Chapter 26 #2
“I was with Sybil. We were walking through the grounds of my home. We’d just—”
“Had sex?” Edie scowls, removing her hand from my hold.
“Yes. I was returning to the house when I felt this intense pain. Pain like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.
” I allow my gaze to fall to my hands, the barbed vines a reminder of everything I lost that day.
“These tattoos appeared on my skin, and then I felt this ripping feeling deep inside, as though every cell inside my body was reforming, shaping into something else. I fell to my knees, dragging Sybil with me. And then…”
“And then?” she whispers.
“And then I felt the sun burn my skin as though someone had set me alight. It was utter agony, Edie. I watched my skin redden, then bubble with blisters. I remember Sybil’s screams, too. I remember dragging her into the lobby of my home.”
“That’s horrific.”
She reaches for me, her fingers hovering over my arm, but she snatches her hand back before she can offer me comfort. She’s right to withhold it. I don’t deserve comfort, not now, not then, and especially not after what I did to Sybil.
“I wasn’t myself anymore, not physically and not mentally.
I could feel this darkness blooming inside me, and this unquenchable desire for something I couldn’t name.
When I looked at Sybil, all I could see were her veins lighting up beneath her skin like a map of rivers.
That’s when my canines dropped. I could feel them growing, sharpening, and with it came the urge to drink her blood. I couldn’t stop myself.”
“You changed her…”
“No, a bite alone won’t change a human. If it did, you’d be one of us now, too.”
“How does that happen, then?”
“I drank her blood. I was in a fugue state, unable to stop. Every part of me that had been human was gone at that point. I was little more than an animal needing only to feed, to satiate the bloodlust that had overtaken me. Sybil died in my arms. The second she did, I felt overwhelming grief and guilt, as though my humanity had resurfaced in that moment of death.”
“You killed her?”
“Yes, Edie. I killed her.”
Edie tenses, and any moment now I expect her to bolt. I wouldn’t blame her.
“So how did you bring her back?” she asks instead.
“I pierced the flesh at my wrist and fed her my blood. I don’t know why I did it, only that I did.
I held her in my arms with the last threads of my humanity until she came back to life.
For the next fifty years, we learned to live together as these creatures in a human world.
It was a… difficult time. Sybil and I bonded, not through sex, but through friendship.
I have never been with her sexually since the day I turned. ”
“And Basilia?” Edie questions, her gaze flicking back to the mural.
“We found her in her bedroom, dying. Her wrists were slit. She had painted… Fuck,” I exclaim.
“What? What is it?” Edie asks, eyes widening as I push to my feet and step away from her.
She rises, reaching for me. “What, Dorian?”
“What I’m about to tell you, only Sybil knows. Not Logan, not Viktor, not my clan. It’s not a life I want for anyone. You have to understand that I turned Logan and Viktor much later out of empathy.”
She nods. “Okay. Tell me.”
“Basilia was a gifted artist. She painted mainly landscapes, but she was also gifted at portraiture. Before I turned, I wanted her to paint my image. I was a vain man. I knew I was handsome, and I wanted to look upon my face and be reminded of that beauty as I aged.”
“What has this got to do with anything?”
“On the day she died, Basilia painted a portrait of me. I believe, somehow, that painting was the catalyst to my curse. Though I’ve never truly known how because she died before I could ask.”
“You didn’t change her?”
“No.”
“And the painting?”
“Still in that room at Grayhaven. I haven’t seen it since the day I laid eyes on it. Sybil and I left the following night and never returned.”
“What happened to Basilia’s body?” Edie asks, the intensity of her stare burning my skin.
“I couldn’t bring myself to bury her. Sybil did it for me,” I explain, guilt, anger, sadness, and pain rising within me. Yet my tattoos don’t throttle me like they do when I feel those same emotions towards Edie, and I don’t understand why.
“And no one else is aware of this apart from Sybil? Haven’t Logan or Viktor at least questioned your origins?”
“They have, and I lied.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That I was sired by an Upyr.”
She snaps her eyes to mine. “What the hell is an Upyr?”
“What I’m about to reveal will be far more terrifying than anything I’ve said so far,” I warn.
“I’m not sure I want to know,” she whispers. Still, she holds my gaze and nods.
“An Upyr is a creature more beast than human. It has a humanoid form, but is ruled by instinct and bloodlust alone. Some believe it’s a fallen angel, others believe it’s a demon put on this earth by the Devil.
I have only ever come across it once in my three-hundred years, and I never wish to again.
After that encounter, Sybil suggested we build our clan for our own safety.
Sybil took it upon herself to do just that.
When Logan was turned he sired more vampires too. ”
“This is… Unbelievable.” She shudders, hugging herself.
“The world, you know, isn’t all as it seems.”
“You said you’ve only come across this creature once. What happened?”
“It was the year of 1826, almost a hundred years after I was cursed. Sybil and I came across a derelict castle in the highlands of Scotland where we were living at the time, drawn inside by the scent of human blood. We didn’t realise it was being used as a lair.
We found a woman bleeding out from a gaping wound in her stomach.
She was on the verge of death, and assuming she had somehow injured herself and sought shelter, we fed off her.
When the Upyr returned, it attacked us. It was incredibly strong, and we were both horrifically injured.
But the moment it tasted Sybil’s blood, it retreated. ”
“It let you go?”
“Yes. To this day, I still don’t know why it didn’t kill us.”
“How many are there?”
“I cannot say for sure. I’ve only ever come across one, but since that encounter I've heard stories, whispers passed down through generations describing glimpses of this creature, of others like it. As the world changed, sightings faded. I haven’t heard of any more sightings in over a century.
That doesn’t mean they’re gone, only that they’ve learned to hide better. ”
“This is worse than anything I could’ve imagined,” she whispers, her teeth chattering as she clings to herself even more tightly.
I ache to gather her into my arms and shield her from the truth, but all I manage is a silent nod. It takes a few minutes, but she steadies herself and her questions return.
“You said earlier that you changed Logan and Viktor out of empathy. What happened to them?”
“I turned Logan twenty years after I was cursed to this life. Sybil and I were at a public house in Oxford. A fight broke out between a married couple. The husband was brutally beating his wife. Logan was a priest back then, he tried to intervene but was fatally wounded. I cleared the public house, glamouring everyone. He died, and I fed him my blood. I could’ve left him to his fate, but his humanity, his bravery, his fucking kindness triggered something in me. So, I turned him.”
“And Viktor?”
“He was a doctor. Another good man. He originated from Switzerland, born to a wealthy family. In 1815, when he was twenty-eight, he travelled to England to pursue his career in medicine. Viktor worked for a charitable hospital attached to a church in a village just outside London for several years after he arrived in England. Then there was a cholera outbreak in 1831. Viktor fought to save many lives during that time. I met him by accident one evening. I was pursuing someone—”
“To feed?” she whispers.
“Yes.” I nod. “He caught me leaning over them. He assumed I was trying to help. I didn’t realise the person I was hunting had already succumbed to the early stages of the disease.
He asked me to bring them to his practice.
I did. We struck up a friendship, but a few months later he caught the disease.
When he took his final breath, I turned him too. ”
Edie looks thoughtful for a moment, her brow furrowing. “Viktor told me he doesn’t feed from humans.”
“He wasn’t lying. He never has. In the early days after he changed, he survived on animal blood. When blood banks were invented, we made one of our own. He has never fed from a human, and he never will. His humanity, his goodness, prevents him.”
“And Logan?”
“He accepted what he was. He drinks from humans.”
She nods thoughtfully. “And yet, he hasn’t harmed Henrietta.”
“No, he hasn’t. I guess that makes him a better man than me.”
“When you brought me here, Viktor told me something,” Edie begins, chewing her cheek, unsure whether to share.
“What did he tell you?”
She frowns. “I don’t want you to punish him.”
“Viktor’s my friend and has only ever had good intentions. I won’t punish him for it.”
“He said if I made you feel something for me, you’d find it in yourself to let me go. He said that’s the only way I’d survive. Was he right?”
Sharp pain flashes through me as I turn my head away, refusing to meet her gaze. “He wishes that were true.”
Edie steps closer, and with trembling fingers, she cups my chin, forcing me to look at her. “Was he right?”
My voice sounds hollow, fragile. “I can’t feel, Edie.”
“You do feel. You changed Logan and Viktor out of empathy.”
“That was different,” I reply, pulling away.
“How?”
“It just was.”
“Why?” she insists.
“Because it didn't hurt to care about them,” I blurt, stepping back.
“What do you mean?” she insists, moving towards me again.
I back up until I hit the wall, heart thundering. She doesn’t allow me any space. She invades mine like I’ve done to her so many times before. My voice breaks. “Edie, don’t.”