Prophecy: Child of Light (34 page)

And that meant nothing to her now.

Valentine was an Aurorea, but he was a vampire first, a man. His feelings had been shaped by years of duty to his bloodline and listening to their teachings about the other bloodlines, but all of that was falling away now, leaving the individual he had always been rather than the child of Aurorea they’d taught him to be. She was the same. Everything they had poisoned her mind with was being forgotten or proven irrelevant. Valentine wasn’t her enemy. Her enemy was her own family. Her enemies were those that were against her, those that were attempting to kill her and stop her from fulfilling her destiny.

She started when the door to the compartment burst open and several people fell into it. She scowled at the two men and the woman as they stared at her and Valentine. They burst out laughing and grabbed hold of each other to stop themselves from falling over while the train rounded a bend. She cocked her head to one side, the frown remaining on her face. The people tumbled back out into the hallway and stumbled off.

She continued to frown at the now empty door.

Valentine moved over to it and pulled it shut, locking it and drawing the blinds down before walking back to his seat opposite her. She looked across at him.

“Why did they laugh at us?” she said.

He smiled.

“Because they are drunk and do not know or cannot see what we really are.” He held her gaze and she noticed his look softened slightly. “I wish that you never stop asking questions as I have. Your curiosity about the world is so beautiful. I have lost that... I have seen it all. There is nothing left for me to question.”

She dropped her eyes to rest on the floor, frowning at it. She didn’t like the note of solemnity in his voice. He seemed to have lost all of the brightness he had been filled with earlier. Was the loss of his sire still plaguing him? She hadn’t forgotten what had happened back in Venice. He’d been so distraught. She had known that there had been something between them once, something more than just a sire and child relationship.

Moving across the compartment, she sat sideways on the couch beside him so she was facing him. She frowned when she realised that he looked paler than usual. There was a sallow look to his skin.

She furrowed her brows and gently placed her hand against his cheek, bringing his head around so he was looking at her. When his eyes met hers, she gave him a shaky smile. They were so full of sadness. She’d never seen him looking so sombre.

“There are questions inside you still,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. The atmosphere between them seemed to grow heavier, all sense of lightness rapidly disappearing as she stared deep into his clear green gaze. “Conflict reigns in your eyes whenever you look at me. What is it that you fear? Is it what I am or what I could do to our species if you and Mathias are wrong?”

She started when he placed his hand over hers where it rested against his cheek.

“It is myself that I am afraid of... not you or the hunter at our backs, or the path that lies ahead. What I have done is unforgivable. It is a sin, a mark against my family... I... I dared to place you above them. I placed you above my duty. I went against my orders to destroy you and instead I helped you. I am no longer the man I once was. I have cut ties to the only world I have known and betrayed it, myself and my family.”

She shook her head, her chest tightening with mixed feelings when she saw the hurt gradually surface in his eyes. He wanted forgiveness for the things he’d done to help her, and she wished with all of her heart that she could give that to him, but she knew that whatever she offered him wouldn’t soothe the pain he was feeling. He needed forgiveness from his family. Lucya had offered it to him and he’d turned his back on it to remain with herself. He’d surrendered his one chance to return to his world so that he could stay by her side.

She cursed the tears that were welling up, trying to make them go away so he wouldn’t see them. She didn’t want to make him feel worse than he already did. It was so easy for her to forget the things that he’d sacrificed for her. What she had surrendered was nothing compared to what he had lost.

“Valentine.” Her voice was a quiet whisper, her emotions constricting her throat and making it impossible for her to talk any louder without letting the tears come. “Don’t speak like that.”

She pulled him towards her and wrapped her arms about him, stroking his back while he buried his face into her neck. She held him tightly, feeling his cool breath against her neck, and closed her eyes. He’d lost everything he’d known in order to be with her and it was taking its toll on him. The sense of purpose his duty to his family had given him was gone. Everything he had worked towards had disappeared. One single decision had cost him everything.

She’d cost him everything.

Resting her cheek against his, she ran her fingers through his hair and cradled him to her. Right now, he didn’t seem like the strong vampire she’d met that night in the cemetery, or even the man he’d been in Oxford. He seemed so small and scared, nothing more than a child. Everything that had happened since his meeting her had finally broken him, and it was up to her to show him that all was not lost and that deep inside he was still as strong as he’d always been.

“Valentine, you’re still the man you were. Nothing can change that, nothing. I can’t give you the forgiveness that she offered you, but I can give you everything I have. Valentine?”

She pulled back and frowned when she saw that he had his eyes closed. She pressed her hand into his shoulder to support his weight and grimaced when she felt the blood against her fingers and the scent of it filled the air.

Panic raced through her.

“Valentine?” She shook him and he frowned, his dark brows knitting together tightly.

His eyes fluttered open.

“What happened?” she said, but realised that he wasn’t going to answer her. Her eyes widened. The werewolf they had fought in the metro station had hit his shoulder. She stared at it. There weren’t any holes in his clothes so it must have only reopened the wound he’d picked up in Paris. “Valentine, you need to feed.”

He shook his head when she drew the collar of her shirt aside to reveal her neck.

“Please, Valentine?”

“No.” He pushed her away. “I shall not... I deserve this.”

She realised that this had been the reason he’d fallen so quiet. He’d been silently suffering. Did he think this was some kind of punishment for the things he’d done? Did he want it to be that? She wasn’t about to let him punish himself like this that was for sure.

Grabbing hold of his jacket, she pulled him back to her. She hastily unbuttoned his jacket, ignoring his weak growls and the attempts he made to push her away. She tugged his jacket off his shoulder and then opened his shirt and pushed it out of the way. His pale skin was covered in the dark reddish-brown of dried blood. She could see the deep lacerations in his chest where the werewolf had managed to reopen the wound.

“Valentine?” She shook him again to rouse him. He frowned at her and bared his teeth. “I’m not letting you do this to yourself. You’re being ridiculous. Either you feed from me, or I’ll go and kill someone and bring them back here.”

“Child.” He spat the word at her.

She just smiled and cajoled him into reacting again. “I’ll blow our cover. You have no choice but to drink from me.”

He shook his head. “I will not hurt you to save myself.”

“It won’t hurt... I know you won’t let it hurt. I can fix this.” She pointed to the wound. “But I need you to feed.”

His eyes rolled shut and she caught him when he fell backwards into the couch. She pulled him up into a sitting position again and cleared the hair from his brow. He was so pale. How could she have not noticed it before?

“Please, Valentine?” she whispered into his ear, her cheek touching his. “You’re starting to scare me. I can’t do this without you. I can’t carry all this weight on my own. I’m not strong enough. I need you here with me.”

He growled and his teeth sliced deep into the right side her neck. She furrowed her brows and her mouth hung open, her left arm supporting him. He tugged her close to him, pulling her onto his lap. She shifted her knees until she was straddling him and pushed his shirt aside. Closing her eyes, she focused on the feeling of his hard body against hers and the way he was so desperate for her blood. She flexed her fingers and then let them trail across his chest to the wound. She centred the amulet over it and took a deep breath. His fingers dug into her sides, gripping her so tightly that it bordered on painful. Her head spun and a sweep of goose bumps ran over her body. The stars itched and burned, sending pulses of tingles through her that all radiated towards her hand and her neck where Valentine was biting her.

She bit her lip, her thoughts constantly begging him not to stop no matter how much it was beginning to hurt. She wanted more. She needed more. She tried to focus on the magic and her hand but found it impossible when she felt Valentine’s tongue run over her skin, catching the stray drop of blood that had been running down her chest. She leaned back, giving him better access to it and then clenched her jaw when his teeth scraped against her chest and he moved up towards the other side of her neck.

Her head fell to one side and she moaned quietly when his teeth sank into her, penetrating her soft flesh. He drew hard on her blood, making her body burn with desire and a hint of pain. The fingers of her left hand wove their way into his hair and she held him to her. She stared at her right hand, her brows knitting and her eyes narrowing.

“This might hurt,” she whispered, more to herself than to him. He would be so lost by now in the vision that she was feeding him that he wouldn’t even notice what she was about to do.

She watched the threads of magic weaving together and then pressed the palm of her hand against the wound.

She gritted her teeth and growled when the magic ripped through her, setting every one of her nerve endings alight in a frenzy of pain. Everything seemed blindingly bright and she closed her eyes, trying to shut it out but failing. It was as though it was bright inside of her, not outside in the world. She tried to keep her hand against his chest as the light flickered and died. Her head fell backwards, her hand slipping away from him.

Darkness enveloped her.

“Prophecy! Prophecy?”

She moaned on hearing his voice. Opening her eyes, she found Valentine staring down at her. She tried to move, but realised that he was on top of her. Looking down the length of her body, she frowned when she found she was lying on the floor with him kneeling in between her legs.

She raised a brow and looked into his eyes.

He frowned and then his eyes widened in realisation. Before she could say anything, he was standing up and giving her an awkward look. She tried to sit up but the room spun and she slumped to the floor again, her hand pressed against her head as it throbbed.

“Are you...?” he said.

She smiled at how awkward he looked still. She’d never had a man between her legs before and she’d never thought her first time would be under these kinds of circumstances.

“Fine? Yes, I think so.” She grabbed hold of the couch to her right and went to pull herself up. Strong hands assisted her, setting her down gently in the seat. She thanked him with a smile and waited for her head to stop spinning. “Are you all right?”

“Me? I...” He looked flustered and pulled his shirt aside to reveal the now perfectly smooth skin of his chest. “How did you do that?”

She smiled at the sight of it. She was glad that it had worked and she hadn’t blown him into a million tiny pieces like everything else she used her magic on.

“I don’t know. I just knew I could.” She smoothed her hair and then flexed her fingers. Bringing her hand up, she licked the blood off her palm. When she’d cleaned her hand, she looked at Valentine and found him staring at her neck. “Did you like what you saw?”

He blinked rapidly and then frowned at her. “I... it was... you.”

“And you,” she said.

His lips curved into a wicked grin. She caught the spark of desire in the depths of his eyes. She’d fed him a vision, one that she’d had recently but had neglected to mention to him, mostly because she didn’t know how to broach the subject. It had seemed like a perfect opportunity to let him see it first hand.

She supposed that she shouldn’t have been so surprised to wake up to find him in between her legs. She pressed her fingers to the left side of her neck and felt the marks there. They were still sticky with blood.

“Here,” he said and she shifted along the seat when he moved to sit next to her. “Let me.”

She closed her eyes when he leaned towards her and she felt the sweep of his tongue against her neck. When he pulled back, she noticed he was staring at her chest. She looked there and saw two long gashes where his teeth had scraped her. She swallowed hard when he ran his fingers down them and looked up at him. His face was a mask of concern.

“I am sorry,” he said, removing his hand. “It was all a little too much. I should not have let myself lose control like that.”

She took hold of his hand and smiled reassuringly. “No harm done.”

There was an awkward silence in which he stared at her hand.

“It is getting light.” He glanced at the couch seat opposite them. “You should get some rest. I shall take first watch and will wake you when we have to change.”

She nodded, not wanting to tell him that she wasn’t tired. He needed to retain some sense of control over the situation they were in and she was happy to let him be in command. She moved over to the other seat and smiled at him when he rolled his jacket up and handed it to her. She placed it at one end of the couch and lay down, using his jacket as a makeshift pillow.

Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine what St. Petersburg had in store for her but kept thinking about the vision and the feeling of Valentine biting her.

* * * *

V
alentine glanced across at Prophecy as they walked through the streets of St. Petersburg. A delay on the train had thankfully meant they’d arrived in the dead of night. His gaze dropped to the marks on her neck, his marks. They weren’t deep and they were far from what he’d wanted to do to her. In the heat of the moment, he’d considered so many things, but she’d trusted him not to hurt her, and every one of them would have been painful to some degree. She’d given him such a vision through her blood that she’d opened his eyes to the way things were rapidly becoming between them. It had felt so real that he knew she hadn’t made it up somehow. They were destined to be together.