Dark Diary (23 page)

“
I
was too far gone,” he added solemnly.

My chest tightened and my heart burned with insatiable pain as the visions in my nightmares mirrored what he was telling me. The green
eyes looking back at me. The water swallowing me up. My lungs hurt and I kept taking in breaths
, but it felt like I was getting in no air at all.

“Why do I feel as if I know
exactly
what happened to Kathryn?” I whispered. My breath quivered. “Why do I feel as if I
remember
… what happened?” I choked.

He pulled my trembling hands out from beneath my blanket and wrapped his own around them.

“Kathera, the reason why you could never bring yourself
to love Derek, was because you have always been in love with
me.”

His grip tightened.

“I didn’t understand at first,” he continued, “but then
things changed and the coincidences weren’t simply coincidences anymore. I believe you somehow possess a spirit that has
transcended many centuries. Somehow, you’ve come back to me.”

He released my hands and undid the top button of his shirt.

“This necklace,” he gestured to his golden cross, “was Kathryn’s—
yours
, and I once swore to return it to you.”

He unclasped the chain from around his neck.

“We were bound to each other in that world. Despite how violently life tried to tear us apart, I believe our souls have found a way to reconnect.”

He offered the necklace to me with an open hand.

So the dreams weren’t nightmares, they were glimpses of my past. And that explained why I never really felt threatened
by him. It wasn’t curiosity I had felt before; it was fate.

“Would you, please?” I asked.

He placed the necklace around my neck and the tiny gold
cross fell just past my collarbone.

“So, if I’m Kathryn, can you help me, Matthaya?” I said, my eyes piercing his.

“I didn’t think I could,” he replied quietly. “We can’t simply make others like us.”

“Then why did you bring me here?” I swallowed, tasting blood again. “I’m dying, Matthaya. I can feel it. Derek is dead and I’ve done something unspeakable to Aldréa. You have to help me.”

“I will not let you suffer my fate. I won’t allow this curse to take you, too.”

My body felt empowered as the intensity of Kathryn’s love filled me. I wrapped my fingers around the cross at my neck and stared intently into Matthaya’s eyes. “The world may be a different place, and time may have changed you, but if you have a choice this time, Matthaya, don’t let me die alone.”

“I never meant to let Kathryn die alone!” His eyes grew bright and fierce with guilt. “I never meant to leave you. Do you think I wanted to change? That I wanted Ve’tani to take me and turn me into this-this
thing
?”

Matthaya’s voice rumbled with regret and his fangs flashed angrily as he spoke. “I watched you kill yourself because I didn’t have the sense to try to stop you. It wasn’t as if I wouldn’t have given my life trying to save yours. I would have, but this… hell Ve’tani put me in had left me indifferent to the world and helpless to see anything beyond the blood I craved.”

The green of his eyes radiated with the eerie luminescence
that I had only seen a few times before.

I looked away and sighed. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Kathryn…”

I grinned faintly, but he corrected himself quickly.

“Kathera,
God knows,” he paused and rolled his eyes skeptically, “
if there were a God
, that I would have done anything to save you that night. I’ve hated myself for centuries for letting you slip away from me, but then I realized something. If I had attempted to pull you from that watery grave, it would have been only to feed on what remained of your life. I wouldn’t have had the will or the conscience to have done otherwise.”

“But now you do,” I said, placing my fingers onto his troubled face.

The light of his eyes dimmed. “I know,” he replied solemnly, averting his gaze.

“You’re afraid. Aren’t you, Matthaya?”

He rested his cheek against my palm and pressed his fingers over my hand.

YES. I
WAS
AFRAID.

The
horrible
taste of
Aldréa’s
blood still lingered in my mouth, even though I hadn’t been the one to draw it. It was everywhere—inside me and all around me. I couldn’t escape its bitterness.

My awareness of our growing bond was stronger than ever, and I was dizzied by the rush of Kathera’s thoughts. It
was even greater than it had been earlier in the night, and my connection with Kathera was becoming supernatural and
binding.

But, I hadn’t thought it was possible.

It is said that the Taken cannot sire and that the sterilization allows only the oldest to choose the best and most appropriate bloodlines for the species.
I have grown and changed in many more ways than are common for my kind.
My mutations granted me wings and with them greater strength
and advantage. That power was what had made Ve’tani such a difficult comrade through the years. The genes in my body formed a more than suitable host for the
disease and it has changed me to its will. Perhaps, even beyond that.

The Sire and Taken can sense each other and are unconsciously and inherently drawn to the same locations by a bond much stronger than blood. The feelings I was getting from Kathera echoed the psychic flashes of thought often exchanged between Ve’tani and me. Those feelings proved true what I had thought was impossible—that I, too, had the ability to sire.

I had been certain it could only spread through venom, but perhaps I had been mistaken. Though never bitten, she had somehow been infected and the virus had begun a slow and deadly path through her system. Healing her wounds with my blood must have sparked a catalyst of change and a process with no sure end without
thorough
infection. The vampire blood could not function properly in a living host, and in order to bind myself to her, I would have to take her blood into my body, as well.

I would have to
kill
her.

No matter how it started, I would have to finish it. I
would have to take her blood in order to change her completely. Else she would die a slow and violent death as an infected mortal with the urges of a vampire. She would not be able to resist the bloodlust and her body would not be able to endure it.

Still, there was the harsh reality of eternity upon us, for
once I chose her, she would be unable to break our bond until
I took another. Given the opportunity, I was prepared to share immortality with her, but was she prepared to accept it?

Could Kathera truly fathom the depth and darkness of
forever
?

But it was only I who had the power to save her—to shape her
fate.
With Derek lost forever—in a more blissful sleep than I—there were few choices left.

I recalled my own experience and the trauma of it all. Being taken was a vicious process and it wouldn’t be as easy as she probably thought. Certainly I would do it with more grace and consideration than Ve’tani had given me, but regardless, it wouldn’t be easy or pleasant.

She would be the first I had ever taken and it would be a serious risk to her life if I did it incorrectly. There was no way of knowing exactly what the consequences would be or—if she survived—whether or not I would even be able to control her afterward.

Or, if she would even be able to control herself.

“I want to be with you,” she whispered. Her warm fingers on my cheek were so tender and her blue eyes looked upon me with such longing.

My heart had grown so numb and desiccated by the years of
guilt that it was difficult to reciprocate those feelings. With her blood still warm with the delicate aesthetics of
affection and passion, she wanted something I couldn’t give her.

I could almost recall what it had felt like—that desire—that lust I had once had for Kathryn. Now, those feelings were cloudy and blurred by distractions beyond mortality.

How badly I had once longed to hold her in my arms—
to feel her naked body pressed against mine and the warmth
of her sweat in the night. It was easy to envision but impossible to reenact. Now, I had a new sensation of lust within me and the thought of her warm blood against my lips taunted the animal inside.

It would be so easy to take what I wanted from her—to kill her and drink the innocent blood I could already imagine tasting so eagerly. Just the sweet smell of her body made
me quake with anticipation. It was, in a sense, the very same
feeling I had felt for her before. Only now, it was twisted and mangled into something so sick, so violent, that I hated myself for every moment that I spent feeling this way. I still wanted her. Now, more than ever.

“Matthaya?” Kathera stared thoughtfully at me. “You can tell me if you’re scared.”

It wasn’t fear; it was apprehension. I knew she didn’t have many choices—or
any
choices for that matter—but I still needed to hear her say that she
wanted
this from me.

“I only want you to understand what it is I must do,” I said. “In order for me to bring you into my world… you will have to die and I must be the one to take your life. Although I will try to make it brief, it will be painful beyond your imagination and the process cannot be stopped or reversed once it takes you. Are you certain you want this?”

“Yes,” she replied quickly. “And I am willing to give up everything for that. Even if it means giving up what’s left of my life now.” She shook her head and shrugged. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but I’m frightened, too. I murdered my stepmother.” She swallowed hard at the thought and her eyes began to redden around the edges. “Aldréa was a very
evil woman, but what I did to her was unforgivable. My hands are stained with blood and I will never forget the taste of it.”
Her fingers wrapped tightly around the blanket’s edge and she trembled. “Oh, I don’t feel so well, Matthaya.”

Color was draining from her face and I could hear her heartbeat
softening. Time was running out. I knew what had to be done but couldn’t bring myself to do it until I was sure I had complete control over the primal hunger. I wouldn’t risk letting Kathryn die a second time.

I got up to put several logs onto the fire and then sat back
down next to Kathera again. I moved down the couch and motioned for her to lay her head in my lap.

“
Get some rest, Kathera. You’ll feel better when you wake up.”
I smiled earnestly and caressed her forearm with my fingertips.

She made herself a little more comfortable and pulled the blanket up as she rested her head against my leg. Her narrowed eyes indicated she was thinking quite intently.

“Matthaya?” She lifted her face and looked up at me; I couldn’t see them beneath the blanket, but I heard her fingers rubbing the cross pendant between them.

“Yes?”

“You once told me that you would never love me,” she whispered. “Did you mean it?”

I hadn’t. But, at the time, I had had no other choice but to lie to her.

“I once thought I would never stop loving you,” I replied,
remembering my vows to Kathryn. “And that is still the truth.”

Without further response, she lowered her head and closed her eyes again.

I brushed my fingers through her soft, flowing hair and listened closely to her every breath. I marveled at the fairness of her skin—the beauty of her resting eyes.

The two girls clearly had their differences, but Kathera was beginning to look more and more like Kathryn to me now.

Minutes passed and her breathing became shallow and slow as she fell deeper into sleep. The fire was beginning to dim, but I couldn’t wake her just yet. I slipped the sleeves of my jacket off and pulled my coat from my back.

I bunched it up into a ball, carefully lifted Kathera’s head
from my lap, and then laid her back down onto the makeshift pillow. She quickly accustomed herself to it and curled her fingers around the edges of it. I put more firewood into the fireplace and went off into one of the rooms to make preparations.

It was an old house and there was another fireplace in
the master bedroom that would serve well for the occasion. I made haste to set another fire ablaze while she slept peacefully
on the couch.

The scenario I had planned would not be perfect and my
heart still ached at the thought of harming her, though it had
to be done. She was dying, and I wasn’t going to let her go this time.

All I could do was hope I had enough power to satisfy her mortal heart.

I could trick her mind… if she let me.

We were already bound by blood and fate to do it, but it could only take place if she gave in completely to my will. Kathera
and
Kathryn had to give in to make it work the way I had planned.