Love Is Mortal

by Caroline Hanson

“You could have saved her! I could have saved her! I will kill you, Lucas. You will die for this,” she swore.

  Lucas reached into his pocket, and pulled out a heavy jewel that fit neatly in his palm. It was on a chain, surrounded by gold. It winked in the light. As white as an opal, but inside of it were ribbons of what looked like diamonds running through it. It glowed softly, illuminating the dark hallway.

  “It is Fey. Pure magic. If you find the book and the spell, you can have anything you want. You can make one wish, and it will come true, Marion. You can have Margaret come back to you. Alive and well.”

  She blinked at him slowly, confusion leaving her pale face, replaced by a zeal and desperate need to believe him. “But where is the book then?”

  He shook his head. “Not here. It is guarded by Cerdewellyn. He wants this back. Believes it would restore him. He does not know that I have it. He believes it was lost a long time ago with the Irish witches.”

  “How do you have it?”

  “They gave it to me,” he said, voice quiet. He didn’t have to say he had killed them all, and that was why they had given it to him. A last-ditch effort to save themselves.

  “You will help me. We can be a family again,” Marion said.

  “No. It is not my quest.”

  Now Marion did look up, peering into Lucas’ face. Searching and searching. “But you love her. Like her own father. Why will you not help me?”

  “It does not concern me. She is dead. If you wish to bring her back, you do it.” Lucas turned on his heel and left, watching each foot land in front of the other until he was outside of the castle and squinting against the bright light. Pain seared him. The sun on his skin like pin pricks from a thousand needles. It had done nothing but rain for weeks; the world around him was mud and yet now the sun shone.

  He hated England. Hated the wet. And the cold. It seeped into his very bones, and made him want to die. Made every muscle ache.

  Margaret was gone. Not even a young woman. Still a child, and gone. And it was his fault. He had reached for something he should not have. He was damned. Cursed. He needed to live like the damned. Not pretend to be a man. Pretend to be something good. Fate, the Gods, even the Christian God, all of them would peer down at him from the heavens above, see him reaching for something that he did not deserve, and they would take it from him. Over and over again until he learned.

  Now he had learned.

  Because he was evil. And he was death. Who was he to want the world? To have such vanity and belief, that fate would let him get away with murder? He had tried, and Margaret had died. His love for her had killed her. Would Margaret be alive if he’d never met her?

  Maybe Marion could do it. Maybe she, not steeped in evil like him, would be able to find the book and bring Margaret back. The gods might let her. He would ignore it. He would never mention it again. Never think of her again. If he did not care, perhaps it could happen.

  This was a reminder of his purpose. His goal in life. Kill the Others. Kill Cerdewellyn and every last creature he’d spawned. And then he would kill the vampires. And when at last there was no one left but him—he could die. Finally kill himself, as he should have done all those centuries ago when he discovered his murdered family.

  Someday, he vowed, the world would be free of the Others, and be grateful for it.

  Valerie stepped back, the memories fading, returning her to the present. Lucas put his head back against the wall, turning away from her. Eyes closed. Not seeing her or anything beyond his own private hell. She reached up to his cheek, wiped away a tear.

  “It made her insane. The death of her daughter. That is what did it,” he said.

  “And you blame yourself for that too?”

  His voice was sandpaper rough. “Marion was like me. Periodically, she would become a zealot, and seek something beyond her own selfishness. She would try.”

  “Is that why we came here? To get the book so you could get Margaret back? Because you loved her like a daughter?”

  “No. That is long past.”

  “Then what?”

  “Time is passing. Go, Valerie. Attack Cerdewellyn, flee from here.”

  Tears filled her eyes. How could she leave him?

  He snarled at her. “I am a monster. I fucked you like a gentleman, and you want to read into it things that are not there. The best thing I can do is die. And you should beg for it. Because I do feel remorse, and I hate it. It is a burden I cannot endure. That is the lesson you were to learn by seeing my memories. I will be sick to death of my shame and self-loathing, and I will kill you. Do you not see it? The truth? I am a weak man, Valerie Dearborn. I always have been, and always shall be. The day will come when I know that I shall break because of the things that I have done, and instead of ending my own life, I will take yours. You are the last of your kind. The only one. I would never feel like this again. Hatred, lust, anger and fear. A longing for things I have no right to.” His words burned her, his expression a deadly promise.

  “That is why I will kill you. So that I don’t have to remember the man I wanted to be. So that I don’t have to hate myself and care about my failure. That was why I never wanted your blood. Because I did not want to feel this again. You signed your own death warrant by giving me emotions.”

  She slapped him hard across the face, and it echoed throughout the cavernous room. He spit blood and turned back to her.

  “Maybe you will survive the day yet.”

  She stumbled away from him, and towards the stairs. He didn’t try to stop her, didn’t shout taunts after her or try to apologize. The truth of his words, the bitterness and sincerity in them were impossible to ignore. It was hopeless, she realized.

  She opened the door to the dungeon, and took two steps forward before realizing that the corridor was different. With the next step, she was suddenly back in the dining room. Cerdewellyn was standing next to a chair that held a corpse, his hand on the woman’s shoulder; eyes closed.

  The body began to shrink in on itself, the sound of bones snapping loud and wrong in her ears. The rib cage collapsed as she watched, shattering in on itself. The skull went next, cracking in half, the jaw breaking and caving in at the occipital lobe. And with a sudden flash of light, the body was gone. The other chairs were empty, and she knew he had done the same thing to the rest of them. Valerie wanted nothing so much as to get the hell out of there. She didn’t want to be involved in this supernatural bullshit. In love with a monster who promised to kill her, stuck with another monster who wanted to make her his queen.

  His eyes opened, and he looked at her; a weight to his gaze that was somber and distant. “They are gone. They were barely alive. Their survival required energy I could not give them. And so I took it back. Took it all. Their flesh. Their souls.”

  “You killed them,” she said, and wrapped her hand around the handle of her blade, as if for comfort.

  “No!” he suddenly shouted, his face filled with fury. “He did this. He has chased me across the world and killed everyone I knew and loved! I have no choice, but to make these decisions…to be like him,” he finished, misery and rage in his tone.

  “It should bring me pleasure that I need you to make things right. That I have the greatest means for bringing Lucas to his knees living under my roof, and yet it does not. You reek of him, do you know it? He let you bleed him. Gave you power to stay strong. The hold you have on him will save me and mine yet,” he said, and the room they were in shifted and changed. The walls blurring and changing from stone, to the walls of her bedroom in San Loaran.

  Suddenly, he was behind her, his hand gripping her neck in one hand and her arm with the other, keeping her still. Shit! She was supposed to be fighting him! She hadn’t done anything yet.

  It looked like her room down to the last detail: beige carpet, light pink walls that her mother had painted when she was a little girl, pink bedspread and a heap of decorative pillows. And yet there was something too still about it.

  The curtai
ns to her room were closed, and she had the ridiculous urge to pull them back, look outside and see what was there. It was important somehow. He pushed her down, and she fell to the ground, crumpling like a doll, her strength nothing compared to his.

  He knelt behind her, hands steady on her, her whole body beginning to tingle and weaken. He was feeding off of her. Taking the power Lucas had given her, and keeping it for himself.

  Again.

  Her arms became heavy and wouldn’t lift. He lifted her in his arms and laid her on her bed. The familiar feel of her pillow cushioned her head, and the solid weight of her comforter being placed upon her lulled her. Made his using her, harming her, seem almost irrelevant.

  She didn’t have the strength to care.

  Chapter 10

  VALERIE AWOKE, but this time, she wasn’t in the dungeon. She wasn’t even in the castle, but back on the rock with Virginia Dare sitting next to her on the ground. She could hear the ocean all around her, feel the mist of the water as the waves crashed against the rocks. Her clothing was damp, and for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out how the hell she got there.

  “What are you thinking?” Virginia asked, and she put her cheek on her knee; arms wrapped around her legs. It made her seem young and naïve.

  “How did I get here?”

  “We are Fey. We are Masters of Illusion. It is our greatest magic. When all else fails we still have this. Surely, this is not the first time you have wondered what is real? How you get from one place to another?”

  Valerie frowned and sat up carefully. She thought about the events of Fey. Wondering which of them were real and fake. She’d gone from the castle to the cliffs with Cerdewellyn in the blink of an eye. He’d pushed her into the sea, and she’d been hurt, almost died. Only saved by Lucas.

  Virginia laughed. “You think he saved you?”

  Valerie knew she hadn’t said that aloud. How many people could read her damned mind, she wondered?

  “We are like sisters you and I. I can read your mind because I am a part of you. Why do you think I helped you, Valerie Dearborn? Not much separates us. Especially not now,” Virginia said, and looked at Valerie pointedly. Valerie couldn’t help but look down; her hands were covered with vines, almost like tattoos. With a cry, she pushed up her sleeves, then lifted her shirt, seeing them everywhere, thick and black, curling over her entire body.

  “Your face? Oh yes, they are there too,” Virginia said sweetly, and suddenly Virginia changed, her face shimmering, and she looked exactly like Valerie—the same clothes, same hair and expression, but on her face were vines, almost like scars.

  “Make it go away,” Valerie demanded.

  Virginia smiled at her with Valerie’s smile. A downward tilt to the chin, and a quirking of her lips; It was bizarre.

  “It’s too late for that. You are too far gone. My Cerdewellyn,” Virginia hesitated. “He will never love you. Even if you do become his queen.”

  “Well, I’m damned sure I’m not going to love him either. You can have Cerdewellyn. I don’t want him.”

  Virginia laughed and shifted back to herself, wearing a pale green ball gown that looked familiar.

  “You wanted it. It was once your mother’s. She wore it in a play. The play where she met your father. He put it in the attic after she died. After Lucas’ vampire killed her.”

  “How do you know that?” she whispered, heart thudding sickly.

  “I know everything about you, Valerie Dearborn. I know you want to escape, and yet,” her eyes flashed down to the ground coyly, “I do not think you try hard enough. I think you cannot fathom the idea that your vampire will stay here while you leave. Do you think you can save him? When you know that he has no hope. No desire to escape with you.”

  Valerie knew she couldn’t tackle all those arguments. She stuck with the first one that was easier to answer. “That’s not true. He’s a fighter. 1600 years and he always wins.”

  “But he’s not trying to escape.”

  “He’s chained to a wall!”

  She waved her hand dismissively. “Yes, but if you could free him? Or if I freed him, because it is something that I can do with a flick of my fingers, would he leave with you? Do you know what I think? I think he would take you to a portal and push you free, and then he would stay behind and let Cerdewellyn kill him. I think he is done.”

  “No,” Valerie said. Which wasn’t even an argument. Nothing more than a vague denial. A flat refusal to examine the issue.

  Virginia sighed and moved, extending her legs out, the dress rustling. Her calf showed, the white stockings underneath tied at the knee with a ribbon. “And then there are your other…companions. Rachel who wants to see you dead. Jack who followed her out of this realm without a single glance back. No hesitation. No concern for your welfare. And yet again, you believe he cares for you. That his devotion to you is as constant as your own.

  “Jack and Rachel are gone?” Valerie asked, shocked that it was true. Part of her hadn’t believed it.

  Virginia laughed, her gaze locked on Valerie, as though trying to show her the sincerity that lay inside of her. “Oh yes. They left a while ago. They were…amorous, and then they left. Do you want to see it? I can show it to you. That they left, and he didn’t care to ask whether you lived or died.”

  “Ouch. You’re really going for the low blows.”

  Virginia looked confused.

  “You’re being a bitch. Saying things to try to hurt me. Did you have the word bitch back in 1500?”

  Her expression turned malevolent, and then it was wiped away. Back to pleasant, sweet and naïve. “Truth is a luxury. What I could have done with the truth had I known it. Had I known that the queen would kill rather than give up the throne. You should be grateful. Do you know what she said to me? She said that I was a fate that never was. That was the last thing I heard as I died. But I know the truth.” She crept closer to Valerie, her lips shaping each word precisely, delivering them with venom and promise. “I am nothing small and insignificant. I am elemental. I am raw.”

  She had the look of a zealot on her face. “I am the cold wind that slams the door shut on a winter’s night. I am the biting rain that soaks one’s flesh, and when I have to be, I am the hurricane that destroys everything in its wake.” Her eyes gave her away, showed what she was going to do next—touch Valerie. And it didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was a bad idea. She’d tried to touch her before, back in the ocean.

  And now again.

  Valerie kicked out, her shoe connecting with Virginia’s wrist. Virginia cried out in pain, and the world wavered. The rocks disappeared. The ocean grew quiet. And she could see flashes of the dungeon illuminated at random.

  “I’m in the dungeon,” Valerie said, and suddenly she was. Virginia was nowhere to be seen. And Lucas was staring at her. She stood and walked towards him. “Do you see them?” she asked, almost hysterically.

  “What?”

  “The vines. Am I covered in vines?” Her voice rose.

  “No. I see nothing,” he said calmly, as though he were dealing with the lunatic.

  She went up to his cuffs and touched the one closest to her. Willing it to open.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I have a hunch. This is Fey magic, right? Only Fey magic can open it, and I think there is something in me—” the cuff opened. And she wanted to cry, for if she could open the manacles, didn't that mean she was Fey?

  “Quickly, then,” he said.

  Valerie went to the other cuff and opened it. He moved away from the wall, flashing her a piratical grin. “Give me your blade,” he said.

  She handed it to him, heart pounding in fear as he grabbed her hand and led her out of the dungeon. She was used to him lacing their fingers together, but he didn’t. He held her hand gently, as though he were worried about harming her. As if he’d never held on to someone for dear life and didn’t know how to start now.

  It was strange, and she wasn’t sur
e why.

  He took her up the stairs, down corridors and then to a last staircase where a blue light shone from under the door, moving easily, as though he’d been here before.

  “That’s it? That’s the way out? But, I thought you said I couldn’t leave unless I had his blood.” Lucas ignored her, walking up the stairs so quickly she struggled to keep up. He threw the door open, and she couldn’t help but gasp at the room. It was filled with gold and jewels, priceless pieces of art.

  “He didn’t lock it?” she couldn’t help but ask. Maybe he wasn't a very good villain.

  “These are things of tribute to Cerdewellyn. Gifts worthy of his station,” Lucas said in an oddly impressed tone. Didn’t vampire kings get jewels?

  “Go ahead. You go first, and I will be right behind you,” Lucas said and gestured towards the portal. Virginia’s words came back to her. That he wouldn’t go, would let Cerdewellyn kill him.

  “Are you going to come with me?” she asked.

  A flash of a smile. “Of course.”

  “Go,” he said. “I will see you on the other side.” He took a step back as though giving her space and crossed his arms. Valerie took a step forward and paused, turning back to look at Lucas. His expression was…predatory, somehow.

  Almost anticipatory.

  His eyes a dark blue and close to glowing. She blinked, looking again, and they were light blue, the color she was used to. She studied him from head to toe, heart pounding in fear, suddenly wishing she had that knife back. And then she looked at his hands, and realized what was stopping her. What had been so odd since the moment she’d freed him. He had no scars.

  He was watching her patiently. “Go, Valerie. I hear Cerdewellyn. Quickly now.” But he made no move to come closer.

  “You are not Lucas. What happens if I go through that doorway?” The form of Lucas dissolved, replaced by that of Virginia, who looked at her with an angry sneer. As if she couldn't stand to be in her presence for one moment longer.

  “What do you want from me? Whatever you’re trying to do, it won’t work,” Valerie said, edging away from her and towards the door. She tried to think of the common denominator, what Virginia's real agenda was. Choice. She wanted Valerie to make a decision. To agree to things, or to go through the portal. “I have to agree to this,” she said.