of others.
It was so very much against her nature.
But it was inevitable. All his kind became deaf to the pain of those they fed from. It would break his heart to see her change. But if it would mean he could hold her for a hundred years? Two? Ten? Then he would do it. It was a sacrifice he had paid before, and for her he would happily pay it again. She was his. She belonged to him. And in turn, he had given her all that he was.
I love you, Maxine.
And for as long as I walk this Earth, I will never, ever let you go.
Eddie looked down at the body of the vampiress he had fought. She had claimed to be an elder vampire, and she was right in warning him that she was stronger than anything he had faced before.
“Fuck.” He coughed. He was bruised everywhere. But that wasn’t the biggest problem.
He looked down at his left hand. He was missing a finger. He had already bandaged it up as tightly as he could after he had picked himself up off the ground. He had lost a finger, but in the end, Elizabeth was dead, and he had won. He fired off one more round of holy ammunition into her corpse and watched her begin to ignite and burn away into dust.
His hand stung like a bitch. He looked down at the strip of cloth that was already turning red, but slowly. He had seared it shut with the hot muzzle of his gun when it had happened in the fight. He figured he wasn’t going to bleed to death. It had hurt. A lot. But he was going to be okay.
Whatever. It didn’t matter. It was only a finger. He had nine more, right?
Who knew what Alfonzo had already lost by now, if he was even still alive? Or Bella? He wasn’t going to whine about the finger he didn’t need to shoot. Poor Bella…He couldn’t believe she had become a succubus willingly. He couldn’t. It had to be a lie. He was going to get to the bottom of it. He was going to save her.
Or…or kill her.
No. There must be a cure. He shoved the thought out of his head. He wouldn’t let himself even consider having to bury a bullet in her head. Even if it was the right thing to do.
He still found the need to kick the dusty fanged skull of the vampiress as he walked away. It crumbled to ash and fell to pieces as it rolled away.
Stupid vampires. Stupid demons. Stupid Dracula.
Stupid Boston.
Eddie wanted to go home.
Maxine woke up slowly. She was so utterly comfortable; she didn’t want to move. She curled into what was lying beneath her. It was cold, smooth, hard yet soft, like stone covered in velvet. When she nuzzled into it, enjoying the sensation of its chill surface against her warm cheek, it chuckled.
Right.
Yes.
That.
She yawned and stretched, feeling a hard surface close to her back. She did not need to open her eyes and see the pitch darkness she suspected surrounded her. She knew where they were. Half-awake, she had less of a filter than perhaps she should. “Why do you sleep in a coffin, Vlad?”
“Hm?”
“You do not burn in the sunlight. So why sleep in a coffin at all? Certainly, someone of your considerable height would enjoy more room to stretch out.”
“You have asked me this once before.”
“And you gave me a half-answer. You claimed it was the light that troubled you. I think you are more than capable of purchasing shutters. So why?”
He was silent.
Fearing she had committed a misstep without realizing it, she placed her palm to his bare chest. “I am sorry. I did not mean to offend.”
His hand laced over hers, and he let out a slow breath. “You have done no such thing. I merely am deciding upon how to phrase my response.”
His arm was slung across her lower back. The strength and the power that burned in him, even if it did not beat in his heart, was soothing.
“I am a dead soul trapped in an immortal body. While I may never be at peace, I am dead all the same. One must have both halves to be truly alive. To be as I am, neither one nor the other, I am as good as a corpse. I sleep in a coffin to remind myself of what I truly am. I have spent eons attempting to pretend that