‘Dad?’ I breathed. I felt tears prick the underside of my eyelids every time I blinked. He did not react. But Lily did. She broke away from the group, dodging one of the guards that moved forward to stop her.
‘I want to speak to you before we go,’ she said once she reached me. ‘In private,’ she added, glancing over her shoulder at Eaglen.
I nodded at him and the guards. ‘We’ll be two minutes.’
She led the way outside, ducking into the alcove I had sheltered under just the night before. With a slight blush, I realized my soaking shirt was still draped across the banisters, where Kaspar had left it the night before. I picked it up, squeezed out the water and laid it out flat in a patch of sun to dry.
‘That’s your shirt?’ Lily asked. I nodded. ‘How did it get there?’
I stared at the ground, refusing to say it in words.
‘I didn’t think you’d ever fall into bed with a murderer, but now I can see I was wrong.’
‘I guess this is goodbye then,’ I muttered to fill the silence.
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you for longer.’
‘Me too.’
‘But it’s not safe for you to come to Athenea. You and mum will be safe at home. You understand that, right?’
‘Yeah.’
Again we fell into silence. I wanted to stare at my feet, scuffing against the stone, but instead I watched my little sister, burning her image onto my memory, like I had the cold the night before. I wanted to remember the healthy glow in her cheeks that hadn’t been there for more than a year and the twinkle of her violet eyes and the way she didn’t seem so short anymore.
‘Violet?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Do you remember when you were doing your exams and you told me that you would read me some Shakespeare once you had finished studying?’
My lips twitched. I had promised her that whilst she was having one of her chemo sessions the previous May. ‘You mean that time I really annoyed you by talking in Shakespearean language the whole day?’
‘Yeah, then. But you never did read me any and when I was really bored in hospital, I decided to read Romeo and Juliet myself because I wanted to impress you when you came home and so I could get ahead with my English GCSE next year.’
I tried to smile. ‘Did you like it?’
She scowled. ‘No. Romeo and Juliet were naïve and blinded by lust.’
‘Oh.’
‘I hated it and I forgot all about it until last night, when that Cain guy let me into the library and I found a copy of it. And it reminded me of something Juliet had said that I thought I should tell you.’
‘Really? What was that?’ I asked as I looked over her shoulder towards the entrance hall, where I knew Eaglen would be eager to leave. Maybe I’m even eager for them to leave.
‘It’s quite famous. You probably know it.’ She looked up at me, waiting until my eyes slid back to her before she carried on. ‘Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.’
Her words hit me like a punch to the stomach. I gasped, stepping back, the badly hidden tears behind my eyelids leaking out. ‘Lily!’
‘I’m sorry for what’s happened to you. I know a lot of it isn’t your fault, but you did have a choice; you can’t have gone hurtling towards all of this without being able to back out.’ She began to step away, tears now seeping from her eyes. ‘You’re going to give up being human for that Prince guy, so let’s face it, Violet. You’re more of a Varn than you are a Lee now.’
From behind her, Eaglen emerged, my father not far behind, as two unmarked cars with tinted windows pulled up.
‘My Lady,’ Eaglen called out to me, bowing and getting into the front seat of the car that was furthest away. Lily walked around to the back seat, pausing and looking at me with tears streaming down her face before she ducked inside. Without even looking up, my father got into the other back seat of the same car as his two men were pushed into the car behind. The door slammed on my last glimpse of him as his human daughter and without any hesitation, they pulled away.
Nobody watched them leave except me. My gaze followed the cars as they weaved along the gravel driveway, passing one of the gardeners who swept the fallen autumn leaves into a pile; then around the one edge of the forest until they delved into the cover of the trees, disappearing from view.
I sank against the banister, falling into the puddle my wet shirt had created and, from far up the hill, I heard the crackling of a fire as the beacon at Varns’ Point was lit once more, filling the air with the stench of burning.
SIXTY-THREE
Violet
The sun was just beginning to set when Kaspar returned. The Thames Estuary glistened under the fading rays, becoming a glaring orange sheet. Just above that, a thin strip of puffy violet clouds hovered, marking the divide between sea and sky.
I knew that dwelling on the past made the future seem bleaker, but I couldn’t help but think back to the time when I would never have considered standing here, time running out as the falling sun marked my minutes left as a human.
I felt sick just thinking about it. I had already rushed to the bathroom twice that afternoon and despite not eating anything since the apple, my stomach twisted and knotted, threatening to throw up what little was left in my gut.
‘I prefer you in the rain,’ Kaspar muttered in my ear, rubbing my shoulders in slow circles. The continuous motion helped to ease the tension in my muscles, so rigid and stiff that my fingers could not loosen themselves from where they gripped the stone banisters of Kaspar’s balcony. ‘Don’t worry,’ he continued. ‘It will all be over before you know it.’
I nodded, unable to speak because I didn’t trust myself to open my mouth in case my stomach betrayed me.
‘Violet, it will be dark soon.’ I nodded and didn’t move. He tried to tug a little on my arm, but my knees just wouldn’t bend so that I could take a step. However, it was enough for him to be able to prise my fingers away from the stone and half-carry me towards the door to his room.
He walked over to his bedside table, picking up a red velvet cloth and bringing it over to me. It remained rigid as he placed it flat in his palm, unfolding the corners of the cloth to reveal a small, ornamental dagger, encrusted with emeralds along the spine of the handle. The blade itself was wafer thin and looked horrifyingly sharp.
I must have seemed alarmed, because he pulled a reassuring smile. ‘Diamond-encrusted blade. It’s for me to cut a wound on my wrist with.’ He frowned. ‘It will give a clean cut, which will make it easier for you to drink from.’
‘Right,’ I breathed, suddenly feeling queasy.
He tugged at his bottom lip with a fang, looking me up and down. ‘You don’t have to do this, you know. Just say the word and we’ll forget it.’
‘No. I’ll do it.’ I tried to sound defiant, but it came out as more of a squeak. Lines appeared across his brow and he placed the knife aside, taking one of my hands in his own.
‘Violet, I want you to know something. My blood might give you eternity, but I can’t save you from the pain of living forever. As far as I’m concerned, you’re worth living all those millennia for, but when people go their separate ways or pass away, going on is as horrendous as dying. Do you understand what I mean?’
I nodded, although the mounting dread in my chest threatened to squeeze all the air out of my lungs. He lowered his eyes, picking up the knife again and wiping it clean with the cloth.
‘Then don’t worry about it. It won’t trouble you for a long time yet.’
He clenched his free hand, bringing the knife to the inner part of his wrist, tracing a vein. Without so much as a wince, he dragged the blade across his skin, drawing blood from a long, deep wound.
I knew we had to act fast: he would heal quickly and if we didn’t do it soon, I would lose my nerve. So I pushed my arm into his grasp and he pulled it up to his lips, inhaling th
e scent of my blood beneath my skin. Kissing my balled fist, a smirk curled the corners of his mouth as he unfurled my fingers.
Unable to watch, I looked away and stared at the portrait of the Queen – watching us, I was sure, as oil and in spirit – as he bit down. I gasped, gritting my teeth to try and stop tears from escaping. It wasn’t as painful as when he had bitten my neck, but it still sent a shudder right through my body. He felt it and paused, lapping at the blood that flecked his bottom lip.
‘Violet, are you truly sure about this?’
I nodded. ‘I don’t have any choice.’
He raised my wrist to his lips again as I took his hand in mine, bringing his blood to my own quivering lips, swallowing back a whimper. But just before he began to drink, he paused, breaking out into his characteristic smirk.
‘I love you, Girly,’ he said.
‘And I love you, leech,’ I replied.
Acknowledgements
I sincerely wish I could thank each and every single Wattpad fan of Dinner With A Vampire, but 16 million reads boils down to a lot of people, so I will have to settle for saying that you are all utterly and entirely kaspary. You catapulted this story into the spotlight on the wide expanse of the Internet, coached me in my grammar, made me laugh with your crazy comments and after a year of absence, stuck around and proved to be the loyalist fans a girl could ask for.
Much love and gratitude, Canse12.
A special thank you to Joanne (blazing_dreams4) for so much: acting as an informal PA, beta reading hundreds of thousands of words, creating some beautiful artwork to bring my world to life, and of course, introducing me to new and awesome bands. Edmund is eternally yours.
No acknowledgement section would be complete without thanking my long-suffering family and friends: my parents for (finally) recognizing that staying up all night to write and becoming devil’s spawn the next day is acceptable because I’m an artist; my best friends Stefan and Becky for listening to endless writer-talk but somehow managing to withstand vampire-indoctrination; and to Chris, for soothing me through the times I was frustrated, stressed and worried.
Thanks to my editor, Amy, who came all the way down to Devon to help me cut a massive manuscript down into a shorter massive manuscript, and ultimately, create a better novel. Also, for introducing me to vanilla latte and helping me to never look at stickers on books the same way ever again.
Lastly, a massive thank you to my agent, Scott, for being crazy enough to take on a vampire book and being an awesome negotiator. Scrub, scrub.
About the Author
Abigail Gibbs was born and raised in deepest, darkest Devon. She is currently studying for a BA in English at the University of Oxford and considers herself a professional student, as the real world is yet to catch up with her. Her greatest fear is blood and she is a great advocate of vegetarianism, which logically led to the writing of her first novel, Dinner With A Vampire. At age fifteen, she began posting serially online under the pseudonym Canse12, and after three years in the Internet limelight, set her sights towards total world domination. She splits her time between her studies, stories and family, and uses coffee to survive all three.
Copyright
HarperVoyager
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Copyright © Abigail Gibbs 2012
Abigail Gibbs asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780007503674
EPub Edition © 2012 ISBN: 9780007503681
Version 1
FIRST EDITION
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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The Dark Heroine: Dinner with a Vampire Page 47