Blood, Milk & Chocolate - Part 1 (The Grimm Diaries Book 3) (10 page)

"I
might have the blood of Sorrows, but not their heart," Angel said, trying
his luck one more time with the henchman chaining him.

"You
don't have a heart." Night rolled his eyes. "You don't a have a soul.
You just think you do. Now take her or I will force you."

"You
can't force me!"

Night took
a step back and pulled a small flute from under his cloak. It was made of wood
and had seven holes in it. I couldn't understand the panic that swept over
Angel and the henchmen when they saw it.

Strangely,
Night began playing a melody on his flute. The image instantly reminded me of
the Pied Piper my father had told me about. Was Night Von Sorrow the Pied Piper
himself? Was this tune the one my father had told me about? I didn't know. Let
me rephrase that—I couldn't know. The tune was strangely unmemorable. I
mean, I could hear it but never repeat the melody or remember it.

And more
importantly, it had a great effect on Angel. He lost the golden hue in his
eyes; it shifted closer to a bloody red with each note Night played. Since he
could not block the music while his hands were chained behind his back, Angel
squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, futilely wishing he wouldn't hear
his father's melodies.

I didn't
understand why. What was the power this flute possessed? I could only imagine
it was related to the Piper, the man the Lost Seven had escaped centuries ago.

The tune
seemed to get hold of Angel's darker side. I had thought he'd fooled me at
first, but I was wrong. He was supposed to bite me in Styria and didn't for
some reason.

"Let
go of him," Night ordered his henchmen. "The music caught my son
already. Let him go taste her." He began playing again.

Angel, now
free, had his red eyes fixed on me. His darkened stare sent shivers down my
spine. Seeing the bulging veins in his hands, I realized how strong he had
turned. How hungry had he become? There was nothing I could do to prevent him
from killing me but staring back at him. My beauty, which I hadn't been able to
see in the pond, was my last defense after he'd been changed. He had said he
loved the way I looked. It should work its magic on him again.

Sadly, it
didn't.

In the
blink of an eye, Angel was standing right in front of me. He pulled the
henchmen away, not taking his eyes away from me. His grip squeezed on my neck.
He lifted me up effortlessly, my feet kicking uselessly in the air.

Night
stopped playing. "That's my son. Take her!"

Angel
lowered my head to the level of his eyes. Any color had been already swallowed
by the darkness of his pupils. It led me to believe he really didn't have a
soul, not the slightest hint of humanity in his breath. He pulled me closer and
drew his fangs to my neck. I felt a pinch like a needle. It was abrupt and
fast, but he didn't sink his teeth in…yet.

He wounded
me enough to draw blood and let it smear his teeth.

"I'd
like to have her alone," Angel told his father, who threw him a suspicious
look. "She's my first human. I need to feel it's a special moment."

Night
approached him and touched Angel's lips with his fingers, smearing them with my
blood. He tasted it himself then smiled slowly. "Why not?" he said.
"Enjoy your first, my son, and let us know if she is the one." He
ordered his henchmen to leave.

Angel
stared back at me with such intensity that it squeezed sweat out of my pores.
"Remember when I said I'd like you to stare at me forever to heal my
soul?" he whispered, and I nodded. "Keep doing it, no matter how many
people I kill."

While the
henchmen had their backs facing Angel, he lowered me and squeezed my hands
before he turned around. Angel pulled out one of their swords and stabbed the
first one right in the gut. Even Night Von Sorrow didn't have enough time to
realize his son was tricking him. Angel tightened his grip on my hands, as if
it gave him the strength he needed, and slashed at the henchmen, piercing our way
to the door.

The power
he had been granted by the
flute's
melody was still in
him, but not for long. I assumed its effect would subside soon, since Night Von
Sorrow wasn't here and wasn't playing anymore. Angel had managed to use it
against his family.

I couldn't
even keep up with this speed, so he lifted me up with one hand as if I were a
doll. All I knew was that I hadn't seen such fierce anger in my life—then
again, I had been imprisoned in a castle amidst the snow; I was, in many ways,
naive beyond recognition.

I tried
not to stare as he killed people left and right, spattering my face and dress
with blood. Spattering the air with blood. I closed my eyes. As traumatic as
the experience was, I could feel darkness growing in me. Something in me wasn't
right. Something in me wasn't who I'd always thought I was. I just didn't know
what as I enjoyed Angel killing every one of them. Maybe I was learning that
goodness sometimes needed to be spread to the world through blood, not smiles.

Angel's
anger was dark and inhuman. He roared like a lion when he removed heads with
his bare hands. I knew he was roaring to keep his dark soul from succumbing to
his father's wishes.
Angel
was
basically
two people
. A devil named Angel.

Later in
the years, when I remembered this moment, I thought about how all lovers have
their "firsts." Usually it's a first kiss, a first song, or a first
date. Angel and I were different to any other lovers. We had our first lies,
first scars, and first kills.
Our first blood.

"Believe
in me, Carmilla," Angel begged me as he continued the massacre of his own
people. "Believe in me."

And that
was when I knew how he did it.
Through my longing for him.
It felt unfair, to be honest, that all I had to do was believe in a man who
killed his own people to do the right thing. But it was how it worked. With so
much killing going on, and having not seen so much blood and death before, I
fainted in his arms eventually, believing in him more than ever, but with blood
on my hands as well as his.

Before I
fainted, I remembered my mother's story of Pyramus and Thisbe, and how the gods
honored their love with blood-red apples. I began to see the resemblance to my
story with Angel. We were the new Romeo and Juliet, but fiercer, bloodier. We
were called Angel and Carmilla.

21

I woke up
in my bed in the Karnstein castle some time later.

I was safe
and sound, surrounded by family and friends. I was back in my royal life,
wrapped in sheets of silk and pampered like a princess all over again. I was
back home where I belonged, back in my mother and father's arms of protection
and safety, back where one should feel at ease and love.

But still
I felt so alone, not knowing why. Something huge was missing from my life, an
irreplaceable void, and I had no idea what it was.

Day after
day, I walked in a shadow of what I was meant to be. A harsh and dizzying
feeling of having no identity, of pretending to be someone other than who I
really was.

But this
was my home. This was my life and I supposedly hadn't known any other. It was a
good life that any girl would have dreamed of—so good that I felt
ashamed.

Seven days
later, I realized what was wrong with me. I realized I didn't remember what had
happened to me after escaping the castle and wanting to see my reflection in
the water—of course, I regained my memory later.

Angel
hadn't just saved me from his evil clan—and himself—he had also
erased my memory of what had happened. One of Angel's most dangerous skills was
the ability to erase mortal beings' memories.

My family
told me that I had been lost in the forest, and that they found me in a
golden-painted carriage—shaped like a pumpkin—outside the castle
two days later. They said they didn't know who'd brought me back, but that they
were more than grateful. My mother joked that it must have been my secret
admirer, my knight in shining armor.

Of course,
I knew they were lying to me, because they never mentioned the dead soldiers by
the castle's gate, executed by the dark man whose face I hadn't seen.

I kept
spending my days lost in a web of strange hazes, of faintly remembered
memories, mistaking them for daydreaming. Although I didn't remember what had
happened to me, I couldn't escape the feeling of having lost something dear to
me—Angel.

Long walks
in the castle's gardens, long days picking apples from trees, and long
sleepless nights couldn't bury that feeling. It stayed with me like a
suppressed childhood memory that you can't remember but can never forget.

I was
trapped in that haze for two years, until I turned nineteen, keeping to myself,
with no interest of seeing my reflection, making friends, or meeting men.
Seasons changed, one after the other, trees died, babies were born, and I
stayed the same.

At some
point I began asking about the apple trader who'd just vanished from existence.
My father told me he'd changed his line of business and all contacts between
the Karnsteins and Angel Hassenpflug had ended. The only boy whose eyes I could
really see myself in had vanished. All I did was collect apples from trees with
peasants to pass my dull adolescent years.

Until one
night when I eavesdropped and listened to my father telling my mother that he
had discovered that Angel was a descendant of the Sorrows. How ironic was it
that I was on the verge of standing up to my parents and opposing the
possibility of that? With my erased memory, I couldn't believe this to be true.
But I had no means to know or be sure, and continued the lost haze of my
teenage years, barely interested in life—when this should have been the
best time of my life.

When I
think of it now, my teenage years were the basis for the hell I went through
later. I mean, what does a girl have when you take her face from her, and then
you take her memories too?

Eventually,
I grew bored of collecting apples. Then a few weeks later, I began losing my
appetite for everything—all but milk and chocolates, which I began to
crave all the time. I didn't understand why then.

My land's
economy prospered and prospered, and my family had never been happier. None of
this made sense to me. I was like a prophet before the words of God came down
on them, knowing for sure something was wrong with the world around them, and
that whatever rules, religions, or false gods people hung to couldn't be right.
There had to be more—but I had no epiphany, and no alternate God talked
to me.

Until
Angel came back…

***

At first I
thought
I was being followed by some witch or stranger in the
forest, or my father's warriors, who discreetly followed me everywhere in case
I weakened and tried the Pond of Pearls again
.

This time
it was different. I knew
I was being followed by someone I
trusted
. Someone I longed to meet. With each approaching footstep, I
thought I was remembering what had happened to me.

The
feeling of being watched was breathtaking, until Angel stood right in front of
me. Right there among the dense trees and white snow in the middle of the
forest. He had disguised himself, of all things, as a priest.

"Apple
trader," I shrieked. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning creased through my mind
when looking into his eyes. It wasn't really light, but a memory. Real
memories: bloodstained, full of pain and pleasure.

I
remembered everything that he wanted me to remember. That was why he had come
back.

I warned
him of my father's warriors nearby, and he smiled, almost pompously—he
had taken care of them, but hadn't killed them, thank God.

"I'm
sorry it took me two years." He held me by the arms, a look shimmering in
his eyes, as if there was no woman on earth but me. "I thought I was strong
enough to forget about you," he added. "I thought I could leave you
be, to live your safe life without me and the sorrow I bring along." He
stopped to catch his breath. "But I couldn't, Carmilla. I just
couldn't."

"How
could you do this to me?" I pushed his hands away. I didn't fear him as
the son of the vampire king. I was angry at his foolishness in seizing the
moment and believing in one heart. How could he not see how much my heart
flowered in his presence, bloomed to the sunrays of his eyes?

"I did
it because I care for you, Carmilla." Angel's eyes moistened. I couldn't
think of a sincerer voice talking to me. This dark man longed for me in the
strangest way. "It doesn't make sense. We're enemies. Our families are
practically fire and ice. I'm designed to kill you as a human. I was created to
rip the likes of you apart. I should drink your blood and leave your rotten
corpse behind me, but I just can't. The years I've spent with humans, disguised
as one of them, I ended up with a softer my heart. I spent so many nights
wondering if there was ever a way for me to become one of you, and release
myself from being a vampire.
But every time I thought of it,
there wasn't enough reason for me to become one.
Until…" Angel
shrugged. He almost looked away. "Until I laid my eyes on you."

"Angel…"
That was all I said before I curled myself in his arms and began crying joyful
tears. He was reluctant to hold me closer at first. Holding me was a big
commitment. Both of us were signing a contract in blood, to be cursed by our families,
and the world, for the rest of our lives.

In all
those years living in Styria, I had always been squeezed in my father's arms,
kissed and cuddled by Mother before sleep. Still, I never felt at home until
Angel took me into the walls of his ragged yet tender heart.

He finally
did. He squeezed me hard enough to forgive him for the lost years without him.

"Tell
me something, Angel," I said. "Why do I feel so strongly about you?
Although we've been through many things in a short time, it doesn't make sense.
I am so into you."

Angel
seemed to have an answer, but he didn't reply—years later I realized why,
but it's too soon to talk about that now. Instead of talking and arguing and
wishing, we summarized all our fears into a long, breathless kiss. Our first.
Finally, a good first.

It was a
long kiss. I had my eyes closed. I thought he had his closed too. He kissed me
the way a man breathes for life. Not in a metaphorical way. He truly sucked my
soul into him, and I couldn't understand why I meant so much to him. I couldn't
understand how he could so passionately kiss someone he was supposed to kill. I
didn't understand where he had been for two years and why he had come back now.

Right now,
I am surprised I can't capture the emotions I felt that day on paper. Young
love, with all its recklessness and lack of reason or logic, turned out to be a
precious, magical feeling that I might have lost to the long and hollow winters
of my life. The struggling life I lived after has made this memory a bit too
hazy now. I can't even believe I fell for Angel so easily, but it was what my
young heart had desired. It was the start of the craziest adventure I ever
knew.

My haze of
walking dead in the gardens of Styria had ended. I was in love. True Love. The
kind of love I'd read about in Shakespeare stories. I was ready to die for
Angel in the most unexplained ways.

"Did
you feel that?" he said, holding me close.

"I
did." I blushed, thinking he was talking about the kiss.

"I
think the earth shook beneath us," he said.

I didn't
feel the earth shake that day, but looking back now, I think it did. It must
have. The earth probably knew the sorrow our coupling was going to bring into
our lives. This kiss, as much I cherished it, should have never happened.