by Pet TorreS
My footsteps took courage and stepped forward. Then I saw a grotesque rock and on it there was a dark shadow. It looked like a creature, that is, a vampire of the lineage of my father.
My body floated over the white snow quickly. Within moments I stepped on the rock. The creature ws now standing.
“Eros!”
My voice betrayed the stunning emotions within me. I felt as if my heart could beat fervently, even though I was a real vampire.
His dark cape flew according to the velocity of the wind. At the same time his hood covered his head. I didn't see his face yet, but my body reacted as if I had seen his gray eyes.
Several years were gone since I had seen him. It was just when we kissed each other for the first and one unique time.
He turned slowly to face me and a ray emerged in the cloudy sky. That phenomenon seemed to celebrate our meeting. Our eyes locked through the flashes over our faces.
But silence took hold of our longings.
“Eros!”
I ran to embrace him and my arms went around his waist, which was protected by his black cape. Nevertheless, my actions had been anticipated by him.
His hands separated me from his hard, cold body.
“What are you doing here?” He asked after his eyes travelled over my body dressed in a black dress, with its length to my ankles.
“I came after you.” My eyes met his. “I saw you need me.”
“I don't need your help,” he said as his face was ambiguous.
“Eros, you are weak! I know it!” I said and held his arms, trying to make him see he needed me beside him.
“I don't need you!” His words sounded stronger and his voice was ruder than his gesture, which separated me from him again.
“Eros, you need me, just as I need you.”
“I don't need you!” He stood back. “Return to Neptune!”
“I will return to Neptune taking you with me.”
“Are you crazy?” His gaze reached into the sky.
“I need you on Neptune.”
“I will not go back to Neptune! Never again!” he affirmed, decidedly.
“Forget the quarrel with my father and come back with me!”
“No, Valkyrie!”
“Please, Eros! Without you, that planet doesn’t make any sense to me!” I looked at the ground. “It is as if I was there without me being myself.”
“Forget I exist! Forget that at one time existed a vampire Eros in your life!”
His words were hard again and my heart didn't resist much coldness. A blood tear welled up in my right eye and moved down on my face. My gray look was plain as I was upset and feeling a deep sorrow.
“Go back to your planet Neptune!”
His voice sounded heavy and his gaze investigated the bloody tear on my face.
He turned his back to me and changed into an owl and flew very far away from me, disappearing into the darkness.
Chapter 9
My willfulness made me stay on that planet. I had not obeyed Eros’s commands, as I had always done in my life. I was once more there, in the hope that I could change his mind and he would want to go back to Neptune with me.
I was asleep on a rock and when I woke. I knew it was another day, due to the sky which was less gloomy. Some giant bats flew from side to side. I stood up and looked at the immensity of that planet. I didn't know how or where to find Eros again.
He was probably very far away from me and this way I could not find him for a second time. I concentrated hard and my body became a black panther. This way, it would be less tiring for me. I could look for him in several places on the rocks.
Chapter 10
During the day I went in search of Eros. However, I was about to give up the quest. But I needed to see him again, even if I would hear all that barbarity. This had always harmed my heart.
The Black Panther stopped walking in the midst of a gloomy jungle and my body came back into the form of vampire. I rested on a tree which was sustaining my back.
Then I closed my eyes, accepting my defeat. I was resolved to go back to Neptune without Eros.
However, my eyes opened when I heard a noise after an owl had flown against a dry branch of a dead tree. It returned to the soil and then turned into a vampire.
“You don't give up!” He grumbled as he walked in my direction.
“I promised myself I will only go back to Neptune if you come with me.”
“In that case, you will have to break your promise, because it will not be possible.”
As he said this his voice was distant, just as his thoughts and his look were.
“Why are you acting this way with me? Have I done any harm to you?” I asked after his indifference and my voice was depressed.
“Do you want even to know?” he asked, impatient at me.
“Yes, I do,” I answered, looking at his gloomy face.
His hands touched my arms and his fingers pressed my skin without compassion.
“That bloody kiss made me lose part of my power!” His gaze oozed resentment regarding that day. “I cannot become smoke any longer!”
My eyes were frightened, due to hearing his confession that our kiss had represented something significant to me and bad to him.
“Are you satisfied now?”
He abandoned my arms and took two steps back. He was still looking at me.
“BE GONE! WE COULD NEVER LIVE TOGETHER! YOU ARE MY DESTRUCTION!”
I managed to say nothing, not even to pronounce his name, while I was watching him turning his back to me and walking away and leaving me alone. Describing my destiny in which he could never be present.
Chapter 11
I returned to my father’s castle while everyone was still asleep in their beds. I walked quickly to my room and closed the door behind me. I stepped dejectedly forward and went to my marble bed and sat on it.
My thoughts were not on that castle, much less on someone there. My thoughts were on Uranus, along with Eros and his harsh words.
I was feeling deeply guilty because he lost part of his vampire powers. This was all because of a kiss from a vampire who was in love with him.
I thought to myself:
IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS WOULD ‘LOVE’ ALWAYS BE A CURSE AMONG VAMPIRES?
COULD ONLY A HUMAN HAVE VIRTUE OF LIVING THAT FEELING INTENSELY BESIDE THE BELOVED PERSON?
I looked at the ground, believing that my thoughts were incoherent. Vampires should be happy beside the beloved person. Even I knew that this might come at a cost. What would my price be? Would my price be my own destruction?
I stood and walked from one side to the other, trying to find a way to reverse that game. I could not stand idly by, watching the unhappiness walking in front of me every day, every moment.
I had to combat that feeling that was consuming me slowly every day.
The remedy for my healing was nothing more than the love of Eros. I needed him by my side, very close to me.
Sometime later, I fell asleep on my cold bed. I needed to rest, after all, my trip to the planet Uranus was not comfortable and this wore down a great part of my energies.
Chapter 12
“You disobeyed my orders, Valkyrie!” Vincent shouted indignantly as he placed his hands on his own waist.
“I told you that you must stay away from Eros! For you to not go after him!”
I looked at the wall of the main room while he was talking to me, looking as if the walls were talking to me and not my own father.
“What did you do in Uranus?” He walked towards me and stopped before me. “Tell me!”
His dark attire made my vision dark too.
“Were you begging for the love of that ungrateful vampire again?” His voice sounded angry.
I looked into my father's face and answered with affirmation.
“I was trying to bring him back to this castle.”
He also looked at my face and his eyes covered me with incriminations.
“You ne
ver listen to what I tell you!” His words came through his teeth. “I should punish you for that.”
“Punish me!” My voice was tempestuous.
He raised the tip of his black cape and turned as he spoke and his voice was less aggressive.
“You will be locked in the isolation room and you will only get out of there when I think you have been there long enough.”
“Isolation room?” I asked confused, since I had never heard of that before.
“Yes, isolation room.” He turned to me and looked into my face and continued to speak. “That room is the perfect place for those who disobey my orders.”
“Have you the courage to lock your own daughter in a room like that? This is all because of disobedience?”
“You chose this, from the moment you decided to go after Eros on Uranus without my consent.” He grabbed my arm tightly. “Have you any notion of the risk you ran by going there?”
“I do not care about that,” I answered looking at the floor.
“But I care!” he said loudly. “You are my daughter!”
He pulled me by the arm and we went walking through the halls of the castle. At this time, Lyon was behind a pillar, watching everything that was happening to me.
Vincent stopped in front of a gray door and dropped my arm. Then he said to me, “This is where you will stay for a week!”
I looked silently at the gray door and then I looked up to his face while I was wondering what would be behind that mysterious door. But I realized that fear did not come to me, not at that moment.
He opened the door and led me impatiently into the isolation room. Before he had closed the door, he looked at me while I was standing in the middle of the room and said, “You are prohibited from going after Eros again! Or this place will be your fate.”
When I finally saw the locked door and heard the footsteps of my father moving increasingly away, I could look at the room around me. I realized that there was nothing besides walls that were made of rocks and a marble chair. There were no windows that could distract me while I could look at the sky or the landscape around the castle. This was a room where the individual really could revise its flaws and regret them.
Although that was what I should do there, I did not regret. Repentance had not come to my being yet, for I had gone behind Eros on Uranus.
***
At dinner, Vincent sat down at the dining table and Lyon sat on a chair opposite him. His gaze at his master seemed to question my absence at dinner.
“Valkyrie will not dine with us for seven days,” my father informed him while he was looking at the food on the table.
However, Lyon did not question anything. He already knew I was in the isolation room.
“She is living out her punishment!”
Vincent completed and filled his cup with a red liquid.
Chapter 13
Immediately after seven days, I left the isolation room.
I was walking through the halls of the castle in the company of Lyon, after he had opened the door of the room where I was isolated. He did this on the orders of his master, Vincent.
We walked in silence, just listening to the sounds of our own footsteps on the hard, dark floor of the castle. I felt my body becoming weak; I knew I needed blood urgently. Lyon looked into my pale face and asked, “Are you okay?”
My eyes reached the floor before I could answer his question.
“I need blood.”
He looked at me again and said amiably, “I'll take you to the town of pre-vampires.”
I felt a sudden approximation, when he crossed his arms in the direction of my knees and lifted me up. Within seconds, I was in his arms.
“Put me on the floor! I can walk with my own legs!”
I screamed incessantly.
“Valkyrie, you have to trust me! I want to be your friend.”
His eyes searched mine, as he spoke. I went numb as I was looking into his eyes. I had a strange feeling. It was as if Eros was there, holding me in his arms.
It was amazing how Lyon and Eros were so alike.
***
We arrived in the town of pre-vampires and I was no longer in the arms of the vampire Lyon. At that moment I walked with my own legs.
A creature was walking on the deserted streets and Lyon approached it in the twinkling of an eye. Then he gripped the arms of the pre-vampire and immobilized its movements.
“Vampire Princess, enjoy your meal!”
He said it with a playful voice. In this respect, he was totally different from the vampire Eros.
I approached them and my teeth lengthened. My lips touched the neck of my victim, Thereupon, the blood flowed on its skin and between my lips, my teeth, my tongue...
This was an inexplicable moment for us, the vampires. Blood was a magic formula and it was vital to our survival.
***
We returned to the surroundings of the castle and we sat down on the rock and watched the endless cloudy sky over our heads. Two bats flew overhead, and they seemed happy for some reason. I automatically smiled in silence, imagining that I could be one of them and be presented with happiness too.
I looked down when Lyon touched my hand and asked,
“Let's take a walk through the heights?”
On my forehead appeared small traces of expression.
“A stroll through the heights?”
He smiled and held my hand tightly.
“Trust me!”
He stood up and his body in human form became a dark eagle, but its size was slowly increasing. I got up too, as the eagle flew around me, making a zero into the air. Immediately his claws held my shoulders and I went to the heights with it.
We flew over my father’s castle around the forest of dry trees and also above the lake of dark waters. I could see everything from above. It was a unique and indescribable sensation, where the wind came against my face and left me the impression of a challenge, of freedom, of momentary happiness.
The eagle came back to the ground and its claws loosened on my shoulders. As soon as my feet touched the snow, the eagle flew once again on high and then it landed on the ground once again becoming the vampire Lyon.
“What do you think of our ride?” He asked as he was approaching me.
“I thought our stroll was wonderful!” I answered with a smile on my lips; a feeling of friendship was being born inside of me.
I was now seeing Lyon as a fun friend. Maybe my father was right for bringing him to the castle and into our lives.
His hand took mine and we continued walking through the snow as we were without an exact destination.
Chapter 14
I slowly climbed the endless stairs of the castle, wearing a long, black dress. This was a special day in my life and for this reason my father organized a special dinner for the three of us.
My father, Lyon and I sat on our chairs around the huge dining table. However, I remained silent and my face seemed melancholy.
Before Vincent officially started our dinner, he got up from his chair and walked toward my seat. I felt his presence behind me while I was sitting. Lyon looked at Vincent, who was standing.
“Valkyrie, this is your first birthday in this castle and beside me,” my father said, and his voice demonstrated his emotion.
“And this is my gift to you.”
As he spoke, his hands were erected at the top of my head and a blue energy, which came from his hands, made a crown of precious stones in black appear unexpectedly.
His hands gently laid the crown on my head. I looked into Lyon’s face. He was sitting at the other side of the table, facing me, and I touched my fingers lightly on the crown, trying to feel it.
My father walked back to his seat and sat down on his chair and said satisfied, “We can start our dinner now!”
***
After our dinner, I walked into the main room of the castle and went to the open window. I looked at the sad landscape through it. My thoughts were on my mother. I wished
she could be with me at that moment, celebrating my birthday at my side.
Her face appeared in the sky and she was smiling at me. It was as if she was congratulating me for another year of existence. My eyes were fixed on her sweet, soft and bright face and soon after, her image was no longer there; she had disappeared into the dark sky.
But my gaze remained on the sky and I was surprised by the image of Eros. Now it was he who was in the dark sky, in his dark cape and his penetrating gaze, looking down at me. I raised my hand trying to touch his image on the vault of heaven. His body turned into an owl and flew away rapidly disappearing. At this moment, I compressed my shoulders and turned immediately, when I felt a hand on my right shoulder.
Eros was standing in front of me and his eyes courted me with admiration, seeing me dressed in a long black dress and a crown on my head. My eyes also trailed his body in those dark costumes. He was increasingly beautiful.
Our gray eyes met each other again and they wanted only one thing...
My eyes closed when I felt his lips on mine. My heart palpitated quickly in my chest. This time I was being kissed by him, as I had always dreamed.
Again my eyes quickly opened when a sense of guilt invaded my whole being.
Something was wrong with that kiss. My eyes slowly saw the true face of the creature that was in front of me at that moment.
He smiled at me sweetly.
“Lyon!” I mumbled and put my hands on his chest and pushed him away from me.
I ran desperately, as I thought about how I had kissed Lyon, by thinking I was kissing Eros.