The Vampire's Reflection (14 page)

“Why don’t you try, then?” He opened his arms wide in an invitation.

“Stop!”

Valek adjusted his focus, remembering Dusana standing in the threshold.

Lusian rolled his neck, the joints cracking. Valek guessed how ecstatic he must have been to be able to act on some of his pent-up aggression and could tell he wanted to go for round two. “And they say Vampires don’t have reflections. Just look at her! She’s the spitting image of you, Valek.” He chortled. “Right down to the dead soul inside.”

“Lusian, can’t you contain yourself for one night?” Dusana growled. “Why is it that every time I come looking for you, you’re trying claim yourself as some sort of alpha?”

“Don’t compare me to some stupid
Lycanthrope
!” Lusian’s playful words turned venomous and angry. The twins took their place at Lusian’s flanks again, flashing identically devious smiles at Dusana.

The tattooed Vampire flitted toward him and grabbed his hand, her face turning a pale shade of green. Her eyes locked with Valek’s under the choppy bangs of her raven hair. “All of us fed already.”

“So I’ve heard within your mind.” Valek widened his stance and folded his arms over his chest. “And might I say how despicable the act was.” This part of his statement was directed straight at Lusian, who merely chuckled and rolled his eyes. Valek heard the curiosity peak in Charlotte’s mind as she wondered exactly what Lusian had done. “You are absolutely disgusting. A poor excuse of what we are.”

“Not as disgusting as your warped little
trampire
with daddy issues.”

Valek roared at him again.

Dusana glowered at Lusian before shooting an apologetic glance in Valek’s direction. “We know how you feel about us. Your thoughts are just as loud as ours are. I apologize if we seem like such an intrusion on your household. But we didn’t have anywhere else to go. If you want us gone, just say so. But just know that we’d do anything for you and the girl. I think we’ve already proven that.” Dusana’s words were sorrowful, though they carried an edge of anger. She bid him a mental goodnight before pulling Lusian out of the room.

The twins simultaneously turned to Charlotte and feigned politeness with a curtsy. “
Dobrý večer
.”

The bedroom door clicked shut and they were alone again. Valek wheeled around to face her. “Satisfied?”

The mortal woman had since stilled in the corner, her knees hugged tightly to her chest as her wide eyes bounced back and forth from Valek, to Charlotte, and to the doors.

Charlotte frowned and wrapped her arms around her middle. A large stain of blood remained drying at her throat and ruined one sleeve of her new dress. Guilt had clearly taken her prisoner. “Are you going to begin patronizing me as well? Don’t you think I’ve been hearing enough of it from Sarah?”

“You don’t need to be patronized! You need to be parented!” he roared.

***

Downstairs, Sarah stood in the middle of the library, alone. She twirled a loose strand of her hair around her fingers as she listened to Valek’s hollering from all the way upstairs. Her forehead crinkled, but she was beyond the point of crying. It had been this way since Charlotte had fallen so extremely ill with her new addiction. The truth of the matter was, when Valek looked at his love now, what he was really saw was the monster he’d created due to his own carelessness. That was what Sarah could not understand. Changing her would be the same as what he’d already done—would actually be better for Charlotte.

This was to be expected after all of the things the girl had been through. Sarah listed them off in her mind: falling in love with her guardian, a series of massive bloodlettings, and nearly being taken advantage of and killed by the most powerful Elf in Europe—possibly the world. And no matter how many spells she had in her arsenal, she knew that it would take much more power to heal Charlotte now.

Sarah reached into her apron pocket and tightened her fingers around one, small, silvery object. Something Valek had given her a long time ago when their lives were simple. The only thing she knew held any meaning for Charlotte at all. The only thing that could remind her of peace and safety. Charlotte’s whistle.

***

“I can see that absolutely nothing about your feelings has changed for me. You will always think of me as the little girl you rescued from the gutters of the city.” Charlotte lay back on the bed and stared up at Sarah’s starry bewitchment for a few moments as they twinkled down from above the bed. The reflections of the silver ornaments rippled in the tears that had collected in her eyes.

Valek ground his teeth together, fighting for more words to come out. “Yes, Lottie. You’re right.” Valek’s gaze lingered on her face as he watched her bite down on her lower lip, forcing the tears to remain in her control. Rolling over, she hid her face in his pillow and proceeded to cry quietly.

“If that’s how you really feel….” Her mumbles were smothered and buried from under the pillow.

“I’ll always see you for your innocence, Charlotte. Your purity. That is what I fell in love with. You’re the only glimmering, little light in my dark world. You must understand that I
never
thought of you as my child. Even when you were little. I fear that I am incapable of those kinds of feelings. I believe that something within me was simply waiting. Waiting for you to grow up. Waiting for you to see me for what I am. My love is what you are. It is what you always have been.”

She did not reply to him. Instead, Charlotte noticed again the other mortal that was still in the room with them, worming her way toward the door. Somehow, she’d remained so quiet up until now, even Valek had forgotten about her. Charlotte got up from the bed and toed over to her. Instantly, Valek tuned into her mind. He’d never listened to her with another human being before.

From her miserable place on the floor, the woman froze for a moment before squirming to peer up at Charlotte over her shoulder. Her face was a mess, with streaks of tear-soaked makeup.

Charlotte clenched her jaw and Valek instantly dug deeper into her mind. This person looked so weak—so measly in comparison to those Charlotte considered her adopted family that it was impossible for her to relate to her on any level. In Charlotte’s mind, she was nothing like her at all. She didn’t fear death because she was surrounded by it. She’d beckoned it—brought it to the doorsteps of so many mortals before this one in order to satisfy Valek’s nightly bloodlusts. The memory of the things he’d made Charlotte do for him caused him to shudder. This sad little woman was nothing like Charlotte at all, and she could hardly identify.

Charlotte swallowed her own, sour hatred for what she was and muttered, “Where are
you
going?”

Slowly, the woman got to her feet, her panicked gaze flicking back and forth between Valek’s face and Charlotte’s. Her mouth fell agape as she stammered.

“Please, I just wa-want to go home. Please.” The last of her words broke on a dry sob.

Charlotte had been hunting too long, been a monster like Valek, inside herself for too long to let this affect her. In actuality, the pity she experienced for the woman was something more of a bitter realization. Charlotte
was
just like her. Weak and expendable—or so that was her perception. Valek frowned. This was her home. The darkness. The danger. She lived in it—was unable to escape from it. And, just like the woman, she was too weak and vulnerable to help herself now that fate had caught up with her. Valek swallowed the words he was about to say in response to her thoughts, knowing how much Charlotte hated it when he listened in to the goings-on inside her mind.

Abruptly, and before the woman could protest, Charlotte dug her thumb and index into the sensitive pressure point just in between the woman’s neck and shoulder. In an instant, the woman collapsed to the floor. Not dead—unconscious.

Charlotte turned back to Valek, who scowled at her disapprovingly and
tsked
as though she were an errant child.

“Lottie….”

Charlotte collapsed back on the bed, staring vacantly up at the ceiling. “Dinner,” she shrugged simply.

He knew how frustrated she’d become with her recent inability to take care of Valek the way she used to. He watched the various scenes as they replayed in her mind; how capable she was as she stalked the night like he did. That’s all she ever really wanted. To be like him. He knew that.

“I am not hungry,” he said in protest.

“Do what you will with her, then. Let her go. Chain her to the wall and save her for later, for all I care,” she snapped. She, in fact,
was
an errant child. This was her temper tantrum.

“That sort of callousness is not the Lottie I know. The Lottie who grew up in this house is much sweeter than that.”

“Being sweet has clearly not gotten me very far.” Her words were filled with acid, but her face softened slightly and he heard in her thoughts that she regretted speaking to him that way.

Valek sighed a defeatist sigh. He lay down next to her, wrapping his massive arms firmly around her middle, hugging her close to him. He buried his face in her hair and breathed in the soft, lilac scent. How could he possibly destroy this? Something so pure, now a wilting flower in his arms. Sadness swelled in his throat. The tension in the room was so thick Valek could have physically bitten into it. In an instant, Charlotte was able to doubt every single way he felt about her. How could she not see the terrible truth he could no longer hide? After everything they had been through, how could she suddenly question all of his feelings? Words were clearly not enough anymore. He needed to find some other way….

He sat up slightly, his eyes shifting over to Charlotte’s porcelain legs, folded against each other from under the hem of her destroyed, garnet of her dress. They were so thin and graceful. His hand twitched on his lap, but he kept it there. His gaze continued hungrily up her body until it rested on the bloodstain just where the velvet neckline dipped in a circular shape past her protruding collarbone. The silhouette of her soft, white body against the dark bedclothes was enough to drive a
human
man crazy, let alone someone now and forever physically addicted to the very make of her.

Lifting his hand, he moved it so it hovered just over that bloodstain. A new, needing lump swelled in his throat. Her warm scent, thick and inviting, seemed to fill the room as though he were drowning in it. But this need seemed different to him. It was not her blood that called for him this time at all. He continued to scan her body, so delicate. He moved his hand lower, so his fingers hovered close to her thigh. He clenched his teeth together and pulled away. A thought cracked in his mind, and reminded him of the fact that this was not something he should attempt. He averted his eyes, regretting, and laced his fingers in his lap.

“Charlotte,” he began again, quietly. “You do know how I really feel about you. You know now what my true feelings are. Don’t you?” He looked to her again, but was met with only her continued silence from behind the pillow. He sighed as his heart constricted. “What do I do, Lottie?” He enveloped her knee with one of his large hands and suppressed the shudder that began at the top of his spine. He never paid close attention to any of these desires before. They confused him. They were too complicated to even think about dealing with, when so many other problems were his priority. “We cannot keep on like this. Not when I am so in love with you. Not when your mind is too preoccupied for you to comprehend that. How do I fix you?”

Charlotte finally sat up, tossing the pillow to the side. She glared at him, angry tears rolling down her cheeks and dripping off the point of her chin. “You cannot
fix
me. I am what I am now—like you—a monster. I cannot change back to what I was!”

“You can.”

“
No! I can’t!
” she hollered. “You want me to be innocent little Lottie forever! I can no longer be that for you. I’m sorry. I’m growing up, Valek. Things are changing beyond my control, and I don’t even know how to help
myself
. I am not your little doll anymore.” Her angered expression plummeted into a pool of solemnity as she said this. “You have to change me.” Her gaze left his and traveled around the dark room. “It’s the only answer.”

She got up from the bed and walked slowly toward a wall where a small, framed childhood drawing sat on a massive, cherry wood dresser. Under glass, multicolored pencil lines sketched out a crude image of what was supposed to be Valek’s smiling face. He watched as Charlotte plucked it from the dresser, analyzing it in the dark light. Specifically, she traced with her finger where she marked little lines from his mouth that were meant to represent fangs. She was silent for a few more moments. It seemed like eons to him.

She turned to Valek again, frustration painting itself clearly on her face. “You need to figure out what you want, Valek.” Tears began to gather in her lower eyelids again. They smelled like salt and something so refreshing, it was all he could do to keep from kissing them off her face.

“I can fix you. Give me the chance,” he begged. “I will fix all of this, like I promised.” Valek got up from the bed as well and stealthily dashed over to her, dust glimmering in the faint moon glow that surrounded him like a full-body halo. His large shadow eclipsed her face, and he saw her eyes widen at him. He loved the way she looked at him, even when she was angry. He placed his hands on her small shoulders, fully encompassing them. “Please.” He slid his hands up to her damp cheeks.

After one short moment searching her eyes, he crushed his lips to hers. The warmth of her skin and the pulse underneath made him groan quietly, and he pulled her back onto the bed.

Before the girl could even blink, he was over her—his hair hanging around his face, sweeping into his eyes. Her aroma was so warm and thick around him that it would have been impossible to breathe if he weren’t enjoying it so much. A wave traveled down from the middle of his stomach, making it clench when he noticed just how pressed against her he was. He had done this before, in his human lifetime, but this just seemed so new—so much different now. It was instinctive and honest—and mortal. There was a glowing sense of curiosity as he focused on how right this was beginning to feel. His claws pinned her small hands to the bed on either side of her head. His lips crushed hers once again, his tongue invading. His hand slid up her stomach underneath the material of the dress. He could feel her skin heat up instantly, reacting to his boldness.