by Lucinda Dark
“That…” I drifted off awkwardly. What the fuck was I supposed to say to that?
“Will you give me a chance?” Torin asked, moving ever closer. When he touched my side, I nearly jerked out of his reach as a bolt of electricity shot through me.
“I just fucked Maverick,” I deadpanned.
Torin shook his head, the longer strands at the top of his head, sliding down the side of his forehead. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, his hand gripping onto my hip with real force as his chest brushed my arms. I stiffened.
Quickly dropping my arms, I reached out and put a palm to the center of his chest, keeping him at bay. “I’m a vampire hunter,” I said.
He reached up and clasped my hand in one of his. The rest of the room disappeared, Maverick and the nearly blind old witch included. “Not just any vampire hunter,” he whispered, low enough so I was sure I was the only one who could hear. “A demon-possessed hunter.”
“Exactly,” I whispered back. I felt like I needed to keep the same level of volume as him. “A demon-possessed vampire hunter with a fucking vampire? It’s not—”
“A dhampire,” he corrected me, interrupting my last sentence. “The only one in existence that I know of. I think we’re two very unconventional creatures, you and I. But Barbie Steele, if you think I wouldn’t change my very DNA for you, you’re dead wrong. A vampire mates once in its eternal existence. You are it for me. Even if you deny me. Even if you leave me or put a stake or one of those magical holy swords I gave you through my half-living heart, I’ll still love you.”
I shook my head hard. “You’re only eighteen,” I said. “You don’t know what love is.”
“Love doesn’t have an age, Barbie,” he whispered, moving to stand in front of me fully, blocking even the light from above with his shadow. “Humans are taught to love from a young age. You loved your family, didn’t you? Isn’t that why you’re consumed by your desire to avenge them? Let me help you, Sweetheart. Let me love you. Give me a chance.”
My chest pumped up and down as he leaned close, his head dipping as he pressed his lips to the top of my head before he dipped down and pressed another to my temple. My eyes slid shut and I inhaled deeply, dominated by his very presence. “I…” My mouth was drier than the Sahara Desert. I closed my lips and swallowed roughly. Opening my eyes, I used the position of my hand still on his chest—half captured by his—to push him back slightly. “I think we have more important things to worry about right now,” I said.
It was a fucking cop out and I knew it. “The girl is right,” Esperanza spoke up. “Especially since I sense something rather nefarious exuding from your person, Torin.”
Torin took a step away from me, turning his gaze on the old crone. “What?” Maverick frowned, looking between us.
When Torin moved back another step, the air finally rushed into my lungs. As quietly as I could manage, I took a deep breath and released it. It wasn’t quiet enough, I realized a moment later when Torin looked at me as he reached into his leather jacket and retrieved a white envelope from inside.
“Have you read it yet?” Esperanza asked, her murky, glossed over eyes moving from the envelope in his hand to his face.
Torin shook his head. “I haven’t had the opportunity.”
“You should, sooner rather than later,” she replied.
As they spoke, I sidled around them and towards Maverick. “Are you okay?” I asked.
Maverick fixed his gaze on Torin and Esperanza, but nodded as he answered my question in a gruff, abrupt, “Fine.”
I frowned, but let his tone and attitude be as Torin tore open the envelope. I had a feeling that whatever was inside wasn’t good—or else Esperanza wouldn’t have drawn attention to it. Torin let the envelope drop to the floor at his booted feet as he read over the contents of the letter. Strong, full lips pinched down before the upper swell curled back in a grimace. His eyes slid from left to right as he read, his brows lowering. The farther he read, the more tension seemed to overtake him. His shoulders grew stiff and unyielding, his normally bright eyes darkened. His nostrils flared.
“What does it say?” Once again Esperanza was the first to prompt him.
“It’s a summons,” he replied.
I took a step forward and bent to retrieve the envelope, flipping it over as the stamp symbol of melted wax—an old school seal I hadn’t seen used on anything in the modern era—caught my attention. Esperanza said something else to Torin, their voices a mixture of murmurs in the back of my head as my whole focus centered on the red double crossed swords as they jumped out at me. Just above and below it was a name—first and last. One I recognized.
“Arrius really thought he needed more for the Steeles? This was easier than any of the others.”
Arrius. The vampire who’d ordered my family to be slaughtered. No, not just Arrius. The name engraved in the wax seal proclaimed him Arrius Priest. And that’s when it clicked. How had I not seen it before? Torin had not just known who and what I was, he’d known about my family.
Blood pounded in my ears, the rush of it louder than everything in the room as I lifted my head and stared at his face. The envelope fluttered from my fingertips back to the ground and ripped under my bare feet as I stepped forward. Half turned as he was, he didn’t see the first punch.
“Barbie!” Maverick’s stunned shout didn’t deter me as I rounded again and threw another one. Torin stumbled back, the letter in his hand falling to the floor as well as power slammed through me. I grabbed him by the front lapels of his jacket and turned, swinging him into the stairway railing, the wooden frame of it cracking under his weight. I pulled back and delivered a third punch as Maverick’s arms came around my middle and yanked me back. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he cursed.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Shock and betrayal rippled through my flesh. I kept my gaze focused on Torin’s face. His eyes darted once to the fallen envelope and then back to me as he groaned lowly and shut his eyelids, closing me off. He scrubbed a hand down his face. I was so fucking stupid.
“Your father,” I spat even as I struggled against Maverick’s arms. I could’ve gotten out. I could’ve forced him to release me, but that would’ve resulted in the use of more of Satrina’s powers as well as possibly hurting him. That didn’t halt the words that spilled from my lips, though. “Your father was the one who ordered the hit on my family,” I said.
“Barbie—” he started, opening his eyes as he dropped his hand from his face.
“How many others have that name?” I cut him off. “It was him and you knew. That’s how you knew about them, how you knew about me.” So goddamn fucking stupid. It hurt. God, did it fucking hurt. The promises he’d made me. The … other things we’d done. I didn’t realize it until that moment, but I’d begun to trust him. Torin Priest. I’d given him—a dhampire I should have despised simply for his existence—my trust and now that the rug had been metaphorically yanked out from beneath my feet, I was in freefall.
Nothing hurt worse than his deception. Not even the pain of demonic consumption. Angry tears threatened to rise forth, but with a sharp inhale, I shoved them back to the furthest recesses of my mind. I would not cry in front of him.
“I was going to tell you,” he said.
I shook my head, surprised by the level of fury that boiled in my blood. “You had every opportunity!” I screamed.
Maverick snapped, pulling me farther away. “What the fuck are you two talking about?”
I shoved away from him, turning on the both of them and glaring them down, my fingers itching to do real damage. I knew, without a doubt, had I had the swords in my possession, Torin Priest would have been dead. And it would’ve been by my hand. The desire to destroy him was that powerful. “His father is the one who killed my family,” I gritted the words out, answering Maverick’s question.
Maverick’s mouth dropped open as he blinked at me in utter shock before his attention flipped to Torin, who had yet to move from the brok
en railing I’d thrown him into. “I cannot fucking believe this,” he breathed.
“Believe it,” I snapped. “I should’ve fucking known better than to trust a fucking vampire.”
“Dhampire,” Torin bit out as he slowly stood back up. He cracked his neck and readjusted his nose. It took me a moment to realize that it’d been sitting at an awkward angle on his face beneath the blood that dripped steadily over his lips and down his chin. I’d broken it. But with his healing, it’d be like nothing had ever happened in a few hours even if right now it looked bruised and swollen—just like Maverick’s ironically.
“A vampire by any other name is still a cock-sucking liar,” I replied sharply.
“It’s complicated,” Torin argued. “I did intend to tell you about him, but I had to be careful.”
“Bull—” A firm grip rested on my arm, cutting me off. Esperanza’s fingers squeezed me as she stared up with her unnerving gaze.
“I have known Torin Priest as long as he’s been alive, if not longer, dear,” she said. “Give him a moment to explain.”
“Why should I?” I demanded. I tried to tear my arm away and found my limb locked in place. I paused and glanced down at the witch as she tightened her grip.
“Arrius Priest is not a creature to be trifled with, child,” she said sternly. “He is a monster far more dangerous than anything you’ve ever come into contact with. Everything he does has been perfectly crafted and his reach is far greater than you could ever conceive.”
“Katalin knows about you,” Torin said suddenly, drawing the old witch’s attention.
“I know,” she said. “She’s known that you’ve been coming to see me for quite a while.”
“She has?” Torin paused mid-shirt lift as he attempted to wipe most of his blood from his lower face with the dark fabric. My eyes darted to the hard plains of his abdomen and chest and I cursed myself for it, wrenching my eyes away.
Esperanza nodded and continued, turning back to me. “Fifty years ago, Arrius Priest approached several black witch covens across the world, including my own. He offered a lot of money for one or several of us to assist him in his venture to create a child,” she said.
I frowned. “Vampires can’t have children.” Their systems were no longer built for it. The moment a human was turned into a vampire, their human systems shut down and perished. They could no longer eat or enjoy human food. They couldn’t reproduce and their very humanity was slowly leached away. The older a vampire was, the less human they were.
“Not normally,” Esperanza agreed. “But it appeared that Arrius had come into possession of a journal from one of the original vampires of creation.”
“The child of a human and demon,” I whispered the words, shocked. From what my parents had managed to uncover, the original vampires had all lived thousands of years ago. There was no definitive record of what had happened to them. We only knew that they no longer roamed the Earth. Perhaps they’d died or perhaps they’d simply crawled into their tombs, fallen asleep, and never woken up again. It hadn’t even occurred to me that they’d left things behind for their descendants and future spawn to find. An oversight.
“Yes.” Esperanza nodded. “I was one of many in a long line of witches he convinced to help him. There was but one difference between them and I.”
An eerie silence moved through the space between us, and Maverick was the first to break it and ask what we were all thinking. “What was the difference?”
“I succeeded where they failed,” she replied.
“How?” I asked.
Esperanza looked up at me, her eyes flicking over my features, her grasp on my arm immoveable and stronger than she appeared. “I will tell you the story of Torin’s creation if you agree to hear him out,” she said.
A scowl twisted my lips as I cast the man in question a dark glare, but I couldn’t deny my curiosity. Torin shouldn’t exist. It wasn’t possible for a human and a vampire to have children, so how then, had his father managed to do what no one else could? What had Esperanza learned? After a brief moment of uncertainty—of feeling not only Maverick’s gaze on my face, but Torin’s as well—I relented with a sharp nod.
Esperanza released me and turned towards the living room of her old Victorian house and like a collection of self-possessed dolls, Maverick, Torin, and I followed her.
Chapter 32
Barbie
“Arrius Priest is a vile, rotten bastard.” I kept my hands steady and Esperanza nodded her agreement at Torin’s statement. Maverick sat at my side, his face pinched with confusion as he waited. He didn’t seem particularly surprised by Torin’s obvious hatred for his father, but I couldn’t trust it. He hadn’t told me. Torin had known for months who was responsible for my family’s death and he. Hadn’t. Fucking. Told. Me. He was no longer innocent until proven guilty. He was guilty, fucking guilty until proven otherwise.
“You were going to tell us how it’s possible that Torin was born since, technically, a vampire isn’t supposed to be able to have children,” Mav prompted, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees as he leaned his chin on his woven fingers.
“The creation of new life always comes with some sort of sacrifice,” Esperanza began. “For humans, it’s the changing of the woman’s body. She takes a seed from her partner and an egg from her own body and gives it so that a child may be born. For supernatural creatures, the sacrifice usually requires something a little more substantial.”
I glanced to Torin, wondering what sacrifice was made to bring him into the world. Whatever it was, I thought to myself, I wonder if my life would have been easier if it hadn’t been given. I scowled at him even as he turned and met my gaze. His eyes softened, but I turned my fucking head away. I didn’t want to see the apology in his eyes. It made me want to gouge them out. I’d let myself fall into an ease with him I hadn’t found elsewhere. Between him and Maverick, I’d started to trust. I’d stopped thinking about leaving as soon as high school was over. They had both given me hope. I’d started to see a future where I wasn’t alone.
Hard as it was to admit now, Torin had been my friend. This kind of treachery wasn’t easy to absolve. It was far easier to forgive a stranger or an enemy than it was to forgive someone I’d cared for, someone I’d considered a friend. A part of me wanted to hear what Esperanza had to say. There was a kernel of hope that all of this could make some sort of fucking sense. At the same time, however, there was a darker part of me that wanted to cut Torin out—permanently from both the world and my heart—and never look back.
It would behoove you to listen to the old bat, darling, Satrina’s lyrical voice drifted through my head, making my spine stiffen. She is much older than she looks, and I sense a great wisdom and experience from her. Listen. I am curious as to what she has done in her lifetime.
As much as I didn’t want to follow Satrina’s suggestion, my curiosity had planted me here for a reason. It was greater than my desire to pummel Torin Priest into a bloody mess just before I carved his hybrid heart from his chest—if only just slightly.
“For the creation of a vampire and human child, one parent must obviously be human and one vampire. Since females are the carriers of children, female vampires are unable to carry such a creature. Therefore, Arrius managed the consent of a human woman to bear his child—several of them, to be exact. Many died during pregnancy. Many died during birth. And as such, many of the subsequent children created were stillborn.”
“All of them,” Torin said quietly, my ears pricking at the sound of his voice—gravelly and low. “All of them died.”
“Yes,” Esperanza said, using her cane to hobble across the living room and take a seat by the red brick fireplace. “All of the human mothers perished as a sacrifice to their children.”
It wasn’t surprising to hear. Women often died in childbirth, sacrificing their lives so that their children might live. Even in the modern age, with all of the technology and medicine, some women still died. I didn’t see
what was so different.
“That doesn’t really explain anything,” Maverick pointed out for me.
“When a normal human dies, she is given to the ether,” Esperanza said. “The conception of heaven and hell. Those who have committed irredeemable acts go to the darkest parts of the ether, and the rest go into the afterlife. Some are reborn and others remain there. Not so for these women. The sacrifice they gave—even for failed births—was final, it sealed their fates. Their souls were sucked into the ether and dispersed. They will go to neither place in the ether nor will they be reborn.”
I frowned, sitting forward. “How do you know that?”
“Because, my dear, I am the one who unraveled them.” It wasn’t Esperanza’s words that dropped the temperature of the room, but suddenly, a chill slid down my spine and Satrina’s voice echoed in my head.
That is forbidden magic, Satrina spoke through a hollow tone, devoid of emotion. Irreparable. Irredeemable.
Esperanza must have seen the effect of my demon’s words on my face because as her head tilted my way, she gave me a slow nod. “As the tool through which these women were unraveled into the ether to create a forbidden life, when I die, I will go into the darkest part of the ether and remain into eternity. This kind of spell and sacrifice is forbidden for a reason. Torin’s mother was the only one who managed to survive the birth, though she died shortly after the ceremony was completed. Her death sealed his life.”
“A life for a life,” I whispered. It was a quote from one of my mother’s old historical books. The quote escaped me but the meaning didn’t. A foreboding sensation washed through me as I finally turned my cheek and looked at Torin. His head was bowed now, sunk into the palms of his hands.
“There can be no gain without loss—no life without blood or without sacrifice,” Esperanza said. “And Josephine Priest—Arrius’ last bride—gave it.”