25. Valtu
Valtu
I groan, being pulled from the darkest depths of sleep. I can’t remember the last time I’ve slept so soundly, so solidly.
It’s been decades.
I open my eyes and see the reason. My love of many names has her back to me, her red hair pooling on the sheets between us. She stirs a little and I wish for nothing more for the both of us to go back into slumber.
But the phone doesn’t stop ringing and I remember that there’s a pressing matter out there that’s bigger than our complicated love affair.
I roll over and grab my mobile from the nightside table, answering it.
“Hello?”
“Valtu,” the deep and steady voice of Wolf comes over the line. “Did I wake you?”
I blink and sit up, rubbing the heel of my palm between my eyes. I was expecting to hear from Van Helsing, maybe even Solon, but not Wolf of all people.
“Wolf,” I say, and Rose suddenly jerks herself awake, staring up at me in surprise. “How are you?”
He lets out a dry chuckle at my attempt at small talk. “Just about as well as I could be, considering you’re sleeping with my daughter.”
Oh. Fuck. Right.
That.
I clear my throat. “Uh, well, the world’s a funny place, Wolf. You never know what it’s going to throw your way.”
He grumbles. “Who won the last time we fought? Pretty sure it was me.”
“It was too close to call,” I remind him carefully.
“You know, I’ve had some time now to think about what Rose told us, about how she was Dahlia and all her past lives and how they all wrap around you, and I have to admit, even still, I don’t understand a fucking ounce of it.” He pauses. “But I’m guessing you don’t understand either."
"I got my memories of her back," I tell him. “Last night. The spell reversed.”
“Oh. Good for you. Guess I’m alone in my confusion.”
“Perhaps there are some things in life that are best not understood,” I suggest.
“Valtu, cut the shit,” he says. “You know why I’m calling.”
“I do?”
“Put my daughter on the phone.”
“Sure.” I give Rose a wild look and hand her the phone. “Guess what, it’s your dad.”
She gingerly takes it from me, a look of trepidation on her brow, and puts it to her ear. “Dad?”
Man, I don’t know if I am ever going to get used to this. Of all the families she could have been born into…
“Daddy,” Rose sniffs into the phone and then she starts crying. “I’m so sorry.”
Alright. This is definitely weird. And personal.
I decide to get up. I won’t be going back to sleep after this. I putter around the suite making coffee, trying not to eavesdrop but it’s extremely hard when your hearing is as good as mine is.
Their conversation is a lot of Rose crying and apologizing and asking about Dylan and her mother and then a lot of her trying to convince Wolf of something and I have no doubt that it’s about me.
I don’t think I will ever get used to Wolf being her father but he will definitely never get used to her being with me.
Finally, as I place her cup of coffee beside her on the nightstand, she starts telling him about Leif and Atlas, and then how she got stabbed. The wound is nearly fully healed now, just a faint red mark where the knife went in, but that doesn’t erase how horrific it was in the moment.
Wolf practically roars in response. I knew he would. As weird as it all is, he does seem to be a good, protective father.
“He was there, Dad,” Rose says in my defense, glancing over at me with furrowed brows. “He tackled Atlas to the ground. Who then disappeared in thin air.”
I don’t blame Wolf for wondering how this happened.
Of course I didn’t let any of that happen to Rose.
I was on Atlas in seconds. It’s just that when Leif appeared, I was as surprised as she was to see him there.
It caught me off-guard and I was slow to react to Atlas’ approach.
I didn’t even smell that he was a witch; he must have some sort of glamor on him at all times.
Seeing Rose get stabbed with the blade put the fear of god in me.
I can’t make any excuses for how I used that fear.
The man who erased her for the second time was a different man than I am right now, shaped by different experiences (or rather, lack of experiences), and he was too weak to endure what he assumed would be another loss.
He thought Rose was dead when she was stabbed and that felt like the end of the world to him, so he took the easy way out.
They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
I think that’s a lie. It’s how you choose to deal with things that makes you stronger.
I went through all the tragedy in the world and it made me stronger…
until it didn’t. Until it made me weaker.
Until I took the easy way out by erasing her the first time.
To say I feel shame is an understatement. I chose to forget her in the first place and I’ll be trying to come to terms with that for the rest of my life. In the end, I have to take responsibility for what I’ve done, no matter who I was at the time. The excuses don’t matter.
What does matter is that I have a chance to get it right again. I have a chance to be with my love for eternity, if the fates allow.
Naturally, I am a little wary about this whole Bellamy thing.
I know she wants her revenge and I want her revenge for her.
I’d say there’s nothing I want more than to torture the guy who killed Dahlia’s parents.
But what I want more than that is for her to remain safe.
The other day was too close of a call. The both of us had the book’s magic at our disposal at the time we saw Atlas and Leif, and yet we were totally blindsided.
Even if the others join us to help, I have a bad feeling that things aren’t going to go the way we want them to.
And selfishly I don’t want anything to happen to Rose.
I would rather take her back to Mittenwald or…
no, not even there. We need a fresh start together.
I would go wherever she wants to go in this world.
Some place where we can just be together in a whole new life.
Letting her try to find Bellamy again feels like we’re putting everything at risk, everything we worked so hard for.
I go take a shower and when I come out, Rose is making another coffee.
“So?” I say, leaning against the desk. “What was that all about? Is he coming here?”
“He’s already here,” she says.
“What?!”
“Yup. He was calling from the airport. He, my mom, Lenore, and Solon all flew from Portland. Dylan stayed behind. They’re just waiting for Abe to arrive and then they’re coming straight over here.”
I gesture to my phone on the bed. “He could have told you all that in person.”
She shrugs and lifts her coffee cup to her lips. “He wouldn’t have though. It’s hard to get Dad to open up about most things. He says he just wanted to be able to talk to me before all the chaos started.”
“And he’s okay with you taking part in this, getting Leif back?”
“I wouldn’t say he’s okay ,” she says with a small smile. “But I think he knows he can’t stop me, and he knows that this is as equally important to me as it is to them. What did he say to you? Do you think he’s going to kill you?”
I laugh and I go over to her and kiss her forehead. “We’ll see. Considering I once stole his girlfriend, and now I’m stealing his daughter…”
She laughs. “It’s going to be an adjustment for a lot of you.”
“It’s okay. I always felt I missed out on the stay away from my daughter phase. Feels like being in a movie, and your dad plays the role very well.”
Her lips twist sourly. “I don’t know, I think you got a lot of stay away from my daughter from Mina’s father.”
I try not to remember that moment. Time usually fades the sting, but the day I lost Mina is something that will never stop aching, like a sliver you can’t dislodge.
Maybe because it was before I was a vampire.
Maybe because it was my first time loving her.
Having erased that moment for decades has only made it hurt even worse.
“I’m going to be honest with you, my dove,” I tell her, cupping the back of her head and staring down at her.
“I would rather the two of us leave your parents to the battle. I would rather take you away, safe and sound, somewhere far off. I think if we bowed out, everyone would not only understand, but be relieved.”
She stiffens. “We can’t bow out. This is my fight, Val. It’s their fight too, but it’s also mine. I have to do this.”
“How?”
“How are you of all people running from a fight?”
“Right? I usually cause the fights.”
“Val,” she warns, and I know from the jut of her chin that she is not going to back down.
“I want to rip his head off and I want you to get your revenge,” I tell her. “But I am terrified of losing you again. I finally have you, all of you, in my grasp and it would be foolish for me to even think about putting you in harm’s way.”
She gives me a bone-dry look. “You didn’t seem to feel this way when we first came here.”
“Because that was a different me,” I tell her. “And he was afraid. He just didn’t know what to do with that fear…” Well, actually he did.
She studies me carefully, lips pursed in thought. “You know, all this time I thought your erasure of me destroyed all of your humanity. But I don’t think that was the case. In the end, you took that potion because you were so afraid to love and to lose. There’s nothing more human than that.”
I don’t know if that was her intention, but I’ll admit that does make me feel a little better.
“Still an asshole though,” she adds, biting her lip.
“Yeah. But I’m your asshole.” I grab her and she’s giggling, trying to run away. I throw her on the bed, then pounce on top of her, and give her all of my humanity.
* * *
The two of us are still entwined in each other’s arms, thoroughly sated and exhausted from each other’s bodies, when there’s a knock at our door.
“Fucking hell, this can’t be them already,” I grumble, throwing back the covers and getting out of bed. “I’m not prepared for this.”