“I will never do this to another!” Cyrus bellowed, stalking forward, getting in his face. Our son took a step back, hesitance in his eyes as he pushed his father to his breaking point. “You do not understand the curse we live with daily! You see only through the eyes of arrogance and power!”
With a look of disgust, he turned and walked away from the two of us. He stepped outside into the blizzard raging in the light of day, and the door swung heavily closed behind him.
“I am afraid of our own son,” I confessed as once again, we were cast in darkness. “The darkness in his mind…” I shook my head.
Cyrus crossed to me, taking me into his arms and holding me tight.
He didn’t say a word.
Because we both knew.
Something was not right with our son.
* * *
“Where would he go?” Cyrus said as we trudged through the snow. “He knows no one. There isn’t another town for hundreds of miles. I’m sure he’s just taking some time to cool off.”
I shook my head, pushing through the snow that came nearly up to my knees. “Something isn’t right, Cyrus,” I said. “I just…I can feel it.”
We went to his favorite places, one by one, searching for him.
He had not returned to the castle come nightfall.
He never stayed out in the dark, not in the winter.
Not with the wolves and the below-freezing temperatures.
He was not at the stable. He was not in the hunting perch. He was nowhere to be found in the frozen gardens.
The last place I could think to check was by the lake.
We walked and walked.
My toes were numb. I couldn’t feel my fingers.
“I don’t know why we are even doing this,” Cyrus said, his voice hard. “The boy hasn’t cared about us in years. He’d be better off to go on his own.”
My stomach tightened and my heart gave a twist.
I didn’t want to admit it, couldn’t. It hurt too much.
But Cyrus was right.
He hated us.
But I couldn’t just leave him.
“Mother,” a very faint voice called.
Both of our heads whipped in that direction instantly, and in a blur we dashed toward the source of the sound.
Down at the water’s edge, down a little cliff, we found him.
The ice was broken out on the lake, out twenty feet. A broken line led back to the shore. And there, lying on the rocks, sat our son.
His clothes were frozen to ice. His lips were blue, his skin pale.
Cyrus immediately scooped him into his arms and we dashed back to the castle.
“I fel…” his teeth chattered. “Fell in the water. I broke the…ice as I…came back to shore. But I couldn’t...couldn’t move once I got out.”
“It’s alright,” I said through my tears. “It’ll be alright.”
I repeated the words over and over. Even when his eyes slid closed, and he did not open them again.
Cyrus carried him to our bedroom where a fire was raging in the fireplace. We laid him upon the warm stone floor and broke his frozen clothes off of him. I rubbed his skin, so frigidly cold.
For hours, Cyrus and I attempted to warm his body.
But he did not open his eyes.
His body never warmed.
And I heard it, as his heart beat its last beat.
Our son died right in front of us.
* * *
I couldn’t stop sobbing.
My heart was broken, shattered into a million pieces.
Because I missed him. I couldn’t imagine life going forward without his handsome face in it. I couldn’t imagine not being able to put my hand on his cheek, I couldn’t imagine not looking into his green eyes.
I couldn’t imagine that this was all I would get, standing at the edge of his grave in the side court of the castle, knowing he was down there all alone.
But I also felt such a sense of relief.
No more fights.
No more fear.
No more wondering about the terror he might someday become.
It was over.
“We did our best, Sevan,” Cyrus said quietly as he wrapped his arms around me as I stared down at the frozen, overturned earth.
More tears streamed down my face, freezing to my skin.
I’d never felt such self-loathing.
Chapter 28
A boom echoed throughout the castle.
Cyrus and I looked up at one another from the study. Our eyes grew wide, instantly glowing red. We each grabbed for a weapon, two always within reach in every room.
With predator strength and speed, we darted through the many halls and stairs.
We froze as we stepped into the great entry hall.
The wood and iron doors lay on the ground in a splintered, shattered mess.
And waiting in the doorway, blood staining his chin, hands, and clothes, his eyes glowing brilliant red, was our son.
“Good evening Mother,” he said with a wicked grin. “Father.”
Horror filled me. My mouth could not close. My lungs could not take air in and out, and my tongue could not find words.
“It seems your curse did not end with the two of you,” he said as he stepped inside, walking over the broken door. “Because just hours ago, I awoke inside a very cold and dark grave. And the burn…” He shook his head with a chuckle, his smile devilish. “You did not jest about the burn. But thanks to these incredible senses, it did not take long to find the nearest scent of a human and partake in my first meal.”
I whispered his name then, the horror and terror in me washing through like a wave.
“It seems something truly remarkable happens when a vampire father impregnates a human mother,” he said coyly as he continued walking toward us. “The unknown is if it can be replicated. If I am what I am because my mother was turned while carrying me, or if that is all it takes. An immortal father, and a fertile mother host.”
“I beg you to end this line of thought here,” Cyrus said gravely. “You do not know what you are toying with. You have no idea what curse you will bring upon yourself. Do not follow in my mistakes, son.”
He laughed. “Son,” he said mockingly. “Son means you love someone. Son means family, and would you not want your family to be together forever? If you loved me as your son, you would have wanted that for us, Father.”
He shook his head, hatred filling every surface of his face. “You kept me alone my entire life, and told me that you were alright with me dying when the time came.” He backed up a step. “Now is the time that I get the chance to correct your shortcomings and lies. I will find my own family. I will give them the promise of being together forever. And I will not suppress their potential.”
I called his name again, my eyes pleading.
But I knew there were no words that would change his mind.
“We will meet again,” he said.
It wasn’t a promise.
It was a threat.
And without another glance back at either of us, our son turned, and left.
* * *
As we traveled into the surrounding towns over the next few years, we heard rumors. Of a man from the mountains who took wives. Of a man who drank blood.
Whenever we asked where this man was, no one knew. Only that he traveled. That he visited far reaches of the world. And that he gathered wives by the dozens.
I felt sick.
I knew it was not the women that he cared about. It was the possibility of those children that might be conceived.
He hoped they would be like him.
“Cyrus, if he creates others like us…” I would shake my head, filled with terror. “There would be no stopping him. The damage he could do to villages. Entire towns.”
“Countries,” Cyrus corrected. His eyes were dark and stormy. “The world.”
We had created a monster.
“We have to stop him,” I breathed.
“We have no idea where he is,” Cyrus said, his eyes casting about the valley that spread before the castle. “He could be anywhere in the world at this point.”
I stood at my husband’s side, looking over our little piece of heaven.
“Then we need to prepare,” I said. My heart started beating a little faster. “If it eventually comes to war, if that is the only way to stop him, we need to be prepared.”
Cyrus looked over at me, and my gaze locked on his face.
“You already have the castle, my forever heart,” I said, reaching for his hand. “Now you need a kingdom and an army.”
Chapter 29
I looked in the reflection of the silver mirror on the wall.
Blood dripped down my chin, splattering on the floor at my feet.
A woman lay there, as well. Dead. I had drunk every bit of her blood.
“Sevan,” Cyrus’ voice said from behind. But I did not turn to look at him. “Is something the matter? That is the third feeder you have drained in five days.”
I looked down at her. And my heart shuttered a beat when I realized he was right.
“The burn,” I said, shaking my head. “It won’t stop. I can’t make it stop.”
He turned me, looking into my eyes. He searched me hard, as if he could read a diagnosis off my skin.
“Your Majes-”
The voice abruptly cut off as my handmaid stepped in and saw what was going on.
“Adeline,” Cyrus said, looking over at her. “Find someone to help you take the body away.”
She gave a little bow and quickly left the room.
It had been easier than it should have been. As people saw what we were capable of, we were either met with fear or awe. They either wanted to kill us, or worship us.
And we took care of them.
The people came.
We gave them a purpose.
We slowly built the town back up.
We had slowly built our own little kingdom over the past sixty years.
It was incredible what we had accomplished over these few years.
Incredible more that neither of us had aged a day.
When we should have aged out of our mortal lives years ago, we were both still going strong.
But no more.
“Something isn’t right, Cyrus,” I breathed hard. Already my throat burned hotter and all I could think about was more blood. More blood to ease the pain.
“Sevan,” Cyrus said in utter terror.
But I couldn’t hear his words.
All I could think about was finding another feeder.
I turned, and with glowing eyes and lengthening fangs, I darted through the castle, and leapt on the first person I came upon.
* * *
The burn was so intense, so hot.
But as I tried to rise up from my bed to go find yet another feeder, my strength was nowhere to be found.
“Cyrus,” I hissed, my words rough and difficult. My vision was blurry as I searched around the room for him. My head was spinning.
“I’m here, my forever heart,” he spoke softly.
I realized he had been sitting beside me the entire time. He took my hand, holding it close to his chest.
“This…” I struggled with the words. They came in and out with mountains of pain. My entire body was a burning inferno. Burning hotter than the sun. “This is the end.”
Cyrus pressed his lips to the back of my hand, shaking his head. “No,” he insisted. “I cured death. This is merely some illness we have yet to encounter. I can fix it. I only need some more time in the lab. I’ll bring you with me.”
Painfully I shook my head. “I can feel it, Cyrus. My time…” I winced, crying out as a new wave of heat scorched through me. “My time is out.”
“Sevan,” Cyrus cried. He gathered me into his lap, looking down at me. One of his tears slipped off of his face, splashing onto my cheek.
My eyes slid closed, too heavy to keep open.
“I hated that you took my choice from me,” I said, the words coming out slow and heavy. “But our lives…what we’ve done…it is incredible. But if all of this were taken away,” weakly, I waved a hand generally around. “I would still be grateful just that I could spend it all with you.”
“Sevan,” Cyrus cried again, holding me closer, pressing his lips to my forehead. “Eighty-nine years of immortality is not enough,” he shook his head. “Nowhere near enough.”
Another wave of pain shattered through me, but I didn’t have the strength to fight it. It pulled me, down. Down to the dark. Down to where I saw an end to it.
But I needed one last breath.
With every ounce of strength I had left, I opened my eyes.
I met Cyrus’ deep green ones.
I loved his eyes.
It was them that I first fell in love with.
Their intensity. Their determination.
“I love you, my forever heart,” I breathed.
His last words muddled into the wave of pain.
I held onto it, letting it pull me down, down to where it ended.
And I was released into the darkness.
Chapter 30
A lifetime of relative ease and peace in a land full of sand and jungles. A family removed from the others, a family looking for establishment and respect.
I lived an entire life among my brothers and sisters, my parents, and my grandfather, descended from a madman he called the Blood Father. I helped them grow an empire, discussed secrecy and safety for our kind.
And when my time came, when I reached the golden age of youth and maturity, they all hugged me one last time as a human and watched as I pierced my own heart with a blade and died my first death.
Eight others had done so before me.
Eight others had Resurrected from the dead after lying in the ground for four days.
On that forth day, I awoke, just as they said I would.
A vampire with strength and thirst.
But as the days turned into weeks, my dreams grew foreign. They turned to a land that looked so different, yet familiar. They showed me visions of a castle.
And a face.
And my heart felt sure it would die if I did not see it once more.
Cyrus, my brain one day screamed out as I sat up in my bed.
“Cyrus,” I whispered the name.
His face floated before my eyes, so achingly familiar.
A poor man in an alley came rushing to me, one who saved a young woman destined to marry an unkind brute.
A wedding beneath a tree.
Nights of love and lust.
“Cyrus,” I sobbed.
But my heart thundered in my chest. Elation filled my veins.
Sevan. I was Sevan.
I was also Jafari.
The family thought I had gone insane as I explained everything to them. They thought I was ill. Or that something had gone wrong in my Resurrection. I could not be the genesis queen. She had been dead for fifty-one years.
But how else could I know so many details about the legend of the man in a land far away? How could I know about the never-aging king amassing power across the world?
I had to get back.
I had to return to my home.
I had to get back to my husband.
Finally, an uncle agreed to make the journey with me. To cross the globe and find the land I could remember so clearly.
Spring turned into Summer and the leaves were just beginning to change when we rode through a mountain pass. The horses beneath us were growing weary, the journey had been so long and arduous.
But as we crested the pass and the land opened up before us, revealing a lake and a village and a castle, I smiled.
Home.
This was my home. Roter Himmel.
I spurred the horse on, and it broke out into a sprint, one last burst of energy. Its hooves raced over the grasses and rocks and terrain.
I’d swam in that lake at night under the light of the moon. I’d wal
ked through these houses, now rebuilt and occupied, when they were burned to rubble. I’d walked this road up to the doors thousands of times and planted those fruit trees that now were large and fruitful.
I slowed the horse as we came up to the doors. Guards stood on either side of it, staring me down with dark eyes, ready to kill me if necessary.
Our home had changed so much since I was last here. So many more people. So much more glamor and activity.
But it was still the same.
The same feelings of peace and belonging raced through my blood.
The same sense of dread whipped me as I thought of the son we raised here, the one who was such a threat when he left.
I hesitated for a moment then, the pieces falling into place.
He’d been successful.
All the wives he’d taken, all the children he’d tried to create.
Malachi, my grandfather, talked of his father, the madman, the Blood Father, and creator. Malachi was every much a vampire, just like my son had woken to be.
As was my father.
As am I.
How many of us were there now?
There were my aunts and uncles.
There were my brother and sisters.
How many others?
“I need to see Cyrus,” I said with a thick throat. I stood straight, tall. I stared the guards down.
It took an hour of arguing, but finally, they opened the doors and I was instructed to wait in the main entry hall.
I was angry. I knew every hall, every room, every passageway of this castle.
I wanted to storm straight to our bedroom and take Cyrus in my arms and never let him go.
But I waited.
It seemed an eternity before finally, I heard steps.
And my heart leapt into my throat as I saw his feet descending the stairs.
My view slowly grew, revealing strong legs. A lean middle. Familiar hands that worked magic and miracles. A powerful chest.
And then his face.
Cyrus.