Page 27 of Paying The Vampire
“Clea was adamant she wanted to leave. As soon as she realized that I had not been honest with her she wanted to be away from me. I suppose I cannot blame her.”
“I thought in your long life you would have learned to not make the same mistake more than once.”
“Of course I have, but that does not mean I am always going to put that lesson into practice. I am not perfect.”
“A vampire who admits he is not perfect… you truly are unlike the rest of your kind,” she said, continuing to tease me, and the tension was well and truly broken. She was now standing directly in front of me and the air was sweet. I dared not hope, and yet I was not strong enough to guard myself against the rise of these emotions. Her kind words had touched my heart, and the very fact that I could think of something like that showed the effect she had on me, because my heart had been turned to a stone a long time ago.
But Willow saw me. She heard me. She listened to my story and she did not recoil. That was as much of a miracle as her being here in the first place.
“You have been alone for too long Cassius. You have spent so long holding these secrets close to your heart that you have forgotten what it is like to be close to another. I almost forgot what it was like as well. I have never been celebrated or appreciated for who I am, but then you came and plucked me from the world. You showed me the kind of woman I could be and I do not want to run away from that. I do not want to be scared, not of you or the way you feel about me.”
“And what do you know about the way I feel about you?” I asked, my voice catching in my throat. I lost all of the poise and dignity that I possessed as an ancient man. She had a way of rendering me utterly helpless in the face of my desire for her. It was hardly a secret that I wanted her. Now she was just a twitch of a hand away from me, but it was not my hand that twitched. It was not my foot that stepped towards me.
“I know that you feel something nobody else has ever felt. I know that you do not see me as an abomination. I know you do not think that anything is wrong with me. When you see me you see the person that I have always wanted to be, you see the woman I could be, and you do not shy away from the truth. And I see that about you too Cassius.” She reached out and placed a hand on my chest. It was almost enough to bring life back to my undead heart. Breath caught in my throat and a shudder passed through me and I felt utterly weak again, like the first time I had seen Imogen standing there. In that moment my whole world had shifted from its axis. Her hair had been golden, her eyes the shape of almonds, with a smile that promised the world. It had offered nothing but misery to me though, and although I had tried to love again over the years I had never found anything with that kind of intensity or that elation.
Until now.
Willow was everything. She made me feel young again. She made me feel alive again, and although I had dreamed of feeling this way I had never quite believed that it would be possible. In her eyes all the humiliation and the doubt melted away. The shame that had gathered within me over the years dissipated until there was nothing left but happiness and grace. She tilted her head up to look at me, and in her eyes I saw two worlds that promised a future. Two worlds that were fertile and lush and waiting to experience life in all its grandeur. But it was not just these qualities that attracted me, I also saw the suffering within her. I saw the shame with which she had been shunned by her pack, treated as though she was the aberration among them when she should have been celebrated as a queen.
Her lips parted slightly. They glistened as though they were covered in morning dew. The air shimmered, as though she possessed some kind of magic all of her own.
“I know how much you want me Cassius,” her voice dropped to the lowest whisper possible. There was a part of me that thought I had only heard it within my mind, part of me that thought this was all a dream. Was it possible? After all I knew the gargoyles hadn’t really spoken to me. Was she just another illusion?
No… no it couldn’t be possible. Not with the way she felt. Not with the way her warmth seeped into my world, breathing life and color into this bleak kingdom.
“You could be a queen,” the words slipped from my mouth before I even knew what I was saying. A smile flickered on her face. She should have been a queen. She should have been celebrated and vaunted for she was the most perfect, the most incredible, the most beautiful woman I had ever known, and she was not afraid of the truth either.
“Maybe I can, but first you must keep your word and make me a wolf,” she rolled forward on her toes and then I found her lips pressed against my cheek, so close they almost caught the corner of my mouth. It sent tremors through my entire body. I went rigid all over and as she walked away I was paralyzed, this time by just her kiss, not any potion. She disappeared into the shadows of the castle with the promise of forever lingering around me. This place would not be so barren if I could rule it with her. If she was by my side then perhaps I had one final chance at happiness.
I stared at the pool in the middle of the room as thoughts swirled around my mind. It had been so long that I almost did not dare to dream as I was afraid that it would all come crashing around me again, as though I was not allowed to be happy. My thoughts turned to the past, to the final moments with Amara…
*
“I can’t believe you have betrayed me like this Cassius, that you have betrayed us.”
“You betrayed us first. We had an entire world here. We had outgrown our stereotypes, but you want to plunge us into darkness again.”
“We are creatures of the dark,” she hissed, “it is where we belong. It is where we our are best selves.”
“That is a lie.”
“What would you know of the truth? I have walked this land far longer than you have.”
“And you have suffered because of it. Can’t you see that this affliction is a curse? Nobody should ever be made to live this long. It would drive anyone mad, and you are long past due. I wish that this did not have to be the way Amara. I wish that you could see sense, but I cannot allow you to spread this plague again.”
Amara laughed at me, a dry laugh that sounded as though bark was being ripped away from a tree. “Do you truly think yourself so wise Cassius? You who were but a lost soul when I found you. Do you remember how bereft you were? You had nothing and you were ready to give everything up for the slightest chance of glory.”
“You took advantage of my desperation. You gave me something I never wanted.”
“You asked for it all.”
“Not this! Never this!” I had yelled, storming around the room. She glared at me with her icy eyes. Her slender, statuesque beauty was hard, her black hair melting in the darkness behind her. “I wish I had never met you.”
“You don’t mean that. You would not have accomplished anything if you had remained as you were. You would have drowned in ale in some tavern somewhere and then probably thrown yourself off a bridge, you miserable, ungrateful wretch.”
“But at least I would have known an ending. What is the point of life if it just keeps going? The only thing you think to do is consume, but we cannot consume everything.”
“We can. We can conquer and we can control and we can do anything we want because we are vampires. There are none who can stand in our way because our ally is time. Empires and kingdoms will fall before us, and we will outlast them. That is how we always have the final victory, and that is what we must do now because this world is dying. And you would condemn us all because your heart is weak. I should have known all those years ago that you did not have what it took to be a king.”