Of Light and Darkness (14 page)

“Valek!”

He placed both of his hands inside, trying his hardest to pull himself in. Charlotte grabbed onto his shoulders and tugged with all her might, until the rest of him was inside with her. He looked up with another pained smile.

“J-just close it most of t-the way…” he stammered. “You have to b-breathe.” He struggled to keep his eyes open as he fought to continue breathing.

Charlotte was about to reach for the heavy lid when she saw Francis hovering over her. A lump formed in her throat and she grabbed onto Valek, knowing he would not be able to do much to protect her.

“I have it.” Francis smiled softly at her.

She lay down on her side, the only way there was room for the two of them, and watched as the lid slid across the top of them, leaving only one, thin ray of light across her face. She looked to Valek again. Always seeing him in the darkness, she imagined what it would be like to see his face warm, in the sunlight. She smiled and placed her hand on his cheek.

“I-I wish I w-wasn’t l-like this,” he said. “S-scary.”

“You don’t scare me,” she lied.

“Don’t I?” He grinned painfully as he shook, his eyebrows drawing together.

She inched closer to him and pulled his arms around her, listening to his staggered breathing as he lay there dying against her. This was the moment she had been waiting for. She must do it now or nothing was ever going to change between them.

“I don’t want you any other way,” she whispered, slowly lifting her chin until her lips met the side of his jaw. She could feel his breath catch in his throat, not sure if what she was doing was wrong.

“Ch-charlotte, p-please….” He began to pull away.

But she wasn’t going to stop. She inched up farther, pressing her toes to the back of the coffin until she felt his cool, soft lips touch hers. Her heart lurched in her chest, jumpstarting, thudding hard against him. It must have been agonizing.

His hands moved slowly to her head, fingers intertwining in her curls. She sighed into his mouth, the muscles in her neck tensing, but the rest of her relaxed the most it ever had.

Valek slammed on the side of the casket with his fist, making a cracking sound with the impact. She was sure he’d busted a hole in it. Charlotte knew it was once again his time. He pulled his face away—a precaution—yet also, he pulled her body closer to his.

She rested her cheek on his chest and listened to his dead heart slam hard against his ribs, growing gradually slower. She stayed that way, listening, until it finally stopped.

His arms stayed stiff around her. He was sleeping, she reminded herself, beginning to be painfully aware her warm, living heart was beating solo against his hollow chest. Looking for a distraction from the truth, she closed her eyes and focused on his sweet scent and the lingering feeling left from his lips.

Chapter Fourteen

At A Loss

Aiden paced the floor with so much fire the wood scorched under his feet. His eyes blazed behind their shroud of black lashes as his gaze darted about the room, threatening to melt the first face they met.

He couldn’t stand to ever see Charlotte hurt, or dead, nonetheless. When he saw Valek standing before the fiery palace entrance with Charlotte slung motionless over his shoulder, simple instinct took over. It didn’t allow him the time to consider whether or not he was making the right decision. He didn’t care what happened to Valek, naturally, but
no one
was going to hurt Charlotte. Not even the high ruler himself.

“Damn it!” Aiden’s roar shattered the silence about the room. He sent his fist flying into the side of a redwood bookshelf.

“Calm yourself, my son.” Danek Price’s voice was smooth and eloquent, but somehow managed to unnerve Aiden all the same. “This will all be dealt with in time.”

“I had her!” Aiden growled, balling his hands up in his hair. “She was right in front of me.” He thought for a moment. “What if they run? What if they flee the country?” He turned on his father.

“There is no place they can hide successfully. Not for very long, anyway. Not with Valek being what he is, and the complications he has with the sun.” Danek slowly stood from his chair. “We will find this girl Charlotte.” He poured a glass a brandy. “But we must keep our wits about ourselves.” He swigged back the liquor.

“Those ticks think they’re so damn clever,” Aiden fumed, tightening his hands into fists at his sides. Flamed exploded just above his knuckles.

Danek sauntered over to his son and placed his thick hand on his shoulder. “Aiden, you have been bestowed all of this power for a reason. Now is your time to use it. You did the right thing by letting them go. She would have been killed.”

Aiden bitterly shrugged his father’s hand off and stormed to the bookshelf. “That’s right! Because those idiots put her in the dungeons with those disgusting lice!” He growled.

“I promise, son. If I had known anything about it, I would have prevented it.”

“Who
did
know about it? Who was responsible?” Water streamed from the lower lids of Aiden’s eyes, though it was not natural, salt tears. It flowed down his face and pooled around his feet.

Danek set down the brandy glass. “The platoon from the fire division had been sent to capture Valek Ruzik. I do know that.”

“Kill them, then. Whoever it was.” Aiden stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

He tore down the dour corridor, eyes and fists still blazing. The sound of his approach bounced off the stone like chills off a spine. Wind whipped his hair around his face as floods trailed from his feet. His powers were only as controlled as his emotions were, and being an angry teenager did nothing to help the situation.

Aiden stomped down the North Wing up to Vladislov’s quarters. A string of ivy tendrils ripped from underneath his fingernails and latched onto the locked door. It tore off its hinges with such force chunks of stone flew with it. The large hunk of wood and metal crashed to the floor in splinters.

“By all means, come in.” Vladislov glowered at Aiden over his half-moon spectacles. He pushed away from what he was reading at his desk and turned to face Aiden, one biological hand cradling one metal one. “What is the matter with my prodigy?”

“With all due respect, sir, this plan isn’t working. The guards in command are completely incompetent,” Aiden raged.

Vladislov lifted his eyebrows at the gall of his young apprentice. “Censor your tone please,” he said with calculated ease. “I have not yet had a single problem. They’ve been capturing and killing Vampires by the hundreds. We plan on invading the German Occults by next week.” He smiled, obviously impressed with himself.

Aiden blanched. “They almost
killed
Charlotte!”

“Who?” Vladislov apathetically shuffled through some maps on his desk.

“Charlotte! The human girl that
upir
Ruzik holds as a pet!” Aiden’s chest expanded with rage and saliva spewed from his lips as he bellowed. “The girl who was meant to by
my
wife!”

Vladislov leered at Aiden, then. “A human girl as a wife?” He spoke slowly.

“Yes!” Aiden breathed. “I know that sounds unconventional but—”

“I’m not quite sure I follow you, Aiden.” Vladislov’s forehead crinkled as his eyebrows drew together. “You want to take command of
my
army to have them carry out orders
not
plausible to the war I began. You want to compromise the safety and security of the Order of Magic, simply because you have a silly crush on a mortal girl?”

“I know it sounds crazy.” Aiden gave him a pleading look.

“Apprentice,” the elder began, and leaned his biological arm on his desk while the metal one tapped on the ball of his scepter. “Matters of the heart will always make us do things that are ‘crazy,’ but you are the next ruler of the greatest empire in the world, and I am afraid you must put matters as trivial as these in the very back corners of your mind. Focus.”

“I’m sorry, lord, but if you could just hear me out, there is a reason—”

“Aiden, I think it would be best if we spoke about this when you are in a less,” Vladislov appraised the boy, “hormonal state.”

Aiden sighed. He could see he was going to get absolutely nowhere with his argument tonight. That was the end of the conversation, and he needed to find somewhere else to turn. He nodded his thanks to his mentor and quietly began out of the room, the Wizard watching after him.

Before Aiden could get all the way past the threshold, Vladislov called out, “And do repair the door on your way out.” He turned his attention to the various sheets of parchment on his desk.

Aiden thought of Valek and Charlotte, hiding alone in the dark streets. Like rats somewhere in the mortal world. He cringed. An approaching guard stopped in the middle of the hall, saluting Aiden.

“Fix that,” Aiden ordered, indicating the splintered door, and trotted back down the now flooded corridor, lost within his mind. The guard immediately rushed to work, though Aiden continued to keep his burning gaze toward the floor. How could he make Charlotte see Valek for what he really was? How could he find her so he could carry out the plan he had been refining so feverishly for years?

It was ingenious. If magic married mortal, it would change the world forever. There would be no more living in secret. No more hiding. People would be people, and therefore the Regime wouldn’t have to necessarily rule over the “greatest empire in the world,” but rather the whole world.

And he would be the greatest ruler that ever lived, because he had the formula none of his predecessors had ever even imagined. And this one small girl was at the center of all of it. And one single leach was standing in the way.

Aiden didn’t walk down the stairs, but rather, flew as his mind swelled. The cool air bouncing off the bricks washed his head clear of everything except for how to carry out his plan. He plunged deeper and deeper, until he was back in the bowels of the palace, in front of the dungeon’s entrance.

The doors swung open from all of his angered might, the dank smell of rotting corpses slamming him in the face. Sounds of moaning struck him like a choir of untuned cellos as he stalked past cell after cell of prisoners. They weren’t only Vampires. The Regime captured anything or anyone they believed had conspired against them.
Anyone
,  including one, lonely Witch with long, chestnut hair.

“Get up,” Aiden ordered as he swung open the barred door.

Evangeline glowered up at him behind her black-stained eyelids. Her hair was a nest about her bruised face, from the fight of getting her on the defiled floor. It clung to her bloody forehead, neck, and shoulders. The rest of her emaciated appearance matched the rank stench that fumed from her distressed, grubby clothing.

“I said get up, Evangeline.” Aiden's voice stayed even and low. But when she still didn’t cooperate, he moved swiftly and snatched her by her matted hair, yanking her upward.

She cried out, clutching his arm for relief.

“When I tell you to do something, I expect it to be done.” His voice was liquid fire in her ear.

She nodded frantically, biting down on her lip as tears stained trails on her cheeks.

Aiden released her, and she stumbled backward into the wall of the cell. “Evangeline.” His tone grew quieter still.

She glowered at him.

“Do you expect to live much longer if I keep you down here?”

She shook her head and heaved.

“Do you want to live?” He neared her, his large shadow darkening her face.

Evangeline only looked at him with pleading eyes. The answer was clearly written on her face.

“Then I want you to listen very closely to everything I am about to tell you. And I want you follow my instructions exactly as I give them.”

Chapter Fifteen

Beautiful Mind

Valek felt himself in the cool darkness, caught in some undertow he could not resurface from, and wheeling around in this infinite space. No oxygen. No smell. No sight. Something pounded in his ears. A pulse he recognized, though it sounded drowned, like it was sinking just next to him in this dark ocean. Then, suddenly, it was as if someone had ripped a gaping hole in his universe. All of the black water flooded away, the sound overwhelming his ears as if he were being washed away with it through a large, hollow tunnel.

It muffled the sound of the beating heart completely, until the rushing almost deafened him. His mouth opened, gasping for air, though he only felt suffocated. And then he opened his eyes.

Darting about the dark casket, he gasped for the oxygen to return to him, his gaze finally resting on her.

“Lottie?” His heaving calmed when he saw her fearful eyes, heard her heart flutter like a bird in a cage. He immediately pulled her closer to him, his hands burying in her hair.

Charlotte, who had probably been dreaming intently, woke with a fright when Valek jolted back to life. The smell of her fear instantly filled the tiny space around them. Her pulse was a weak, shallow throb in her chest, and he knew instantly it was the same pulse in his ears before he woke. The memory of the night before came flooding back as the tight space seemed to shrink around him, and her delicious scent became all too overwhelming. He clenched his jaw. She’d kissed him, Valek remembered. He heard the nervous lump form in Charlotte’s throat as he gazed down at her. She stared back, her eyes as wide and glassy as two full moons. She lightly began to trace the contours of lips.

“Lottie,” he whispered, as he began to run his wiry hand along the length of her jaw.

Charlotte immediately pulled away, wrapping her hands around her neck. He frowned, knowing his eyes must have shifted in that moment. The same hollow feeling he’d felt when Charlotte had been mad at him swelled in his chest again. He would sacrifice
anything
just to show her she really was safe with him.

“No. Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

Charlotte waited a few more moments before she released her hands. She inched closer to him again, and his sorrow melted.

He stroked her curls with his claws, reveling in her purity. It almost made him warm. “We’re really together now.” His lips pressed against her ear, smiling at the reality of what he was saying.

Valek mentally heard her shock over how he reacted to her. Charlotte was frowning at him. She had been anticipating some sort of argument—like he might try and convince her he was much better suited as her father figure, and her impulses were insane. But this was no longer how he felt in the least. It was the difference between night and day.

Her thoughts were extremely loud as they circled in his head. The challenges they now faced were enough to convince him, if they survived, they would survive together through anything. Even this confusing taboo. As he gazed down at her, he could see the apprehension burning all too fervently in her eyes.

Valek chuckled. He cradled her cheek in his palm and shifted so they lay gazing at each other, nose to nose. “Can I come back inside your head now?”

She gulped once and nodded.

He tilted her head back so he could look at her directly. Tidal waves of emotion flooded through open gates. All of her fears and fantasies he already knew would be there, made themselves extremely evident to him in that moment. He smiled at the chagrin burning in her cheeks.

“Do not be embarrassed, Charlotte.” He grinned when he felt her face heat against his palm. He brought his mouth cautiously closer to hers and hesitated.

He was testing himself before pressing his cool lips against her warm ones. She sighed into his mouth as he moved his hands to the base of her neck.

Their lips moved together. The ache, which had burdened them for so long, seemed to melt away in that moment in which everything else disappeared. The world and all of its problems were lost somewhere in space. Charlotte was once again the person Valek knew best. In that moment, they weren’t different from each other at all.

Valek pulled away first, one small thought fighting him in the oceans of his mind. But he continued to hug her close to him. He listened, enjoying the complicated mind he had been forbidden from for what seemed an eternity. Even though he couldn’t physically
see
it, he mentally heard the enormous smile Charlotte hid as she pressed her face against his chest.

That was when Valek remembered something else about what happened the night before—the evil, disgusting promise he was forced to make. Lottie peered at him, still beaming, but her face dropped when she noticed he wasn’t smiling anymore.

“I need you to stay strong for me tonight,” he said darkly.

Then, the thin sliver of orange light filtering in through the open crack in the coffin was eclipsed. Valek quickly released Charlotte and glared up at it as someone’s fist lightly tapped at the roof.

“Valek?” It was Francis.

“A moment, please.” Valek quickly kissed Charlotte on the forehead before gazing at her sadly one last time. He slid open the top of the coffin to reveal Francis standing there, along with the rest of the rogue coven. All of their faces looked harder and paler than they had the night before. Valek slowly got to his feet, watching them. Charlotte began to get up, but Valek held his hand out to stop her.

“We need to talk to the girl now, Valek,” Francis said regretfully.

Valek grimaced as the rest of the coven stared at Lottie with their hellish eyes.

“What’s going on?” Charlotte asked, the blood draining out of her face. He frowned. She had always been so intuitive.

“We have confirmation of what the regime has planned. It’s exactly as I thought.” Lusian was the one speaking. “An all-out genocide of our kind. They are planning on cleaning out Occults all over the world.”

Valek glanced at Charlotte, tuning in to her mind again.

“Well, there is only one thing to do then.” He looked at Lusian and the rest of them. Andela stood next to Lusian, her dove face stained with streaks of red. “We have to gain as many as we can on our side. Build our own empire. That means going to the other Occults before the Regime can, and convincing other Vampires to join our forces. If they want a war, I think we should give them one.”

“Why stop there?” This time, Jorge spoke from his stance at Dusana’s side. “Why not get any Lycan who isn’t on the side of the Elves, and Witches, too.”

“No. That puts us at risk. What if the Wizards send someone to be their insider?” Francis argued.

“How can they when we are able to know everything they think?” Jorge argued back.

Valek stepped forward, addressing the entire coven then. “They boast so well they rule with the light, true? They hate the darkness. We
are
the darkness. Their safe haven is beginning to divide now because they fail to recognize both powers have to coexist, or else the entire world loses balance. Well, if they are trying to rid the world of one of its halves, I think they have officially lost our balance!”

Lusian gazed thoughtfully at the ground.

“They have created a world in the light and ruled it. Now I think there must be someone to rule in the dark. If they want a war, that’s what they shall be served.”

Charlotte smiled at Andela as she walked toward her.

The tall, drawn woman glared down at Lottie’s innocent face as more ruby tears rolled down her cheeks. An odd sort of fear shot up Valek’s spine when Charlotte took the Vampire’s cold hand in hers, causing Andela to stiffen.

“Don’t worry. We will win. I know it.” The girl smiled again. Andela still was not happy, and she withdrew her hand quickly.

Valek rushed up behind Lottie and pulled her back against him. “Not right now,” he whispered, keeping his eyes locked on Andela’s strained face.

Valek could tell that the realization clicked in Charlotte’s mind then, as she slowly backed away from Andela and closer to him again.

“Charlotte?” Francis spoke carefully. “Do you think you might like to stay upstairs for now, with Sarah?”

“Who?” Charlotte lifted an eyebrow.

“I will take her,” Valek lamented, avoiding all the thirsty, angry stares in the room. “I would rather be the one to talk to her about this, anyway.” He shot an acidic glare toward Francis, who only grinned in reply.

Valek put his arm around Charlotte’s waist and led her to where the ceiling opened up to the tunnel. He watched as Charlotte peered into the dusty, dark tunnel, reluctance playing on her face.

“It will be all right, love. Sarah is Francis’ house Witch. It’s just for now.” He glanced back at the testy coven. “You’ll like her. She is…nice.”

Charlotte frowned. “I’m bothering them, right?”

“It’s just because it’s early,” he admitted, and kissed her head.

Sasha, the tall, dark Vampire, snorted in disgust.

Valek scowled at him before hugging Charlotte so tightly to his chest that her feet lifted off the ground. “Hold on.” He leapt up through the black hole, leaving the rest glaring after the two of them.

They shot ferociously through the trap door, sending clods of dust flying everywhere about the narrow, lavender hallway. The Witch, Sarah, who had clearly just finished sweeping, frowned at the mess, still clutching the broom in her hand as she watched Valek land gracefully on the floorboards.

Valek smiled apologetically at her. “I’m just going to need a few moments with her, then she’s all yours.”

Sarah smiled brightly, but didn’t say a word. She flitted off to some other part of the house. Charlotte frowned, and Valek noticed how she strained to sift through her memory of this house or of the little Witch from the night before.

He answered her thoughts. “You wouldn’t remember, Lottie.”

Valek led Charlotte up the stairs across from the Witch’s study, down another, shorter, lavender hallway, and into an empty bedroom.

He noticed it had already been dressed to welcome someone, with clean sheets placed neatly on the bed, fresh-cut lilacs on top of the nightstand, and pressed dresses hanging neatly in a row in an armoire left open. He knew all of these accommodations were specifically for Charlotte. This was the place Francis would house her during their stay. Something rolled in his center. In his peripheral vision, he noticed Charlotte glance up at him, and he attempted to calm his strained face.

“Valek?”

“Sit down.”

She sat on the edge of the bed, not tearing her focus from him. Her unyielding stare made it impossible for him to look directly at her. He inhaled, trying to steady the warbling he knew would appear the instant he started to speak.

“Let me preface by saying, no matter what, you are completely safe here. I am constantly at arms length away from you.”

“Okay….”

“Lottie, there were several…provisions which needed to be agreed upon for Francis to let you stay here with me.”

Charlotte frowned at this.

“Please. I don’t want you to be frightened, but if I hadn’t agreed to this, he would have killed you. I saw it in his mind. He wouldn’t even let me search for another place to hide without backing me into this proverbial corner.”

“Valek, what is going on?”

He got to his knees in front of her and took her hands in his. “Sometimes, in our world, there are human beings, like yourself, whom we develop relationships with.”

Charlotte smiled at this.

“No. When I use the word ‘relationship,’ that isn’t what I mean. They are used as a sort of pet we keep.” Valek searched her expression to see if she understood what he was getting at. “We do not kill these humans, but we feed from them nightly. The sort of nickname we call these types of people are ‘blood dolls’. They are like…personal donors.” He stopped, searching her face again.

Her eyes grew wide and watery as she gaped at him, inching backward on the bed, grabbing onto the bedclothes for support. “You’re
whoring me out?
” she hollered.

“Charlotte, no. It isn’t exactly like that—”

“Yes, it is! It is exactly like that!” She fought and buried her face into the pillow.

“Lottie, the point is, I had to give in to Francis, lest he kill you. I am never going to let anything happen to you.”

She sat up and looked at him, her eyes red. “What do I have to do exactly?”

Valek glanced to one side. “Nothing really. You just sort of…sit there.”

“You mean they take it straight from me? You can’t just prick my arm with a syringe or something?”

Valek shook his head. “I promise it’s just for now. I meant what I said about leaving, just the two of us.” He struggled to find the right words. “Charlotte, I love you.”

She stayed quiet. When he noticed how tightly she clenched her jaw, he tuned in to her mind. He
needed
to know what she was thinking. Her mind was spinning as the disgusting visualization of what he was asking of her played over and over again.
He was going to let them feed off her. Use her. How could he love her and still do this?

Valek silently agreed with her on that one. Suddenly, she began relating herself to the frozen corpses that rested in Valek’s freezer back in their home in the Occult.

“Lottie, I
have
no other choice. Don’t you see? Francis was
never
going to let me leave once I entered this house with you in my arms. He articulated one thing to me, but his mind was saying something altogether different. The moment I would have crossed the threshold back out into the city would have been the moment he came after me to kill you. It wasn’t a threat. It was a
promise
. There is not a single living or un-living thing on this planet that means more to me. When you were dying in the dungeons of the Regime, so was I. I will make sure every time you are called upon you will be safe. I promise you. You
have
to believe me. I love you.”

Charlotte’s frightened gaze stayed locked on his face. Valek grabbed her clammy hands in his and tuned in again. She was considering all of this, fighting two different impulses in her mind, one of them wanting to hate Valek and the other, wanting to love him. The hollow feeling swelled in his chest again as he listened. Would he ever escape from his role as “the monster?” Finally, Lottie’s mind rested on one thought; there was no other way for now. She had to give in if she wanted to stay alive and stay with him.