Chapter Twenty-Two
~The End of Hope~
Silence fell upon the room. For Laura, it was a shocked silence. To have come so far, to have done so much… it didn’t seem fair that it had all been for nothing.
And now they were only minutes away from the imminent confrontation. A confrontation that would leave both of them dead.
“Laura.” Logan’s voice was heavy. She looked across the room to him. At least in her final moments she could see his face, so beautiful against the moonlight. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“No,” she told him, but he interrupted.
“I’m sorry for taking you away from your life. I’m sorry for everything. You… you did not ask for this. I have forced it upon you. I have taken so much away.” Laura thought she saw his eyes glisten. Were those tears?
“Logan, no…” she began, but again he broke in.
“You deserve so much better.” He stepped towards her. “I should have never spoken to you.” He stepped closer, until he was right in front of her, and looked down sadly. “I should have never shown you the dream world. You would have lived the full life you deserve.” He took her head gently between her hands, and placed a kiss on her forehead. She shivered at the touch of his lips.
He turned away and walked to the entrance. He stood there, staring out into the darkness. His shoulders were tense, and Laura could see every sculpted muscle of his back.
“When they come…” he swallowed, “… when they come, I want you to stay back. As far back as you can. Hide against the stone slab. And whatever you do – don’t watch.”
His words tugged at her heart, and tears swelled in her eyes. He was bracing himself for the upcoming fight. To try to save her. She knew it was a losing proposition. They would kill him, tear right through him to get to her. There was no escaping this time.
She hated feeling helpless. Hated feeling like they had come so far, done so much, and achieved almost nothing. She was alone with Logan, deep underneath the earth, and he was readying himself for one last desperate fight to save her. He would lose. And… she couldn’t let that happen.
A thought had tickled her mind ever since she first learned what Logan was. A thought she had suppressed, and kept hidden. A thought that frightened her. But now, in the darkest of hours, there was no other choice but to face it head on.
“Logan,” she said with unspoken conviction. “They’re tracking us by my scent, right?”
“Yes,” he said curtly.
“Otherwise, they wouldn’t know where to go in the labyrinth, would they?”
“That’s right.”
“And you… you have no scent?” The words came slowly, but she was determined.
“Yes…?”
“So…” she swallowed, summoning all her courage. “So bite me.”
“What?” Logan spun around, outrage clear on his face.
“Bite me. You said you were once human, you were converted. Bite me, and make me one of you!”
“No,” he shook his head, “it’s against all the rules. It would go against everything.”
“So?” Laura wasn’t about to be pushed away, now. “You’re an outcast anyway! If you do it, we can get away.”
“I can’t do that to you.” Logan walked up to her.
“Why not?” she demanded harshly. The stubborn man wouldn’t listen!
“It’s a life of suffering, of immortality. You watch loved ones age and wither away. There is no peace.”
Laura closed her eyes. The words that escaped her mouth were barely a whisper. “There is peace, with you.”
She opened her eyes, and for a long moment, regarded Logan in silence.
Then, in a voice just as quiet as hers had been, Logan spoke. “Are you certain?”
Laura felt conviction stronger than anything else flare up within her. She took his hands in hers. “Yes.”
~
And so upon that night, under cover of moonlight, Laura Cubus became the first known human to become willingly converted. She screamed as the fangs sank in, thrashed when the taint of vampire blood mixed in with hers. But her will was strong, and she survived the poison, rising from her sleep to become one of the Vassiz.
Her coming heralded a time of change and of unrest. For the seeds of doubt that had been planted in the elders’ minds had now blossomed and bore fruit.
In one single act, Laura Cubus had destroyed a long standing equilibrium; shattered the very bonds that bound its strength for millennia.
End of Book 1 of the Dream Realms Trilogy.