The strange thing was that the idea didn’t scare me. Perhaps, after being on the run for the past few months, I was ready to just give up. I was ready to sacrifice myself and the connection we had. I was ready to give myself to him completely if it meant I could finally find an end to allofthis.
“What are you?” he repeated, his voice taking on an edge of angerthistime.
I stared at him seriously and shrugged again. “Honestly, I don’t know. I assumed you had intentionally caused the pain-in-the-ass connection between the two of us, and let me go. How else could I have ended up at my apartment,alive?”
He watched me in silence for a while, and then finally adjusted his position on the sofa to face directly at me. “My memory of that night is black after I bit you. I’ve never experienced such intense pain or confusion. Not in my two-thousand years. You are the first human that I’ve ever bit that hasn’t changed, and the first creature that has ever managed to block me the way thatyouhave.”
I laughed a nervous giggle and then quickly shut my mouth, pressing my lips together until they went numb. Again, I shrugged. I was never all that good at forced conversation, and after being cooped up in my tiny shithole apartment by myself with no friends to talk to for the last few months, I really couldn’t think of anything clever to say. “Really, I have no idea why I didn’t turn. My memory of that night is blank as well, and I just assumed it was you’re doing. I haven’t been able to shake the connection since ithappened.”
Sadness spread across his face just then, and I raised my eyebrows in confusion. “Can you at least explain what is going on?” It was weird having a civil conversation with a vampire. A ‘master’ vampire, at that. But given the strange direction my life had taken these past few months, I guessed anything waspossible.
“I wish I knew,” he said. “Are youhuman?”
I burst out in an intense fit of laughter. “Of course, I’m human,” I said. “Can’t you sense myheartbeat?”
The vampire tilted his head and stared at me, like a predator stares at his prey. “You’re not a were-beast. I don’t sense any magic in you, but you must be something other than human to resist my bite. To resist my pull these past twomonths.”
I was curious suddenly, and a flood of questions came to me all at once. “How did you find me? How did this link spon between the two of us? How come I’ve been able to hear you, but you haven’t answered any of the questions that I sent out in my mind? Why didn’t you come find meearlier?”
Erik raised both hands in front of himself, motioning for me to be silent. He slowly lowered his hands back down and turned to stare into the fire. I sat and waited, my own heart beating so loudly in my chest that it was nearly all I could hear. The silence consumed me, and I began fidgeting with my fingers, picking at my nailsanxiously.
“I do not have any answers,MissRose.”
As I stared at his perfectly chiseled, pale face, and the urge to run to him grew stronger. I craved his touch on me, and I longed to reach forward and touch him. My need for his body consumed me, and I knew desperately that I had to bewithhim.
But the memory of the night before briefly flashed in my mind. The heat of the shifter’s body against my own pulled me into the present. The vampire turned so fast to look at me that I didn’t see his face move. He was angry and the link between us flared to lifeagain.
I jumped up off the couch and backed awayfromhim.
“Stop that!” I shouted at him angrily. “Stop that magic. Stop pulling me towards you against my will. It’s not real, you know it’s not real. Just letmego!”
The vampire flew to his feat in response and looked at me in shock. He opened his mouth and closed it again, and shook his head slowly. He watched me curiously and waited for me to continue, but I simply stood there shaking in anger. He had complete control over me, and it terrified me. I wanted him so desperately, but I knew in my heart that it wasn’t real. It was the result of his bite, and that was the only reason I felt drawn to him. It was a desperate, pleading need that I felt. And I knew itwasn’tmine.
I collapsed to my knees and started to cry. “Let me go. Please, letmego.”
The vampire stepped towards me and put his hand on my shoulder as I sat shaking on the floor. His gentle touch had a strange calming effect on me, despite my effort to hate him. His cool fingers felt good against my hot skin, and I leaned into his hand to feel the full effect of his icycoolskin.
I couldn’t control my shaking, despite my best effort to calm myself. I pressed my hands against the cold damp stone of the floor around me, and traced the edges of the rough stone with my fingertips. Tears streamed down my face, and I willed myself to stop crying. I had never been a crier, and I knew I was stronger than this. But I’d never felt such intense need for anything or anyone in my life, and I was having an all-consuming battle with myself over whether I wanted to stay orleave.
“We are forever bonded,” he said. “I cannot undo what has been done, for I do not understand it completelymyself.”
I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself to stay warm. The warmth from the fire had subsided and all I could feel was the cool damp around me, consuming my body. I shook in silence for a moment and then whimpered quietly, “Kill me. Please, justkillme.”
I spent the last few months alone. I didn’t know myself anymore. The girl I once was no longer existed. I had nothing to live for, and I knew I couldn’t leave the city and keep my mind sane. If I wasn’t going to be myself anymore, I didn’t want to live. Simple as that. “Killme.”
“Go,” he saidfinally.
I looked up at him, my vision blurry from thetears. “What?”
He then turned in anger and strode towards the back corner of the room where the shadows were blackest. I heard a door creak open that I hadn’t noticed before, and he walked through it. “Go,” he shouted again throughdarkness.
The door slammed shut with a loud bang that echoed through the room, and I sat frozen on the floor near the fire by myself. I finally pushed myself up and looked around, noticing the door in the far wall that I had come through, now opened. I turned and began slowly walking towards my freedom. The chatter in my mind had stopped, and I couldn’t feel the linkanymore.
Could it really have been that easy? A part of me knew there was no way I could be let off the hook that easily, but for now, I had my freedom. I quickened my pace and ran out of the room and into thedarkness.
5
The two vampireswho had led me to the Oxford building had left, apparently. I walked back up the winding staircase alone, my footsteps echoing against the bare stone walls of the stairwell. The entire building was deserted, it seemed. I walked right out with no one hassling me, and stepped into the cold late autumn air on the quiet Oxfordstreet.
