23. Valtu #2
I try to say something, anything, but I can’t because all at once every single memory that I had so selfishly erased comes pouring back over me like a tidal wave. It drowns me, crushes me, bombards me from all angles until I am given no choice but to remember.
My mind flips back in time, back to when I killed her, then to a burial at sea, then the taking of the book. Then the night in Venice with Solon when I took the potion and erased her.
Then I’m living my years without any knowledge of her, unaware of the simmering pain and grief that was collecting in my soul.
I lived a life so selfish and cold and isolated that I lost all parts of my humanity, all those tiny good parts that were binding me together like a rag doll, a monstrous creation of my own doing.
Then I’m in the square of Mittenwald, waiting for Van Helsing to deliver me a whore and then I see her, I see Dahlia walking toward me and I see the pain on her face when she realizes what I’ve done, how it’s erased her, and then I see how awful I’ve been treating her, so cruel, so callous, and, and…
I see myself falling in love with her despite all my best laid plans. I see myself falling in love with Rose, because it’s my destiny to love her, no matter what her name is, no matter where we are in time.
And then I see what I just did today. I see myself getting so damn scared of feeling pain again, of losing her and feeling grief, that I erase her yet again.
A heavy cloak is lifted from my head and I can see clearly for the first time.
And what I see is my reflection looking back at me.
I really am a fucking monster.
“Val?” Rose says again, taking a tentative step forward, wounded inside and out. “Please don’t be fucking with me, please.”
I get to my knees and try to get up but I can’t. The weight of guilt and anger and disappointment keeps me where I am.
I stare up at her, at my dove, my love, at her goodness and her loyalty and the fact that she’s in my life again, she’s alive and she’s here and I burst out into tears.
“I’m sorry,” I say through a sob, the sorrow wracking through me, hollowing me out. “I am so fucking sorry.”
“No,” she says, and she drops to her knees beside me, her fingers going through my hair. “Val, please, you have nothing to be sorry for.”
I raise my head and look at her, my vision blurred, the guilt tearing me apart. “Nothing to be sorry for? Rose, I have everything to be sorry for. I treated you so horribly, I…I don’t understand how it all happened.”
“You were in pain,” she says, crying now too. “You were in pain and you couldn’t bear it. I don’t blame you for what you did, you were just trying to survive. We have such long lives and there is so much pain in this world.”
“You would have never done that to me,” I tell her, unable to escape the agony while at the same time, fuck, fuck I am so goddamn overjoyed that she’s alive and she’s here.
She’s here!
“You’re alive,” I add, shaking my head, the tears spilling onto the floor. “I can’t believe you’re alive.”
“I told you my heart would always find yours,” she says, her hands now at my cheeks, wiping away the tears. “And it did. It did.”
“I love you.” I take in a deep, shaking breath. “I love you, I love you. As Mina and Lucy and Dahlia and Rose, I love all of you.”
“I love you,” Rose says, smiling so sweetly it breaks my heart. “You know I do.”
She leans in and kisses me.
This kiss is also a spell of erasure.
In this kiss it feels like she’s erasing my sins.
I feel like I’m being saved, and I never knew I needed saving.
“My love,” I whisper against her mouth, trying to get a hold of myself and failing, so I hold onto her instead. I grab the back of her neck and hold her tight, I grip her waist until she feels fused to me. “I love you and I don’t deserve an ounce of your love.”
“You deserve all of that and more,” she says, placing kisses on the corner of my lips, my chin, my nose. “I was never going to give up on you.”
And I know she’s right. She wouldn’t have. She didn’t. Even after I fucking killed her, she still came back in love with me, willing to risk it all in case I still knew her heart.
“Dahlia…I didn’t know who you were until the glamour slipped,” I try to explain. “It was too late. I tried to save you, I tried to give you blood…”
Her head quirks to the side. “You tried to give me blood?”
“I tried to create a vampire. I wanted Lenore to do it, but she said it was too late. I gave you my own blood but it did nothing. You were dead.”
“You gave me blood…” she muses. “Perhaps that’s the reason why I came back a vampire this time around.”
“This time?” I shake my head adamantly. “This is the only time. You’re a vampire now and we’re going to do whatever the fuck we can to keep you alive. I promise I won’t erase you again, but I am not going through losing you again either. Even if we always do end up finding each other.”
She grins. Pure, beautiful joy that radiates outward. She is the sun.
“My god, I have missed you,” I tell her, kissing her again, my tongue searching her mouth deeply, as if I’m trying to meld with her permanently. The hunger starts to burn through me, the urge to pick-up where we left off, or close enough, but I swallow it back for now.
I pull back, breathing hard, and rest my forehead against hers.
“I may have not remembered you, but I was suffering so deeply, there really was no escape. Grief will get you one way or another. For me, it was like a shadow in the room. It followed me wherever I went, always visible out of the corner of my eye.” I’m suddenly struck with pride and rub my thumbs along her cheekbones.
“There had been an actual shadow too. But you destroyed the demon.”
“And I destroyed the book,” she points out gravely.
“And I’m eternally grateful for that,” I tell her, my eyes searing deep into hers. “It was the only way to set things back to the way they always should have been.”
“Yeah, but what about all of the magic? All the power you’ve been stockpiling for the last two decades is just gone.”
I take my hand off her face and hold it between us, my thoughts creating flames along the fingertips.
I wave the flames back and forth. “I still know a few party tricks that Solon had taught me. And you’re still a witch.
You may have learned some spells from that book, but you already had a few in you to begin with. ”
“I’m not so sure. Yeah there’s the lightning, which I’ll admit, has been three-for-three for being handy lately, but other than that I don’t really remember any of the things I was taught as Dahlia. Honestly, most of the stuff I learned at the academy was just how to kill vampires.”
She leans down slightly and blows out the flames on my fingers.
I can’t help but smile. In some ways I think I’ll never stop smiling.
“Just because you don’t remember doesn’t mean you don’t know.
It will come back to you. Lean into it. Think like a witch.
And knowing how to kill vampires is not nothing.
Witches might be our enemy at the moment, but generally whatever you do to kill a vampire will kill a human as well. ”
“How about an immortal human? We have no idea what Bellamy and they have done to themselves to make them immortal. I expected to see Leif as some sickly patient that’s been experimented on for years, but he didn’t look that way at all.
He looked normal.” Her nose wrinkles. “And, fuck. Now we can’t track them. ”
I reach out and cup her face in my hand and she automatically closes her eyes, leaning into my touch.
“Right now, all of that is something else to worry about some other day. All that truly matters to me is that you’re here.
Maybe that’s because I truly am a selfish bastard but that’s the truth.
You’re here, my darling. And I will walk to the ends of the earth and through to the end of time in order to never lose you again. ”
I dip my head and catch her lips in a soft kiss, one that seems to slide backward in time and forward again, wrapping us together like a bow. “Tell me I’m yours, my dove,” I plead softly, my lips brushing against hers.
“I am yours, my lord,” she whispers.
“And you still would fuck a monster?” I venture.
She laughs. “You’re not a monster, Val.” Her eyes dance. “You’re just an asshole.”
“The question still stands.”
Another breathy laugh. “Yes, my lord.”