17. Rose
Rose
I watch as Valtu walks off and disappears around the corner, going upstairs. The moment he’s out of sight, I breathe out a sigh of relief.
This dinner has been nice. Unexpectedly so.
This morning when he came into my room, I expected the blow job.
I had no problems making his eyes roll back in his head.
But when he told me after that he wanted me to join him at dinner, and to wear something nice, it threw me for a loop.
I remember Abe specifically telling me he wouldn’t feed me, whether it be food or blood, and yet Valtu requested my company.
I’d be lying if it didn’t warm me from the inside out.
He was choosing me without even knowing my past, without knowing who I really am to him. Does that mean that in some way, we’ll always find our way back to each other? Is it possible for Valtu to want me on an emotional level just as I am now, as Rose Harper and no one else?
It gives me hope. Because even if he doesn’t remember our past, I’ll take any version of love. I tell myself that to love me as Rose is to love me as Dahlia, Lucy, and Mina, because we all are one and the same.
But I’m so wary of how fragile that hope is.
With each second I’m with Valtu, my heart is constantly in free-fall.
I never know when it will land, how much it will hurt.
It’s a special kind of agony to be so deeply in love with someone, your actual soulmate that you’ve found through death time and time again, and for them to be so indifferent to you.
I think that indifference is slowly melting away, though.
Perhaps the sex is getting to him—he always was easy to assuage in that way.
Or maybe it’s the fact that it’s been ages since he’s had anyone to really talk to or confide in.
I know Abe told me he wishes they were closer but ever since he got hold of the book, he’s become a pariah on purpose.
Perhaps he feels others judge him for the choices he’s made.
All I know is that even though Valtu acts like this life here, hidden away alone in the mountains, is something he prefers, I can sense the loneliness deep inside him.
I can see it, this emptiness in the blackened recesses of his eyes.
There’s a darkness in both of us but at least I understand why I am the way I am.
Dying repeatedly has something to do with it.
Yet Valtu isn’t conscious of why his darkness is there.
Everything that has made Valtu brooding and cold and dark is because of me .
It’s been because he’s lost me so many times.
Now that he doesn’t remember me or any of his past, he doesn’t understand his own darkness.
He can’t face it. And so it sits there and festers and he believes he’s completely fine.
In some ways tonight has felt like old times and there’s an ease to the way he is around me. He’s quicker to smile, quicker to laugh, to joke. The hard shell of him is starting to crack in places.
But he’s not completely comfortable. Something has him on edge.
Maybe it’s that he’s aware that his shell has weak points and his guard is up to prevent it from cracking all together.
Maybe it’s something else. Whatever it is, it reminds me to keep my own guard up, despite how many glasses of wine I’ve had.
It feels like Valtu’s been gone a long time and I’m starting to think he might not be coming back, when I hear the sound of chains.
I automatically sit up, on alert, wondering if he’s thinking of chaining me to the table. I wouldn’t mind, of course.
Then I see him appear from around the corner.
I stiffen.
He’s not alone.
Behind him, with a chain around his neck, is a naked man. No. More like a boy in his late teens.
Valtu holds onto the chain and jerks it forward, yanking on the boy’s neck. The boy looks around him with wide eyes, his mouth clamped together into a hard line, and he doesn’t make a noise, though I can tell he’s screaming inside.
I get to my feet, feeling panicked. I don’t even know what’s about to happen, but it feels wrong. This isn’t a sex thing; this is something else.
“Who is that?” I manage to say as Valtu leads the boy over to me. I can feel the heaviness of whatever magic Valtu is using.
“I don’t know,” Valtu says simply, looking the boy over as if it’s the first time seeing him. “I asked for a human in their prime and this is what it brought back.”
I don’t even have to ask who it is.
“Brought back for what?” I ask, though I know it’s a pointless question.
Valtu just grins at me. Devious and cold and lacking any of the empathy I once saw in him. I almost don’t know him at all.
“I brought him back for you,” he says with flourish.
Then he throws the chain on the table where it lands with a clunk, knocking the food and wine everywhere.
“I thought you could use a real feast. There’s a lot of firsts for you while you’re here.
” He nods at the boy. “Get on the table. Lie on your back.”
I gulp and watch as the boy obeys and climbs on top of the table, lying down on his back. His movements are stiff and controlled and I have the feeling that Valtu has him like a puppet on a string.
I stare into the boy’s eyes and see them pleading with me to let him go, to end this nightmare. I look up at Valtu. “I don’t want him,” I say adamantly, shaking my head. “No. You have to let him go.”
Valtu sneers. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not a real vampire until you’ve fed from a human.”
But I’ve fed from one , I want to yell, but I tried to tell him that before.
“I have blood pills,” I quickly say. “Abe gave them to me.”
All I see is a cold, cunning smile. “You don’t have them anymore. I flushed them down the toilet.”
“You what!?” I exclaim, my face going hot with rage. “How could you do that? I needed those!”
“And if the doctor hadn’t given you any, then what would you have done? Did you think you could rely on my generosity? You’re lucky I’m being this hospitable with you. Normally I’d keep this human for myself.”
“Then keep him for yourself! I said I don’t want him. He’s not a volunteer, he didn’t consent to this. You had him abducted!”
“Consent,” he scoffs and his lip curls in another sneer.
“Now you’re pretending to take the high road.
You realize you came here to be my fucking whore.
To get fucked, to get used, to do whatever I please.
You think you have some kind of greater moral standing than I do? You’re just as bad as I am.”
I am not! I want to yell but I know that would be a mistake.
“I consented to that. Not to this,” I tell him, my eyes darting to the boy and back. God, he reminds me of Dylan when he was eighteen. I can’t look at him anymore.
“Does it look like I’m forcing you to do anything?” Valtu says snidely.
Then he walks over to the table, picks up the knife and slices along the boy’s artery in his arm.
I scream as the blood spurts out and I know I need to put something there to stop the bleeding, maybe my dress, or a dishrag, but the will to help the boy is fading away and being replaced by something else.
The smell of blood.
Young blood.
Fresh blood.
My tongue starts to tingle, my stomach starts to ache as if I haven’t eaten in years, my mouth goes painfully dry and I’m remembering Michael, remembering how good it felt to feed from a human.
But Michael volunteered. This boy didn’t. And he’s scared to death.
“You’re just going to let him bleed out like that?” Valtu admonishes me. “Tut tut, that’s very wasteful of you, Rose.”
I glare at Valtu with all the fury I can spare, wondering why the sight of blood isn’t doing the same thing to him, how he can keep so cool while I feel my hunger is ripping me apart at the seams.
“I don’t want him,” I manage to say, but my words are so weak that Valtu doesn’t believe me and I don’t believe it, either.
“You do,” he says, running his fingers over the blood in the wound and bringing it over to my face.
I shrink back from his hand, trying not to breathe in the blood, and pinch my eyes shut. Inside I feel like I’m on fire, like I’m going to go insane.
“You’ve submitted to me, my black Rose,” he murmurs, his voice filling my head. “Now submit to your darkest instincts.”
I open my eyes to see him sliding his fingers into his mouth, the blood pooling between his lower teeth and his bottom lip. I can’t look away as his fangs sharpen into existence.
Then he grabs me by the back of my neck and kisses me.
Valtu kisses me.
His mouth envelopes mine, strong and commanding, his lips soft yet firm, and blood spills onto my tongue while the heat of it all takes my breath away. It awakens a yearning so sharp, so deep, that I fear it might never abate.
I press my hands on his shirt, wanting to push him away because to keep his lips on mine, his tongue fucking my mouth with such fierce urgency, is only making me hungrier.
It’s making me into an animal, a predator at the top of the food chain, and I want nothing more than to fuck Valtu, then rip that boy apart.
Instead my fingers curl around Valtu’s shirt as I attempt to hold on to him, keep his mouth on mine, and our kiss deepens in its intensity.
He lets out a moan, sounding almost surprised, then tightens his hold on my neck to keep me in place as he kisses me harder.
My lips respond in kind, having wanted to kiss him for so long.
The blood is gone now, swallowed down my throat, and yet we’re losing ourselves to this, to us.
I’ve slid back in time and I’m Dahlia and Lucy and Mina and he’s kissing me like he kissed them.
I might just melt on my feet, I’d forgotten how beautiful and dizzying it was to be kissed by him.
But when he pulls back, breathing hard, his wild eyes staring into mine with need and something else blurry and warm, my stomach twists sharply, and the urge to feed takes over even my feelings for Valtu.