But I was different.
And I wondered in that moment, if this was the beginning of the end. If I would ever be a Dark One again, or if I’d die trying to give Stephanie back the precious gift she should have never given me in the first place.
Maybe she would be my downfall after all.
The words echoed in my head.
“Let her live and she will hurt you,” Sariel warned.
“She’s innocent!” I screamed. “She’s done nothing wrong.”
Sariel smiled sadly. “But she will. Believe me. She will. Remember what your love did to you last time.”
“Time’s wasting.” Mason’s eyes turned black. “We need to hunt.”
Stephanie reached for my hand. I squeezed it once, intent on letting it go, but decided to hold it a bit longer, because she felt good and because I knew I needed to start appreciating every minute I had with her.
Because something told me—they would add up—and my time wouldn’t just be over—but nonexistent.
Cassius
Greece 79 AD
I FOLLOWED HER SCENT. I would stop her at all costs if things got out of hand. She’d promised.
She’d lied.
Again.
I wanted to turn a blind eye, mainly because whenever Eva was near, the world didn’t feel as dark or desperate.
The way she laughed and smiled through her immortal life was a thing of beauty, and I hated being the one responsible for dampening that light.
“Shh, I’ll return one day.” She whispered to the little child. His face was wet with tears. “Just be good for your mama, alright?”
He wrapped his tiny arms around her neck then kissed her cheek. “I love you.”
The air filled with sadness, drenched with such a hollow emptiness that I sucked in a breath.
Vampires weren’t supposed to be so emotional.
Leave it to a child to bring out the worst of human weaknesses in all of us. God forbid I ever felt such weakness.
“I love you too, John.”
Eva set the boy on his feet. He reached up and captured one of her dark curls between his fingers dropped it, and then turned on his heel and walked off.
“He’s precious,” she said aloud, already sensing my presence. “It was his birthday, I couldn’t allow him to think I didn’t care anymore.”
I crossed my arms. “Eva, there will always be something. A birthday, a holiday… You must leave him for good.”
“I want children.” Eva hung her head as I approached her from behind. “I’ve always wanted children.”
I could taste her desperation in the air as tension swirled between us. I’d known for a while Eva felt strongly for me, the way I felt for her.
But a union between a Dark One and a Vampire would do nothing but present us with hurt feelings when a bond failed to take place. We could not mate with one another.
And children were an impossibility.
“I can’t give you that,” I whispered, setting my hand on her shoulders. She gripped my fingertips. I shuddered from her warm touch.
Eva turned, her eyes green and beautiful as they gazed up into my cold depths. “We could adopt.”
I smiled at that. “Humans adopt. And you and I… will never be.”
“Immortality.” She wrapped her arms around my neck. I never allowed such liberties. “Not for the faint of heart, hmm Cassius?”
“No.” The temptation to kiss her was too strong to deny any longer, my mouth descended, fusing with hers, creating a hum of energy between us as her blood heated out of control, my touch cooled her as fangs descended past her top lips.
Our tongues twisted in a fight for dominance as I lifted her into my arms. The last thing we needed was to be seen in a forbidden embrace, not only was she a council member, but she was a Vampire, not mine.
She would end up with a snotty-nosed human.
One who would get her pregnant.
One who would love her like I never could.
Slowly, I pulled away from her, my hands pressing against her wrists as I lowered her arms to her sides.
“One day…” Her voice was filled with sadness. “…I’ll be mated to someone and you’ll forget all about me.”
“I highly doubt I’ll ever forget your taste, Eva.”
The air charged with a thick flowery scent. Eva’s eyes widened just as a voice said from behind me. “What have you done?”
Slowly, I turned.
Sariel’s eyes were white, his hair a blazing rainbow of blue and black streaks. His feathers protruded then shuddered as if they tasted the wrongness in the air. “Survivors?”
He shoved past me and Eva and pressed his fingertips against the door of the house.
“Two survivors. How many more? And why aren’t they destroyed?”
I couldn’t lie.
It wasn’t in my makeup as a Dark One to want to lie to my creator—to my father.
“I saved them,” I admitted while I grabbed Eva and shoved her behind me. “I saved twelve.”
“Twelve!” Sariel roared as the ground shook beneath our feet. “You were to destroy them all! Every. Last. One.”
“I did not.”
Sariel’s wings turned purple, the color of angelic royalty. He was about to pass judgment. “Then, you will die. Blood must always be spilled, you know this.”
I nodded, unable to conjure up any guilt over doing something that gave Eva happiness no matter how temporary.
I took a step forward.