I see the weight in his expression as he walks forward. He takes my hand and raises it, pressing a kiss to the back of my knuckles. “I’m sure you are thirsty again,” he says quietly. “I’ll bring you something to drink and ask Fredrick to make breakfast.”
I wasn’t. I hadn’t thought about my thirst, but the moment he says it, my throat is burning.
I swallow once, and nod.
He crosses the room and walks out, swinging the door partially closed.
I roll onto my back and stare up at the ceiling.
Last night was everything I dreamed it would be. Finally touching Cyrus and having him touch me filled a hole I’d recently discovered I had in my chest. Letting him press his lips to nearly every part of my body was the most blissful experience of my life.
But I’d also made a deal with myself.
Just one night.
Just something to hold onto.
Until I figure everything out.
I get up and go change. Comfortable, casual clothes. I braid my hair to the side. Put on some make up.
I look at myself in the mirror just once, before heading out the door.
“How soon can the pilot be ready to depart?”
I hesitate at the top of the stairs when I hear Cyrus’ voice.
“He said he will be ready whenever you are,” Fredrick answers in his heavy accent.
“Excellent,” Cyrus says. I hear him bite into something and chew. “After breakfast, I need you and Mina to pack our things and we’ll be off. I am very anxious to return home and return to our life.”
Crack.
I raise a hand to my chest.
Our life.
I look around, as if searching for answers, to clear solutions, and clear thoughts. But they’re nowhere to be found.
What I know is waiting for me in Roter Himmel, in Austria, doesn’t feel like our life.
I swallow once, and descend the stairs.
I can hear his racing heart before I even turn the stairs. Can smell the sweat on his palms.
And I feel ill for a second. I feel so disgusted with what I am, that this is because of me.
But the moment I see the man, sitting at the dining chair, his hands tied to the arms, a gag in his mouth, I see his pulse in his neck. I can’t think of anything other than the burning inferno in my throat.
His eyes only widen for a moment as I stand across the great room one moment, and am sinking my fangs into his neck the next. A little muffled scream penetrates my ears for just a second before he grows quiet and limp.
I suck his blood.
I pull it out of his body.
It slips down my throat.
It curls its way into my body.
It hits my stomach with satisfaction.
I moan as I take another pull, cupping him tightly to me so he doesn’t slump in the chair.
One more deep pull, and I release him.
I straighten and wipe the drip of his blood that escaped onto my lip.
The man sways, his eyes heavy, hardly able to stay open.
Cyrus steps forward. And suddenly, with a sharp twist, he snaps the man’s neck.
“Cyrus!” I bellow, stepping forward. But it’s too late. The man falls limply, his head and chest hitting the wooden tabletop. “What…why?”
“You took most, but not all of his blood,” Cyrus says as he walks back to the counter where Fredrick is preparing the food. I hardly even realize he’s looking at me with big, wide eyes. He even takes a big bow, muttering “my Queen.” But my shock, my rage, makes the man invisible. “He would have turned,” Cyrus says evenly.
I look back at the dead man. “Into…into a Bitten.”
Logan places a hint of a question in it. But Sevan knows the truth. Has seen it happen over and over and over again.
“Yes,” Cyrus confirms. “It’s been a recent change. That the creation of any Bitten is outlawed, and punishable by death.”
My eyes snap to Cyrus in surprise, but Logan has heard it before. I didn’t really understand it then. But now, knowing what I do remember, it’s a huge development. “Any and all Bitten? Any accidents? Always?”
Cyrus nods. He dishes up a plate and extends it in my direction. “Things have happened recently. It became necessary to eradicate their kind.”
“They’re all dead?” I gape in horror. “Every Bitten, no matter if they were created by accident?”
Cyrus jaw tightens. He sets my plate down on the table. Hard.
“You have not been here for centuries, Sevan,” he says in a hard tone. “You do not know what they have done in the past two decades!”
I go cold. I stand a little straighter. My fingers curl into fists.
“I told you not to call me that,” I say quietly.
And Cyrus knows he’s pushed things too far, gotten too hot too fast. He looks up at me with knowing eyes. But he doesn’t say anything.
I walk to the table and place my hands on it. I take a moment, because I know as soon as I say the words, I can never take them back, or undo the consequences of them.
“I’m not going back to Roter Himmel with you,” I say, looking up, and finding his forest green eyes.
One beat. Two.
“What?” he says.
I lean further into the table for a moment, gathering my strength. “This isn’t simple, Cyrus. It never is.”
“I know the adjustment is always hard for you, Sev…” he stops himself from saying the name. “Adjusting to multiple lives, reconciling the past and the present and the even deeper past. But doing it apart can do no good.”
He steps forward and I see desperation rising in his eyes. He stops at my side and I see he wants to touch me, to pull me to him. But he doesn’t dare.
I stand, facing him.
“Doing it apart is the only way I can do it,” I say, absolutely calm. Completely even. “Because right now, inside, I am too complicated. Looking at you is too hard. I have to figure some things out, Cyrus. And I cannot do it with you…” I don’t know how to finish the sentence, because there are too many aspects to it.
“I need some time on my own,” I say finally.
I knew my words would hurt Cyrus. They would crack him. In my past lives, others have told me stories, given accounts of what Cyrus is like when I am…not with him. He goes mad. He slips into the dark. He does bad things.
So me asking for separation, after what has been 286 years? That feels like a betrayal.
“Go back to Roter Himmel,” I say, making my voice soft. “I will return when I am ready.”
“Sevan,” he whispers. And the name just breaks me further.
I shake my head. And I turn to walk away.
“Where will you go?” he asks. His voice is broken.
I turn back. “I have one item of unfinished business to take care of. The final chip to our bargain.”
“Rath,” he says, immediately understanding.
I nod. “I’m going back to Las Vegas. You can go home, and their security can go back with me. I’ll be well protected with them.”
He hesitates, and he’s at an absolute loss for words.
So I take advantage of the moment, when he’s not arguing with me. I turn, and walk back to my bedroom to get ready.
* * *
There are a million things that I don’t know. Don’t know how to plan for.
I pack nearly every item of clothing I own. I slip the credit card Cyrus gave me weeks ago into my back pocket.
I stand in the middle of my room, looking down at my phone.
“Fredrick,” I say without raising my voice.
A second and a half later, there’s a light knock on my door and it cracks open. A very timid and frightened looking Fredrick looks in at me.
“Yes, my queen?” he says in German.
I understand him. Because I’ve spoken the language for over a thousand years, in all its variations. As well as dozens of others.
“I need you to get me some kind of House…directory,” I say, looking down at my phone again. “I assume you have such a thing.”
Hesitantly, he steps inside. “Yes, your Majesty,” he says as he pulls his own cell phone out. He taps a few things on the screen and indicates for me to hold my phone up. A moment later a notification comes through, and I open it to find dozens of names and numbers.
“Thank you,” I say, offering him a small smile.
He only bows his head once, and leaves the room.
I scroll through my phone, looking at the names.
House of Himura.
House of Dorian.
House of Martials.
House of Sidra.
House of Conrath.
I stare at the last name for a long time.