Alone (24 page)

Realization s
ank in and she crumpled to the
ground and curled into a ball, trying to protect herself from what
she was suddenly certain he had brought her here to
witness.

“
Open your eyes, Serenity,” he
roared, his voice raw. “Look at me. See what I am.”

“
No!” she cried into her
hands. “Stop it, stop it!”

“
Look at me, Serenity. If this is
what you want, you must open your eyes!”

She didn’t want to. She wanted to hide
away from the truth, but he was right; this was something she
needed to see.

F
orcing herself to her feet, she opened her
eyes.

Sebastian stood twenty-feet away, bathed
in moonlight, a body in his arms.

He raised his head, his beautiful pale
face coated in blood, his green eyes now yellow and glowing in the
darkness.

“
Look, Serenity,” he shouted
into the night. “I am a monster!”

“
No,” she sobbed, shaking
her head. “Why are you doing this?”

A
man in his late forties lay slumped in the
vampire’s arms. The body was already emaciated, his face covered in
beard growth. He’d already been in a bad state, even before
Sebastian had taken him, but he had been a man, a living, breathing
person who once had a mother who adored him.

“
Is this what you want?” he
demanded, holding the corpse out toward her. “You want to take the
lives of others so you can survive? Is your life more important
than this man’s, or the next person you have to kill, or the next,
or the next?”

Sebastian dropped the man as though he
were nothing more than a bag of sand and the body hit the floor
with a sickening thud. Absurdly, the thought that Sebastian should
treat the body with a little more respect went through her head.
She shook herself; he was dead. Whatever made him a man was
gone.

She stared at the dead man in shock. Other
than Jackson, she had never seen a body before and somehow this
stranger was almost worse than her husband.

Frantically, she shook her head, unable to
tear her eyes away from the man.

“
Oh, God,” she backed away, her
hand to her mouth. “I don’t want this. I only want for us to be
together, for
my
life to stop!”

“
This is the truth, Serenity! If
you become like me you will kill normal, regular people to survive.
Can you do that?”

“
You do?” She offered as a
pitiful excuse.

His eyes flashed that strange,
iridescent yellow. “I had no choice! I was
taken
from my life—I did not choose to become
what I am.
If
I could kill myself, then I would, but I can’t. Believe me, I’ve
tried.”

Pulling all of her strength and bravery
together, Serenity forced her legs to walk toward him. She tore her
eyes from the body, focusing on Sebastian.

Though another man’s blood covered his
face, he did not disgust her. Reflected in his image, she saw
herself after she had murdered Jackson, soaked in his blood,
terrified. He had not backed away from her then, but took her in
his arms and washed the blood from her skin.

P
eople did whatever was needed when they
loved each other. However bad the situation, they picked themselves
up and forced themselves to be strong for their loved
ones.

“
It’s not a choice,” she
whispered. “Needing to be with you is not a choice.”

“
Will nothing change your
mind?”

She shook her head.

“
Then I must leave,” he said,
“and let Madeline come to me.”

“
No! You can’t,” she screamed in
frustration, her voice echoing in the empty countryside. “You are
breaking my God-damn heart, Sebastian. Why did you ever even speak
to me if you knew we would never be together? At least if I’d never
met you, I would have stayed oblivious to happiness. Surely that is
better than having the possibility in front of my face only to be
torn away again?”

They stood on the hillside, almost a
normal couple having an argument, if not for the blood on
Sebastian’s face and the dead body at their feet.

“
I couldn’t help myself,” he
said. “I saw you running through the street with such sadness in
your eyes and I recognized part of myself in you. You said needing
to be with me wasn’t a choice; I felt the same way about needing to
talk to you.”

“
So stop fighting me and do
as I ask.”

“
Damn it, Serenity! I will
not turn you into a monster!”

She bit her lips, tears streaming down her
face. The thought of losing him was too much. The idea of him being
with another woman—even one he hated—was even worse.

Sebastian stepped forward, wiping the
blood from his face in one swipe. He pulled her toward him, burying
his face in her hair.

“
What are we going to do?” he
whispered into her hair. Serenity couldn’t answer; she clung to
him, desperately hoping they could stay that way
forever.

“
Let’s go,” he said. “I shouldn’t
have showed you this. I’m an idiot to think it would change
anything.”

He lifted her in his arms and she let him,
in the same way as the night she’d killed Jackson. Though she had
sworn to herself to not let another man control her life, she had
also learned there were times when it was all right to trust
implicitly.

They moved through the night like
ghosts, detected by only the faintest movement of air, running with
the moon.

Serenity was lost in her grief, certain
she was about to lose the man she loved to someone else. She didn’t
care where she was, as long as she was with Sebastian.

Back in the hotel room, they made love
once again, Sebastian’s claims that the previous night had been a
mistake disputed by his actions. Afterward, they lay face to face,
foreheads pressed together, fingers resting on each other’s cheeks.
Consumed in each other, they tried to forget the threat facing
them, but real life couldn’t be ignored for long.

“
I have to go,” he
said.

She pulled him closer. “No, not again.
You’re always leaving me.”

“
It won’t be for long. I need to
go back to... to the body. I can’t leave it there. Bad things
happen if they’re just left.”

Serenity couldn’t help it, her
interest was sparked. “Would the man become like you?” A brief
glint of crazy jealousy fired within her. How she could be jealous
of a dead man?

She had no reason to be
envious.

“
They die, but then their bodies
regenerate. If they’re given what they need—oxygen—the bodies will
come back to life, but the brain, the soul, dies when they
do.”

Sitting up, she stared at him in horror.
“Zombies? Are you telling me the people you kill turn into
zombies?”

He laughed—actually laughed—a sound so out
of place given the situation.

“
They’re not what you think. They
don’t go around biting chunks out of people. They’re just bodies
reacting, like a chicken after its head is cut off.”

She raised an eyebrow, “Nice.”

“
Nothing about this is nice,
Serenity.”

She sighed. “No, of course not. I’m
sorry. So how long do you think you’ll be gone? What will you
do?”

“
Put the body somewhere it won’t
get oxygen or be able to fight out of.”

“
Fight out of?”

“
Like I said, they react. Given
enough time, the body fights to get what it needs.”

She shivered. “What about you?” she asked.
“What do you need?”

“
Me?” he nuzzled against her.
“All I need is you.”

Gently, she shoved against his chest,
pushing him away. “I meant you, as in a vampire. What does a
vampire need to survive?”

He frowned, “The same as any human; food,
air, shelter.”

“
So why can’t you
die?”

“
We’re not human. To deprive a
human of those things is easy, but a vampire is strong and fast,
and heals quickly. Even if we’re deprived of any of those things
for any length of time, our bodies regenerate once we come into
contact with them again.”

“
But you would shut down for the
time being?”

“
Yes. Until a time came when we
were freed of our constraints, our bodies would go into a type of
sleep, a type of hibernation, if you like.”

“
And what would hold you? If
you wanted to put another vampire somewhere they couldn’t get out,
where would it be?”

“
Hundreds of years ago they’d
wall vampires up inside buildings to be left until the building’s
walls were either damaged or knocked down. Now we have more modern
materials—though stone still works, of course—but the walls would
need to be incredibly thick and humans don’t build like that
anymore.”

“
Right,” she said, her brain
ticking over.

Sebastian shook his head, “I
know what you’re thinking, Serenity.
Madeline is one hundred years older than I
am and she wouldn’t allow herself to be put in a dangerous
situation.”

“
What if she wasn’t
expecting it? What if she thought she was in control?”

He sat up beside her. “Don’t
even think about it. You’re no match for her. I’m
no match for
her.

“
Is considering the idea of
fighting her so wrong?”

“
Yes, if you’ll probably end up
dead.”

“
But there’s the possibility I
wouldn’t?”

Neither of them spoke.

“
And what if we did defeat
her...” Serenity finally continued. He moved to interrupt but she
lifted her hand, halting his words. “What would happen
then?”

“
I don’t want to put your
life at risk.”

“
Would you turn me?”

“
No, Serenity. I’m sorry,
but I wouldn’t.”

For once, she accepted his words. “But you
wouldn’t be with her. You and I, we would both be alone, but we’d
know the other was out there, still caring about each
other.”

“
I will always care about
you.”

“
We would live our lives
separately.” Even the thought caused her pain, but she thought it
might be a pain she could live with—a pain that, in time, would
become part of who she was.

“
You might find someone else,” he
said, “and still have a chance at a normal life.”

She shook her head. “Whatever you say,
that will never happen.”

“
I can’t watch you grow old,
Serenity. I can’t go through that again.”

R
ealization dawned. She’d been purely
selfish thinking about only her own feelings in this matter. She
wasn’t the only one who had been through hell. Losing a wife and
child was worse than what she had been through over her life time.
She had lost her babies before they’d had the chance to become the
personalities she would love. She could only imagine how it would
feel to be taken away from the cute smile that woke you up in the
morning, or the little arms that wrapped around your neck when they
were scared.

“
I’m sorry,” she said. “What I’ve
been asking of you... I’ve been selfish. Nothing is ever going to
stop me from wanting to do whatever it takes to be with you, but I
need to respect your feelings. I guess I’ll live with that. We both
will.”

Deep down, Serenity believed if he loved
her enough, he would do whatever it took to be with her. She didn’t
understand that for once, someone was putting her own well-being
before his own personal needs.

He leaned across and kissed her, his lips
cool and firm against hers. Serenity pressed against him, deepening
the kiss but he pulled away.

“
I have to go,” he said. “I’ve
already been too long.”

“
Can I come?”

He shook his head. “You’ve been
exposed too much already. If you’re ever going to live a normal
life, you need to start forgetting what you’ve seen.”

She laughed, but there was no humor in the
sound. “Sure. That should be easy. You are coming back, aren’t you?
I don’t think I am ready to say goodbye yet.”

“
Aren’t you tired?” he
asked, not answering her question. “It’s nearly three in the
morning. You should be asleep.”

“
I guess I’ve gotten used to
living at night.”

He got up from the bed and started to pull
his clothes back on. Just the sight of the smooth line of his back
and the dimples at the bottom of his spine was enough to take her
breath away. She would never meet someone like him
again.

“
Hey,” she reached out and
grabbed his hand. He had managed to get his pants back on and
shrugged on his shirt, but it hung, unbuttoned, exposing his chest.
“You’ll come back, won’t you?” she asked again.

He sat beside her on the bed. “My head
tells me to stay away, but my heart can’t stand the
thought.”