“Sevan,” Cyrus cried again, holding me closer, pressing his lips to my forehead. “Eighty-nine years of immortality is not enough,” he shook his head. “Nowhere near enough.”
Another wave of pain shattered through me, but I didn’t have the strength to fight it. It pulled me, down. Down to the dark. Down to where I saw an end to it.
But I needed one last breath.
With every ounce of strength I had left, I opened my eyes.
I met Cyrus’ deep green ones.
I loved his eyes.
It was them that I first fell in love with.
Their intensity. Their determination.
“I love you, my forever heart,” I breathed.
His last words muddled into the wave of pain.
I held onto it, letting it pull me down, down to where it ended.
And I was released into the darkness.
Chapter 30
A lifetime of relative ease and peace in a land full of sand and jungles. A family removed from the others, a family looking for establishment and respect.
I lived an entire life among my brothers and sisters, my parents, and my grandfather, descended from a madman he called the Blood Father. I helped them grow an empire, discussed secrecy and safety for our kind.
And when my time came, when I reached the golden age of youth and maturity, they all hugged me one last time as a human and watched as I pierced my own heart with a blade and died my first death.
Eight others had done so before me.
Eight others had Resurrected from the dead after lying in the ground for four days.
On that forth day, I awoke, just as they said I would.
A vampire with strength and thirst.
But as the days turned into weeks, my dreams grew foreign. They turned to a land that looked so different, yet familiar. They showed me visions of a castle.
And a face.
And my heart felt sure it would die if I did not see it once more.
Cyrus, my brain one day screamed out as I sat up in my bed.
“Cyrus,” I whispered the name.
His face floated before my eyes, so achingly familiar.
A poor man in an alley came rushing to me, one who saved a young woman destined to marry an unkind brute.
A wedding beneath a tree.
Nights of love and lust.
“Cyrus,” I sobbed.
But my heart thundered in my chest. Elation filled my veins.
Sevan. I was Sevan.
I was also Jafari.
The family thought I had gone insane as I explained everything to them. They thought I was ill. Or that something had gone wrong in my Resurrection. I could not be the genesis queen. She had been dead for fifty-one years.
But how else could I know so many details about the legend of the man in a land far away? How could I know about the never-aging king amassing power across the world?
I had to get back.
I had to return to my home.
I had to get back to my husband.
Finally, an uncle agreed to make the journey with me. To cross the globe and find the land I could remember so clearly.
Spring turned into Summer and the leaves were just beginning to change when we rode through a mountain pass. The horses beneath us were growing weary, the journey had been so long and arduous.
But as we crested the pass and the land opened up before us, revealing a lake and a village and a castle, I smiled.
Home.
This was my home. Roter Himmel.
I spurred the horse on, and it broke out into a sprint, one last burst of energy. Its hooves raced over the grasses and rocks and terrain.
I’d swam in that lake at night under the light of the moon. I’d walked through these houses, now rebuilt and occupied, when they were burned to rubble. I’d walked this road up to the doors thousands of times and planted those fruit trees that now were large and fruitful.
I slowed the horse as we came up to the doors. Guards stood on either side of it, staring me down with dark eyes, ready to kill me if necessary.
Our home had changed so much since I was last here. So many more people. So much more glamor and activity.
But it was still the same.
The same feelings of peace and belonging raced through my blood.
The same sense of dread whipped me as I thought of the son we raised here, the one who was such a threat when he left.
I hesitated for a moment then, the pieces falling into place.
He’d been successful.
All the wives he’d taken, all the children he’d tried to create.
Malachi, my grandfather, talked of his father, the madman, the Blood Father, and creator. Malachi was every much a vampire, just like my son had woken to be.
As was my father.
As am I.
How many of us were there now?
There were my aunts and uncles.
There were my brother and sisters.
How many others?
“I need to see Cyrus,” I said with a thick throat. I stood straight, tall. I stared the guards down.
It took an hour of arguing, but finally, they opened the doors and I was instructed to wait in the main entry hall.
I was angry. I knew every hall, every room, every passageway of this castle.
I wanted to storm straight to our bedroom and take Cyrus in my arms and never let him go.
But I waited.
It seemed an eternity before finally, I heard steps.
And my heart leapt into my throat as I saw his feet descending the stairs.
My view slowly grew, revealing strong legs. A lean middle. Familiar hands that worked magic and miracles. A powerful chest.
And then his face.
Cyrus.
Those lips I could never look away from. That proud nose. That wild, thick, dark hair.
And finally, those eyes.
The eyes I first fell in love with.
Dark. Deep.
But they were different.
They held a new darkness.
They held power.
They held anger and bitterness.
But I knew those eyes.
I’d stood frozen on the spot, just looking at him.
Tears pooled in my eyes and peace settled into every corner of me. A tiny smile fluttered to my face, even though he was looking at me with hardness and impatience.
“And who might you be that you think you may demand my presence?” he asked coldly.
I faltered, just for a second.
Cyrus had changed.
He’d begun building a kingdom before I died with Sevan’s face. And now before me stood a cold king, and I didn’t know what he was capable of.
But he was still my Cyrus.
Still my forever heart.
“It seems the magic of your cure had yet to reveal all its secrets,” I breathed. It was all I could do to stay rooted in my place, to not go running to him, to not pull myself into his familiar embrace.
“If you think I know what you are talking about, you are mistaken, woman,” he said. But there was just a little bit of hesitance to his tone.
I found a small little smile on my lips. “You said eternity was what we were supposed to have,” I said. “Perhaps we will still get it, just in broken intervals.”
Cyrus’ expression faltered then. His lips slackened just slightly and his eyes widened just a little.
“Do you remember how much of a mess this place was that first night?” I asked softly as I took one step forward. “Do you remember the owl’s nest we had to remove from there?” I pointed to the corner of the hall, where an elegant table now sat. “Do you remember how cold it was?”
Tears pooled in Cyrus eyes, I saw them as I came close. His mouth fluttered, searching for words. He trembled.
I stopped just in front of him, looking up into his eyes with a new face.
“I don’t understand how,” I said quietly. “But I awoke across the world, and I remembered it all. It’s me, im yndmisht srtov.”
“Sevan?” Cyrus breathed, his voice cracking.
I nodded, getting lost in those eyes.
And he buried me in his embrace, and once more, I was home.
* * *
“Her vitals are still stable,” a watery voice knocks at the back of my brain. “Her brain activity, however, is off the charts.”
“And there’s nothing you can do to wake her up?” another muffled sound floats across my thoughts.
“I’m afraid of the long-term damage I could do if I interfere with…whatever is going on inside that head of hers.”
They sound so worried. So scared.
But I can’t grasp it.
Not when I’m so relieved to be alive. To be with the man I love.
Chapter 31