Chapter 29
Dorian
With the cuff of my jumper, I scrub at the grime clinging to Basilia’s painting, desperate to reveal what lies beneath, hoping to find a clue, something that will help me to break this wretched curse.
The first swipe reveals two sunken, rheumy eyes beneath hairless brows.
The second reveals wrinkled skin hanging loosely over bone, as though my skin is melting off my face.
The third swipe reveals a balding head mottled with age spots, the curse erasing every trace of youth.
It’s a face so unfamiliar I gasp, just as the painting seems to do.
Between my wrinkled lips, my fangs are stained black beneath rotting gums.
When I left Grayhaven years ago, I carried that painted memory of my youthful face forever imprisoned in its colours.
Now, the painting has warped into something monstrous, haunted by death and decay.
The decrepit, ancient man staring back at me is twisted by selfishness and cruelty, his features warped by every sin I ever committed.
Guilt coils in my chest, tightening with every breath. This is how Basilia must have seen me, my beauty spoiled by betrayal. If only I could beg her for forgiveness, but all that remains is this painting, her curse painted into every fibre.
Perhaps if I destroy it, I can break the curse and finally end this torment.
My hands tremble as I lift the painting from its easel, fingers digging into the wooden frame. With a sharp crack, I snap the wood, then rip the canvas in two with a single, desperate pull.
I’m not sure what I was expecting to happen, but when nothing changes, I keep ripping until shreds of canvas drift silently to the floor, scattering like the petals that once rained over Basilia and me as we left the church on our wedding day.
She had been radiant that day, overflowing with love and laughter.
For a while, I was content. But within months, my attention wandered to another woman.
When Basilia discovered my betrayal, she was shattered.
Yet somehow, she forgave me. I swore I would never stray again.
But I did. I was cruel. I became the very monster I have just torn apart with my own hands.
“I’m sorry, Basilia,” I whisper, a cool breeze lifting the shreds of canvas and scattering them across the room.
A sliver of moonlight spills through the window, drawing my gaze to the dark stain of Basilia’s blood. Even after all these years, it lingers, and for a moment, grief and regret choke me. I should never have treated her so cruelly. She gave me her love, and I repaid her with nothing but betrayal.
Caught in my despair, I don’t immediately sense the door behind me opening. It’s only when I hear the sharp intake of breath that I turn on my feet and am faced with the ghost of my past.
“Basilia?” I whisper, my knees buckling beneath me. I fall to my knees, floored by the sight of the woman who slit her wrists and died in this very room. “Are you a ghost?”
She smiles then, and I’m rocked to my very core as two sharp fangs descend from her gums. “Oh no, I’m not a ghost, I’m your worst nightmare,” she says, her eyes once a sky blue, now a deep black, so void of humanity I can barely fucking breathe.
“How?” I choke out.
“Perhaps you should ask Sybil? She’s already arrived with your newest conquest.”
“Sybil is here with Edie?” I shake my head. “No. She wouldn’t.”
Basilia tips her head back and laughs. “Oh, but she did.”
A scream rips through the air, and I lunge for the door. Basilia flings out her hand, and an invisible force hurls me against the far wall. The impact knocks the breath from my lungs, leaving me gasping.
“How is this possible?” I choke out, struggling to rise, but whatever magic Basilia wields is stronger than I am.
“I may be a vampire, but I’ve always been a witch, and I’ve had three centuries to hone my magic.”
“Edie has nothing to do with this. Let her go.”
“She has everything to do with this. She is your final lesson, Dorian.”
“No. Leave her out of it.”
“It’s too late for that now.”
“Edie, run,” I roar as another scream rips through the air.
“Very soon Edie will be weakened by blood loss. She won’t be running anywhere. I’d be surprised if she’d even be able to walk after your little whore has drained most of her blood.”
“Sybil would never betray me.”
Basilia throws her head back and laughs. “Sybil betrayed you the moment she changed me after you walked out of this room that fateful day.”
“I thought you had died.”
“No, you hoped I had,” Basilia says, gliding toward me, her long dress swirling around her legs. She crouches before me, her fingertips tracing the back of my hand, the vines tightening with her touch.
I grit my teeth against the pain as a smile carves across her face.
“Just like you had been, Sybil was overcome with bloodlust. After you left me to die, she drank from me until my heart stopped beating, and then she fed me her blood. Was it instinct, possibly? But I suspect that it was also because she wanted to have some hold over me, over the woman who had the power to curse you.” Basila laughs, her black eyes glinting with amusement.
“Sybil may have become my sire that day, forging a blood bond between us, but she underestimated me. Of course, I later figured out how to break that bond. Manipulating Sybil over the last three centuries was easy. She has been my eyes and ears for all this time. She ensured I was well fed, glamouring humans to travel here so I could feed, and you had no idea.”
Her words leave me reeling, my voice lost somewhere in the storm of her confessions.
“When Sybil said the curse was triggered,” Basilia continues, “I was curious to see the woman who finally captured your heart. Sybil hadn’t believed it was possible, and she was enraged. She always loved you, but like everyone you fucked, you never loved them in return. Until now.”
“There is only one curse. I’m a vampire. You changed me that day,” I hiss, my fangs dropping as I allow my monster to rise within me. I refuse to acknowledge my feelings towards Edie, knowing if I did, even to myself, I’d never have the strength to fight for her.
“You silly, foolish man. Within the original curse, hides another. If you ever found true love, it would kill you, permanently, just like my love for you killed me. That is the true curse. The rest is just a pretty package. Rather clever, don’t you think?”
“No,” I shake my head. “No. No. No.”
But no matter how much I wish it wasn’t true, I know it is.
That’s why my feelings for Edie cause so much pain.
That’s why I could never be like Viktor and truly allow myself to love Edie, because in doing so, it would kill me.
The cruelty is almost too much to bear, not because I am dying, but because I’ve dragged Edie into this. This is all my fault. All of it.
“I’m just sorry it’s taken this long to come to fruition. She must be quite a woman,” Basilia continues, rising to her feet and stepping aside as Sybil hauls Edie in by her hair, dropping her limp body in the centre of the room.
“Edie,” I yell, thrashing against my restraints, every muscle straining to reach her.
She’s deathly pale. Her breath shallow, pulse thready.
Death hovers over her, and I know she won’t survive unless I find a way to break free.
Sybil crouches over Edie’s body, trailing her finger through the blood seeping from her neck.
She lifts it to her lips, humming around the taste.
“She does taste like starlight, doesn’t she?”
“What have you done?” I spit, my whole body trembling with rage.
“This is for your own good,” she snaps, her eyes cutting to mine.
“Stay the fuck away from her, or so help me. I will kill you.”
I expect her to retreat, my powers of compulsion stronger than hers, but she just smiles. “That won’t work,” she says, looking over at Basilia, “Thanks to your wife, I haven’t been under your control for some time now.”
“What did you promise her?” I ask, turning my attention back to Basilia.
“Eternal life, of course.”
“She already has it. She’s a fucking vampire.”
“Ah, but you see, ordinarily if the siring vampire dies, so do their progeny. I broke that chain with Sybil. If you die, she will still live. If she dies, her progenies will live. It took me years to figure out how to do it, but I did.”
“And what about Logan and Viktor? What about all the vampires Logan has sired? Didn’t you consider them, Sybil?” I shout, her betrayal cutting me to the bone. “They’re your family. We’re friends. We’ve stood side-by-side for three centuries. Why?”
“But don’t you see? I don’t want you dead.
That’s why you’re here. That’s why she’s here,” Sybil replies, glaring at Edie, whose pulse slows dangerously.
“I knew you’d come here to seek answers, that you would find Basilia here.
So I lied to Edie in order to get her to come with me.
I could’ve killed her the second she stepped over her fucking doorstep, but I brought her here so you could at least say goodbye.
Everything I’ve done has been for you, for us. This is an act of kindness.”
“You think doing this is an act of fucking kindness? You’ve betrayed me. You’ve betrayed our family. Edie is dying!”
Sybil’s eyes cut towards Edie. “I tried to warn her. I tried to prevent this from happening.”
“Don’t lie to me. You want her dead.”
“Not at first. I wanted her to leave you of her own accord, so I insinuated we were more than we are. When that didn’t work, I put up the website knowing she’d eventually go looking for information on you.
I thought if she saw the painting of you and Basilia, she’d finally figure out what you are, and walk away.
I was trying to prevent this from happening, but it didn’t work.
She stayed and you started to fall for her anyway. I had no other choice.”
Edie whimpers, and my heart fucking constricts in my chest as I choke on my blood.