28. Bella with Darius – His Truth
Chapter twenty-eight
Bella with Darius – His Truth
The knock comes just after sunset the next day. After the bell tolled.
Three calm taps against the clinic door that somehow send awareness skittering through my entire body before I even open it. I’m sure it’s him.
Charlie lifts his head immediately from where he’s sprawled near the fireplace.
Him, he says simply.
I open the door to find Darius Hunt standing beneath the porch light in a long black coat, fog curling softly around him like the island itself bends differently near his body.
Angels in heaven, that face should honestly be illegal. His dark eyes settle on mine with unsettling focus. I feel my pulse accelerate.
“Dr. Russo.”
“Mr. Hunt.”
“Arabella.”
“Darius.”
I like how we tease each other.
Charlie slips forward to look at Darius.
“Good evening, Charlie,” Darius says.
Charlie studies him carefully. Then, to my complete surprise, his tail wags. He wears expensive cologne and emotional problems, Charlie informs me. But he really likes you, Bella.
I nearly choke.
“What?” Darius asks softly.
“Nothing.”
His mouth twitches slightly like he knows I’m lying.
“I was hoping,” he says, voice low and smooth, “that you would join me at the manor tonight. We didn’t finish our discussion on your last visit. It is … important.”
Every intelligent survival instinct I possess immediately screams no.
Unfortunately, several other instincts are louder. How can I say no to that voice? That face. Those eyes. That body. The whisper of that kiss we shared. And what he might tell me, of course.
But I want to make him work for it.
“You’re very confident I’ll say yes.”
“You were going to say yes before I arrived.”
Damn him.
“I haven’t agreed yet.”
“No,” he says softly. “But you will. You want … answers.”
That’s true. And more. I thought he was going to say ‘You want me.’
If he has any kind of answers about the attacks, the mysterious disease, The Wilds, the silver chains or anything else, of course I want to know. Because this island is beginning to feel less like a place and more like a carefully maintained secret.
One he can unlock.
Darius is standing directly at the center of it. The man in my recurring dreams. The man I have a connection with.
Charlie looks up at me. You should go with him. I’ll hold down the fort here with Finn.
“You’re not helping,” I mutter.
“I beg your pardon?” Darius asks.
“Nothing.”
Again. That faint almost-smile. God, he’s infuriating. And gorgeous. And probably dangerous.
“I thought no one is supposed to go out after the bell tolls?”
“You’re with me. Protected.”
I look at him and know I can’t resist.
“Alright,” I say. “Let me tell Finn. Give me a moment.”
“As you wish…”
--
Finn informed and after a last look at the patients, I grab my coat.
We drive up in his Jaguar. The Cliffs at night are breathtaking. That’s the only word for it.
There are landscaping lights artfully placed around each property. His mansion glows warmly against the dark cliffs overlooking the sea, all golden windows and old stone and impossible elegance. Candlelight flickers inside towering windows while fog rolls around the lower gardens below.
No visible guards that I can see. And yet somehow the entire place feels protected. Ancient.
Darius leads us through the massive front doors into the grand hall. The room from my dreams again.
My breath catches like it did last time. It’s stunning. The chandeliers. The sweeping staircase. The oil paintings. The dark wood walls. The feeling in my dream. Even the sandalwood scent in the air feels familiar somehow.
“It’s hard to believe this is where my recurring dream happened,” I stutter. “I don’t really understand.”
“Nor do I, but I’ve waited for you. For a long time, Bella.”
The answer sends chills across my skin.
Darius takes my hand and leads me into a private sitting room overlooking the ocean. A fire burns low in the hearth. Crystal glasses wait beside several bottles on the table.
He pours amber liquid into one glass and hands it to me.
“What is it?”
“Whiskey. I think you’ll need it.”
“And yours?”
His eyes hold mine.
“Not whiskey.”
It’s a dark red drink. A little shiver moves through me. Fear. Excitement. Curiosity. Possibly all three.
I take a sip of my whiskey while he remains standing near the windows, one hand tucked into his pocket. Watching me.
Finally he says quietly, “Bella, you already know something is deeply wrong on this island.”
“Yes, so it seems.”
“And you know people are hiding things from you.”
“Definitely.”
“You deserve the truth.”
The room suddenly feels very hushed. Even the fire seems quieter. Darius turns fully toward me.
“Let us start at the beginning. I don’t want to scare you. Are you ready?”
“I don’t scare easily. I might have spoken with a ghost recently, and I’ve seen odd things here. Darius, I just want answers. Please?”
He takes a deep breath and looks at me with those eyes.
“I am not human, Bella.”
My pulse jumps hard. That’s the last thing I expected to hear.
“What?” I stutter, standing up.
Yes, I’ve noticed he seems a little different. Otherworldly. Of course he’s too gorgeous, too strong, too perceptive. He walks around at night when the rest of Bloodhaven Cove shivers behind locked doors. He senses things.
But what is he? Some kind of super-hero?
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
I let out one startled laugh.
“This is the point where I should probably leave.”
“But you won’t.”
No. I won’t. That realization is somehow more frightening than his confession. I set the glass down carefully and sit again.
“So, Darius, what exactly are you? An angel?”
His gaze never leaves mine.
“A vampire.”
The word should sound ridiculous. Instead it lands in the room like truth waiting patiently for me to catch up.
And horrifyingly, I am not horrified.
If Charlie were here, he would probably say, Finally the truth.
The room is silent as I stare at him, trying to process what he just said. A million thoughts and emotions flow through me. Finally I find my voice.
“Should I be afraid? You’re a vampire? What does this mean? I’m not very informed on my vampire history and anatomy. They didn’t teach it in school.”
A slow smile touches Darius’s mouth. God help me.
I actually smile back.
“This is absolutely insane.” I feel my heart rate increase as I try to grapple with what he has said.
“First, I’m immortal.”
“Like actually immortal? You won’t die?”
“I can be killed, but not easily,” he says calmly. “Age no longer touches me.”
I stare at him openly now. The flawless skin. The unnatural stillness. The strange intensity in his eyes. The smooth way he moves. The sense that he is from another age.
“How old are you?”
“Quite old. I don’t celebrate birthdays, but I became vampire in 1830. Roughly two centuries old.”
Jesus H. Christ.
“You’re not decrepit and craggily.”
A soft laugh escapes him then, low and warm and unexpectedly human. And that somehow unsettles me more than anything else.
“Vampires stop aging when turned. I will forever be 29 … I was turned alongside my younger brother Drake,” he says quietly. “My uncle Arthur did it, believing he was saving us. Making us better.”
His expression darkens slightly.
“He was wrong about many things. But not all.”
I lean forward despite myself.
“How? I mean, one day you are human and the next you’re a vampire…”
“Blood. Human death. Transformation. Stages. Hunger. Power.”
“So the myths and stories are actually true? Bram Stoker? Dracula? Anne Rice? Twilight? The vampire movies and television shows? True?”
“Some.”
“Can you read minds?”
“No.”
“Turn into a bat?”
“No.”
“Do you sleep in a coffin?”
“No. I don’t need much sleep, but I have a bed.”
“I thought vampires burned in the sun. Only came out at night?”
“Ah, I have this,” he says, as he holds out his hand and shows me the ornate ring I have noticed. “A day ring. A gift from my Uncle Arthur.”
“Wow.”
“Do you sparkle?”
His expression goes blank. Darius stares at me for one long second. Then he unexpectedly says, “I have no idea what that means.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. The tension in the room breaks slightly. And suddenly this becomes stranger somehow because now I’m sitting in a candlelit room laughing with a vampire who has been in my recurring dreams since I was 13.
Darius grows serious again.
“Bella, I can hear at great distances. Hear heartbeats from rooms away. Even farther. Smell blood and skin. Move faster than humans can track. Heal rapidly. Help humans heal with my blood. Compel weak minds if necessary. I have great physical strength.”
My skin prickles.
“And The Cliffs?”
“I lead the vampires here.”
Not arrogance. Fact.
“There are more of you here? … The Cliffs? Oh, I see, you live quietly, apart from the island. That’s why people in the harbor say they don’t come up here.”
“Yes.”
I go still.
“Vampires exist on blood? Is that true?”
“Yes. It is our oxygen.”
“So how...”
Something unreadable moves through his expression.
“We have blood wine. We sometimes get shipments of blood we store, though too much could raise suspicions. We have donors.”
“Donors. Here, in Bloodhaven Cove?”
Darius walks slowly toward the fire.
“Yes. They are paid and are willing. Bella, when my brother Drake and I were first turned, feeding was quiet chaos. Violence. Hunting. No way to store actual blood. Too many people died.” His jaw tightens slightly. “I refused to continue living that way. I refused to allow that on my island.”
He looks at me then.
“So I created structure.”
And slowly, carefully, he tells me everything.
The donor system.
The agreements.
The vows.
The matching process.
The blood exchanges.
The payments.
The secrecy.
The Ceremony under the June full moon.
The glamouring of departing donors or those that discover the truth and shouldn’t know.
The silver necklaces for all residents as protection against vampires.
The bell tower that rings at sunset.
The rules.
By the end of it my heart is hammering again. Not from fear. Not entirely anyway. But from the sheer impossible weight of it.
“Do many on the island know? About you being vampires?”
“Not many. The donors know, of course, and hold a vow of silence. A few others who were not glamoured. Some have suspicions. Many choose not to ask questions. But they know not to come to The Cliffs. They know the old tales from earlier generations about danger.”
“Darius. The disease that affects blood? Is this related to vampires, to donors? What do you know?”
Now his expression changes completely. Darker. More worried.
“The blood corruption is starting to spread through both populations now,” he says quietly. “The donors and the vampires.”
Cold slides straight through me.
“Lena is a donor, so are the two girls that came in to see you,” he says. “Silas is not a donor but he was attacked and bitten by whatever is in The Wilds…Tom isn’t a donor either.”
“Those attacks… what do you know?”
His silence answers first. He takes a sip of his blood wine.
“That, whatever it is,” he says carefully, “is connected to something much older. Bella, it’s something that has been dormant. And it seems to be cyclical … it arises every twenty to twenty-five years on the island. Attacks, causing problems, then it’s contained or disappears.”
The fire crackles softly between us. Darius’s gaze locks onto mine again.
“My brother disappeared twenty years ago, during the last Hunger. I couldn’t save him. We never found his body but he disappeared in The Wilds. I fear the ancient thing killed him. I couldn’t protect him. My own brother.”
“I’m so sorry, Darius.”
“Bad things happen as the disease progresses, based on the past. I will share everything I know so we have a chance to stop it.”
“Alright. Should we involve anyone else in these details?”
Darius is silent and closes his eyes. “Let me reflect on that, reflect on the implications. Let us discuss these details tomorrow.”
“Okay. I have Dr. Mercer’s journal that might help as well.”
“Bella this last happened about twenty years ago. The cycle is back but different, I fear. Vampires were not affected before. We are all in danger now, everyone on the island. We must find a way to stop the monster and the disease, to contain this.”
“We will. Together, we will.”
He then quietly says, “I want to protect you, Bella. With all my might.”
The words should terrify me. Instead my pulse skips.
Because despite everything…
despite the impossible truth…
despite the danger…
I trust him.
An immortal that makes my heart sing.