Chapter 15 #2
“You’re being fucking delusional! Rein in whatever power trip is happening right now,” Warren commanded, rolling his eyes. “I have known Gerald for years. He’s a good man.”
“A good man,” I repeated mockingly. “Very well.”
“What does that mean?” Warren asked, a hint of uneasiness in his voice.
I looked at my love and decided that holding back was no longer an option. He wanted all of me, and he would get it.
Pushing into his face, I placed a hand behind him at either side.
My fangs were on show, and I knew my eyes were burning.
His chest heaved as he breathed heavily and his pulse became erratic.
I wanted to punish him for letting someone else near him.
I would be damned if another man would be complimented on his lips.
His love, his kindness, was reserved for me, like mine was for his.
I hissed, but Warren remained unmoving, his eyes on mine. I detected no change in his body, no terror at the sight of me. It was almost enough to throw me off. Almost.
“You listened to the word of a man—who very well could be involved with those vile sects—over me. I stood outside your apartment begging while you let him inside your sanctuary to whisper words of vindictiveness against me.”
Warren, surprisingly, laughed and shook his head at me. “You are being ridiculous, Levette. You do not trust me?”
I moved my mouth to his ear. “You do not trust yourself, my love. Otherwise, you would not keep me on the outskirts of your love. But you dared to have another person be close to you, to advise you against me, all the while he was probably helping the people killing others like us. How should I react to that, hm?”
His heart was racing, his veins throbbing beneath his skin and begging for my bite. I hissed again before yanking myself back, creating distance between us. Fixing myself, I stood up straight, licking across my fangs slowly. Warren swallowed as he watched, his eyes transfixed on me.
“I will kill them all. Every single person who dared to take you away from me. Who has laid their hands on our kind. And I will take great pleasure in it. You wanted me, Warren—this is who I am.”
I turned on my heel and began the walk to the church, my body consumed with rage.
Annihilation would come to them all, and I would bask in the running blood.
These fantasists had hurt Leroy so many years ago, and they were still at it.
I would not allow them to keep picking people off one by one.
I would not allow them to hurt Warren any more than they had.
And I most certainly would not allow them to get into his head and take him from me.
Warren ran to catch up to me, but I moved as quickly as I could. He would have to watch me as I destroyed them all; there was no going back. Nothing that could be said, no bargain made, to stop me from ripping them all limb from limb.
Once I reached Saint Mary’s, I threw open the large double doors. A group of priests was assembled around the altar, their heads bowed in quiet whispers. They looked up at my disruption, one of them rushing up to me.
“Sir, please, show some respect. This is the house of the Lord.”
I laughed mockingly. “I will not show respect to you or this place when you do not show respect to the one you preach about.”
Grabbing him by the throat, I spun around and dragged him down the steps at the front of the church. Warren caught up, panting and wild-eyed, as he stood before me.
“Levy, stop this. There’s a better way!”
“Is there? Really, think about it, mon amour. All they do is get away with it!” Years of rage were burning through my skin, and I itched to unleash it, destroying everything in my wake.
Warren grabbed his chest, gasping for breath, as his eyes pleaded with me. “They may not all be guilty of what we accuse them of.”
“Oh, darling, don’t you see? They are. They are a bunch of charlatans, damning their congregation for their own sins.
You believe in the Bible so much, cher, and in the words of the hypocrites in cloth…
You view me as the monster, don’t you? The eternally damned, the Hell-sent demon trying to corrupt you.
That’s what Gerald wanted you to believe, and YOU LISTENED TO HIM! ”
The priest struggled, trying to scratch at my arm for me to let go. I looked at him in disgust. He would barter for his life when he was supposedly going to paradise? Yet more proof that he did not practice what he preached. It was loathsome.
“Levette! This is deeper than that! You cannot murder innocents to ease your jealousy.” Warren stepped closer, his hands up in silent surrender.
“It is deeper, you are correct. It is about the way they have been murdering for years and nobody has ever stopped them. It is about the way they tortured your soul and your faith for your entire life, corrupting your view of yourself so terribly that you cannot be close to me without it eating away at you. Maybe I am the monster they warned you about. Let me be the monster you see me as!” I bellowed.
Moving my hand from his neck to his hair, I ripped into the throat of the priest still in my grasp.
The screams of the onlookers and other priests filled the air, but I could only hear the gurgling of my victim as his blood spilled into my mouth and down my front.
“Levy, stop! I don’t think you’re a monster, so why do this? You play into their sick hatred this way.”
I looked at him, the way he was trembling. Yet he didn’t seem scared of me, his eyes never wavering. Concerned for the humans around us, yes, but frightened? No.
“I love you, you damned fool! Stop acting like this!” Warren commanded, his voice imploring.
I listened, dropping the priest at my feet like a sack of potatoes, holding my arms out at my sides. I was every bit the monster they treated me as, and it felt glorious. Covered in blood, fangs out, dying body at my feet: I was a vampire, one of the immortally damned.
“This is me, Warren. The monster, the demon, the corrupted. The evil you were supposed to run away from.”
Warren stepped closer, cautiously, until he stood before me.
He reached his shaking hands up, holding my bloodied face.
“I see you, Levette Fortier. I knew what you were, and I chose you anyway. This,” he said, gesturing around us, “is a byproduct of the fierceness of your love. Maybe if this was a few hundred years ago when places of worship were just that, I would feel differently about what you just did, but we live in a different time. Your actions are horrific and we will talk about this, but I understand you, Levette. I do not view you as a monster; that is how you view yourself.”
His words pierced through the wall of anger I was entombed in, breaking down the rage I was harnessing. I dropped my arms down, letting his handsome face warm me, his heartbeat fill my ears until I calmed.
Almost like he knew it was working, Warren smiled softly. I gasped as he pulled me into him and crashed his lips against mine. The blood of the priest, still on my lips, smeared across his, but he did not care. He kissed me ferociously, proving something to himself and me.
When he pulled away to catch his breath, his eyes were wet with tears and his face covered in red.
For anyone else, it may have been a horrible sight, but for me, it was the most seductive and alluring sight I had ever seen.
I wanted to do terrible, sinful things to him right there, on the steps to the home of the cloth-covered charlatans while they watched in abject horror.
“Levy,” he whispered, swiping his thumb across my lips, “I love you.”
I blinked and looked at him in shock. He had kissed me and confessed his love on the steps of the church he had been raised in. It was an act of rebellion, of devotion, and an admission all at once.
Warren had made a choice, even though I didn’t ask him to.
He had chosen me.
I couldn’t help but smirk at him. “Could you repeat that?”
He rolled his eyes, kissing me again for all to see. It was a dangerous act, but he didn’t seem to care. Besides, I would kill anyone who so much as looked at him wrong.
“I love you, you smug asshole.”
I beamed pridefully, keeping my fangs on show. “I love you too, mon cher.”