Page 95 of Love Lives
Vlad had one hand stretched out toward the enormous scaled creature, and with just that simple motion, with the power of his mind, he let the dragon hover, frozen mid-air. Vlad raised his hand and the dragon flew higher, his body glowing again as he shrank back down to his more human form. I watched in horror as Vlad lowered his hand again, quickly, making the Keeper crash down to the earth from a height that would have killed any mortal.
And then Vlad's gaze met mine.
He'd known that I was watching, and I was next on his list. I could feel it in my bones. A deep chill that threatened to freeze me the same way Vlad had done to the Keeper. I waited for fear to grip me, but somehow, it didn’t come. This vampire didn’t look like the vampire in my dreams, but it was the same man, wasn’t it? And there was something, I didn’t know what it was… maybe it was just my imagination, but I felt like I knew him. I knew that he was not the monster he’d turned into.
"I have your memories," I made myself say, raising the marble so he could see it.
Vlad glanced at the marble, then away again, as if he found it lacking somehow. " I have no need for it."
"You do," I insisted. "You don't really want to do this. You promised you--" I started, then stopped myself. What good would it do to remind him of a promise he'd made when that memory was lost to him? I took a step closer to the vampire, still holding the marble up. "Please just take a look."
Vlad shook his head. "I can finally see clearly again. Whatever memory that marble holds, it was a burden."
Before I even really knew what was happening, the marble was ripped out of my hand. Not by fingers, but by an invisible force. It hovered in the air above my hand, and then it shattered.
The pieces fell to the ground before me, the light fading out of them until only a few red dots remained. I stared at them. So much for Atlus’s love surviving anything. I shouldn’t have trusted it. I should have known it wouldn’t work.
And now what?
Now we had nothing.
No way to make Vlad see reason, to turn him over to our side.
This was how my visions would come true. This was how he was going to kill all of us. All because he didn't remember. Because he'd sacrificed so we could get that prophecy. That stupid prophecy that wasn't going to save us now.
It was all so tragic I almost wanted to laugh in the face of it because I didn't know what else to do. Fall to my knees and weep? Also an option, but I'd rather die than let the monster before me see me cry.
Not that it was going to be long now until I died.
I looked up at Vlad again. The vampire stared right back at me. We both knew what was coming.
"Don't just fucking stand there!" That was Aldrich's voice. He came dashing out of the house toward me, blood all over his clothes and that female vampire hot on his heels. He was going to take on both Vlad and her for me. I was going to watch him die just like I had in my vision.
No.
The word, the refusal to let this happen, reverberated throughout my body.
Maybe Vlad didn’t remember love, but I sure as hell did, and I was not going to watch him kill the vampire I loved. I was going to fucking make him remember before I let that happen. I didn’t have the marble to help me with that anymore, but I still had my dreams, and if they were the real thing, if Atlus’s feelings—somehow--lived on within me…
Before Aldrich could catch up to us, I was within arm's reach of the older vampire. "Bite me," I told him, surprised at how steady my voice sounded.
I didn't know if I could have said it again like that, but luckily, I didn't have to. Vlad's teeth sank into me before I could even form another thought.
Vlad didn't bite me the way Aldrich bit me. There was nothing gentle or teasing about it. He went straight for my blood, and he drew it into his mouth as quickly as he could. Even as my body relaxed in his hold, I felt dizzy. As if I was floating in the ocean and the waves were tossing me this way and that.
The feeling was so disorienting I almost forgot about my objective, why I was doing this. Because I needed Vlad to remember. I pulled my own memories to the forefront of my mind. Memories of the dreams that hadn't been dreams. I tried to shove them at him, but he walled himself off. It was as if I was running head-first into a brick wall. Only that it wasn't a brick wall but the vampire's energy.
And it felt way more familiar than it should have. The unexpected wave of nostalgia was more than I had bargained for, enough to make me recede, just for a moment. But maybe Vlad was just as shocked, just as distracted as I was, because the next time I tried to show him something, I managed to barrel through.
It was that memory of Atlus and Cyril by the river. I wasn't sure if he would understand, if it would mean anything to him, but I needed to try, I needed to...
My thoughts were growing hazy around the edges. Blood loss, I dimly realized. Vlad was drinking too quickly, and I...
I lost my mind to blackness.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Aldrich launched himself at Vlad,needing to pry Remy away from him, but it was impossible to penetrate the invisible shield the ancient vampire had thrown up all around himself. And then Leandra kept coming for him too. He growled. He had no time for this shit.
