I could not answer her, not yet. I licked the blood from my fangs and my lips, tasting its richness.
“My child?”
Slowly, I looked up. The hunger and the madness was gone. My mind felt clear. Strong. Like my body.
Cneajna laid a hand against my smooth cheek. “Glynis?”
“I remember. ”
“What?”
“What I am. Who I was. ” It was all clear now. That other life. The door was fully thrown open.
I stared up at the magnificence of the night, the beauty of the vampire standing over me, and I remembered it all. My father, my mother, my sister, my brother, my home so far away in England, all our travels, the deaths of my family, my own death and rebirth. With startling clarity, no longer hidden and distant, all I had experienced and endured flooded into my mind. With equal clarity, I realized the chains I had once endured no longer bound me. I was free of all past restraints. I was free to live forever, free to kill, free to feed, free to do what I had to do to escape this place and obtain my ultimate freedom.
In that moment, I was completely reborn.
I slowly stood up and looked into the worried eyes of the blond vampire. “I have become. ”
“Become what?”
“A vampire,” I answered calmly.
She smiled at me and said, “Then all is well. ”
Chapter 11
The Journal of Lady Glynis Wright
The Castle
One night I found myself wandering alone through the castle. When I had risen I realized the other vampires had already awakened and were prowling the night. Honestly, I was quite glad to be alone. Melancholy thoughts of my family were drifting through my mind and I did not feel like dealing with the other vampires. They were annoying with their insistence that I be grateful for my new undead existence and their determination that I simply accept my fate.
Ha! Obviously, they have no concept of my true nature. I have never in my entire life simply accepted anything I was supposed to. I accept nothing at face value and I am rather stubborn. Frankly, I am quite contrary.
So, glad to be rid of the other vampires, I gathered a lace shawl that Cneajna had given me about my shoulders, and I drifted off into the dark corridors.
My mind was ravaged by memories as I walked: each and every one a brutal reminder of my former life. I almost wished for the bliss of forgetfulness for every memory was a painful stab into my dead little heart. But then, I would not want to be simpleton, lost in the hunger, doing as Vlad told me.
The memories were torturous in their vividness. I remembered my beloved brother, Andrew, holding me upside by my ankles when I was four as he swung me about as my mother came screaming down the stairs that he put me down at once. Of course, I was laughing with delight the whole time. Andrew and I constantly gave Mother fits.
And I remembered my beloved May. Oh, yes, she annoyed me with her wide-eyed innocence and calm nature. She was never up for any sort of adventure, but I did love her. I fondly recalled sitting on my bed reading to her as she curled up against me, warm and frail, delicate and sweet.
I remembered my parents. My dear sweet father with his even temperament and twinkling eyes and his mutterings of “there, there. ” And of course, my Mother, that I have to confess, I am very much like in many ways. We always had a cantankerous relationship, but it was always a loving one. Even in the heat of all our arguments, I never doubted she loved me.
Tears slipped down my face as I tried not to think of her death at my hands. I felt the cold wetness of the trail they left behind on my cheeks.
Now dear Andrew and Angeline are all that remain of my family.
Dearest Andrew, how I miss him.
Ariana emerged from the shadows. In one swift motion, she reached out and touched my tears.
“Do not cry, dear sister,” she whispered softly.
“I am rather sad and cannot help it,” I responded.
Ariana wiped the tears away with her cold little hands. She was so child-like in her movements and sincerity it made me weep all the more. I could not help but wonder how old Ariana had been when she had been brought into this dark world.