Claire #2
Ambrogio stood slowly, his bones cracking as every vertebra snapped into place like a plastic children’s toy.
“You know, the same hints that she’s your mate can also be very dangerous,” he said as his body neared the fireplace, casting a long shadow across the dust-covered planks of the floor.
“Most of our kind meet their mate, and…well…get a little too hungry.”
“What do we do?” Arik screamed, panic deep in his voice like broken glass as he stepped toward Ambrogio.
“That choice is for you to make, young Medici. You let her live and she dies. Or…she becomes like you…like us.” Ambrogio’s voice hissed as he slid his hands together behind his back, his body never turning from the heat of the fire.
Like us. The words stuck in my chest like hot iron. In the time I had spent unpacking the gravity of the situation, it never occurred to me that I may have to make that choice.
My eyes locked into Arik’s as he glanced toward me.
I could see panic and fear in him, but I also saw the look I had seen too many times before.
He was checking my emotions, the closest he could get to my actual thoughts.
His eyes drifted toward the floor with confusion.
I wasn’t scared, and that scared him. I could feel it.
Arik’s face softened as he straightened himself once again. His chin was held high with devotion and duty, as if he were ready to take an order. “How?”
“The same way I changed you, boy.” Ambrogio coughed as he turned his body toward the chair once more, his eyes locking into mine in a way that filled my spine with ice.
“I…I just woke up like this,” Arik stammered.
“No. Come on, it has only been three hundred and some odd years. Your memory cannot be failing you already,” Ambrogio replied with a laugh as he sat in his chair, leaning deeply into the wooden back that sat high like a throne.
Arik’s face looked puzzled as I grabbed his trembling hand. My heart was breaking for him. He was so lost and confused and had held it alone for all these years. He wasn’t as stoic and noble as he let on. I saw that now. At the end of the day, his heart was still human.
“Please, Ambrogio! I will get on my knees and beg! Tell me…please.” Arik’s voice boomed through the cabin before softening in his desperation.
“The wine, boy,” Ambrogio stated as his long nail made cryptic circles along the arm of his chair. “A gift from your father.”
His eyes locked with Arik’s. “Poison.”
Ambrogio paused, letting his words linger in the air like smoke. His gaze stayed deeply focused on Arik to the point where I questioned if he was still aware of my existence. His voice rose slowly, as I held my breath.
“Poison?” Arik questioned, his voice lowering to a whisper. “You turned me with poison?” he stammered as I witnessed his stance go limp.
“No. The poison is just how I killed…well, almost killed you.” Ambrogio’s voice rasped as he struggled to speak.
“You see…the venom cannot enter the body without the absence of life. I bit you. I turned you. But there must be just enough life left in the veins for the venom to take over. It is a delicate balance, you see,” Ambrogio said as he rested his white, slender hands against his beard, stroking it softly.
Arik stepped forward, his footsteps causing the planks below to make cracking sounds as he paced toward Ambrogio. My heart raced. Was he going to attack him? Had he had enough of his cryptic storytelling?
Instead of rushing Ambrogio, he kneeled before him. “Tell me, please. Just…tell me what I need to do,” he begged, his voice breaking like the wood within the fire.
“If you want to be with your mate, you must turn her. You must wait until her very last heartbeat…and then, give her your venom. Too soon, and it will do nothing. Too late, and there will be nothing left of her. Venom cannot replace life if there is none left.” Ambrogio spoke slowly as he rested his hand on Arik’s shoulder.
His tone was somber in a way that frightened me as I stood silently, unable to speak, move, or even think.
My vision tunneled, ears ringing as the words echoed like a gunshot. I staggered back; breath caught somewhere between a scream and a sob—but unable to do either.
I watched Arik’s head lower until his chin rested against his chest. His eyes were closed as the room filled with a somber energy that overpowered the smoke and dust.
“I do not know how to turn her. I do not know how to give her venom,” he whispered as if he was trying to hide his truth from me.
Ambrogio breathed in deeply as his hands moved to Arik’s chin, pulling his gaze to meet him. “Instead of taking, you give. Instead of pulling, you push. If you love her, you will know how when the time comes.”
Arik nodded as my mind raced. I would have to die…
or damn near die if I wanted to be with Arik.
Sure, I could spend my life as a human with him.
But one day I would die. Regardless of whether the choice came now or twenty years from now, it was still a choice I would have to make.
And to be honest, I didn’t have the mental capacity to process this along with everything else that had unraveled during this nightmare.
“Thank you, Ambrogio,” Arik said, his voice smooth and calm as he stood before his frail maker.
Ambrogio spoke softly as he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “Arik. You may be your father’s son. But you are my child.”
Arik nodded his head as he stepped away from Ambrogio and turned toward me, his eyes locking into mine as I witnessed the mixture of confusion and fear that he wore across his face. He reached out to me, taking my hand into his as he pulled me toward the door.
“And, Arik,” Ambrogio called gently. “You will not need me again. This is goodbye for us, I am afraid.”
Arik nodded, his gaze locked in on the worn and broken door that separated us from the forest just outside. “Goodbye, Ambrogio,” he said coldly.
I looked back toward Ambrogio and took in his appearance once more. His eyes, still closed, made him appear as if he had died with that last sentence. Even though I knew, he was very much alive.
The choice he had handed me already felt like death.