“That’s all it takes,” Cyrus says with a tiny little smile. “Though your conception is little short of a miracle. Pregnancies do not often take with our kind.”
The strong pull of curiosity grabs me hard. “Please, don’t take this harder than it is meant, I’m genuinely curious,” I begin. I have to step carefully, every moment of every night. “But did you ever create any other children? Besides your son?”
Cyrus’ eyes darken and harden for a moment, and I do fear that I have offended him indeed. But the moment only lasts a short while. “No,” he says. His eyes fall to his hands. He’s got a block of wood in one hand, a small knife in the other. Wood shavings litter the granite beneath the block. It’s difficult to tell what he’s carving yet. “I have only ever been with my wife. Sevan is the love of my very long life. I have had no desire for another. After I…turned her, she lost her ability to conceive more children. Though I will admit, after the disaster that our son was, I no longer desired more.”
“What was his name?” I ask quietly. “I’ve never heard.”
“That is because he is dead and dead to our kind,” Cyrus says in a low growl. “His name erased from our history as if he never existed.”
“I understand,” I say quickly as I turn away to keep myself busy with pouring the dry pasta into the boiling water. “You’ve suffered an immeasurable amount of pain in your life.”
“Pain makes us strong,” he says quietly. His head is bowed, the knife carving through the wood again. “It also has a way of making us crazy over time.”
I glance over my shoulder at Cyrus. His expression is dark, tortured. Serious and reflective.
Cyrus is an immortal, never to die.
This here, it’s my future. A long life filled with pain and crazy.
If I live long enough.
Maybe Ian was right. Maybe I was too hasty in accepting my inevitable future. Maybe I should have taken advantage of my mortal life while I could, because I could.
But no. That’s a lie.
I had no choice.
No extended timeframe.
Cyrus lets me finish making dinner in silence. He continues carving. And when he’s done, I see that it is a beautiful raven.
I finish the food. It’s strange after all this time for there to just be two of us eating, but everyone is gone. It’s so quiet and empty.
“Thank you for the lovely meal,” Cyrus says as we sit at the small dining table in the kitchen.
“Of course,” I say. He pours me a glass of wine and then pours his own.
“How has your thirst been?” he asks as he takes his fork and knife and cuts his chicken. “Not too unbearable, I hope.”
Suddenly with the thought, my throat flares in pain. A gasp of hot breath whooshes up from my chest as everything in my brain goes wild and fuzzy. “It’s been worse than I hoped for.”
He looks up at me in concern. “You must not be feeding often enough. We’ll go out before the sun rises.”
And the thought of soft flesh under my fangs spreads the burn throughout my body. I want warm liquid to put out the fire in my throat, to ease the intense pain. My fingers grip the edge of the table, just in attempt to keep myself grounded in this moment.
“Oh dear,” Cyrus says as he observes the damage I’m doing to the table. “This can’t wait, my love. Come. Dinner will keep for a few minutes.”
The burn. It rushes up my throat and wakens the hunter inside of me. I feel my fangs lengthen and my toxins pool. My blood rushes hot like acid.
And instantly, I’m out the door, my nose searching the air for the scent of blood.
I catch a whiff, out toward the swamps and the southern Conrath Estate.
Snow billows out around me, creating a cloud in my wake. I do not feel the cold as I breathe it in and out with no effort, despite my speed. I don’t even notice the change in terrain as I sail over snow covered objects. All of the beautiful and crystal clear details fade away.
My throat burns and my goal is singular.
Only one set of tracks leads up to Jasmine’s abandoned House. The front door is open slightly. I burst into the foyer, so very like my own. My sense of smell drives me and the copper-rust smell is enough to drive me mad.
Anna told me there was blood all over the house when she searched for Jasmine, Micah, and Trinity. But she did not adequately prepare me for how much of it there is.
The floor is stained dark and crusted. Splatters line the walls. A few drops line the ceiling.
I huff, hard and deep. The scent is everywhere. I’m so thirsty. I need a drink. Now.
And my instincts know there’s a body in the great room.
The details blur away and whoever it is doesn’t get a second to scream before my fangs sink into a soft neck. They go numb and I grab them tightly to keep them from collapsing to the dirty, cold floor.