Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 122946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
At that, I stopped and gave him my attention. “Explain, I don’t really understand.”
“From what I was told, it was like an emptiness. A hole in them that drove them mad with sadness, and they roamed the earth to find their maker. Most go mad. And yet, you have not broken down, nor lost your joy. It is almost as if you would be perfectly satisfied if you never met them.”
“Of course, I want to find them.” Though I had never really thought to look. Why? Why hadn’t I thought to look? I had eternity. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I never clung to the idea of being a vampire very much. Part of me knew it, understood it, but I still felt like me, just hungrier…prettier. So instead of looking, I just wanted to get back to my life.”
“You are not upset at being reborn?” he frowned, and I saw something, like a brief moment of pain in his eyes.
“Sometimes, but—I don’t know what to say. It was just a new normal for me. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t love it. It was just the reality of my situation. I was alive. To stay alive, I needed blood and money. So, I hunted and went to work.”
“How can someone who lives between the covers of romance novels and ancient paintings have such a scientific view of your rebirth?” he chuckled.
But I just shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just how I am. Why? Did you hate your rebirth?”
“I did.” He frowned, and he reached up to twirl one of the ends of my hair. “I had a life, a wife and two children. I was a droungarios.”
“A what?”
He smiled. “It was a title given to a commander of a formation known as droungos. Essentially, it was a unit in the Byzantine army. We were military units detailed to the mountainous areas in Greece. I worked my whole life to rise above my station. To be something worthy of honor and respect. I received it. I had four hundred men under my command. For a bastard son from Athens, later an orphan, it was as if I had become king. I never lost when we invaded from the north or when the east descended. I was fair when judging men and women in my city. And do you know who betrayed me?”
“Who?”
“My wife.” He snickered bitterly with a grimace on his face. “It is often said that men seek out a version of their mother in their wives. I do not know if that’s true for all of us, but it was my fate. Orspina was very much like my mother, not in looks, for her hair was golden but in her selfishness. She wanted more than one man could offer. I gave her the status, the honor of being a commander’s wife, but she was not pleased that I could not give her all of my attention. Maybe I was wrong for focusing so much on my command and less on her. But she was wrong for laying with another man, and lying about whom her children belonged to, as was my mother.”
My mouth dropped open slightly. “They weren’t your children?”
“No, but I loved them even so, and even as they grew and saw they looked less like me, I loved them even still.” His voice became softer. “Had I found out, I would have forgiven her. I would not have abandoned the children we were raising. However, the man she slept with, her lover and the children’s true father, was hiding in my home. I assumed he and Orspina were together that night, and I returned sooner they had expected. It was late; I kissed the top of my children’s heads and returned to our chamber to rest with her. Like she always did, she removed my armor, but this time with my own sword. They slit my throat.”
I gasped, eyes wide as they shifted to his Adam’s apple, wanting to touch it, but he did instead.
“I do not think the man had ever killed before, for the cut was not deep enough. Nor do I think Orspina would do it, for she screamed in horror. I remember the look on her face as I fell to my knees. I reached out for her, trying to tell her to run only to watch this strange man pull her into his arms, kissing her. Telling her he would take of it, and he instructed her to stay with the kids. She did not even look back at me once. He left to tell the guards who had heard her not to worry.”
“You watched all of this as you were bleeding out of your throat?” I questioned, moving closer to him.
He nodded. “When he began to grab the linen, I closed my eyes. I went still, and I prayed to the gods. I swore that I would forgive her for this, too, had I lived. That I would go and do as they command. I just needed to live. I would hold on until they sent help.”