The Vampire's Reflection (37 page)

Upon his return, and with his arms full, he could see that Charlotte lay sleeping peacefully in the center of the enchanted glass lantern as Sarah had promised. He breathed a sigh, the muscles in his shoulders unclenching. Edwin and the Spider were settled on the other side of the abode, enveloped in their game of poker. The freezing night surrounded the glowing beacon, softened by Sarah’s golden bewitchments twinkling down the sides of the walls. They illuminated the soft, powdery snow that blanketed the ground around the outside.

Valek’s black shoes padded silently through it as he slowly neared Sarah’s creation in the center of the forest clearing—the small structure bright like a candle on black, ocean waves. He wouldn’t wake Charlotte yet. She needed the rest. He’d build the fire, then go back out to hunt something for the no-blood-drinkers to eat. Tomorrow, they’d start back out bright and early to the next safe city on the messenger’s map. His mind flicked to the idea of just changing her and being done with it, but he instantly shoved the thought away. He’d done everything to her. And what he hadn’t done, he’d allowed others to do. The only way he could not possibly hurt her more was to preserve her soul. At least
that
promise he would keep.

He clutched the splintered firewood tightly to his chest, gazing through the large windows of the glass house. He could see Nikolai approaching Lottie in her slumbering little nest that Sarah must have constructed for her out of the winter forest foliage and things she had taken with her from the house. Valek froze in his place, keeping himself concealed behind the dense thicket of trees. He held his breath, knowing it was impossible, but still swearing he could feel heat fill his face.

He watched as Nikolai lowered himself to his knees and grabbed hold of Charlotte’s wrist in both of his hands. Valek dared not stir an inch as he watched Nikolai lift Charlotte’s limp and pallid hand to his face, run her palm softly across his cheek, his gaze remaining on her face. Valek’s unbeating heart wound itself into a tight knot as he gritted his teeth together.

“Let her rest!” he cried out, feeling something rupture inside of him.

Instantly, Nikolai dropped Charlotte’s hand and froze. His focus snapped up in Valek’s direction. A January breeze rustled softly the evergreen branches along the forest canopy. Even from that distance, the boy had clearly heard his warning. The two regarded each other for one long, silent moment, something snide quirking up the corner of Nikolai’s lip.

Valek had not ever anticipated this sort of anger as it coursed through him. An instant reaction. He’d never been threatened in this way before—threatened to lose the one he loved—not to death and destruction, but to the heart of someone else. Maybe leaving her for those days had done more damage than he’d originally thought it might. He hadn’t realized until then that he had dropped the wood in a heap in the snow at his feet. Fire rolled through his stomach. The uncontrollable rage and jealousy forced his talons into stone fists at his sides.

Flashing a grin, Nikolai slowly bent over Charlotte’s delicate, sleeping form again. His mortal-blue eyes did not move from Valek’s face, as though he was daring him—willing him—to act on his impulses.

“What makes you think you can take anything you want, Vampire?” He heard Nikolai’s taunting whisper from across the clearing. “What makes you think you can just take away my family from me? I think now it’s my turn to take something of yours.”

Valek watched with a newfound illness as Nikolai’s lips brushed across Charlotte’s ruddy cheek.

Valek bellowed, racing forward, flurries of snow trailing up in waves around his feet. In a moment, he hurtled through the front wall, smashing it to zillions of sparkling shards that went cascading into the enchanted room. The golden orbs of light released themselves out into the forest, floating about on the night air.

Charlotte’s eyes fluttered open.

Valek raced into Nikolai, fangs bared, the point of his elbow crushing into the Fledgling’s chest, but not enough to actually kill him yet. He was still human…sort of.

The torment of jealousy, the distantly familiar taste of it was bitter and burning, like acid holes through his heart.

“How dare you touch her?” he roared through clenched fangs, breathing harshly through his nose. He had Nikolai pinned up against the back wall of the glass house. The glowing bewitchments floated all around the outside now, snow flurries drifting inward, dusting the dark, wooded floors with speckles of white.

“M-my apologies….” Nikolai began to stutter. His sarcastic and smug façade instantly disappeared and Valek could smell his human fear surface instantly. He hadn’t anticipated Valek’s impossible strength, Valek heard in his mind. “I-I was just seeing if she was warm enough.”

“Lies!” Valek snapped. “You are lying! Who are you? What do you want?”

“Valek, please stop.” Charlotte’s pearly little voice seized him, seeming to silence the room.

Valek froze, his claws grasping the collar of Nikolai’s plaid jacket so tightly that the boy was lifted off his feet. Valek’s face dropped as he let Nikolai down. He turned to look at Charlotte. How could she not have noticed the fiend there, looming over her? Surely she must have. His cool touch had to have woken her. How could she defend a stranger? A lump hardened to stone in Valek’s chest as he looked at the concern that had washed over her frail, delicate features. This time, concern for another.

“You love him,” Valek murmured.

“What?” The corners of Charlotte’s pretty mouth contorted into an insulted grimace. “I don’t even know him.”

“You do.” Valek’s rage built. “You love him!” He flew toward her, pulling her up out of the makeshift bed. Her warm grasp tightened around his wrist. Terror filled her eyes. “You defended him against me. Therefore you must!” Valek shook with the influx of so many emotions as he felt his eyes wash with red.

From the corner of his vision, he saw Nikolai race out of the hut through the broken wall and into the dark forest. Ears followed faithfully. Good riddance. He didn’t care where they went.

He placed Charlotte back on the floor, but remained over her with his arms on either side, caging her there. “Did I damage you too much, Lottie?” The tops of his arms and chest began to quake with rage. “Is that why you turn from me? Is that why you withdraw from me now? Tell me!” He screamed into her face and watched her close her eyes against the sight of him. “I try and give you everything, but you don’t take it! You don’t want anything from me anymore. It’s because you truly are afraid of me, now?”

Charlotte couldn’t speak. He could smell her fear as she shook her head from side to side, trapped beneath him.

“You still don’t believe how much I love you.” Harshly, he grabbed hold of the back of her head and crushed his lips against hers. His other hand tore at the buttons of her blouse.

Charlotte’s fist slammed against his shoulder, fighting him off, though he barely felt it against him. It might as well have been a feather. He continued to kiss her, yanking her up off the floor into his lap, wrapping his arms around her, pressing her to him.

When he relinquished his mouth for a moment to let her breathe, she said, “I
do
know, Valek. I do know. Please!” Tears streamed down her face.

It didn’t matter what she said. He pressed his mouth to hers once again, silencing her, his left hand burying itself under the material of her blouse. She made a slight sound of protest against him, but he couldn’t bring himself to tear away from her. He’d never release her again—

“Stop!” Sarah cried from the edge of the destroyed wall.

Valek froze, realizing he had an audience. Immediately, he released Charlotte, who hurriedly backed away from him, hugging her arms tightly around herself. He stood before her, eyes locked on her broken face, breathing heavy, hardly believing what he’d just done. With each passing day, it seemed like he was becoming more of what he never wanted to be. Making one more mistake with every clock tick. Constantly losing control. Constantly hurting the only one he was ever meant to love. He watched as Charlotte began to break down, unable to hold it in anymore. Finally sobbing.

“What are you doing, Valek?” Sarah dropped the firewood around her. Mr. Třínožka and Edwin stood behind her with the same grimace on both of their faces. Sarah’s mouth was open, her brow furrowed as she stared at him incredulously. Nikolai stood just behind the three of them, smiling malevolently. As though he intended for this to happen. Had Valek fallen into his trap? “How could you do such a thing, after knowing what happened to her?” Sarah whispered, tears beginning down her own face.

Valek hated himself. With every move he made, every single fiber of himself was revolting. He gazed down at Charlotte, who continued to stare at the floor with a look on her face he’d never seen, nor ever wanted to see again. Hurt. Confusion. Bitterness filling her eyes, for whom she refused to look was so abhorrent. What had possessed him to act in such a beastly way?

“Valek,” Charlotte began quietly. Shimmering tears swept listlessly down her face as her wide gaze burned into him. His limbs began to quake as he awaited what she would say next. He could barely make out a single thought as he tuned into the chaotic traffic of her mind. “I think you should just leave me alone now.”

His mouth fell open, but nothing came out. The muscles in his throat clenched. Swallowing came hard. His own blood tears ensued. Instead, he silently mouthed the words ‘I’m sorry’. Charlotte’s pretty mouth mashed into a hard, defining line as she got to her feet rather shakily, apparently still stunned by what he’d just done. Quickly she batted the tears away from her velvet cheeks. His claws twitched as he fought back the urge to wipe them away himself, just as he always had. He watched silently as she stormed out into the night, through the wall of broken glass and into the snow, the boots Sarah loaned her making lonesome, distant trudging noises.

“You’re going to freeze to death, Charlotte!” Sarah called after her.

“I don’t care! No one follow me!” she snapped bitterly, hugging her arms around herself.

Valek stayed frozen as he watched her frail figure drift farther and farther away into the deep shadows of the winter forest, the blood tears blinding him. He was such a brute. After all she’d just been through, he’d nearly done the same thing. Not that he would have ever followed through. He couldn’t imagine himself committing such brutality against her—it had been merely an act of desperation. It was as if he could feel her slipping through his fingers.

Lottie, I am so sorry
.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Double-Edged Blade

“Charlotte!”

Sarah was the first one to rush toward her, wrapping her small arms around Charlotte’s, pinning them to her sides with so much strength it was hard for Charlotte to breathe. Apparently no one took any heed to her warning. Hadn’t she said she didn’t want to be followed?

“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

Charlotte didn’t quite know how to respond. The immediate answer was yes, he had. And she couldn’t believe that either. The line between what was good and what was evil was slowly becoming so hard to see now. Things she never thought would happen to her in the care of her Vampire—her guardian, her love—were suddenly becoming reality. All of her worst nightmares were resurrected, clawing their way out of her psyche. This time, it had been Valek’s own jealous mind, clear from the cloud of thirst, driving him, pushing him as far as he’d gone. She glanced up from her miserable thoughts, knowing that Sarah was waiting for an answer, but she fell short of what to say. She glanced back toward the clearing. Nikolai was there at the edge, carefully hiding in a shadow with Ears perched on his shoulder. The young man stared back at her, fear clearly splashed on his face. Maybe he really had done something to provoke Valek. Instantly, her mind flicked to that old saying about people who live in glass houses.

“Nikolai,” Charlotte called out to him. He began walking—no, jogging—toward her. From just behind him, she could see the vague, dark form of Valek standing there like a stone statue. He flinched when she called out for the other boy.

“What exactly did you do?” she asked breathlessly as he finally got to her at the edge of the forest. It became harder to breathe. Her inhalations broke in dry sobs, and she couldn’t determine if it was because she was freezing or if the panic had begun to set in, that Valek might actually be everything the Elves feared he was. She said a silent prayer that Nikolai would confess he’d really done something to provoke Valek’s actions.

The boy’s face contorted into panic. “You can’t trust him, Charlotte. I know you think you know him but you don’t! Somebody from The Parliament came looking for me weeks ago. They spoke to me. They told me I had to find you before
he
did.”  He blinked nervously, shifting his eyes away from her face and back again. “You were shivering. I…was only pulling up the covers.”

Something pricked at the corner of Charlotte’s intuition and told her that probably wasn’t all he’d done. What was he talking about? The Parliament? Why would they seek someone like Nikolai? There’d been a weird chemistry between Nikolai and Valek from the beginning. What did he know that she didn’t? And she knew Valek too well, anyway. There must have been something else that provoked him. He would never fall that far into desperation on his own, no matter what kind of monster he was or was not. Awful, dark memories flashed of her days spent in the house, locked in the room with Lusian. She closed her eyes tightly over the painful visions.

“Listen.” Nikolai spoke softly, pulling her out of her reverie. “I don’t know what Valek is to you exactly, but it doesn’t seem to me like you’re in such a healthy situation.”

Ears landed softly on his shoulder, as if in agreement. Who was he to judge if she were in a healthy situation or not? She frowned at him.

She turned, wincing at Sarah, who was biting her lip, apparently fighting back whether or not to voice her own agreement. Charlotte turned away from them again, and commenced her sulking stalk through the midnight. She didn’t want to hear what they had to say.