One Vampire stood from his chair, a young man who looked like he was changed at about the age of twenty, with golden curls he tied back with a black ribbon. He was significantly smaller than the others in the group, his frame still boyish, though his face seemed older and wise, somehow, and his eyes seemed to possess an independent life.
“You were captured?” he asked in astonishment, gaping at Valek. “But how could you have possibly escaped the Regime walls?”
Valek’s face remained hard and strained. “It was difficult,” he responded quietly. “I had help.” He saw Aiden’s face in his mind, remembering the fury that seemed to burn through him.
The young Vampire blanched at what he saw in Valek’s head. The other members of the group reacted, too. A few joined in standing.
“Aiden.” One of two females in the group spoke. “Danek Price’s boy. Next in line,” she mused.
“What?” Valek frowned.
“He’s next in line to rule. After Vladislov’s reign has ended, Aiden Price is next in line for the seat of power. The chosen one. He’s supposedly an Elf that has mastered all of the elements. Fire. Earth. Wind. Water. Not to mention, the
Valek thought back to the buttresses in the Regime palace and how Aiden had seemed to manipulate the air around him before extinguishing the fire with water. He wrinkled his forehead. “No. There must be a mistake. He lives in our Occult with his mother. I have known him for years,” Valek countered.
“Apparently not well enough to know who his father is,” the female with the raven hair explained, glancing at the girl in Valek’s arms. Her pin-straight tresses reflected the dim light in tones of blue, like the sky at midnight.
Valek turned to Francis again. “Something happened before the guards ransacked my home. Charlotte had been with Aiden. She came home crying. Something happened between them. I remember seeing a few of her thoughts before the guards came to our door.”
“And what were those thoughts?” Francis asked.
Valek’s face burned when he remembered Aiden kissing her, but now it was trivial compared to what else apparently occurred that night. “There were papers, a list of some sort, I believe. It looked to me like a register of Occult inhabitants employed by the Regime. There was a Lycan guarding our borders, and I think Aiden was trying to confide in her — perhaps to protect her after….” He hesitated to continue, recalling his monstrous behavior that night on the country road. “After there had almost been an attack.”
“You mean an
One particularly malefic-looking Vampire with short, black hair and a broken nose rose from his place near the fire. He stood, analyzing Valek and Charlotte. “Well, you shouldn’t have had a human in your possession, anyway,” he chastised. “That’s the problem. The Regime found out you were breaking the law!”
“Lusian, that’s besides the point,” Francis interjected. “Besides, she’ll be a very beneficial little addition to our household.” He grinned and gestured for Valek to continue.
“Then I recall seeing something Aiden’s mother said to Charlotte about me, something that bothered her,” Valek explained.
“I think we should wait until your Charlotte wakes up. It sounds like she has the full story.” The other female spoke calmly, in an airy voice. This one had white, ringlet curls that ran down to the small of her back and surrounded a severely beautiful face. Though she loomed over some of the males, her limbs were delicate, like those of a ballerina. But even as she was beautiful, her features were hard and icy as her gaze touched Charlotte cradled in Valek’s arms.
Everything grew silent again as the group became painfully aware of Charlotte’s mortality. It was the warmest, most evident scent in the room. Valek saw a few of their thoughts as they glanced at her again. His jaw clenched.
“No one will touch her until she is well again. No one will even think about her until I say it is right. Is that understood?” he growled.
They all obliged without argument. Their thoughts told Valek that they kept all the blood they needed in a small freezer that sat against the wall for now. It would suffice until the girl had regained her strength.
“No one will touch her,” the blonde female repeated, assuring him with a soft smile.
Valek looked upon Francis, the concern forming creases in his forehead. “She was attacked by a group of us a little smaller than this one. She needs food and some sort of supplement. Her heart rate continues to decline. They would have drained her if the Regime guards didn’t rip those parasites off her.” His eyes welled up with the memory, the last of his words biting.
Francis only nodded before he looked to Sarah. She smiled, nodding, and flitted back toward the tunnel. She would concoct something to help Charlotte. Valek heard it in her mind when she nodded at him.
Valek turned to find the group still staring at him, some empathetic, some disgusted. But he accepted neither pity nor disapproval. He didn’t need any more friends, especially if they were Vampires. There was nothing he cared more about than what he was holding in his arms.
He walked over to the rows of coffins and turned on the group again, all of them still watching.
“Which is empty?” he asked, coolly.
“None,” the one called Lusian said just as evenly, though he pivoted to snicker with Jorge, the younger- looking male with blond hair pulled back behind his head.
Valek approached the group slowly again, eyeing the one that had just spoken. “We can do this the hard way.” He quickly pulled up his knee and shoved his boot right in the large Vampire’s chest, sending him flying backward, splintering a chair. “I am not here to make friends,” Valek murmured. He looked to the rows of crypts. “I will ask again. Which is empty?”
“The last three.” The female with the dark hair spoke this time as she helped Lusian to his feet.
Valek moved to the one in the center in the last row and kicked the lid off. The inside was superfluous with layers of red silk and lace. When Francis said he liked cliche, it had clearly not been in jest.
“Reckless behavior is not going to help your situation!” Francis sputtered frantically.
Valek ignored him. He crouched and gently placed Charlotte inside — something he did not particularly like doing. He tried to imagine it was just like any other bed. He watched her face, still peaceful, as he removed his torn overcoat and wrapped it around her.
He sat on the ground beside her, one hand holding tightly onto hers. He would continue to stay there until she woke up. He wanted to be the first thing she saw, so she would know she was safe. He thought back to the night the Lycan attacked the human farmer just outside of the Occult again. He thought about the way she’d looked at him with different eyes, as though he were the feared monster under her bed.
About half an hour passed, and Sarah soon returned with canteens of soup, bread, and other things the Witch found in the middle of the night to sustain the human girl. She placed a small chocolate bead in Valek’s hand.
“Have her swallow that. That will help her blood replenish,” she said, before flitting off.
Charlotte had not yet awoken from her sleep, and Valek continued to wait unabatedly by her side, while the others whispered things by the firelight. Valek could hear everything they were saying, and more. They might as well have screamed it out at the top of their lungs.
“I’ve seen this before,” Jorge whispered. “It becomes something like an obsession — the love between mortal and immortal. It’s compulsive — being obsessed with their human lover’s mortality. They fall in love with that which they lost. The warmth, the thriving, living, breathing feeling.” He was explaining to Sasha, a beautiful male with ebony skin. “It is not healthy. And it never ends well.”
“But I thought the girl was something like a
Jorge cocked his head toward Valek. “Well, it certainly doesn’t appear that way anymore.” He murmured as though Valek
Sasha went on pondering this. Valek snorted in contempt.
After a while, the blonde came to sit next to him. He didn’t look up from Charlotte’s face. His features
