the deepest cut despite dozens of stitches. Thirst surged within me, but my anger towards those who had done her harm was stronger.
Nevertheless, I stepped away from her. "I will make them pay."
She briefly met my gaze and looked away again. "I'm glad you're back. We've been worried."
I studied her for a few weighted seconds. Something was different about her. She seemed nervous, almost shy, about something.
When she wouldn’t look at me again, I asked Roman, "Where's Richard?"
"He's in the Halo. He wanted to talk to you when you returned. Shall we?"
“I’ll meet you there. I need to get dressed.”
Roman nodded and walked away.
“Let’s go watch a movie,” Oz said to Amy and led her away.
I said goodbye, then returned my attention to Emma. She was smoothing the bandage back over her stomach. I would heal her tonight while she slept, but I would have to be careful not to fix the wound completely. I didn’t know if that was possible, but I didn’t want her to suspect anything.
"I'm going to lie down," she said. Her gaze dropped to my bare chest, then flickered away. She hurried to her bedroom as if I'd made her uncomfortable.
When she was out of earshot, Rebecca said, "The encounter really shook her up for some reason. I mean, it sucked, but it wasn’t as bad as other fights she’s told me about. Something else upset her.”
“If she’s going to insist on working, then she needs to leave the city. It’s not safe for her up there.”
"Believe me, I’ve tried to get her to go, but she refuses."
"Why does she have to be so stubborn?"
She looked at me with a dull expression. "Surely you know the answer to that."
"I don't." I might have a few days ago, but I had compelled Emma not to think of me as anything more than a friend. There should be nothing to tie her to the city anymore.
“Look at what you’re wearing.” She lowered her eyes to my towel. “You’re not making it easy for her.”
I shook my head, knowing that my lack of attire should not affect her. “There is one way I can get her to go.”
“Don’t go there,” she warned.
I walked toward my room to get dressed. “It’s the only way to make sure she survives.”
She followed me. “That’s jacked up. You can’t compel someone against their will."
"But it could save her life." I opened my dresser drawers and grabbed a set of clothes.
"Keywords there, cowboy, her life. She gets to decide what happens to it.”
I stepped closer to her, gripping my clothes tight. "Are you telling me that if someone you loved were in danger, you wouldn't do whatever you could to save them? Even if that meant they might hate you forever?"
Her mouth opened and closed as if trying to find words to counter my reasoning. When she couldn't, she walked away saying, "Be prepared to suffer the consequences."
As soon as she was gone, I dressed methodically, thinking of Emma. I didn’t want her to go, but I couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to her. I would never forgive myself if something did. I lifted my head toward the direction of her room. It would only take a second.
Before I went to her, I drank several bags of blood filling my stomach and staving off my hunger. I crossed the street, shaking out my hands. I didn’t want to do this. My heart screamed in protest, but my mind told it to shut the hell up. It was the only way.
I peeked inside the curtained window of the small building from her porch and detected a faint light. She was still up. I softly wrapped my knuckles on the door.
"Come in," she said.
She was sitting up on a mattress with a book in her lap. Light from a small lamp illuminating the space in front of her. Rebecca had purchased the mattress and a few other essential items, but that was it. The sight of it made my heart ache again. She deserved so much more.
"What do you want?" she asked, her voice tight and sharp. It chilled the room.
"Did I do something to offend you?"
She faced forward, silent.
I approached her bed slowly. "I'm sorry that happened to you today."
Without looking at me, she asked, "Where do you go during the day? I called you several times. Why didn't you answer me?"
I tried to remember where I last saw my phone. It hadn’t been on me when I changed in the shower. It must've fallen out in the tunnels somewhere. "I think I lost it."
"That doesn't answer my question. Where do you go?"
"There are some things I can't tell you." I reached her bed, but it felt weird towering above her, so I lowered to my knees making us at eye level.
Her gaze met mine, weighted and intense. "Why can't you tell me?"
"It's for your protection."
"Let me be the judge of that."
My eyes dropped to her stomach. I could just make out the edges of the bandage beneath her tank top. "You need to leave Coast City. It's not safe for you."
"But it's safe down here, right?"
"This is not the life I want for you."
"My life, my choice."
I swallowed the near-choking rock in my throat, trying to muster up the courage for what I needed to do. "There's nothing in the world I wouldn't do for you. Even if that means losing you."
She wrinkled her nose. "What are you talking about? I'm not going anywhere."
Using every spark of emotion, every strand of love, I'd ever had for her, I focused my heated gaze into her eyes with an intensity that burned inside of me. My compelling voice shook when I ordered, "In the morning, you will leave Coast City and go to Wildemoor with your mother. You will start a life there. Change schools, get a new job. You'll be happy. Your time in Ironwood will feel like another life, one you want to put behind you."
I sucked in a breath as the power of the command left me. Emma lowered her head, her eyes sad. They even teared, which I thought odd. Had my compulsion caused her that much heartache?
"In the morning, I’m leaving for Wildemoor," she said, her voice flat.
"I think it's for the best." I slipped my hand into hers. She sighed and closed her eyes. “One last thing, Emma. I need you to lift your shirt and remove the bandage. Then you will forget what happens during the next three minutes.”
She did as I asked. I stared at the angry red marks, my nostrils flaring and muscles flexing tightly. I bit my wrist, drawing blood. “This won’t hurt.”
She didn’t flinch, as I gently rubbed my healing blood over the wound. I was careful not to use too much. I wish I could make it heal entirely, but I didn’t want her to suspect anything. I only wanted to remove the biting pain she must felt every time she moved.
&nbs
p; When the cuts began to heal themselves, I pulled back and wiped off the excess blood. Her skin was soft and smooth as my fingertips ran across her flesh, except for where the wounds were, of course. I was careful by those. I admit to touching her for too long. Tomorrow she would be gone, and I may never see her again.
I trailed my fingers over to her arm and down to her palm. With power in my voice, I said, "You will not remember what just happened. The wound just healed quickly. Do you understand?"
She didn’t look at me, as she nodded slowly.
I left Emma alone in her room barely able to shuffle my feet in front of me. I stopped halfway to the Halo and leaned against a stone wall. Tomorrow when I woke up, Emma would be gone from my life. My heart felt like a hole had been punched right through it. I should probably get used to it. As an immortal vampire, I’d watch everyone I care about grow old and die. Eventually my heart would become so full of holes, there wouldn’t be anything left.
Unless …
I thought of what Victor had said. What if there was a cure? Hope replaced a small part of the freshly made chasm. I clung to it because, in that glimmer, I could become normal and have a long and happy life with Emma. This thought spurred me on.
I found Richard and Roman sitting at his desk. Richard was telling stories from their college days. I cleared my throat.
Richard turned and quickly stood up. “Thank you again for saving me last night. I owe you my life."
I waved my hand at the notion. "You owe me nothing. I'm just glad you're finally free."
"You did the right thing with Emma," Roman said, and I realized he'd overheard my conversation with her. “She shouldn’t be here.”
Richard looked at him questioningly, but I asked him, "Are you leaving the city tomorrow?"
"I can't stay here any longer. The things I've seen will give me nightmares for years to come."
"Could Emma travel with you?"
"I’m happy to take her."
"Thank you.” I crossed the room and lowered into a chair next to him, eyeing the small fridge full of blood. I could use more. But first, I needed to learn more about the one thing that could give me the life I’ve always wanted.
"Tell me about a cure."
Chapter 30
"A cure?" Roman sat up straighter in his chair.
Richard looked at Roman and back at me. "How much did Victor tell you?"
"Nothing, other than he asked you to work on one before Bastian took you."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a glass vial. "I spent most of my days working on this while pretending to further my research on V proteins. Hacksaw, who was asked by Bastian to oversee the project, took an unhealthy interest in my work. He discovered what happens when someone with V proteins inside their blood dies." He looked at both of us. "But you don't all come back as normal vampires or vampires at all, do you?"
I sunk into my seat, weighed down by memories of the previous night’s fight with the mutants. "Elizabeth Bathory’s blood doesn’t mix well with many. It can cause severe side effects."
His eyebrows lifted, and his gaze shifted to Roman. "That's how you became blind, isn't it?"
Roman nodded. “Should I die, the transformation might kill me, or I may rise as something savage and unrecognizable."
"Does Bastian know the truth?" I asked.
He shook his head. "I don’t think so. Hacksaw kept it a secret. I’d hear him rambling sometimes. He believed he could create an army of mutated humans and overthrow Bastian and the Principes Noctis, especially when he began mixing shifter DNA with V proteins. He even tried it on himself.
“No wonder he was so strong, but mixing species blood?" I could think of a million ways that could go wrong.
"Sometimes the desire of ultimate power can overshadow any line of reasoning." He stared straight ahead, his expression flat.
"And Bastian had no idea?" Roman clarified.
"As far as I know.” His weight shifted on the old wooden chair beneath him. “With Hacksaw busy with his experiments, I was able to work on a cure."
He held up the vial and stared into the clear liquid. "I was only able to test it once. It was hard to get access to the test subjects, as we were both under lock and key, but one time Hacksaw was careless and left one with me that was in the process of dying—or I should say dying again. Hacksaw had killed him, and he'd turned, but he wasn't surviving the transition. I injected him with my new serum. Hacksaw came back for the man and was surprised to see he was still alive. He took him away from me, but that night, not sure how the man did it, but I spied him from the window leaving the hospital, more like sneaking out. He walked normally where before when he had V proteins in him, he was hunched over with a deformity. He looked back, just once, at the building in bewilderment, as if he didn’t know where he was, but I saw it in his eyes. He was human."
I couldn't stop staring at the vial. Could it really cure me? Cure Roman?
"This is all I have, one dose." Richard placed it on Roman’s desk. "I could probably make more in a lab setting, but I’d need my notes, which I left behind, hidden, and more of your blood and lots of time.”
My gaze slowly lifted to Roman. His all-white eyes stared back at me as if he could see me. "You must take it, Roman. You could see again and hear normally. No more headaches."
He was silent for a moment, unmoving. Even the air around him was unnaturally still. Finally, he said, "I do not see what I have as a handicap. These are gifts, and I will use them to help other people."
"But you have so much pain." That had to factor in somehow. He had suffered for so long and deserved a break, in my mind.
"Sometimes,” he said, his voice thoughtful, “those of us capable of more are asked to bare more for the betterment of mankind."
I looked at Richard and then back at Roman. "I don't think I can make the same choice. I want to live a normal life."
"That’s what Daisy wanted for you too.” Roman leaned toward me. “Your life is yours to do as you please."
Richard picked it up off the desk and handed it to me. "I think you've done enough for this city. You should take it."
I closed my hand around the narrow glass tube. It felt warm against my palm. Something so small, and yet it could change my whole life.
“Are you going out tonight?" Roman asked.
I pressed up from the chair and opened the door of the fridge. I couldn’t wait any longer. "There’s not enough time. Tomorrow, after I rise, I will go out and discover who I can trust—Victor or Bastian."
Both want me at the airport, one to kill me. I was anxious to uncover who.
"Tread carefully with Bastian," Roman warned.
"Just like I will with Victor." I punctured my fangs into the thick plastic of the blood bag, not bothering with the cap at the top. Not a drop of blood was wasted this way.
I climbed into my coffin, my body still sore, but it was my heart that ached the most. The biting pain spread outward nearly crippling me. Emma would be leaving soon.
I slept restlessly, tossing and turning in my tight, dark coffin. My dreams were plagued with Emma and her new life. I watched as she grew old with a husband and three children. They shared adventures, laughed and cried together. It was a life I wanted for myself, but instead I was the outsider watching from the shadows. This would be my personal hell.
I must've fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, I was listening to the soft clicking of someone about to open my coffin. I expanded my senses but retreated them instantly when I mentally felt sun's light. It was still daytime.
I curled my fingers into my palm, my muscle’s tensing. The door to my house had been locked. Maybe my enemies had found me.
The lid flew open. I sat up in the darkenss and grabbed the person by the throat squeezing hard. Hands clawed at my grip.
"Aris," a familiar voice choked.
My vision came into focus. Emma. I immediately let go and shrunk back. She leaned over and gasped for air.
"What are you doing here?"
"You lied to me. You're a vampire."
There was just enough light coming in from the cracked door that she could probably see my shocked expression.
She slapped me hard across the face. "That's for compelling me." She shook her hand out as if it stung. "I'd slap you again, but that freaking hurt."
I stared at her, able to say only one word: "How?"
"Well, first, I'm not an idiot. I knew something was different about you the moment you returned. I've also met many vampires. I know the signs, and I've done my research. It was just a matter of trying to figure out how it could be possible. I considered that maybe you were turned while you were away, but you don’t act like a newborn, and you don’t have an older vampire, a sire, living with you. None of it added up. Those reasons are what stopped me from accusing you from the very beginning, but then you tried to compel me a second time, jerk. I was prepared though."
She tapped a metal bracelet on her wrist. A tiny flask-looking charm was all that was attached. "It holds a couple of drops of vervain oil."
I inhaled a breath, genuinely shocked. Burning hunger replaced my surprise when I smelled her sweet blood. "You should not be here."
I glanced at the door, fully expecting Roman to show up. He had to have heard her come in. I'm surprised she got this far unless … he wasn’t here. What was he up to?
Emma placed her hands on the lip of the open coffin. "Do you really think I care that you're a vampire? You’re still you, only with a different lifestyle. You should've trusted me enough to tell me. And for the record, compelling me? That was a dick move."
"How did you know?"
"The first words out of your mouth right now should be ‘I'm sorry’.”
"I am sorry. I hated doing it, but I was just trying to keep you safe."
Her hand slid over mine creating a sizzling sensation up my spine. "You've always kept me safe, but I'm a big girl and doing the best I can to take care of myself in this crazy city. As for how I knew you compelled me, I didn't until those men attacked me, and I got hurt. The pain erased your compulsion, and I remembered everything. That kiss … ”