Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 116618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
He moves faster now, drinking deeper, and the room spins around me. My heart thunders in time with his movements; sensation blurs into a single ecstatic blur. His grip on my wrists tightens painfully, but I’m beyond feeling anything except him—every part of him consuming every part of me.
“Victor,” I gasp again, or maybe I only think I do.
Everything crescendos at once—the sharp heat in my veins, the shattering release as we both come together violently. It rips through me with the force of a tidal wave, drowning awareness in its wake.
He jerks back from my neck with a ragged snarl, shuddering above me, dripping blood as he spills inside me. For a moment, he’s utterly still; then he collapses forward, burying his face in my shoulder like a man who’s just run for miles. His weight crushes me into the mattress—I’m weak beneath him, barely able to catch my breath—but I don’t mind. The fierceness is gone from his embrace now; his hold on me is possessive but not bruising.
Slowly, achingly slowly, the world comes back into focus. The room seems impossibly quiet after the chaos—just the sound of our breathing and the distant crash of waves beyond the window.
I shift beneath him experimentally and feel a slight easing of pressure around my ribs as he rolls us onto our sides without breaking contact. His eyes meet mine in the half-light; they’re no longer red but dark and wide and full of something I can’t quite read.
Recognition? Regret?
“Lena,” he says hoarsely—my name like an apology on his lips.
He looks down at the blood staining both our skin, where it smears across our bodies like some violent claim of possession. His expression twists with self-loathing that cuts through what’s left of my haze.
“Lena,” he repeats brokenly.
I reach up with trembling fingers to touch his face—still smeared with dirt and hunger but unmistakably his own again—and see something else flicker there: disbelief that I’m still alive under all this ruin.
I manage a smile despite the spinning room and ache between us both. “You came back to me.”
“Oh god. God.” His eyes pinch shut. Anguish contorts his features. “He sent me to capture you. To bring you to him. I tried to fight it, but his voice was in my head, his commands…”
He shudders, rolling away from me to sit on the edge of the bed, head in his hands. “I would have done it. If you hadn’t reached me, I would have delivered you to him like a lamb to slaughter. Or maybe…maybe I would have slaughtered you myself.”
“But you didn’t,” I say firmly, sitting up to wrap my arms around him from behind. “You found your way back.”
He’s silent for a long moment, his body rigid beneath my touch. When he speaks again, his voice is hollow, defeated in a way I’ve never heard before.
“He told me things, Lena. About who I am. What I’ve done.” He draws a shaky breath. “I killed Elizabeth Short.”
The words hang in the air between us, terrible and final. I go still, arms still wrapped around him, my mind racing to process what he’s just confessed.
“Victor—”
“I’m the one who picked her up at the Biltmore,” he continues, the words coming faster now, as if he can’t stop them. “I took her to them. And after they tortured her for days, carved those symbols into her flesh, cut her in half, I…” His voice breaks. “I drained her blood. I don’t remember doing it, but I know it’s true. I can feel it. I can taste it.”
I should be horrified. Should recoil from him in disgust. My friend’s killer, sitting naked and broken in my arms.
But all I feel is a profound sadness—for Betty, yes, but also for Victor. For the man who never asked for this legacy, who never chose to be a monster, who’s been manipulated and used by the creature who claims to be his father.
“It wasn’t you,” I say quietly. “Not the you that’s here now. Not the man I know.”
He laughs, a harsh, broken sound. “But it was. That’s what you don’t understand, Lena. The vampire side of me isn’t some separate entity. It’s me. All of me. The darkest, most primal parts, maybe, but still me.” He turns to face me, his eyes haunted. “I’m Dmitri’s son. His blood flows in my veins. His nature is my nature.”
I take his face in my hands, forcing him to meet my gaze. “Blood isn’t destiny, Victor. It’s just blood. Your choices define you, not your heritage. And you chose to fight him. Chose to warn me, even as you were compelled to capture me.”
“What if I can’t fight him next time?” he asks, fear evident in his voice. “What if he sends me after you again, and I can’t break free? What if I hurt you, or worse?”