Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) (47 page)

“
I’m sorry for what I did
to your wife,” she continued after a few moments. “And I’m sorry
for leaving you and letting you waste years searching for me when I
was always just a heartbeat away.”

“
Why are you here, Luna?”
I said, anger along with treacherous yearning making my voice waver
when I spoke.

“
I’m here because I need
you to understand that I know what I did—all of it—was wrong. When
I left you, at first it was because I was angry and I wanted to
hurt you. But after a while, I stayed away because I couldn’t
understand how you could love me when I was so wrong in so many
ways. You loved me when I was just a slave. And when you found out
I had been killing for years, I thought you would finally see I
wasn’t worth your love. But it was still there in your eyes, your
words, and in what you did. I couldn’t understand it and I couldn’t
face seeing it.”

“
What does that matter,
now?”

“
It matters because I love
you. I love you but...but I gave up on us and I lost faith in the
world. I just kept thinking about all those years we spent having
to hide what we were to each other. We’ve never been able to walk
down the street hand in hand just like any other married couple. I
thought it would always be like that.”

“
But...but I loved you.
Why couldn’t that be enough?”

“
It
was—
it is
—enough.
It’s all I’ll ever want or need.”

“
She’s still
dead
, Luna,” I
whispered, years of agony and guilt over Henriette’s death
overwhelming me.

She faced the window, but not quick
enough for me not to see her eyes shining with unshed
tears.

“
I didn’t plan on killing
her, Avery. I thought that once you saw me you’d forget all about
her. But you...you placed yourself between me and her. And when she
threw that sword to you instead of running for her life, it...it
made me see that she could be a threat. That she wasn’t the weak,
inconsequential little thing I thought she was. I regret what I did
to her, to you. I’ll never forgive myself for it.”

I was silent and it was difficult to
keep my composure because I could see she spoke the truth. The
years of guilt were there in the way she couldn’t meet my gaze, the
defeated lowering of her head, the small hands fidgeting
ceaselessly, buttoning then unbuttoning the last button on her
jacket.

“
It’s taken years for me
to summon the courage to return and ask you to forgive me. Even
then, I may not have been able to do it if I hadn’t promised
Sutana. It was the last thing she asked of me before
she...”

Her words trailed away. I stared at
her in anguish, wounded by the image in her mind of the dying
vampire hunter lying in her arms in a grove of trees, staring up at
the sky in wonder as she slipped out of the grasp of
life.

I closed myself off from her thoughts.
I was not going to let our shared loss weaken me. She faced me
again, letting me see the tears trailing down her face.

“
I know you don’t want me
here, Avery. But I love you so much and I have to know if there is
a chance, no matter how small, that one day you will be able to
look at me and not be consumed with hatred as you are now. I have
to know that, Avery.”

She took a few steps toward me but
stopped halfway across the room, as if afraid of getting too close
to me, her head lowered.

“
I don’t expect anything
from you straight away, but maybe I could have a house not too far
from here and we could meet for a few hours each night. Just a few
hours, that’s all I ask. I hate myself for the way I treated you,
even when we were together. But I need to know there’s still a
chance for us.”

I desperately wanted to say yes, but
the image of Henriette’s broken body lay between us and there was
no crossing that.

So making sure my mind was completely
closed to hers, I met Luna’s gaze.

“
Then hating you is at
least one thing we have in common.”

She let out a soft gasp.

“
Do you mean
that?”

I moved to the fireplace, keeping my
back to her.

“
Yes. Yes, I
do.”

The silence in the room seemed to curl
into a hard ball.

“
There is one thing I have
wondered about over the years,” she said after a few long minutes.
“That night when I threw my sword away. Did you know I would be
able to stop you if you tried to kill me?”

“
Yes. When I brought my
sword down, I knew you were fast, and strong enough to stop me. But
I didn’t know if you would. That is something that has haunted me
ever since that night. I don’t want you dead, Luna. But it does not
mean I ever want to see or speak to you again.”

After a few long, agonising minutes, I
turned around. She was completely still and watched me, a mixture
of disbelief and debilitating anguish etched in her
features.

“
I want you to go now,
Luna.”

At first it was as if she hadn’t heard
me, then she nodded. She tried to smile but tears were still
streaming down her face.

“
Can I at least say
goodbye to Mallory?”

The anger in my eyes was answer enough
and she again nodded, undoing the bottom button of her jacket again
before she let her hands hang limp at her sides. She seemed unsure
for a moment and then moved with confidence to stand a few inches
away from me. She looked up at me whilst I stared at a point past
her head, controlling the urge to pull her into my arms. The scent
of her perfume was so familiar, a welcome greeting from the past.
It was one I’d had designed especially for her, a mixture of floral
and spicy. I thought it was perfect for the unique jewel I had
waited for so long to find.

When she reached a hand toward my
face, I stiffened and she withdrew it. After a few moments, I
allowed my gaze to meet hers, hating the pain I saw there, but
refusing to do anything to ease it. Slowly, she rose up onto the
tips of her toes and kissed me lightly on the cheek. Then she was
gone.

I was alone. I was alone
again with only the lingering scent of her perfume and many more
years ahead with this pain. I sank to my knees and
wept
.

The following months were ones of deep
anguish. It had taken decades for me to rebuild my life after
Henriette’s death, and seeing Luna for even that short space of
time had thrown me back into the emotional wasteland I thought I
had left behind me. I could not stop thinking of her and her
apparent contrition.

Maybe I could have a house
nearby,
she had said.
And in the beginning we could spend a few hours together a
night. A few hours, that’s all I’m asking for.

Those words tortured me, and during
those aching daylight hours, sleep was as elusive to me as a moment
free from the lust for blood.

Despairing, my thoughts and emotions
in turmoil, I withdrew from the world once more and from those
around me. From being the light of my life, Mallory was suddenly
shut out of the warmth of my affections and completely left out in
the cold.

She was crushed and bewildered; I saw
it daily—her confused little face staring up at me, imploring me. I
eventually shut myself off from her thoughts and the ceaseless
questions in those brief moments I was around long enough to hear
them. At night I listened to her cry herself to sleep, but was too
exhausted emotionally to be able to give her the comfort or
attention she needed.

During that time, I thought a lot
about Mama Akosua, who had warned me to mind Luna’s anger. And yet
I hadn’t. Luna and I had been together for decades, our thoughts
open to one another, and because of that intimacy, we had never
really spoken about the things that upset her. As a slave, she had
learned to ignore pain, misery, and anger as it mattered to no one.
She did not know how to talk and I did not know how to listen. The
only way she had been able to express her anger was through those
emotional outbursts I had quickly become scornful of until she
learned to be silent. I hadn’t seen the danger in that
silence.

There had been three women in my long
life who loved me and I was responsible for their destruction.
Julia died as a result of my pride, Henriette because of my
selfishness. And I destroyed Luna because of my unwillingness to
listen. Would Mallory be a fourth casualty? Luna killed Henriette,
but would I really have stayed with Henriette when Luna returned to
me? No, and it would have destroyed that sweet, innocent
girl.

After months of berating my staff and
making the few people around me miserable, I began to give Luna’s
idea of a house nearby serious consideration. I even surveyed a few
plots of land. I took Mallory with me to see the last plot of land,
one by the sea. It was the first time I had paid her any attention
in months and it was heartbreaking to see her little face light up
with joy when I told her she could come with me.

I decided this was where I would build
Luna’s house. I was tired of resisting my love for her. I would
always be as unsuccessful in that endeavour as I would have been if
I tried to stop the sun from rising every morning. But Mallory had
to come first. Before I could ever let Luna back into my life, I
had to wait for Mallory to grow up and move away from here. Time
was, and always would, be ours. So I would wait.

I bought the plot of land and hired
architects to design a home for Luna. Nothing too big, for she
would eventually move back into the mansion. But it had to be
special. So with thoughts of us taking long walks by the sea, I set
out to build this home for Luna. And maybe somewhere along those
moonlight walks, we could find a way to redeem ourselves. With that
decision made, I could get back to being a proper father to
Mallory.

A few years passed, each one more
hopeful as I drew closer to the day when Luna and I could take our
long walks and talk beneath the stars.

I saw Luna a few times during that
period, but she always kept her distance. She usually stood at the
gates of the mansion watching Mallory and me get into the car to
take her to school.

Luna had seen my intentions and the
house that was being built a few miles away. She was happy. For the
first time in decades, she was happy. Happy, but cautious about
upsetting me, so she kept her distance at the mansion
gates.

But there was something troubling
her.

It was the only thing she did not
fully reveal to me. It was regarding one of her descendants, Simon.
Simon had sought Luna out a few years ago after a series of dreams
led him to her whereabouts. Whenever one of her descendants arrived
on her doorstep, she usually turned them away—as I did whenever
they came to seek me out—with the exception being Sutana. But out
of loneliness, she allowed this one to linger and a close bond had
been formed between them. But something began troubling her
recently concerning Simon. I didn’t worry too much about it.
Mallory was twelve now. In a few years she would go away to college
and the day would come when Luna and I could talk about any and
everything she wanted in the house that was sitting empty by the
sea.

I wish I had gone to her then and made
her tell me whatever was making her uneasy about Simon. But the
impression I always got from her thoughts was that it was trivial
and something she should have dealt with years ago.

We have all of
eternity
, she reminded me.
We have all of eternity
.

It was early morning when I was jolted
out of sleep by a bloodcurdling scream. I expected to find myself
in bed, wooden shutters completely blotting out the sun and the
room pitch black. But I was standing at the chapel, which was
flooded with the crimson light of a dying day. I whirled around.
Luna was kneeling at the altar, the image of her wavering and
splitting in two. One face was bowed, its lips moving in silent
prayer, the other was staring at me, contorted in pain and anguish.
Intense anguish.

Avery. Avery.

It was gone and I was awake in the
darkened bedroom.

“
Luna.”

I was off the bed and to the wardrobe
in less than a second, gripped with anguish. “Luna,” I said again,
as if repeating the name would keep her among the land of the
living.

Luna
.

I dressed. I did not want to believe
it was true, but the terror, the desolation was already creeping
into my soul. I sank to my knees as it overwhelmed me.

I forced myself to my feet. I had to
function long enough to confirm what I feared in my heart was
true.

I ran downstairs and out of the
mansion to my car.

I raced toward the chapel. The
desolation and pain kept overwhelming me and twice on the journey I
had to park the car and sit with my head in my hands in agony about
the fact that the very thing I never believed would occur appeared
to have happened.

I had been spared this long ago when
old age should have claimed Luna’s life, and even then, I’d had
decades to prepare for it. I did not know how I would be able to
survive if she was taken away from me now. Somehow I managed to
hold myself together for long enough to reach the place I promised
myself I would never lay eyes on again in all my immortal
life.