Ten
Kaius
I lead Adelasia back to her suite in silence, and the entire time I can feel her thoughts. Perhaps it’s because it’s been so long since I’ve had cause to truly care about another, but it intrigues me how invested she’s become in the wellbeing of Dravon’s prisoner.
What concerns me though, is that I can tell that she’s angry with me for allowing it.
As if she needed another reason to believe I’m a monster.
Her last words about not losing her humanity have been repeating in my head over and over since they fell from her lips.
Behind the closed door of her bedroom, she turns to me, nearly knocking me over with the intensity of her stare.
“Make him set Saddiq free,”
she demands.
I nod slightly. “I shall speak with him,”
I tell her truthfully. The magic on the cell door is unknown to me, and I’ve never known Dravon to care much for the arcane.
So where did he learn it from? Even with Yekaterina’s Bloodstone hanging from my neck, I was unable to break through his ward. I find that deeply disturbing and I intend to find out who Dravon has been speaking with to learn and execute such magic.
“That’s it?”
she asks. “You’ll ‘speak’ with him? What if he refuses?”
“Adelasia, I understand that you don’t wish to see a human suffer as he has, but I have known Dravon for many lifetimes and he is not someone that you can get through by politely asking,”
I sigh and straighten my shoulders slightly. “I will handle it.”
That seems to satisfy her for the time being. She takes a deep breath and turns to the mirror on her vanity. She takes out the pins in her hair one by one until her long black locks fall freely down her back. The light from the fireplace reflects from it, creating a deep amber color that makes her eyes stand out even more than they normally do.
She breaks me out of my thoughts when she clears her throat, noticing that I’m staring at her.
I clear my own throat. “I apologize. You…your eyes…”
“My eyes?”
she whispers, leaning closer to the mirror searching for some flaw that isn’t there. “What’s wrong with my eyes?”
“Absolutely nothing,”
I answer. That’s all I offer.
She looks down slightly. “Thank you for earlier…in the kitchen. How did you know I was there?”
I take a few steps closer to her until I’m directly at her back, yet she cannot see me in the mirror as I see her. She stares into the void where my body should be, her mind trying to understand what it cannot see. I take my hand and gently move some of her hair out of the way so I can reach around her to place my hand on her heart.
“It may not seem so, but the human heart is loud. Yours beats like drums in my ears. I can hear you, always. I simply followed the echoes when you began to panic.”
“You killed him,”
she whispers.
“Yes,”
I confirm.
“Because I was scared?”
“Because he threatened you.”
She takes a deep breath, still staring through my non-existent reflection.
“Tell me why I’m really here.”
She turns to face me, stepping to the side slightly so she isn’t trapped between the vanity and me. “Because I know you think I’m just a useless, stupid human–but you don’t make me work like Iphigenia, you keep me hidden from most other vampires, and you…resist the clear urge you have to feed on me.”
The corner of my mouth turns up into a smile. “Do you want me to feed on you, Adelasia?”
I take a step towards her, so she takes one back. “Are you offended that I indulge in others and not you?”
Another step towards her. Another step back. And another and another until I’m caging her against the cold wall and my long arms. “My hesitation does not stem from a lack of desire. I thought that would have been made clear in the caves when you ran from me.” I smile wide enough to show her my elongating fangs. “There are few things I want more in this immortal life than to drink from you. To feel you writhe less and less until you give into the pleasure it brings before turning into an animal, as hungry with it as I am.”
She takes a shaky breath. “Is that what happens?”
“Humans always wish to know the truth despite the false sense of security it gives. It’s often the thing you’ll end up fearing the most,”
I respond. I lean down to be closer to her ear. “Why do you think humans come to offer themselves? Because it brings them pleasure beyond anything they can experience in their world.”
I blow softly on the sensitive curve of her neck. I can hear and feel her heart begin to race faster. I smirk against her neck before very softly touching my tongue to her skin. I pull back and our eyes meet. I cup her warm cheek with my large, cold hand and gently rub my thumb along her bottom lip.
She gulps, and I smell the fear spike in her blood. I know she can tell I’ve noticed in the way the blood vessels under my eyes begin to grow darker and they turn from red to black. I grip her chin and tilt her head to the side, watching the vein pulsate in her throat.
“Why not just kill me now?”
she shakily asks.
“Waste not, sweet Adelasia,”
I whisper, before leaning in once more and lightly nipping at her pulse point. She whimpers, and instantly, my fangs ache. Her delicate flesh would give way so easily. I’m standing somewhere on the precipice of insanity and self-control.
I could do it, I think to myself. Just a taste. Just one. Enough to savor it. The beautiful irony of my most desired taste of human blood and my recovered mortality stemming from her sweet veins.
Agony.
Irony.
Poetry.
At the cost of what? A little prick to her neck? A fleeting moment of pain before it turns into pleasure for us both?
She already thinks I’m a monster. Why not solidify that belief and quench my thirst for her in one fell swoop?
I can feel her feeble attempts to push me back–the soft pounding of her small fists on my chest. As she uses all her strength to fight me off, I gently hold her head to the side and watch the vein in her neck. I can practically hear the blood rushing through her veins now.
I need it. I cannot hold back anymore.
I need her.
I feel her fingers claw at my chest, and when her palm accidentally touches the ruby around my neck, she tightens her fingers around it unconsciously.
It’s the dark magic taking hold of her, and I know it’s reached her soul when I hear her scream.
It’s not a scream from this world, though.
Her screams echo through every plane of existence.
Through the heavens and the hells and perhaps even the other lifetimes we might have lived.
The agony in her wails is something I relate to deep in the core of my being.
I felt such a way once, too.
The terror, the confusion, the anger.
It breaks me out of my bloodlust almost instantly.
The Bloodstone is clenched so tight in her fist that I’m worried I might break her fingers trying to pry it away from her.
I have to help somehow.
The dark magic that emanates from these gems is far too horrific for the mortal mind.
She crumbles to the ground as she thrashes and screams in my arms.
Tears from beyond her consciousness pour out of her eyes.
I have no idea what Yekaterina could be showing her or saying to her through her twisted magic, but Adelasia does not deserve to witness that wickedness.
I shush and coo at her as I carefully pry the gem from her hands.
Her thin fingers are so delicate, and each one trembles as I loosen her fist.
When I manage to free her from the gem’s influence, she stops her screaming, but she’s no less traumatized from the experience.
She cries and cries in my arms as I rock her gently in a soft embrace.
I have no idea how to comfort others.
I’ve never had to.
I’m certain she can feel my hesitation and how uncomfortable this affection is making me in the stiffness of my body.
I stroke her hair in silence until her breathing grows even again.
When she finally finds the courage to meet my gaze, she reaches up a hand and cups my cheek.
The action is so tender, so foreign, that I flinch.
Her warm fingertips graze my cheek, and her lip begins to quiver again.
“I saw you,”
she whispers, the horror still lingering in her shaky voice. “Blood was running down the corners of your mouth and down your neck. You were crying as you held a woman to your chest.”
I have no strength to continue to look at her. Not when she talks about that memory. It was the most painful day of my entire existence.
“Kaius…who was that woman?”
I close my eyes and turn my head further away from her. She uses her soft hand on my cheek to make me look at her. I grind my teeth and beg her with my eyes to stop asking.
“What else did you see?”
I ask, attempting to steer her thoughts away from the worst day of my life. She pulls out of my arms slightly and wipes the remaining wetness from her cheeks away. I lean against the foot of her bed, and she sits with her knees tucked to her chest, facing me.
“It was awful,”
she finally says. “It felt like I was trapped underwater. It was so dark. I couldn’t breathe. All around me, demons and monsters circled and lunged for me. There was…a woman dressed in tattered robes and a broken headdress. In between the rips of the fabric, I saw rotting flesh. Maggots falling from her eyes. She reached out and pulled me away from the monsters. She pulled me close and wept as she stuck a silver dagger through my chest. I fell to the ground, but the ground wasn’t there. I was falling and falling into a void with no end until I finally landed and saw you. I…I tried to call for you. I asked for your help, but you couldn’t hear me. You were holding that woman and crying.”
Something compels me to take her hand in mine. She lets me line up our palms. “Are you okay?”
She nods. “I think so.”
We both observe where our hands are touching, and then she asks, “What are these markings?”
My hand, wrist, and forearm are covered in black swirls, extending from my forefinger to my elbow. The intricate patterns take me back to a time in my life centuries ago that I’ve spent so long wishing I could forget.
I sigh. “They’re the sign of…a broken promise.”
She huffs in frustration. “You’re not good at giving straight answers.”
“Well if I told you all my secrets, they wouldn’t very much be secrets anymore would they?”
I tease before my face falls. “I have a lot of them, Adelasia. A millennium’s worth.”
“Keeping your pain bottled up inside isn’t the same as having secrets. It just means you’re suffering alone.”
She’s right. Of course, she is. She’s more observant and empathetic than she has any right to be. I expected her to be half-witted and frightened, but she stood up for herself and others and asked questions where anyone else would have cowered. She even stood up to Dravon and lived to tell the tale. That alone is an extraordinary feat.
I envy her; to be so needed without even knowing why. A feeling of guilt settles heavy in my chest and I hate it. I’ve waited over a thousand years to find her, guilt should be nowhere on the list of emotions I have.
“Was she a lover?”
Adelasia asks.
My sorrowful thoughts pause as my brow furrows. “What?”
“The woman you were holding…was she a lover?”
I sigh and place my hand at my side. “No. But I did love her.”
“I’m very sorry. I’ve known the pain of losing someone you love, too. And I know it never gets any easier.”
“Did you lose a lover?”
“No. My father and brother. My brother was a free spirit. Where I enjoyed the vanity and attention of being on the stage, he was more in touch with his wild side. He always wanted to be outdoors. He would wade through the forests barefoot, and come back covered in dirt. My mom would always get so upset when he would trek mud into the house. He had an eye for fruits and mushrooms and could always tell which ones were safe to eat and which were poisonous. He was only two years younger than me and made a decent living foraging for the merchants in the marketplace. My father would go out into the forests with him and hunt wild game. They were chased and mauled by werebeasts, left to die in the streets of my town. My father was already dead, but I was holding my brother when he died. I’ve never forgotten the way it broke me to feel him exhale only to never inhale again.”
“Werebeasts, not vampires?”
I ask. “Then why do you hate vampires so much?”
“I hate all demons. They were created only to bring humans misery, and that’s certainly all they’ve ever caused me.”
My shoulders sag, and for the first time in a long time, I feel vulnerable. “I feel the same, you know.”
To my shock, she reaches forward to place her hand over mine. “You never wanted to be a vampire.”
She’s so smart. It doesn’t surprise me that she came to that conclusion so quickly. I tilt my chin down slightly. “I was cursed.”
My eyes close and I find myself soaking in the feeling of her warm skin touching mine so softly. Her thumb lightly brushes across my knuckles.
I haven’t felt something so tender from a human in a long time, and never would have expected it from her.
“It was my mother,”
I say quietly.
Her thumb stops stroking along my hand. I feel the new rigidity in her body. I feel her slipping away again, ready to damn me and call me a monster.
“She was my first victim. I was newly changed and had no understanding of what I had become. I felt…sick. Shaky and feverish. Hungry yet nauseous. This was long before modern medicine had become common practice…when a fever easily meant death. I went to my mother for help because I was terrified. She took one look at me and knew something was wrong. I fell into her arms and my head landed in the crook of her neck…and I felt her blood pulsing through her skin. I could smell it. I could taste it in the air. I didn’t even know what I was doing when I sunk my teeth into her neck.”
I feel an uncomfortable burning sensation behind my eyes and a pain in my chest, built on guilt and anger and regret.
“She was dead and cold in my arms before I even came to my senses and realized what I had done. If killing her wasn’t bad enough…the state I left her body in was horrific. Her throat was ripped open. Her nails were broken and bloody from trying to claw at me to get me to stop. She had bald spots in her hair from when I grabbed it so tight to keep her head still that I ripped it clean out of her scalp. Her lifeless eyes were filled with shock and betrayal.”
I feel something wet fall down my cheek. Tears.
Disgusting.
I frown at myself and wipe them away. “I held her and wept for three days before the th Priestess found me. And do you know what she did, Adelasia?”
My face twists at the memory. “She plucked out my mother’s right eye and staked it through the sharp crown atop her head.”
“Kaius…”
“I killed her,”
I admit quietly. “I ripped that crown from her head and shoved it into her throat before pulling out her spine. And when the other Priestesses found out about what I had done to their beloved sister, they cursed me again, and said that the only way I could earn my mortality back is if I released their sister’s soul back to this plane of existence.”
“How do you release her soul?”
“A ritual.”
Adelasia scoffs and rolls her eyes. “And here I thought we were bonding. We’re back to vague answers I see.”
That pulls my mouth into a small, but fake smile. “Secrets, Adelasia.”
She moves to sit with her back against the bed as I am, the length of our long legs touching. She’s the tallest woman I’ve ever seen, aside from the Priestesses. All ten of them could touch the sky with their fingertips, made of beautiful long lines and expressive hands. They wore long veils in shades of black and gray that covered them head to toe. It was considered a great honor to see their faces. I saw them once. Yekaterina introduced me at the height of our passionate love affair. I thought they would make me powerful. Desirable. Rich.
But instead, I let them steal everything I held dear, and then they punished me for retaliating.
Adelasia is so unlike them despite sharing their physical features. Tall stature. Sharp cheekbones. Long hair. Their skin colors varied depending on which part of the world they came from, but they always shared this otherworldly beauty that women and men alike can only dream of possessing.
Despite what legends say, they’re not all inherently evil. They can be spiteful and wicked, yes, and they punished me harshly for killing their sister, but many of them simply want to see that all creatures, demons and humans alike, live in harmony with nature. Perhaps not with each other, but with the earth. They all have unprecedented affinities for magic, and four of them fancy the Four Elements, Air, Water, Earth, and Fire. Gaia, the Earth Priestess, is quite pleasant, and the only one who seemed distraught by what Yekaterina had done to me.
But her loyalty to her sisters outweighed her conscience, and she cursed me anyway.
In an attempt to change the subject, I look at Adelasia’s feet in her dancing shoes. “Adelasia, tell me why you dance.”
Her feet flex into perfect arches and she sighs as if she’s been waiting her entire life for someone to ask that exact thing.
“Because if you go anywhere in the world…any culture, any time of day or night, amid war or famine and all other sufferings, dancing brings joy. It’s a language all its own, that can be spoken to anyone, anywhere, and you’ll always find someone willing to share in that joy with you.”
I huff, because I was expecting her to say that she enjoyed the attention. I have a bad habit of assuming the worst in her, but then again, she does the same for me.
“I’d like to feel joy again.”
Adelasia places her hand gently on my thigh. “What’s stopping you?”
“My joy comes at a cost I’m not sure I’m willing to pay anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
I take her hand in my own and lift it to my lips to kiss her knuckles. “Goodnight, Adelasia,”
I whisper, and then stand up to leave without another word.