Cherno drops down out of the air and lands on the desk. The demon crawls until they sit atop the unopened letter to my left that arrived this morning.
Since the claiming, Elizabeth’s messages have grown more and more frequent—even with the four vampires she sent to make sure I attended this year’s masquerade. Most end up in the fire, unread. They are all the same—pleas to give in to her desires at long last, and thinly veiled threats.
“I would think you would be happy,” Cherno says. “But instead you’re brooding. Why?”
I lean back in my chair and run my hands over my face, letting out a growl of frustration.
“I gave her the first mark last night,” I say begrudgingly.
I have wanted to touch her, to see and feel her come undone under my hands, for so long, that I nearly gave in to the pull of the mark. And then I sent her away, knowing how my actions would make her feel.
But with the pull of the mark dimmed—who she is, who she has always been—comes back to me. I let myself forget.
When she is around, that is all too easy to do. Avoiding her seemed best, but she sought me out again and again until I couldn’t send her away anymore. Having her stand next to me during the meeting was like drawing breath for the first time… though she made it hard to concentrate on the issue at hand. I hadn’t expected the first mark to affect me at all.
“If you despise her baring your mark, then you should kill her as she sleeps in your bed. Drain the rest of her blood and be done with it,” Cherno says coolly.
“It isn’t that,” I say. “It’s because I want her—I want her to have my mark... but if I mark her again, I won’t be able to resist.”
I want her.
Cherno shrugs, an odd gesture for a bat. “Sex is sex. It only means more when there is something between the two parties to give it meaning.”
Fuck her, Cherno means, treat her as if she is nothing.
Guilt stabs at my chest with each word they say. It was never just giving into the power of the mark.
“And that is the problem—I believe there is more between us than just attraction.” I lean forward and rest my arms on the desk, lowering my face to Cherno’s level. “I don’t understand how I can want her, how can I stand her touch, how can I want anything more than her slow, painful death… knowing that she killed Rosalie.”
Cherno swoops and dives in tight circles around my head. I lift a hand and half-heartedly swat at them.
“If you cannot forgive her, then you must kill her.”
I lift my glass of brandy and take a long sip of the amber liquid.
“If only it were that easy.” I set the drink down, the ice clinking musically against the glass. “She apologized the other night.”
A leathery wing smacks the back of my head. I snarl at the impudence. The demon plops down right atop the unopened letter and wiggles their rear, settling in. The scolding I was about to give is immediately forgotten, and a smile pulls on my lips. Cherno is the only one who has ever shown disdain equal to mine for the Queen Bitch herself.
Those deep red eyes that appear almost brown widen, chasing away the humor. “You cannot keep doing this to yourself…” they say in earnest, then after a pause, Cherno adds, “Or to her. There is nothing she can say or do to change the past. Unfortunately, words do not have the power to revive the dead. Nor can they take away the pain. It is something that will lessen in time, and you must learn to continue on despite it.”
“I know,” my words come out strangled.
“It doesn’t matter whether you finish marking her or not. Claiming and marking a human was never going to be a casual affair for you, as it is the others. You cling to your humanity, and therefore part of your heart remains human.”
My hands ball into fists. I want to protest—except that is exactly what I’ve spent almost two hundred years doing for Rosalie.
How can I let her go? How can I move on when she was the reason I have stayed alive all these years—the reason why I didn’t give some human the night-forged dagger to slay me? Rosalie helped me stay true to who I was before I was turned and to become a better man in the end.
“Claiming Clara was a rash decision. The two of you must deal with the consequences of both your actions.” Cherno crawls along the desk, then up my arm to rest on my shoulder. “You cannot keep holding on to what happened. You were both wrong and both right.”
I open my mouth to protest, but tiny claws dig in, and their power flows through my veins, forcing me to listen.
“You are talking nonsense, bat,” I manage to grind out.
“You both let your prejudices get in the way of seeing who the other is. She has changed, but so have you—the two of you have come to know each other and are softer for it.”
Softer? I scoff. Lawrence would say weaker, but I am undecided on that as of yet.
I stand and make my way to the window. The moon’s light is muted by thick, wintery gray clouds.
Reaching up, I stroke Cherno’s small head. They have changed as well. The neutrality that permitted their personality has gradually been replaced with humor in the last several decades, and—though they would never admit it—a sort of kindness.
“How can I let Rosalie go?” I ask. “Wouldn’t that make me a horrible brother?”
“You do not,” they say. “You remember her. Continue to be the man she believed you to be. But also understand that Clara was raised to see all vampires as monsters. You have been at the top of the food chain for so long you do not remember what it’s like to be prey. Whether real or imagined, fear can make good people do terrible things. What matters is how someone changes once they know the truth.”
Vampires take what we want because we can. We rule over humans. But Cherno is wrong… there is a monster I still fear—even though it has been years since I’ve lived under Elizabeth’s oppressive rule at Nightwich and struggled not to become like them.
“It is possible to hold on to your love for Rosalie and forgive Clara.” The words are quiet and distant. Barely a whisper.
“I must go. I have wasted too much of the night,” I say. I can hardly dare believe that what he suggests is a real option.
Snatching my jacket from the coatrack, I head for the door.
Cherno leaps off my shoulder, leathery wings beating at the air. “Think on it, Master.”
Clara is in her room, waiting for the chance to talk.
I slip my jacket on and run downstairs as if I can run away from these thoughts when they live in my head. As if running and putting distance between the two of us could solve anything.
Stopping on the edge of the woods, I turn. Clara’s form darkens the window of her room and, were it not for the shadows that envelop me, I’d swear she could see me.
Cherno lands on my outstretched palm. “Go. Watch over her tonight. I can handle the hunt on my own this time.”
“You have changed the way she sees the world. You were never the monster she expected you to be. She sees vampires as individuals now—but you must make sure she does not forget the danger she is in.” Cherno leaves me with that final thought.
I wonder if they are right.
I will never forget Rosalie, but I can choose to forgive Clara. She has pushed her way into my soul regardless… and perhaps I’ve already forgiven her but have been too blinded by guilt to notice.