“I’m not joking. I’m being honest. And I know you, Solon. I saw what you’ll do for me. I know you’ll always be in control, no matter what happens.”
His dark brows come together. “How can you be so sure?” he whispers.
“I just know,” I tell him. And deep in the heart of me, beneath that moonlit well, I know it’s true.
He gives a small shake of his head, staring at me in a
we. “You…,” he says in a hush, “you saw me, felt me, for what I really am, and you’re still so determined to be with me. To want me. You have to know what my love would do you to, Lenore. It wouldn’t save you. It would destroy you.”
I feel like I’m freefalling.
Love.
Does he love me?
Is that even possible?
“I know you think you can handle me, tame me, and you’re the bravest creature I know,” he goes on, eyes searching mine. “But this could be a mistake that you’ll pay for with your life. Are you willing to do that?” He closes his eyes. “The better question is, am I willing to let you?”
“You’re not letting me do anything,” I say firmly, reaching up to kiss him on the lips. “As I told you before, this is my choice to make, and I’ve made it. I’m here with you, and this is where I’ll stay.”
“Stubborn little creature,” he murmurs in amusement, kissing the corner of my mouth.
“Takes one to know one,” I reply. “Though you aren’t so little.” I nestle my head back into his neck, feeling a strange sense of contentment despite all the revelations. “Tell me more about your father.”
“How about I tell you about yours,” he counters.
He’s got me there. I hold strong. “After. You first. Do you still speak to your father? You told me Skarde was still alive.”
He exhales loudly through his nose, his chest falling beneath me. “He is alive, and I do not speak to him. We are…estranged, to put it mildly. Enemies, if you want to be more accurate.”
“What happened?”
“So much over the years,” he says in a weary tone. “Of course, I don’t remember a lot of the first bit because I was driven mad and he let me run loose. He couldn’t control me, and he stopped trying. He was a fan of the mayhem. But he always kept tabs on me, and after what happened with Esmerelda, I ran back to his side, where I stayed until the 1700s. By then I was starting to come out of the madness again. And then I started to grow a conscious. That became a problem.”
“Why?”
“Because my father is more the Devil’s son than not. He loved creating vampires. He loved the destruction. Hated humans, humanity, the whole world. Still does. I was the first made, but thousands were made after me. A lot of them didn’t survive, but some did. Yanik, for instance, he was made, that’s why he’s so old. He was that age when he was bitten.”
The mention of Yanik makes me shudder. “Yanik has an interest in my blood. Is he still aligned with your father?”
“Yanik?” he asks, brows raised. “I would have never let him in my house if I knew that he was. The mad vampires created more mad vampires, so not everything is traced back to my father necessarily. He just wanted to create an army, he wanted the power. He saw how I turned, hoped that the next time would be easier, but it wasn’t. He then started breeding, though I’d consider it raping, producing natural born heirs, like my half-brother Kaleid. He’s my father’s righthand man now. The favorite,” he adds bitterly. “He never had to go through what I did.”
“So when was the last time you saw your father? Or brother?”
“Probably 1850,” he says. “In Lapland. It didn’t go well.”
“What happened?”
“Well, they tried to have me killed.”
“What?” I straighten up. “Why?”
He gives me a crooked smile. “Because I tried to have them killed. That’s been my goal all these years.”
“To kill your father?”
He nods. “He rules over all the vampires in one way or another, keeping them in line. It was him who outlawed creating other vampires, with good reason of course, but the hypocrisy is what gets me. You see, he’s still creating them. Making them. They’re evolving now, and he’s somehow figured out a way to control them. Not enough to do his bidding, I suppose, but that’s what he’s working towards. And god help the world if he’s ever able to do that. The Dark Order will be unstoppable.”