Something cold and heavy settled through my body at his words.
“And I don’t know if I want to,” he had said after. “The bloodlust,” he had shaken his head. “I never expected it. It’s…a terrible consequence. But Sevan,” his voice had gone breathy. “This strength, the power in me. My vision. My instincts.” He had taken my hand and stared up at me, even if I wouldn’t look at him in return. “It may have only been seven days, but I can feel it, Sevan. The cure for death was successful. I will never die.”
My eyes slid closed.
I felt sick.
So sick.
“Can you not be proud of me, my forever heart?” he whispered. His tone… I could hear his agony. His desire.
I couldn’t find any words.
He had sat at my side for a long moment, just watching me.
He gathered my hand into his, holding it to his chest.
He was no longer human, but still, I felt his heart beating in his chest.
“Do you still love me, Sevan?” he asked in a terrified breath.
Still, words did not come to me.
So I had sat there.
Cyrus eventually let go of me. He sat across the room. He watched me.
And I could not find the words to answer him.
* * *
I could not tell my husband that I loved him.
But as disgusted as I was by what he had become, I could not bring myself to leave him.
I kept myself removed for those first few weeks.
But eventually, I found myself looking into his dark eyes. Eventually, I let him wrap his arms around me once more.
Eventually I let him whisper familiar words in my ear.
Eventually I let him back into our bed.
“Join me, my forever heart,” Cyrus eventually dared whisper one night. “I cannot stand the thought of moving on in this life without you when one day the course of your life runs out.”
I rolled over, my brows furrowing as I looked up at him.
“I created two doses,” he said, placing a hand on my cheek. He softly brushed his thumb over my skin. “Join me, Sevan. Let us lead this new life together.”
I reached up, gently touching his face. My insides twisted, filled with so much uncertainty. So much anger. So much doubt. And fear.
“And go through the bloodlust?” I said. “The inability to control myself? The loss of myself as a human?” I shook my head. “Cyrus, this is a path you set yourself upon. It is one I cannot join you in.”
His eyes darkened. They filled with sadness and anger and betrayal. “Sevan, when I said that I would love you for the rest of my days, I meant it with every single fiber of my being. Those days never, ever have to end.”
I still had my doubts. It had not been long. It would be years until we were certain.
I shook my head again. “I cannot.”
* * *
Cyrus continued to hunt people. He drank their blood. His fangs would lengthen and his eyes would glow, and he would drain them of their blood.
He continued to study.
But he could no longer practice. He could not control himself when someone walked in with a bleeding wound.
He adopted a new practice, though. That of exacting control over himself. He was determined to not let the bloodlust take hold of him, turning him into a monster.
He hid what he was from our town.
And every night, wrapped in his arms, with my heart trembling and splitting in two, I stayed with my husband.
Every night, he tried to persuade me.
A lifetime of immortal strength together.
Endless time to see the world. To learn everything about everything.
A lifetime of he and I.
He swore he would give me the world.
But I would raise a hand to my neck. I would imagine how those people must have felt as he hunted them down. The terror that must have consumed them as they realized they were going to die at the hands of Cyrus.
No, I told him. Over and over.
His anger and hurt grew by the day.
He questioned my commitment I had made the day we married.
He questioned if I still loved him.
I could never answer him straight.
Because I wasn’t so sure.
Screams.
Fights.
Bitterness.
I couldn’t leave.
But I couldn’t go where he felt destined to go. Into this new life.
I felt sick.
Every morning. Every night.
* * *
And then one night, I woke in the dead of dark to a liquid slipping down my throat. And Cyrus’ hands clamped down over my mouth and nose.
Forcing me to swallow.
Forcing me into this immortal life with him.
Chapter 24
“No,” I sobbed. “No, no, no, no, no!”
Tears rolled down my face as I felt the strength rip through me. I trembled as my vision pulsed and flashed, and every single detail around us became crystal clear. I could see…everything in the dark.
“No,” I whispered as they swept through the dark.
They found Cyrus.
“Sevan,” he breathed.
His eyes were wide. Terrified. He looked like he would be sick.
“No,” I cried again. I shook my head. Horror filled me, made bile come up my throat.
I knew it. He had turned me.
In the end it hadn’t mattered that I had told him no. Cyrus turned me, anyway.
“Sevan,” Cyrus said as tears slipped down his face and slowly, he stepped toward me. “I’m so sorry. I only wanted to be together.”
“No,” I cried again. I took a step back from him as the fire ignited in my throat.
“I’m so sorry, Sevan,” he cried as his face crumpled.
* * *
I couldn’t control it.
The thirst was so all-consuming. It was all I could think about. The burning in my throat. The heat that would spread down to my chest. Out to my fingers. Race down my legs. To my toes. It consumed my brain.
Drink. Drink.
It was all I could focus on.
Within the first week of being cured of death, I killed seven people.
We could no longer go out in the daylight. It made hunting easier. Very few were out in the dark. But it meant no witnesses to our nightly activity.
Until the day a mother saw us take her teenage daughter.
She screamed for the entire town to hear.
With panic, Cyrus took my hand. We ran. So fast no one could see us. We ran, and we went home, and we packed.
We set off with our precious belongings and all the coin we had accumulated.
But it was not long in the next town before the same happened.
Out in the woods, a blanket thrown over our heads to keep the dewy rain off of us, I laid on my back.
“We will figure this out, Sevan,” Cyrus assured me through the dark that was so comforting. “I promise I will find a way for us.”
When I had opened my glowing eyes for the first time, I was filled with utter hatred.
Cyrus had betrayed me in the darkest way.
He had taken away my choice.
My wishes.
He had forced this life on me.
But I was so delirious with the thirst. I was so consumed.
I needed him. I had to rely on his experience.
Together.
We were in this together, even if I hated him.
He’d spent every day of my new life apologizing. Being so attentive. Sobbing and asking for my forgiveness.
I couldn’t give it.
“You’ve been better since you changed,” Cyrus said in the dark. “I was getting worried. You were so ill. It seems the cure not only alludes death, but other illnesses.”
I wasn’t really hearing his words.
Absentmindedly, I placed my hands on my stomach.
I’d thought that perhaps my body had just been swollen with all the blood I had drunk.
But there, deep inside, I felt a flutter.
Just a small movement.
But distinct.
A sharp breath pulled into my throat. Emotion bit at the back of my eyes and they instantly welled.
“What is it?” Cyrus said, sitting up, looking around, on high alert.
Gently, I ran my hands over my stomach.
And instantly I knew.
“Cyrus,” I breathed. My eyes shifted over to his, meeting them in the dark. I shook my head. “I was not ill all those weeks. It wasn’t just stress.”
His eyes flicked to my hands on my stomach.
I watched his expression change. It went slack, his eyes widening. His mouth opened.
Gently, he reached over, placing his hand on my stomach.
“A child?” he said breathily.
I sat up, climbing to my knees. I placed my hand over Cyrus’, holding them gently.