Chapter 28
Edie
After devouring a bowl of pasta and showering until the heat leaves me dizzy, I change into clean clothes.
I try to rest, but sleep escapes me, my thoughts drifting to Dorian.
Every moment I’ve spent with him replays over and over, and I fight the urge to pick up my phone and call him.
Hours crawl by as I pace the kitchen restlessly, trying and failing to evict him from my thoughts.
Eventually, my legs give out, and I sink onto the sofa, surrendering to exhaustion.
I must have drifted off because when a thunderous pounding at the front door jolts me awake, the sky is dark once more.
“Hold on, I’m coming,” I say, forcing my heavy limbs to move.
When I reach the front door, cold dread crawls up my spine, making me freeze.
I still haven’t spoken the words required to revoke Dorian’s invitation.
They sit on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow them down, refusing to say them out loud.
Maybe I’m foolish, but a part of me is hoping it’s Dorian standing on the other side of the door.
Still, I have enough self-preservation to keep it locked.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Sybil. Let me in. We need to talk.”
Sybil? Panic stabs through me. Why the hell is she here?
“Absolutely not.”
“Then, at the very least, open the door.”
“What the hell do you want?”
“You know what I am, and you know that I can’t come in without your express permission.” A cold knot slowly twists in my gut. Whatever reason brings her here, it can’t be good. “Open the door. This is important.”
“Then say what you’ve come here to say. I can hear you well enough through the door.”
“It would draw too much attention. Please, Edie, I’m begging you.”
Her voice cracks, and the distress within it forces me into action. Not because I feel sympathy towards her, but because there’s only one reason she’d be here. Squaring my shoulders, I open the door, grateful for whatever strange magic exists to prevent her entrance.
Sybil stands before me, her long auburn hair framing her face in soft waves. Her clear green eyes meet mine, but now they shimmer with raw vulnerability, and that rattles me. I’ve only met Sybil twice, and on both occasions her demeanour was cold and predatory, but now? Now she seems all too human.
“What are you doing here?”
“Dorian has gone.”
“What do you mean, he’s gone?”
“At some point last night, after he drank from you and spoke with Viktor, he left. I’m certain he means to end his life.”
“What?” I steady myself against the wall, the floor tipping beneath me. “Why would he do that?”
“Because of what he did to you.”
“You know?”
She pinches her lips together and nods. “You risked your life to heal him. I misjudged you. For that I’m sorry.”
I study her face, trying to gauge if she’s being genuine. She may not be able to glamour me, but she’s had three hundred years to practice manipulating people, and even though she seems sincere, I have no way of truly knowing if she is. “I don’t trust you.”
“You believe I’m lying about something like this? Dorian means to kill himself.” Her voice rises in pitch, and I flinch at the emotion within it.
“How do you know that for certain? Perhaps he just needs to get away for a while,” I offer, though it sounds feeble even to my own ears.
“You have every right not to trust me. But, believe me when I say something is terribly, terribly wrong. I feel it,” she whispers, rubbing her palm over the centre of her chest.
“You feel it? What does that mean?”
Sybil sways on her feet, pressing her eyes shut for a moment.
When she opens them again, tears are welling on her lashes.
“We have a connection that goes beyond him being my maker,” she begins, her fingers curling into her silk blouse.
“Whatever he feels, I feel. Lust, desire, empathy, pain, distrust. I feel it all. It has always been this way. In the early days after he turned me, it was overwhelming, and I learned how to suppress the connection, but last night, I felt the full force of his emotions. Whatever you did, whatever you brought out of him, it broke through my shields. I was incapacitated by it. He cares for you deeply, far more than he has ever cared for anyone. Now all I feel is his pain. He means to end his life. I know it.”
“You’re lying. Viktor told me that there is no connection this way. You can’t feel what he feels.”
Something flickers in her gaze. Surprise, yes, but something else I can’t quite read.
“None of the others are affected in the same way as I am. I believe our connection is the way it is because I was his first, because I was there the day he was cursed, because…” Her voice trails off, and her shoulders slump as tears drip like diamonds from her eyes.
“Because?” I press, refusing to let sympathy rise within me, not trusting that her tears are anything other than a tool to disarm me.
“Because I loved him then. Because I love him now,” she whispers.
“You love Dorian?” I ask, and this time when she looks at me, I see the truth of it in her eyes.
“Yes, and my love for him means I can feel what he feels. I’ve spent three centuries standing beside him.
I’ve spent three centuries longing for the man I fell in love with as a human.
That didn’t stop the day he turned me. Believe me, I’ve tried to smother these feelings, knowing that he’s never loved me.
” She laughs bitterly. “I resigned myself to the fact that he was incapable of any tender emotion towards a woman until he met you.” She spits out the last word, her resentment and jealousy unguarded.
“I thought you’d be a passing obsession, that he’d use you and cast you aside eventually, just like he’s done with all the women he’s fucked before, both as a man and as a vampire.
I’d convinced myself of that until last night. Until I felt what he felt.”
Her confession leaves me stunned. For the first time since Sybil arrived, I believe she’s telling the truth.
“He will never turn you because he cares too much,” Sybil continues.
“Despite letting you go, he will always seek you out, compelled to reconnect with you, and he knows if he does, he risks draining you and ending your life. His only option is to sacrifice himself, to sacrifice all of us. He’s willing to do that to keep you safe.
The question is, do you care enough for Dorian to stop him? ”
“If all of this is true, then what’s stopping you from killing me? Wouldn’t that solve all your problems?”
“Believe me, I want to, but if I do that, Dorian will kill me, and I’m selfish enough to want to live.”
“Even if that means your love remains unrequited?”
A slow smile pulls up her lips, and with it the viper returns.
“I’m immortal. You’re human. In a few decades you will die, and when that happens, you will become nothing more than a distant memory buried beneath a pile of dirt.
He will get over you eventually, and I will still be here, by his side.
Perhaps one day, he’ll change his mind about me. I’m willing to wait.”
“And what makes you think I’ll come with you now, that I’ll risk my life to save him after what he did?”
“Because, Edie, you love him too.”
As I step onto the wooden jetty, it rises and falls beneath me, echoing our journey by boat to Grayhaven.
Next to me, Sybil stands defiant against the wind, her hair whipping wildly in the sharp, frigid air.
She really is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, her features in perfect symmetry.
I can’t help but wonder if her vampirism makes her more alluring, or if she was always this beautiful.
“You’re certain he’s here?” I ask, searching her face.
“I feel him. He’s close,” she replies before striding toward the shore, her pace quick and determined.
I follow behind, wincing as the wind gnaws at my skin until my teeth chatter.
The wooden jetty makes way for the crunch of shingles underfoot, and Sybil immediately heads for a narrow path cut into the cliff.
Briefly, she turns to face me. “It’s a steep climb. Watch your step.”
I nod, looking upwards. There are no guardrails to stop me from falling should I miss a step, and the drop at its highest is well over two hundred meters.
I’m not a fan of heights, and especially not unprotected drops that could kill me if I make an error and slip.
Sybil has no reason to be afraid, even if she did fall.
Nothing can kill her but the sun or her head being removed from her body.
It’s a sobering thought, but regardless of my anxiety, I follow her.
By the time we reach the top of the cliff, my breath rasps in my throat.
Sybil, unfazed by the climb, moves effortlessly, and for a fleeting moment, I envy her strength.
That thought only sharpens my awareness of my own fragility.
We have travelled for hours, but dawn is still an hour or so away, and I am painfully aware I’m defenceless should Sybil decide to turn on me.
“Do you need a moment?” Sybil asks.
“No. Let’s keep moving,” I say, pushing my weary legs forward as I peer past Sybil at the shadowy silhouette of a massive house looming in the dark.
The building towers over the landscape, its windows empty and hollow, swallowing the darkness.
Only the full moon’s silvery glow reveals its shape.
Without it, the house would vanish into the night.
Trailing Sybil, I push through an overgrown path where tall grasses whisper against our legs and bramble thorns catch at my jumper.
The place is wild and untamed, steeped in melancholy, but when Sybil slips through a rusted iron gate, I gasp in surprise.
Before me, a breathtaking garden unfurls, the air heavy with the sweet scent of wildflowers, and the churn of the ocean below.
“I thought this place was abandoned,” I say, my gaze roaming over the neat flowerbeds.
“Dorian must have paid someone to keep it maintained,” Sybil says, pushing on and cutting through a flowerbed, crushing the plants beneath her feet.
I circle around the flowerbed and find a gravel path that brings me to Sybil’s side. She moves ahead, and soon we stand before Dorian’s home, its massive wooden door framed by a stone archway.
“When we enter, you should stay close. I don’t know if Dorian will be able to resist the lure of your blood.”
“Okay,” I nod, then Sybil pushes open the door and we step inside.