Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him. “Get it out another way, not in pieces.”
I remember the panicked look that came across my friend’s face. I hated that look. He knew somehow she wouldn’t survive an operation, and I think Lucy and I knew it too. But if I was going to have to bury my child with her, at least I wanted it whole.
“All right. You’re the father,” he conceded. Then he took in a deep breath. “Are you sure you want to be here for this? There will be a lot more blood. When was the last time you fed?”
“I’ll be fine. Focus on her. And do whatever you fucking can to make sure she lives.”
To Van Helsing’s credit, he did everything he could to save Lucy.
But the blood didn’t stop and her body had already gone through too much.
My wife lay there in a sea of crimson, thankfully so drugged out of her mind that she didn’t feel much pain. But there was nothing anyone could do to stop the bleeding. It came and it came, and it didn’t stop.
Van Helsing carefully took the baby’s body away, and gave me my last minutes alone with Lucy, the love of my life who I had already lost and was losing once again.
“Lucy,” I whispered to her, staring down at the bed. She was so pale, like snow, all the blood drained from her, and even though I had seen so many people like that in my life, because of what I had done to them, it had never looked beautiful until now. Because she really was that beautiful. It transcended death.
“Val,” she managed to say, her eyes fluttering open for a moment.
I got into bed with her, lying in her blood, holding her gently. “My dove,” I told her, kissing the top of her head. “I’m so sorry, my dove. I have failed you again.”
“No,” she croaked. “You didn’t…I loved you, Val. I lost you…” she trailed off and I heard her heartbeat slow, death approaching. “I lost you and I found you again.” She let out a shuddering breath, a single tear rolling down her cheek. “I will find you again. I will find you in another lifetime. My heart will always find yours.”
And then she died.
Her heart stopped and my entire world went still.
My Mina, my Lucy, was gone, and I was left with nothing but an empty hole where my heart should have been.
Lucy and the baby were buried the next day in the same grave.
I still haven’t been back to see it.
After I lost Mina the first time, when I first learned what I was, I gave myself over to violence too easily. I became a monster who killed without morals or thought. I spent a century as a walking plague, bringing death to all I encountered. I was darkness personified until eventually I found a way to live through my rage. Until I was able to find my humanity again.
But my foothold wasn’t very strong.
Losing Lucy knocked me right off and into that darkness again, letting it consume me, until the only thing I knew was death, the death that I brought.
I may have believed in God, but people were wrong about Hell.
Hell isn’t a place. It’s inside you.
Chapter 19
Dahlia
After Val told me he was a vampire, everything became easier between us. Not that things didn’t feel easy before but that was always confined to sex. Sex with him felt as natural as breathing, our bodies were so in tune with each other that it felt like I had been with him before somehow, like my hands and my lips and my tongue knew all the perfect places on his body. I knew that he liked to be kissed right behind the ear, I knew he liked his balls tugged and played with, I knew that he was ticklish on his inner thigh, to the point of him exploding into a panicked laughing fit (and I also knew when to use that to my advantage).
But I digress. With the truth out, our relationship sifted into one of comfort, a feeling of ease that was able to coexist alongside the unstoppable swarm of butterflies that filled my stomach with each aching second. Valtu excited me like nothing else in this world had. I was starting to prefer love over death.
We ended up talking all night. I had to play the role of a human who knew nothing of real vampires, so I asked all the right questions and he gave me all the right answers. This was all stuff I knew, but after the basics were done (“Can you create other vampires? Do you need blood to live? Does it need to be human blood?”) we started delving into the personal stuff. This is what I was here for.