Immanuel's Veins (33 page)

I gestured behind me with a heavy hand. “I . . . the window.”

“You broke the window?” Sofia asked.

“Yes.”

“But you can't be here!” Sofia cried. “He'll kill you if he finds you.”

Vlad. So then, we were alone for the moment. Surely we had enough time to get out!

“We don't have much time,” I said. Then quickly, gaining my thoughts: “I have a way down the wall and a horse waiting, but we have to hurry!”

“Go? Go where?” Lucine asked.

It occurred to me only then that I was playing the fool, speaking nonsense. She might be a prisoner here, but what alternative had I given her? She didn't even know that I loved her! I had spent so much time cherishing my fantasies these last few days that I had begun to assume she believed them too.

Win her, Toma. Be her Immanuel.

I hurried forward, addressing Sofia. “Please, Sofia, I must have a moment with her. It's of the utmost importance that I speak to Lucine alone.”

“Whatever for?” Lucine asked.

My heart began to fall.

I grabbed Sofia's hand and kissed it. “Please, I beg you—”

“I can't leave her, she's my charge.”

“She's first my charge!” I blurted. “But I have to tell her!”

“Tell her what?”

It wasn't working out as I'd imagined. But the thought of that fire burning out and Vlad returning pushed me to a less tactful approach.

I faced Lucine. “That I love her,” I said, and my voice shook with deep emotion. Her eyes remained wide. I said it quickly. “That I have loved her from the first time I laid eyes on her, but I couldn't speak it because I was under oath not to love her, from the empress herself. I am bound by duty, but I am now bound by a love for you that has plagued me day and night. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, I can only drink from my own imaginations of whatever love you can offer me. I will treasure you and save you, and no man, no beast, no power in heaven or hell will separate me from my oath to waste my life for you.”

Neither moved. Neither spoke. Neither so much as blinked.

Why had Sofia not pounced on me or spread a warning? Was there a seed of goodness left in her that longed for more than she had in this living death?

I looked at her, pleading. “Please, before it's too late. Is there no light left in that dark heart of yours? You must allow me to vie for her heart.”

“It's too late,” she said. “You will only get yourself killed.”

“Then let me die trying.”

“But you're only being a fool,” Lucine said. And she said it as if this fact was the most certain thing in her mind.

Her words shattered my world. It was as if the sky collapsed on me, crushing me with suffocating weight. Because I knew that she was right. In her eyes I was a fool, and surely anything I said would only reinforce that opinion. Her mind and her heart were owned by another lover, and I was only throwing away my words like a blithering fool.

It all crashed in on me: the days of escaping the estate so that I wouldn't have to face her; the nights around the table trying not to be caught watching her; the pages in my journal where I had confessed my undying love; that first fight with the Russians in my feeble attempt to rescue her; my confession to her mother, Kesia, telling all; the dungeon into which I'd been thrown for the confession of love; the charge given to me by Saint Thomas, to win her; the death of Alek by my hand; the heroic rescue of my lover, who was now rejecting me as if I were nothing more than a silly boy.

I could not breathe. The blood drained from my face. Tears welled in my eyes. The world began to spin. Heat flushed my cheeks and spread down my neck. There was a hell and the flames were burning around me already.

Lucine just watched me.

I turned away and walked three steps without direction, then stopped, uncertain what to do next. But my course, however foolish, was already plotted. I hung my head in my hands and struggled to maintain my composure.

I tried to speak, to apologize for my reaction. I couldn't bear the thought of imposing on her a moment longer. But my throat was locked up.

And now the emotion dammed up in me broke through the thickest wall that I had erected to protect my heart. Sorrow and anguish flooded me, and I began to panic.

I couldn't do this, not here in front of Lucine; no good would come of it! I would rather pull my hair out by the roots.

But my body wasn't listening to my reason and my shoulders began to shake with sobs. I was screaming at myself to stop this terrible display, and the more I commanded myself, the more my heart revolted.

It took the last reserves of my self-control not to throw myself on the floor and groan. Instead I stood with my back to them, shaking silently with unremitting sorrow. I had to rescue her! I had to leave. I had to beg the empress for forgiveness. I had to walk off the end of the earth into a black void. But I could do nothing.

“Take a moment,” Sofia said quietly behind me. She was speaking to Lucine.

“But what will Vlad say?”

“Don't worry about that!” She spoke in a quick whisper. “Listen to what he has to say; you owe yourself that.”

“I—”

“There are things you don't know, Lucine! Eternal death is something you cannot imagine. I will watch the stairs. The man loves you. Just hear what he has to say.”

A door opened and closed and we were left alone.

The rain pelted and thunder crashed and Lucine stood beneath it all suffocated by confusion. Not by nature's booming voices but by a small whisper deep in her mind that called her to Toma's side.

But she had given herself to Vlad. She was to be queen! She had found her place by his side, and she knew that if she moved even one step away, he would crush her and it would be well deserved.

And yet Sofia spoke of eternal death, and upon hearing it Lucine felt a deep well of sorrow open beneath her breast. The half-breed's blood had changed her, stealing her memory of life, she knew that. But she couldn't feel that life.

Toma loved her?

She could barely remember him, much less love him the way she loved Vlad. Yet there he stood, sobbing. Confessing a love for her that made no sense. How could any man love as he professed to?

He'd stilled and now he turned to face her. For a while he just looked at her with teary eyes. Her sorrow grew, empathy for dear Toma, who'd come to rescue her not realizing that she didn't want to be rescued.

Dear, dear Toma, I am sorry for you. And I am sorry for what Vlad will do to you when he catches you here, trying to steal his queen
.

“Lucine,” he began. Then he said nothing for a while. More tears streamed down his face, and she felt her sorrow return like a slow tide.

“Lucine, I am so sorry. I should have told you. I wanted to, but I . . .”

Then he was stumbling forward, falling to his knees, gripping her hands, pleading as he stared up at her face.

“I vow my eternal love for you, Lucine. I have loved you since I first knew you. You ruined my world with your first glance, and I have coveted the slightest gesture, the smallest acknowledgment. To know that you know I exist is enough. To return my love is my deepest longing, but if you would only kiss my hand I would know that you have seen my love.”

A tear broke from her eye and slid down her cheek. He kissed the back of her hand, then spoke with even more passion.

“You have been my waking obsession. You haunt my dreams. I am utterly preoccupied by you. I beg you to give me a single chance to win your love, to wake you from this living death that has stolen your heart. It is evil, Lucine!”

His face was red and his lips trembled.

“You are to wed a monster from hell who will ravage you for eternity! But I can offer you life.”

It was more than she could bear. Lucine pulled her hand away and turned away. “No, Toma, you can't. I have his blood now.”

He was there, at her back, with trembling hands on her shoulders, speaking quietly close to her cheek. “Then I will find you new blood. You will take God's blood.”

Revulsion rose into her throat and she stepped away. “Stop! You're going to get us both killed!”

“No, I will bring you life.” His hand was on her back, warm and strong. “And if I can't, then return here and live with him. But I will show you such love that you will never leave!”

“I am dead!”

“I will love you anyway!”

She whirled to face him. “No one can love the way you speak of it!” she snapped. “There is always a price, and I have paid mine.”

“Then let me pay the price for you. Let me love you, Lucine, I beg you. Give me one day, just one, and if you are not delighted I will bring you back.”

His words hammered her mind like an avalanche of boulders; she was at once overwhelmed and terrified by them. Who was this hero of all Russians who would save her from the Russians?

“Toma.” She spoke his name aloud.

Her memory of him flooded her. His steady breathing as he followed her around the castle that first night, his frequent glances in her direction, his unwavering loyalty to duty. But even more, Toma was a warrior with scars to mark his body. A savage fighter who had killed a thousand men with his bare hands, now here trembling with love for her.

“Toma.”

For a brief moment she wanted to throw herself into his arms and beg him to take her away from this hell.

But as quickly as the desire swelled, it was washed away. By Vlad's blood, she thought. And then she didn't think about it.

There was life inside of her. I could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice. A warm ember of hope glowing deep in her heart. And I was sure that my words were coaxing that ember to flame.

No sane person could choose death with Vlad over the hope of life outside this place.

She said my name. “Toma.” As if she were tasting it for the first time. Then she said it again. “Toma.” This time with desire. But the light in her dark eyes was fleeting and she quickly averted them.

“I've heard you,” she said. “So now you must go.”

You cannot know how deeply those words spoken by Lucine cut me. I wanted to grovel on the floor and beg her mercy. I wanted to show her my strength and whisk her to safety. I longed to kiss her on the lips and tell her that I would be the only food she would ever need, that I would satisfy her deepest need and delight her wildest craving.

But I wasn't winning her with impassioned pleas. I had to make her listen to simple reason! So I shoved the ache in my heart aside and spoke to her plainly.

“It's all plain if you could only see, but you've been blinded by this blood, and I don't blame you, I drank some as well. I was here, drunk on that ancient blood, and I lost myself to it. You're deceived, Lucine. You've been drawn into a passion play in which both God and the devil are vying for your soul. Now you are with the devil, an unholy union between a fallen angel and a woman. I've—”

“You know this?” she interrupted, turning.

“And more,” I cried, sparked with hope. I quickly told her about Thomas and the book, pacing before her like a schoolteacher, desperately hoping to appeal to her mind, which seemed stable enough, even if misplaced.

I told it to her and she listened, but my mind was only on her. On Lucine. And with each passing moment my love for her seemed to grow. Perhaps because she finally knew of it.

It was surreal. I was there as a hero to rush her away from the ruthless beast who could be climbing the stairs as we spoke, yet my mind was wholly distracted by the pale woman with dark eyes before me. By the way she watched me, the way her lips spoke, the way her fingers moved, the way her delicate feet crossed the wood floor, by all of it.

But even more by those attributes that had first compelled my affection. Her tenacity and directness. Her integrity and laughter and delicate nature. The passion in her eyes.

And yet even more by the hope that Lucine would share herself with me and allow me to share myself with her. I was a lonely man for all my bravado, and in Lucine I had found a desperate need to belong, to know, and to be known.