Page 82 of Blood Vows
“She couldn’t forgive Victor and Talon. She told me that before everything went to ruin, she had begged them to come home. Begged them to see what he was doing to her, what our father had become. But they didn’t believe her. They left her to face him alone.” His voice faltered, and I could almost see it. A woman broken by pain and betrayal, a son driven by vengeance and guilt.
“So I did what she asked. I took her far from there. We hid, for years, until the world forgot our name. They all believed we had both died that day. And for a time, maybe it was true. She was never really herself again after that.” I swallowed hard and asked sympathetically,
“What do you mean?”
“At first, she was fragile, frightened. I cared for her, kept her fed, kept her safe. But over time, something began to change. She grew restless. Hungrier. The more blood she drank, the less human she became.” His gaze lowered, fixed somewhere far away.
“I brought her those who deserved it. Thieves, murderers, those who preyed on the innocent. I told myself it made a difference, that I was sparing the world of monsters to feed one I still loved. But soon she refused to feed from men at all. She called them tainted. She said she could taste their wickedness, and it only made her want to act on the crimes of those she fed from.” A chill crept down my spine as his voice grew quieter, steadier.
“So then she began to want something else. Something purer. She wanted the innocent, the untouched, the untainted. I refused her. Every time she asked, I refused. So she began to disappear. Some nights she would be gone for hours, others fordays. I would find her after, her lips stained red, her eyes wild. When her hunger took her completely, I had no choice but to lock her in her room.” I gasped at this, my hand covering my mouth at how hard his life must have been, having to be his mother’s keeper. To watch her mind deteriorate as the years went by. He looked up at me then, and the devastation in his eyes was clear as day.
“She spoke of revenge even then, whispering through the cracks in her door. She said she would reclaim what was stolen from her. She said the darkness that lived in me was hers, that it was meant to belong to her. And that one day, she would take it back.” The room seemed to grow colder, the fire dimming as if the shadows themselves were listening.
I reached out before I could stop myself, my hand brushing his.
“Vas,”I said softly, my voice trembling.
“I understand, after all, she’s still your mother,” I told him, and he closed his eyes, his hand curling around mine, rough and warm.
“She was,” he murmured, barely audible.
“But what’s left of her now… I don’t even know if she remembers who I am.” For a long moment, neither of us spoke, the silence stretching taut between us, heavy with all the things that could no longer be unsaid. The fire had burned lower, its glow soft and golden now, casting a fragile peace over the room that felt entirely false.
“But the parts she does remember are the feelings of being betrayed. She believes that it will happen again.”
I wanted to tell him about the necklace. The words trembled on the edge of my tongue, begging to be spoken. I wanted to tell him that it was still there, beneath my bed, that it seemed to call to me in a voice I couldn’t quite hear but could always feel.That it had a pulse, a life, and that sometimes it felt like it was breathing through me.
But when I looked at him, really looked, I couldn’t bring myself to say it. The exhaustion in his eyes, the quiet torment beneath the surface, the guilt that had carved itself into the lines of his face, it was too much. I couldn’t add to it.
So instead, I asked softly,
“Is that why she attacked me, because she sees me as a threat?” He lifted his head, meeting my gaze, and the answer was already there before he spoke it.
“Yes, I believe so,” he said quietly. His voice carried a sadness that sank deep into my chest.
“She doesn’t think like she once did. The hunger rules her now. Not for blood, not really, but for something far worse. For purity. For innocence. The more she feeds, the more she craves it. And in you…” He trailed off, his jaw tightening.
“She must have seen what she could no longer have. What she has lost.” I swallowed hard, my throat aching.
“You mean humanity.” His nod was small but certain.
“Yes, and everything you represent. The light she can’t stand to see anymore,” he confirmed. My hands trembled slightly in my lap, my mind circling back to the haunting scream that had echoed through the halls only nights before. The one that had chilled me to my bones.
“Then that night… the screaming I heard… it was her, wasn’t it?” Vas hesitated, his gaze falling to the fire. For a moment, he didn’t answer, but when he finally did, it was with quiet resignation.
“Yes.” He said, but it looked like he wasn’t eager to say more, and my stomach turned.
“What happened?” I asked, needing to know. To see this through to the bitter end.
“She must have lured another to the house,” he said, each word measured, weary.
“I never know how she finds them, or what draws them in. It’s as if she can reach through the walls and call them, the same way the darkness calls to me. I keep her locked away for that reason, but sometimes… she finds a way out.”A cold shiver slid down my spine as his words sank in.
“That night, when you pulled the curtain back,” he continued, his voice deepening, roughened by memory.
“That is what you nearly walked in on… my mother trying to murder an innocent.” My breath caught as realisation hit. The shadow behind the curtain. The faint, guttural cry. The feeling that something was there, watching me through the dark. It hadn’t been my imagination.
“She had already caught someone,” he went on, his tone low.
