Chapter 11 11
ARIA'S POV
The blackness was complete, thick against my eyeballs, a physical pressure. I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face, nothing.
“This is insane,”I said, trying to keep the shake out of my voice. "How can I fight if I'm blinded?"
“This is no place to be when the dark ones come.” Draven’s voice echoed out from somewhere in the darkness. "The Fifth King isn't going to play fair. You just have to learn to trust more than your eyes.”
"Easy for you to say. Most likely you can see in here perfectly fine.”
"I can," he confirmed. “Which means I have the upper hand. Just like your enemies will. So the question is, are you going to let that paralyze you or are you going to pivot?”
Before I could answer, something hit me from the back. Not so hard that I would be seriously hurt, but enough to send me stumbling forward. I stumbled against something that felt like a stone pillar.
"Watch what's around you all the time," Draven's voice resonated. "You left your back exposed."
I felt frustrated welling up inside me, and fear and exhaustion mixing with it. "I can't do this. I'm just a human. I’m not a muscled-up character with supernatural faculties and hundreds of years fighting.”
There was a long pause such that I thought he had left. Then I felt him behind me, so near that I could feel the cold emanating from his flesh.
“You are right,” he murmured, his hands resting on my shoulders. "You can't fight like I do. But you have something none of us have.The scope of divine power that may make reality vanish.”
His hands ran down my arms, placing them into position. "Close your eyes. Stop attempting to see and start sensing with everything else.”
I did as he said. Suddenly I felt something else. The cold press of the air on my skin. The hearing of one’s own breath. The soft shift of air in the room.
"Good," Draven murmured. “Now, sense the spaciousness around you. The air, it moves differently when something’s in there displacing it.”
I tried to focus. At first, there was nothing. But gradually, I became aware of it. A tiny, indiscernible change in the feel of air to my right. The faintest reverb and some figure of an adjacent wall. Where Draven was currently standing with his cold spot.
"I feel it," I whispered.
“Then do it,” Draven said, and backed off.
I followed where he went through the movement of air, and a soft shuffling of steps. As he stepped in to strike, I ducked and rolled back into a defensive crouch.
"Better," he said. "Again."
It went on for hours, and finally I started to feel a little better. Faster. More confident. And finally, Draven signaled for a stop. It was so bright and I winced as light flooded the room.
When my sight returned, I was in a stone room with circular walls. Draven was by the door looking impeccable. I was drenched in sweat, covered in dust, clothes torn and I second guessed if my body falls prey to bruises.
"You held back," I said.
"Of course. If I hadn't, you'd be dead." He approached a table where two glasses and a dark bottle sat. “But you lasted longer than I did think.”
Into both vessels he poured the dark red liquid. Blood wine.
"Drink," he said. “It’ll not only help with bruising, but the fatigue.”
I paused, looking at the glass. "Is it actually blood?"
“With wine and herbs, correct. But it must be freely given, not taken by force.” He smiled a little to himself. “We’re not the monsters your tales paint us as.”
I accepted the glass and took a cautious sip. It was a weird taste, but not an unpleasant one. In no time at all, a warmth pervaded the length of my body and the dull pain in my muscles softened away.
"What can you tell me about your human life," Draven replied, sitting down and motioning for me to do the same.
The question took me by surprise. "Why do you want to know?"
"Curiosity. You’re the only one of us who died recently. What was it like?"
I took the seat in front of him. "Simple. Quiet. I went to work at a bookstore and lived in the little apartment with Stevie Rae. We were not wealthy, but we were happy.”
"You dreamed of something more?"
"Sometimes. Nothing great, just really … I wanted to travel and see somewhere outside New York. Perhaps fall in love in that easy, uncomplicated manner.” I laughed bitterly. “I guess I should have been careful what I wished for.”
Draven was silent for a moment. Then he said something I didn’t see coming. "I envy you."
"What?"
"You knew peace, however briefly. You had the experience of what it was like to have a regular life.” His icy mask melted as his eyes locked with mine. “Immortality is interesting right up until it’s not. It's not eternal life, Aria. It's endless hunger. Hungry for blood, yes, hungry for power, sure, but hungry for something that makes you feel alive instead of just undead.”
I looked at him, and I saw a different person. Not as the chilly Vampire King, but someone agonizingly lonely.
"Is that why you want me?" I asked quietly. "Because I make you feel something?"
"I don't know," he admitted. “A bond makes them all the more likely to confuse real feeling and magical coercion. But challenge me instead of doing what I say? When you won’t be intimidated, well, yes. I feel something."
We drank blood wine and sat in silence. Finally, Draven stood. "Come. Let me walk you back to your rooms."
He led me through winding halls. We went through a long picture gallery. I slowed down, allured by the paintings.
Then I saw it. A portrait that made my heart stop.
It was me. Or rather Celeste, but in my face. She was next to a younger Draven, the two of them human and grinning madly. His arm was around her waist.
"When was this?" I whispered.
“A different lifetime.”Draven was quiet. “Before we evolved to be the way we are now. Before everything went wrong."
Reflexively, I extended my hand toward the painting. I went to grab it and Draven grabbed my hand.
My marking lit up, all four sigils shining like the sun. I got hit with a bolt of energy throughout my body. Draven felt it too. I saw his eyes go wide, saw the tight hold slip.
He yanked me in and we stood rock still, paralyzed between knowing and doing.
Then he kissed me.
It wasn’t grueling or hard, as I thought it would be. Instead, it was tender and even desperate — more like he was trying to tell me something for which he didn’t have words.
I returned the kiss, my hand on his chest. The mark shimmered and then it burned hotter, and over the link I felt his fury. Longing and regret; fear, maybe, and something that could have been love.
His eyes were not cold when we broke up. They burned with intensity.
“I remember,” he murmured, his forehead on my. "I remember everything. The way you smiled. The sound of your laugh. And I recall losing you, watching you slip away, helpless and alone.”
"Draven," I started.
But the temperature in the corridor had plummeted. Frost formed on the walls. The portraits of friends around us started crying. Real blood coming down painted faces.
"What's happening?" I gasped.
A voice resounded throughout the palace, not quite male or female, resonating with harmonics that hurt my bones. “The vampire king is out of time. Three of four shall remain. One of them must fall, until the blood moon rises."
The lights dimmed and then died. I heard a sound from Draven something between a gasp and a groan. His hand slipped from mine.
"Draven?" I called out, panic rising.
The lights came up, and I saw him on his knees, both hands clamped to his chest. His mouth leaked black blood and smoked against the stone floor.
"No!" I dropped beside him. "What's wrong?"
He made an attempt as if to speak, but more black blood spewed forth. Through the bond, I felt it. The curse thudding on, ripping into him from within.
"Help!" I screamed. "Someone help us!"
Footsteps thundered toward us. Ronan appeared, already half shifted. Kael materialized seconds later. Lucien stepped through shadows.
They all saw the black blood.
"The curse," Kael whispered. "It's beginning."
Draven spat more blood, his skin turning gray. Through the bond, I sensed his life force beginning to ebb.
"Do something!" I begged. "Please!"
But I knew everything from the looks they exchanged. They didn't know how. The curse was out of their hands to stop.
And somewhere in the blackness I thought I heard a chuckle.