Chapter 17 – Dahlia
Dahlia
“Amazing what a hot cup of tea can do for you on a night like tonight,” Valtu says, puttering around his kitchen.
I’ve just walked in dressed in one of his fluffy white robes, like the ones that a luxury spa would have.
After having sex in the rain and getting stained with the red juice of blood oranges, both of us needed a shower badly.
Naturally that led to sexy times in said shower, but I feel a lot better being all clean and warm now, wrapped in the robe, my hair in a towel.
“Tea?” I ask him, leaning against the kitchen island in his gourmet kitchen. “You don’t strike me as a tea type of person.”
He gives me a crooked smile, his eyes softly affectionate. “Oh yeah? What do I strike you as?”
A blood-drinker , I think.
I smile, watching as he grabs a box of tea from the cupboard, taking a moment to admire his ass in his grey sweatpants. They fit him like a glove and there’s only one reason why a man owns grey sweatpants that fit like that. He wants me to stare.
“Well, most nights you aren’t grabbing tea, that’s for sure. You’re either reaching for red wine or a stiff drink.”
“Mmmm most nights I don’t find you outside in the rain like you’ve lost your damn mind,” he says.
I look down at the tiled floor. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” he says quickly, coming over to me.
He takes my hand in his, puts his fingers under my chin and raises it to look at him.
“I’m sorry, my dove. I…” He closes his eyes and sighs, licking his lips.
Gives his head a shake. “I’m really sorry.
What I said to you was uncalled for and undeserved, I just don’t know what to do. ”
I honestly don’t know what he’s talking about.
I know that part of it must stem from the fact that he’s a vampire and he thinks I’m a human and that there’s danger in our relationship because of it.
And that might be true. But there’s something else there.
Something else that happened recently that made him pull away like this.
I’m scared to find out it has something to do with the book.
With the demons.
With the murders and disappearances in the city.
“Then why don’t you try telling me the truth,” I tell him. “I told you my truth. I told you I loved you.”
His expression crumbles at that. “And I’m completely undeserving of it,” he says, raising my hand to his lips and gently kissing my knuckles.
Well, he hasn’t said it back to me. But I didn’t even know I was in love with him until like an hour ago.
How the hell that snuck up on me I don’t know.
It’s fast, I know it’s fast. Too fast. But I haven’t been in love before so I have nothing to compare it to.
All I know is that it comes from some place deep inside of me, like it was always there, just waiting and biding its time, like a once-dormant volcano that’s been holding back for too long.
Now that it’s been unleashed, I just want to revel in it, dance in it, say it all the time. Even if he doesn’t quite feel the same way about me.
“Valtu,” I say, reaching up and placing my hand at his cheek. “You are deserving of it.”
He gives his head a sharp shake, eyes pleading. “Not if you knew who I really was.”
“Then you’re going to have to take the risk and tell me, because if you don’t I’m going to start jumping to some crazy conclusions.”
His eyes darken. “Sometimes there’s nothing crazier than the truth.”
Then he leans in and kisses me softly on the lips, sweet and tender.
“Okay,” he whispers, leaning his forehead against mine. “How about we have some tea and I’ll tell you something you won’t believe. I’ll bring some whisky too, in case you need it.”
He moves over to the kettle, pours the hot water over the teabags in the mugs and then brings it over to the living room. The fire is roaring—he must have put it on while I was taking my time freshening up after the shower, though it is strange that it got so hot and big so fast.
We sit down on a dark green velvet couch, an odd choice of furniture but it suits him just fine. Vampires can be eclectic and Valtu is no different.
I cup the tea in my hands, the steam rising from the mug, and patiently wait for him to talk. Outside, the rain continues to patter against the windows, making the room feel extra cozy, even though I know what he’s going to tell me will be anything but.
“You know, the city feels different lately,” he comments, sipping his tea and not seeming to be affected at all by its scalding hot temperature. He has to tell me, his vampire mask is slipping every day.
“I’ve noticed. First those people go missing, then that woman gets killed by a boat, but boat engines don’t mutilate like that.”
He nods grimly. “Yes, there’s that. For sure. But there’s also a change in the air. Can you feel it? A darkness. Something more than what resides in you and me. A darkness that wants to eat and consume and spit out the bones after. I feel my city is changing and that the people here are at risk…”
I lean forward slightly. “At risk of what?”
His eyes flick to mine. “People like me.”
We stare at each other for a moment. He’s gauging my reaction and I’m trying to react how a normal person would. “What do you mean, people like you?”
He sighs heavily and adjusts his position on the couch, a long leg tucked under the other, and I do my best not to stare at his package, because hello, a big dick and gray sweatpants are as subtle as flashing neon lights that say “Get Your Cock Here!”
“There are things you don’t know. An underbelly to this city.
A dark one. A grim one. There are secret societies here that operate under everyone’s noses, going completely unnoticed except by a select few.
And while those societies operate in peace, there are some people who don’t care for peace.
Who want chaos and violence and power. And those people, those are the ones that are dangerous. ”
Pretty sure he’s talking about Saara, Aleksi, and the Red Room. “If these people are dangerous, can’t you report them to the police?”
“Not if the police are in on it,” he says with a loaded look.
Oh shit. I never thought of that. The cops are vampires too?
“So, uh, what is this society about?”
He worries his lip between his teeth, his dark eyes drifting across the room. He focuses on his reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. “You told me you don’t believe in ghosts. Does that still hold true?”
I have to remember what this non-witch version of myself told him. “That’s true.”
“Do you believe in the supernatural at all?”
And here we go.
Of course, I want to say yes, but I have to say, “No.”
“Not even a little?”
“I’ve never seen proof of the supernatural existing,” I tell him, which is a great segue for him to tell me he’s a vampire and give me proof about it.
“So you need proof, you can’t just take people at their word?” He eyes me curiously, taking a sip of his tea.
“Depends on who was doing the talking and what they were saying,” I tell him.
He nods slowly. “Okay. Yup. I figured that with you.”
He puts his mug on the coffee table and walks over to the mantle, picking up a dagger that was lying on top of a cigar box. It’s short, sharp and gold with a black stone star at the base.
He brings it over to me, displaying it on his palm. The dagger looks ancient.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Proof,” he says.
I expect him to go on and say the dagger belonged to some king he personally knew in the 1600s or something. But instead he hands it to me.
“I want you to stab me with it.”
My mouth drops. “I’m sorry. Stab you with it?”
He nods. “Stick it right in my heart.”
I let out a dry laugh and get to my feet, trying to give the knife back to him. “Okay, now you’re the one who is acting nuts here. I’m not going to stab you. What the hell?”
The fact that he said that surprises me so much that for one sweet moment I’d forgotten that I actually know what it’s like to stab a vampire in the heart. I’ve done it a dozen times.
The muscle memory makes me sick.
“Okay, then I’ll do it myself,” he says, swiping the knife from me and pressing the tip against his chest, the sharp end already piercing a hole through his t-shirt.
“Wait! Stop!” I scream, trying to wrap my fingers around his wrist and pull his hands off but he’s an immovable rock and I’m only a feather. “Stop, Valtu!”
He grunts and I watch as he pushes the dagger straight into his heart, driven in with inhuman strength, the sound of his sternum cracking under the pressure.
I’ve stopped screaming. I’m just watching in horror as blood begins to spill from his chest in waterfalls of red as he drives the gold dagger deeper and deeper into his heart.
I know what it feels like to do that.
I know what it’s like to drive a knife through that bone, to find the heart, to plunge it in. It’s some kind of sick joke, a twist of fate that has me reliving all my past kills right now, all the vampires I murdered with my glowing blue blade.
I’m staring at this blade sticking out from his chest, and I’m hit with such sadness, such regret for everything I’ve done.
What if the vampires I killed were just like Valtu?
What if they had done nothing wrong but try to survive for centuries?
What if killing so many of them, just like this, robbing them of their immortal lives, just meant that real ones who deserved my vengeance, the ones that killed my parents, ones like Saara and Aleksi, were running around free?
Tears burn at the corners of my eyes and I look up at Valtu, wishing I could tell him my truth and ask for forgiveness, but I can’t do that now, not ever.
“Don’t cry,” he says through a grunt, his face distorted. “I’m okay,” he wheezes.
Suddenly he removes the blade from his chest and flings it to the floor. Then with pained gasp, he pulls his shirt off over his head so I can see the wound.