Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
‘RALEIGH!’ I DROPPED to my knees and brushed the hair from his eyes. The rich sweetness of his blood hit me then. My throat felt dry. ‘Raleigh, stay with me.’
He was utterly still, unmoving save for the faintest flutter of his pulse: weak, faltering, but still there. With my heightened senses I could hear it, feel it. And I desperately wanted to taste it.
Bile rose in my throat. I pushed away the horrible new nature surging through me, burying it as deep as I could.
‘Clara …’
I’d forgotten Yann was there. I snapped my head to face him. ‘Find Moira.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘If she’s still alive, find her and bring her here.’ I didn’t recognise my own voice, the panic and fury behind my words. Yann blanched and fled to obey, leaving me alone with Raleigh. ‘You have to hold on,’ I said to him.
With great effort he opened his eyes and smiled. He lifted his shaking hand to my cheek and I clutched it there as my vision blurred. For the first time I could feel the warmth of him, the touch of a palm full of life. The life that was slipping away.
Somehow, despite everything, he was smiling.
‘You’re free, Clara,’ he whispered.
‘No,’ I cried. ‘You can’t leave me like this. I chose you. I stayed by choice.’ I could barely make out his face through my tears. ‘I love you.’
He moved his lips as though he were speaking, but no sound came out. His eyes lost focus.
‘Stay awake,’ I commanded. He wasn’t going to last until Moira got here.
And even if he did, what could she do? She was a vampire hunter, not a bloody surgeon.
I couldn’t lose him. There had to be something I could do.
My hands shook over his wound. I didn’t dare touch it, but if I didn’t, he’d die.
‘I don’t know how to save you,’ I choked.
He was slipping. His eyelids fluttered, straining at the effort just to keep them open. His hand slid down my cheek, thumb trailing across my lip until his flesh grazed the very tip of my fang. ‘You do,’ he whispered, as his hand fell limp.
My chest tightened. ‘What do you mean?’ I cried.
He didn’t respond. His lips were still wavering, but I couldn’t tell if he was trying to speak or if it was simply the final twitching of muscles trying to stay alive.
Another sob spilled out of me. He had to live, he wanted to live. He’d said it himself when—
I froze.
He was right. I did know what to do.
Was that really what he’d meant? After all this time, Raleigh had found his freedom.
I could save him, but the cost would be everything he had fought for.
If he died, I would be mortal again. If I saved him, there would be no turning back.
Neither of us had sires we could kill. I would be forcing him into the same eternity we’d spent all year fighting.
Could I really force that back upon him?
He’d agreed with me before, though, hadn’t he? That he wanted to live no matter what. Surely those last words could only have meant one thing, but would he ever forgive me if I was wrong?
Did I care? I could live with him hating me. I couldn’t live in a world without him.
‘Forgive me,’ I choked out. And bit down on his throat.
His blood rushed into my mouth. It was nothing like drinking the vial. He was intoxicatingly sweet, like nothing I’d ever tasted.
It took all my remaining strength to stop before I killed him myself.
Stay alive, I silently pleaded as I pulled away. He had closed his eyes. Was he still breathing? I couldn’t tell. The world was so loud, the noises all melded into one. He had to be alive.
Without hesitation, I bit my own wrist and drew my own blood into my mouth. I tasted foul compared to Raleigh, but I wasn’t the one who had to drink. I pressed our lips together and forced the blood into Raleigh’s waiting lips, tilting his head to allow the blood to pour down his throat.
Please work.
Please don’t be too late.
He lay deathly still. What little colour had come back in life had drained away once more. I pressed my fingers to his throat, searching for a pulse, then tore my glove off and tried again. Maybe it was the wrong spot. Maybe if I …
I pressed my ear to his chest. His still, silent chest. My body convulsed, panic clawing. I told myself to breathe but I couldn’t remember how. It wasn’t helping, nothing was helping and Raleigh …
Raleigh.
‘Don’t leave me,’ I sobbed, clutching at his blood-sodden clothes. ‘Open your eyes, you idiot prince. She’s dead. You’re free. You can’t die before you get to live.’
There was no reply. Of course there’d be no reply.
I collapsed on top of him, holding him as I wished I’d had the chance to in life. How many times had I longed to lie like this with him, my head on his chest, my arms around him? Why had I never done this before? Why had I waited until he was already dead?
I don’t know how long I lay there with him, sobbing into his unmoving chest. I was terrified of the sight that might await me when I moved.
Of Raleigh’s face, sunken and waxy in a death so much more permanent than the one he had lived for centuries.
I’d have to move eventually. The thirst I’d been forcing myself to ignore was only intensifying, burning harsh as sunlight from the pooling life around me.
But as long as I lay there, it wouldn’t be real. I could pretend he was still here.
‘You were supposed to marry me,’ I whispered, defeated.
‘Is that a proposal?’
I scrambled upwards, tearing myself off him. Raleigh had peeled his eyes half open. They were still glazed in pain, his flesh unmarred by the blush of life. But he was moving.
‘You’re alive,’ I choked.
‘Alive is … a strong word.’ A flash of fang glistened past his lips. A strange sensation washed over me: a need to protect him, to possess him, to obey him, to command him. And I could see the conflict of emotion wash through him too. ‘I don’t understand. How did you …?’
‘I never threw your vial away,’ I admitted, ‘I drank it in the wardrobe last night.’
His face contorted in horror. ‘Why?’
I felt a coil of embarrassment. ‘It was the only thing I could think of to protect you.’
‘You would do that for me?’
I ran a thumb over his smooth cheek. ‘I’d do it again a thousand times.’
‘That’s why you’ve been sick.’ Raleigh groaned. ‘You were changing. I should have realised.’
‘You’ve been … preoccupied.’
He choked out a laugh, then winced in pain. ‘So does this make you my sire or my spawn?’
‘Both, I think. You can feel it too, can’t you?’
‘I can,’ he said, face awash with conflicting emotions. He sounded distant, like he wasn’t sure how to feel. I couldn’t blame him. He’d spent three hundred years trying to escape the last woman he’d loved, only for me to drag him back into exactly the same prison.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘What?’ The warring emotions on Raleigh’s face united into one perfectly confused truce. ‘Why?’
‘All you wanted was to be human again, and now I’ve forced you back into the dark.’
‘Clara …’ He softened, intertwining his fingers with mine against his cheek. ‘What I wanted was to be free and to find love. How could I possibly fault you for giving me everything?’
‘You told me you wanted to live.’
A faint smile slipped onto his lips. ‘I feel more alive with you than I ever did as a human.’
I found myself speechless. My heartbeat felt conspicuously absent, but even so my cheeks started to burn.
I wondered if he’d spoken like this to the Queen, back when he still loved her.
How could she hear him speak like that, see the sweet earnestness of his expression, and choose to use his love to break him?
No one would ever hurt him like that again. She was gone, so there was only one person left who could.
‘I swear to you,’ I said, ‘I’ll never use you the way she did. Know that you’re free, no matter how much hold I have over you.’
He pulled me to him and kissed me hard. ‘I know,’ he said when we parted. ‘And I promise you the same. As long as we both walk upon this earth I’ll never use my power over you again.’
‘I know,’ I echoed, truthfully, and kissed him until his injuries forced him to pull away.
We lay back down together on the hard floor, and I fitted my head in the crook of his neck.
He weakly leant against me, but when he tried to reach across me he grunted in pain.
I caught his hand as it dropped and held it tightly against the heart that once again lay still.
‘You once said that becoming a vampire was the worst thing you could imagine happening to you,’ Raleigh murmured.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I discovered something worse.’
Raleigh fell silent. His thumb caressed the back of my hand. ‘I’ll find you another cure. It only took three hundred years the first time. With you at my side, we’ll have another ready to go in two hundred. We just have to promise not to kill each other in the meantime.’
I laughed, not even remotely sure what the world might be like two hundred years from now. ‘All right. Well, since you love deals so much, why don’t we make another one now?’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Promise me you’ll never try to kill me,’ I said, taking his hands. ‘I promise you the same. We’ll find another way to regain our humanity, one that doesn’t involve killing each other.’
‘That’s not a deal, that’s a vow.’
‘And in exchange—’
‘In the nature of a bargain, shouldn’t I dictate my terms?’
‘In exchange,’ I repeated, louder this time, ‘I will marry you.’
He tried to sit up, then fell back down. The pain wasn’t enough to dull his smile. It shone bright enough to light up even the darkest of crypts.
‘It’s a deal.’