Authors: Mercy Walker
Min smiled back, befuddled. Besides the obvious rush of sexual euphoria, why was he suddenly so happy? But with his next deep, long kiss, Min no longer wondered, she just gave herself to him, heart and soul, not caring about what might happen, not giving a damn about the consequences of giving her heart away. She could no longer keep it from him.
Sated and exhausted, Luca gathered Min up in his arms and carried her up stairs to her bedroom, holding her in his arms until she fell asleep.
*****
Chapter 17
Through all his fear over hearing of Elaina’s return for him, he still couldn’t get over the fact that he could hear Min’s heart. It pounded in her chest, every beat calling to him, pounding out its every throb
for
him. He didn’t know what it meant, but somehow something inside him told him that Min loved him, she finally loved him—like pulled to like.
When she finally rolled away from him in her usually fitful sleep, he moved gently out of her bed and sat in the darkness of the night, watching over her, waiting for the inevitable dawn. He’d pulled on his clothes when he looked up to the bedroom window there stood Elaina.
A moment later, as lightning streaked the rainless sky, summer lightning, she disappeared. She wasn’t using her power over him. But just seeing her had been pull enough. Fearful or not, impending pain or no, she was his maker, and he needed to find out exactly what she was doing there, what her intentions were, and what she wanted with him. He hadn’t needed Min to tell him that she’d led the werewolves to town because of him. She was the slyest, craftiest immortal he’d ever met. If she hadn’t wanted the pack to follower her, they couldn’t have. So it had been her wish for them to.
And when he walked out of Min’s house and could still catch her scent in the air, it meant she was still close, and she was waiting for him. Oh god, it made him tremble. What would she do to him? Then the worst thought occurred to him. What would she force him to do?
That thought alone made him stop as he swept effortlessly over a ramshackle rooftop. If that was her game, to make him kill what…who was most important to him, then he could only do one thing. He had to run. And now.
But as he turned to go back the way he came, there she stood, beautiful, powerful, and still utterly insane. He could see it in the sparkle of those fearsome black eyes. She loved every moment of her twisted, tyrannical afterlife. The excitement in her eyes was unmistakable; whatever she’d been planning was about to be unleashed.
“
You can’t run from me, my beautiful boy.” She drew closer, and he stood stock still, trying not to let her sense his fear, though he was sure she could smell it on him. She walked as if she were dancing to a tune only she could hear.
“
I know.” His voice was harsh, the words clipped.
“
Indeed you do.” She smiled that terrifying smile, the one she gave right before she’d strike, the one all her hapless victims saw right before their doom. The one he’d first seen the night she’d turned him, torturing him, taking him from god and life itself. “So, whatever deluded you enough to decide to run from me?”
“
I wasn’t running.”
“
Don’t lie to me, my beauty. It may have been a while, but I know you…I know that something has changed in you.”
Luca laughed. “Nothing has changed. I’m still the monster you made me into.”
“
And since I made you, I know exactly how different you are now.” She stalked around him, her feet tapping lightly on the roof, her eyes never leaving his face. She leached out and touched him, and a shock of familiarity, of terror struck Luca instantaneously. She laughed a good solid laugh that dissolved into maniacal giggles. “I can smell it on you…that, and I just saw it with my own eyes: you lying in a mortal’s bed, not fucking her, not feeding on her, but comforting her—taking comfort in her.” She stopped and looked up directly into his eyes. Whatever are you thinking? As if there could ever be a happy ending between the two of you. She’s the heroine of the piece, and you’re the monster. Unless we’ve fallen into a Disney cartoon, the monster never gets the girl.”
“
I’m not—”
“
Yes you are, my beautiful boy. Somehow she has revived what I and three hundred years of the hunger had long killed!” Her voice cut like glass through his flesh. He knew he wasn’t in fact bleeding, but it hurt all the same. She hugged herself, looking momentarily confused, but then looked up at him, her frightened little girl eyes morphing back into the glittering nightmare they usually were. “But all is not lost.”
She stood there, silently gazing into Luca’s eyes, until he finally asked. “What do you want, Elaina?”
Virtuous concern bloomed in her expression, her eyes melting like the darkest chocolate. “To show you that you have choices, options; there are many options to your quandary.”
“
You want to help me?” It was a trick. Some game she was playing, some fantasy that had wrapped itself around her mind like some fanatical silk.
“
That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.” She said simply. Amazingly her words tasted like truth.
He laughed, and it wasn’t a good sound. It was bitter and edging on this side of madness. He was ridiculing himself with that laugh, for even for a moment believing a word that passed her lips.
“
You doubt me?” She turned from him and walked across the roof, swaying to that always playing song in her head. “I took you from your mortal life because death was already upon you.”
“
What?”
She chuckled indulgently, as you would while admonishing a recalcitrant though beloved child. “You didn’t know? You would have been dead and rotting in the cemetery of that church I’d found you in within the week.”
“
You can’t predict the future, that’s not one off your gifts.”
“
But we can all smell the sweet smell of death in a human’s blood, wafting like the scent of carrion from their flesh.”
“
You smelled death on me?’
“
You had just exposed yourself to the plague, you silly fool. Caring for the poor and sick always has its price.”
“
I would’ve died,” Luca whispered. “You’re sure?”
“
You were already in the grips of the fever. Do you not remember?”
Luca shook his head, “My mortal life has faded from my grasp over the centuries.”
“
As it has for us all: perfect recollection of everything from our change on, but our mortal memories slowly slip from our grasps. Sad, but comforting.” She smiled most wickedly at him. “I’d hate to remember what I was before I was given this gift. I would probably want to light myself on fire and perish right now.”
Luca couldn’t imagine what she’d been like as a human. Had she actually ever had a soul?
As if she could hear his thought, her smile turned almost sweet. “You’d be surprised.” She batted the subject away with the swipe of her hand. “As you’d be surprised to hear that I care about you more than any being I’ve ever met. You are the only food I ever turned, the only thing in the entirety of the mortal world I cared not to destroy. You should be flattered.”
Luca was silent. The fear of Elaina ever present, and now that she was right in front of him, he realized that he’d felt this fear all the years he’d been with her. It had not once abated, or faded. And he hadn’t really realized it until now, when that constant fear came back and refused to be quelled. But then he thought of what she had said. And he asked. “Then why me?”
“
Haven’t I already said this?” She groused, clapping her hands together with impatience. “Because you were the one thing, the only thing—”
“
No. What was it about me—what did you see in me that made me…essential?”
Elaina looked taken aback, surprise and then uncertainty flickering across her face. But then realization flowed into her eyes, a thorough certainty. The smile that passed over her lips, her features, and then into her eyes was almost human in its radiance.
“
Because you were so good.”
“
What?”
“
There in your little church, cleaning the pews, lighting the candles, helping those who came to your door more than you would ever help yourself. I saw you were a man of total conviction.”
Luca had never thought of himself as a good man—not that he could remember. And since his change he saw himself as nothing but the worst kind of evil. A murderer, a rapist, a torturer of mankind…and he’d been so good at it—he’d enjoyed it, until recently.
“
I knew that if I made you vampire, that once I forced you to start killing, showed you the beauty and pleasure in the darkest, most titillating of tortures, that you would transfer that ferocious commitment to being vampire.”
Luca’s head was spinning. “I don’t understand. It doesn’t make any sense. You made me a monster because I was so…
“
Good
.” She sang that one word with such delight. “Oh yes. I knew that you would surpass all my hopes. You would kill and wreak havoc wherever you trod, with perfect impunity.”
Impunity. That was how he had felt until recently. Until he’d been with Min. As if nothing could touch him. No matter how vial or sadistic the kill, no matter what hurt or torture he thought up, all he would ever feel during or after would be ecstasy.
And here Elaina was, telling him that had been her plan for him from the beginning.
She was suddenly beside him, her face so close to his, her lips so close to his ear that he could almost feel their silky flesh against his. “I made you to be the perfect evildoer,” She chuckled. “Without an ounce of compunction…someone in this wide world worse than me.”
Luca turned and glared at her. “I am not—”
“
Of course you are.” She sighed, “At least you were.” She inhaled deeply through her nose, scenting the air around him, her hands playing lightly over his back and shoulders.
“
And then I felt it. The instant it began to happen. I had no idea what could cause such a thing. After all, it is unheard of. But as you stand before me, I cannot deny it. Your soul has been awakened, reignited a new. I can see it in your eyes. Hell, I could smell it as soon as I got within sight of you. It’s not just lit, your soul is burning brightly.”
“
I’m not sure what has happened.”
“
You don’t?” She wagged her finger at him, pursing her lips reproachfully. “But I think you do, my beautiful boy. I think you know very well what caused it…or at least who.”
The fear rose up inside him, and Luca fought to keep his face, his body language, from showing it.
“
The witch, the gypsy—I could smell that too.
Filthy
gypsy magic, so much worse than a Wiccan or even a white witch of the church. No, you had to get involved with a gypsy whore—”
“
That is enough!” Luca roared.
Elaina smiled and stepped closer, the glee rancid in her features. She’d finally pressed the right buttons and gotten what she’d wanted: a reaction.
“
Don’t call her that.”
“
So gallant.” She clucked her tongue at him. “I wonder…if you could, would you turn and rend me right now? End me; destroy your creator,
your savior.
Kill me and dispose of my body, this body you have had in every possible way, dispose of it—
of me
—so that I would never darken you or your…lover’s door again.” She moved so close, her hand on Luca’s chest. “Could you do it, my sweet Luca, could you end me?”
Luca looked into Elaina’s eyes. The crazed fire was absent, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there, waiting just behind her gaze to turn on him. The truth had blazed so easily into his heart: yes, he would end her in a heartbeat to keep Min out of her clutches. Min could handle herself, of course, but could she survive the attack of something as deranged and insane as Elaina?
Luca let his eyes drop, and he tried to fill them with sincerity as he spoke the lie. “No.” He looked up into her eyes. “I could not.”
She smiled, and absently scented the air again, her smile deepening with each passing second. “You’ve gotten so very good, my sweet. I can’t even smell the lie on you.” He took a breath to argue, to try and convince her, but she raised her hand to him and said, in that master tone that made his will fall to hers with immediate results. “Quiet.”
She paced around him, hands on hips. “But I don’t need to smell it on you. I’ve seen you with her. I’ve been watching you for almost a week now.
A week.
The thought of her spying on him, taking in all that he had done, all that he had done with Min, it turned his stomach.
“
What I’ve seen is your selfless devotion to that witch.” She caught his gaze and the crazed fire was back. “I’m sorry, to your
Min
.”
Dear god, she knew her name.
“
I’ve watched you fuck her. I’ve seen you turning away from those victims that would so easily nourish you, to go pandering at a human blood bank. What, have you been watching some silly teen movie, or some ridiculous television show? You are vampire. You cannot just subsist on…leftovers. I know such technologies weren’t available for me to have taught you about them, but I’d have thought you’d have figured it out. I mean, just look at you. You’re so week, and gaunt. I have not seen a vampire that made it through his first years this immediate before. It’s sickening.