Page 28 of Love Immortal

Twenty-Seven

October 1987

Vermont

R oused back to wakefulness by Dacian’s confession, I wait. But despite my dire need to know more of what happened between him and Jonathan, Dacian won’t utter another word. Soon, slumber overtakes me, but the dream that arrives makes me wish I’d never closed my eyes.

In it, I’m weak and fully surrounded. I never thought it would come to this. I’d always thought it would be legions of enemy soldiers who would destroy me, not one human—one man —whom I myself had turned against me.

Waves of grief and regret wash over me.

It takes me a moment to realize I’m dreaming as Dacian. I’m seeing the world through his eyes—or rather, I’m watching his memories, as vivid and brutal as though they’re happening to me. His despair is inescapable.

The vampire hunter and his men are closing in, but I no longer have the strength to fight them. I am done. I watch as a crude stake is driven through my heart. I watch as my head is cut off with a sharp blade and thrown to the ground. I watch as they set my body ablaze, and the flames burn me to ash.

And he—my human—turns away as I burn, into the loving arms of his wife. Even as I am about to be sent into oblivion, I do not merit the kindness of his gaze, not after what I’ve done to him.

I close my eyes for a moment, naively thinking that Death is coming for me. But what awaits me is much crueler than the silent servant of the netherworld.

Dripping with blood, my head is stuffed into a small wooden box. The world plunges into darkness as the lid closes over me, and I’m carried far away. But I’m not able to die. Not like this. No matter how badly I yearn to return to nothingness, it’s not easy to kill one such as me.

Even at this distance, I can feel the burnt remnants of my flesh rotting away as my castle is ransacked and pillaged by the Dutchman’s surrogates. They kill my progeny; they take my books. I feel my domain crumble into ruins. And still, I remain alive inside the small wooden box.

I scream to be let out.

I scream and scream and scream, but no one hears me.

I keep screaming for a long, long time.

My heart jerks like a trapped animal, unable to break free, finally waking me from the nightmare. For several minutes, I lie flat and motionless in Dacian’s bed as I try to shake off its vise-like grip.

Were those really Dacian’s memories? Or did my crazy mind conjure them up as revenge for all the macabre stuff I’ve put it through? The pale-gray light of dawn streams through the now-closed window, but I shiver regardless. When I finally dare check the space next to me, it’s empty. Dacian is gone.

Panicked, I sit up and frantically look around the bedroom. I know it’s irrational, but the hold of the nightmare is still strong. The mad beating of my heart calms only once I find him unharmed, his head blessedly still attached to his shoulders, eyes closed, and seemingly deep asleep, but it takes my mind a few moments to process what I’m seeing.

Some vampire myths claim they sleep in coffins, but I never took those seriously, chalking the belief up to religious superstition. But seeing Dacian now makes me reconsider. He’s lying in a long wooden box, a human-size crate, really, filled with—I squint—dirt? Quietly, so as to not disturb his sleep, I climb out of bed and find my underwear and clothes in a heap on the floor. I shimmy into them and tiptoe up to the crate.

Dacian is dressed only in a pair of black pajama pants. I check his breathing: slow and even. He is sound asleep. What an unexpected sight. Dear heavens, he is so perfect that it’s a sin not to admire him. Uninhibited, I let my gaze roam over his bare, sculpted chest, the taut muscles of his stomach, his navel, and the tips of his hip bones. I got to touch all of it last night, but it was too dark to see. Now, however… My blood rushes through my body as I try to align my tactile memories with what I’m witnessing. My skin tingles with how badly I want to touch him in daylight. I want to kiss him again. Suddenly I’m annoyed that I didn’t get to wake up next to him, that some crate full of dirt stole him from me. I want to climb into it and curl up against him?—

“Hasn’t anyone told you that peeping is considered improper in polite society?”

My breath catches. I tear my gaze away from Dacian’s navel and I find him awake, looking at me with hooded eyes. There’s an indisputable tinge of amusement in them.

I bite my lower lip. “Has anyone told you that you’re wildly beautiful and that polite society has no idea what it’s talking about?” I must’ve lost all shame to say it so openly. But those bottomless eyes always manage to provoke the truth from me, however embarrassing.

Dacian’s mouth curves up. “As I recall, most people think I’m an old codger with pointy ears, hair on my hands, and breath that reeks of death thanks to that book,” he purrs.

“The book lied,” I say, not breaking eye contact.

He chuckles. “About many things.”

I watch his Adam’s apple move up and down. But as my gaze falls to Dacian’s neck, the memory of the nightmare flashes in my mind in all its monstrous cruelty. My body goes rigid.

The smile slips off Dacian’s face. “What did you see?”

I swallow hard, trying to erase the gnarly sensation of my head being chopped off and stuffed into a box. “N-nothing,” I stutter. “It was just a nightmare that felt a little too real.”

Dacian studies me intently, his mood once again unreadable. “They often do,” he says eventually. He sits up, his dark, silky locks obscuring his eyes.

“What is that thing?” I ask, gesturing at his crate. I’m genuinely curious, but my brain could also use a distraction.

“A piece of my domain. My homeland.” He climbs out, carefully swiping loose dirt off his pants and back into the crate. When my eyebrows furrow in confusion, Dacian adds, “I will tell you everything as promised, Jonathan. I come from an era when bargains were thoroughly respected by both parties. If they wished to keep their heads on their shoulders, that is.” His voice is so serious that it almost carries a note of warning. I gape, dumbstruck. “But first,” he says, straightening up, his mood lighter again, “are you hungry?”

I wait for Dacian to change into his clothes—a cardigan and slacks similar to the ones from yesterday—before following him downstairs. His kitchen is nice; it has modern appliances but otherwise retains the charm from a hundred years ago. There are wooden beams supporting the ceiling, a big farmhouse sink, and a row of copper pans hanging above the stove. It’s spacious and sparsely furnished, just like the rest of the house, but all the essentials seem to be here. There’s even a drip coffeemaker quietly percolating on the counter. I wonder who furnished this place, as it looks to be set up for a human, not a vampire.

“How do you like your eggs?” Dacian asks, taking the carton out of the fridge, which also appears to be well stocked for some inexplicable reason. Maybe he’s trying to avoid suspicion in case of unexpected visitors?

“Umm, sunny side up?” I say from my spot at the big wooden table in the center of the room, half-wondering if he even knows what that means. But to my surprise, he simply cracks two eggs into a hot pan and adds a piece of bread to toast beside them.

“What is it?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder at my awestruck face as the eggs sizzle, filling the kitchen with a mouthwatering aroma.

“I can’t believe you cook,” I admit sheepishly. “I mean, this isn’t what you normally eat, is it?”

“Of course not,” he says coyly. “But I was once human too. And believe it or not, there have been no drastic developments over the past few centuries when it comes to cooking eggs.” With that, he scoops the eggs and toast from the pan and places them on a porcelain plate.

I chuckle. “I guess not. Are you going to eat anything?” I venture tentatively as he puts the plate and a mug of steaming coffee on the table in front of me and takes a seat at the opposite end.

“I’m…not hungry right now.” Something flutters in my stomach at the way his eyelashes dip, and his eyes glaze over at the word hungry . I don’t know if I believe him.

I take a few bites of my eggs. I’m not sure if I’m just ridiculously famished after everything we did last night, or if it’s the fact that he has cooked breakfast for me, but they taste really delicious. “These are quite possibly the best eggs I have ever had,” I say earnestly.

His lips curl into a smile. “I’m glad you’re enjoying them.”

“So…you used to be human?” I ask after taking a few more bites.

“A long time ago,” Dacian replies, his tone shifting from playful to serious. “Have you ever heard of the Order of the Dragon?”

I rummage through my memory. I think it was mentioned in one of the history books I looked at in the library when I was investigating Dacian’s identity. But I could barely string together a coherent thought at the time, let alone memorize a historical fact. “Does it have something to do with where you come from?” I ask.

“It does. I was accepted into the Order after I completed the ritual.”

He doesn’t need to clarify which ritual. A shiver skims the back of my neck.

“The Order of the Dragon was a secret society established in the fifteenth century to defend the Kingdom of Hungary, which controlled Transylvania at the time,” he continues. “It later expanded its reach to the domain of the Holy Roman Empire as well. Of course, not everyone joined it for the noble purpose of protecting their kin; after all, the same people had no qualms about raping and pillaging their way through the later Crusades.”

“Wait…you were in the Crusades?” I ask, astounded, forgetting for the moment to be horrified.

Dacian shakes his head. “No. That is one more inaccuracy perpetuated by that book. I’m not that old. I suppose I was lucky to avoid that particular disgrace. However, my predecessors did not.” Dacian’s gaze darkens, and a long moment passes before he continues. “I was a part of the Order, but not as a knight or a nobleman. Instead, I was their weapon.”

My fork freezes halfway to my mouth. “Weapon?” Slowly, I put it back down without taking a bite.

“I told you the ritual is a kind of black magic capable of creating a superior being—a one-man army, if you will, one that can defeat hordes of enemies at once. The lands I hail from were the target of frequent and devastating incursions by the Ottoman Empire. It was the Order’s task to defend against them. Naturally, no small group of ordinary humans could fight thousands of the most brutal warriors the European continent had ever seen, so the Order resorted to using magic. For centuries they had possessed secret knowledge of how to bestow great powers on an individual in return for the sacrifice of blood. When a suitable candidate was selected, and the sacrifices were made, the ritual bound the chosen one to the land, establishing it as their domain. This made them nearly invincible within its borders so long as they continued to protect it. You asked about the large crate in my bedroom. It contains earth from my land, the domain I’m bound to, and I must rest in it every day. It isn’t the same as being back in Transylvania, but it extends my powers.”

“Like an embassy?” I ask.

Dacian tips his head thoughtfully. “In a way, I suppose—a piece of home in a foreign realm. The Order successfully created several such weapons throughout the centuries. When my predecessor ceased to perform that role, I was chosen to replace him.”

“What happened to him?” I ask through the low hum of anxiety churning inside me.

A shadow passes over Dacian’s face. “He went mad,” he says bluntly. “He started impaling dozens of people, then hundreds, then thousands.” Though he doesn’t mention the man’s name, I’m able to guess the identity of his predecessor immediately. “And while some ‘extravagance’ in terms of entertainment preferences was tolerated by the Order, eventually they deemed him too volatile and removed him. This power…it has an effect on you, Jonathan. It makes it hard to hold onto yourself, particularly in the early years after the transformation. When you’re meant to kill hundreds in a single attack without a second thought or any remorse, it makes it difficult to draw a line that should not be crossed. That’s why not everyone is suited for this ritual.”

As Dacian says this, the space around us suddenly ripples. The kitchen with its table and pots and pans fades, and dark images flood my mind, too striking in their intensity to be merely my imagination. A lone man stands on a vast battlefield under ashen skies. Ominous black shadows swirl around him. Underneath his feet is a mountain of dead bodies, and he’s gazing down at it. He has won. He has killed them all. But at what price? Blood flows in rivers of crimson from his fingers. His face is smeared with dark red. He is stained with death. It makes the hair on the back of my skull rise. Unstoppable. Unconquerable. He is the ruler of the darkness, his domain—the empire of bones. And in the black pits of his eyes lies such madness, such compulsion to ruin and destroy, that it will not be satisfied even if his homeland is soaked in blood.

The image flickers out, leaving me momentarily disoriented. Perhaps it’s the proximity of Dacian or him lowering his guard that makes these visions so much more vivid than before. It takes me a moment to piece my thoughts back together.

“This ritual—you said it was to protect the land and its people, but where did the sacrifices that made you come from?”

The blackness in Dacian’s eyes doesn’t stir. “The common citizens taken by the Order.”

I should’ve guessed as much; still, I find myself at a loss for words. How could someone’s life hold such little value? Have regular people always been pawns in the careless hands of the corrupt and powerful?

Dacian says, “Things were different back then, Jonathan. The idea of sacrificing your own to repel a greater enemy was quite acceptable at the time—especially to the aristocracy, who never had to pay such a price. I myself was born a commoner, the bastard son of a nobody. But I had what the Order wanted—the blood of the ancient warrior race—and time and time again, I’d proven myself on the battlefield. That made me more than suitable. I was also the age that was considered a man’s prime at the time. And lastly, I was willing.” He lets out a sardonic laugh. “I believed I was being patriotic. The Order wanted to keep me on a tight leash, and thus, I was given a title, a castle with lands, and a pile of gold for my ‘service.’ But eventually, even the gold lost its sheen. After a few decades, most things lose their glow…” He trails off, distant again.

“What happened next?” I prompt.

Dacian exhales slowly. “Time happened next, Jonathan. The nineteenth century brought great changes to the continent. People were looking outward to new frontiers. Science replaced magic. The lands I defended lost their prominence. Even the Order faded away. And yet I remained.

“By the second half of the century, the magic that held me in its control had weakened enough that I thought I was finally free to leave my homeland. Unfortunately, I underestimated just how much of my power was still tied to my domain. In all my centuries, I’d never been away from it. By the time I realized just how vulnerable I was, it was too late. I’d made the most unfortunate of enemies.”

There is a deep crinkle between the perfect arches of Dacian’s brows, and I feel a prickle of something I know he’s trying to suppress. No images come, yet it stabs at my heart all the same.

“What did you do?” I ask.

“You already know. You saw it last night, didn’t you?” he says, his lightless eyes fixed on mine.

My insides go numb. I do know. I watched Dacian’s body turn to ash and his head be cut off and shoved into a box. I feel a sudden swoop of nausea. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten before this talk. “Why would they do that to you?” I ask, dismayed. Everything I saw was quite close to the events described in the novel—everything except for the part about the box and the count’s death.

“Keep me alive?” Dacian says tiredly. “I don’t know. I fully expected them to end me. Perhaps the Dutchman, who was the mastermind behind the attack, wasn’t convinced he could kill me, so keeping me incapacitated was his best course of action. Or perhaps behind his mask of righteousness lay the devious corruption to which the human species is so susceptible. Maybe he wanted to keep me as a source of power to be used one day.

“I will never know what his designs were. I never saw him again. He died within a decade, and his descendant took possession of the box. However, he did not release me or bargain with me. My head remained hidden in a small storage room beneath their family estate. But I knew as I waited that one day a corrupt descendant would seek power, and I’d be called upon again…and I was right.”

“How so?” I ask, fully invested.

“Turns out, pilfering things from my castle was a profitable business. Who knows how many homes that family and their associates ransacked after they accused their owners of being monsters and dispensed punishment in the name of their god? I swear some tactics never change. Using the funds, the Dutchman’s enterprising granddaughter built a financial empire, but five years ago, his great-grandson decided the bottomless well of money no longer satisfied him. He’d heard stories of an old wooden box buried deep in the basement of the estate, never to be touched under any circumstances, but this man wasn’t raised with much regard for rules. So one night, he came to me to strike a deal.”

There’s a glint in Dacian’s eyes, but the light isn’t a warm reflection of the sun. It’s icy and sharp, like the blade of a knife.

“What happened to him?” I ask.

“For a while, he was useful to me,” Dacian says meaningfully, and I realize that everything around us—the house, the furniture, even the Jag outside—must’ve been purchased by that person. He must have helped Dacian get his body back too. Yet I can’t help but notice that the guy isn’t around, despite the kitchen being stocked to accommodate a human occupant as well as a vampire.

There’s a barely-concealed hint of malice in Dacian’s voice when he adds, “He lacked the fine talent that it takes to bargain with me. Let him be a warning to any family that believes it can take everything from me only to return later, demanding I serve up immortality on a silver platter.”

On top of the table, Dacian’s hands curl as though involuntarily, his nails leaving scratch marks on the polished wood. Again, I’m not privy to his memories, but there’s a palpable fury emanating from him, a distant echo of the overwhelming desire to destroy that I glimpsed before. I fight the urge to shrink away from it.

As I wait for Dacian’s emotions to settle, something he mentioned earlier comes back to me. He escaped from the box five years ago, but the events of the novel supposedly took place in the late 1800s. In my nightmare, there was no sense of time passing in the small wooden box. Everything felt like an eternal void with no beginning and no end, only my own screams echoing infinitely back at me. I know it went on for a while , but this would mean?—

My voice comes out as barely a whisper. “How long did they keep you in that box, Dacian?” I don’t dare to look up at him, as I don’t know what horror I might find reflected in those eyes.

“Ninety years, seven months, and sixteen days,” he replies quietly.

My breath catches. “That’s…” The Dutchman may have been the one who orchestrated the ambush and took the box, but then there was the person who watched it all happen, who could’ve stopped it at any time but didn’t.

Of course, Dacian can’t bear to say his name. Of all the things that novel got right, I hoped and hoped this wouldn’t be one of them. But I remember whose hands held my neck—Dacian’s neck—as they plunged the sharp knife into my throat. The same hands that had held me—him—with such tenderness just weeks prior. They could’ve had the world, he and the other Jonathan, and yet…

“He never came back for you,” I whisper, my throat constricted. The silence that pervades the room the moment I utter these words is louder than the screams of a thousand dying men. After a single glance at Dacian’s face, I know I’ve dug too deep. “I’m sorry.”

“No. He did not come back for me,” Dacian confirms. His voice is hollow, and his emptiness hits me like a wind howling over a wasteland.

“For the longest time, I thought I was in hell,” he says. “I thought retribution had finally come for all the things I’d done. But as the years went on, I realized that even hell must not want me. I had simply been forgotten by the world that had made me, left to fade away in the slow drip of eternity. Stuck again. First in my castle, then in the box. Always stuck.”

“They had no right to do that to you,” I say, as oncoming tears sting the corners of my eyes. “No right to punish you like that.”

Surprise registers on Dacian’s face. “You don’t know everything, Jonathan. Just because I didn’t eat children doesn’t mean I was a good person. I regret what I did to the Harkers and Ms. Westenra. And I killed thousands upon thousands of others. Some would argue that ninety years of imprisonment was hardly enough to atone for my crimes.”

“And what about the Order? What punishment did they get?” I snap.

Dacian says nothing. I shake my head, extremely upset. He spent almost a century alone, abandoned in the dark. That’s an entire lifetime! How could anyone allow that?

“I’m not him!” I blurt suddenly. Because I want Dacian to know. I need him to know.

Dacian’s eyes widen. “I know you’re not,” he says.

“We may have the same name, but I swear I’ll never?—”

There’s a flutter, a rustle of clothes maybe, and like a cloud of liquid smoke, Dacian appears before me, moving too fast for my eyes to properly register. I only recognize that he’s near me when his thumb brushes my cheekbone.

“Don’t worry, Jonathan,” he says, holding my face. “But you are…how do they say it these days? You’re cute when you’re worried.”

I huff, peeved. “Don’t tease me like that.”

“I’m not,” he says, and when I catch his eyes again, there is a kind of intensity to them that leaves me breathless and strips me down to my bones.

Letting his thumb stay connected to my skin, I slowly tilt my head to place a kiss on his wrist. There’s a flicker of a pulse there, an echo of Dacian’s heart. Not human, but still alive, still feeling and real. I kiss his wrist again. “I want you,” I whisper against his skin. “All of you. The way you are now and how you used to be. Good and terrible. You know that, right?” My lips trail across the heel of his thumb. I won’t stop until I kiss every one of his fingers and then the rest of his body.

Dacian doesn’t answer. I gasp as his strong arms lift me off the chair with that supernatural swiftness of his and push me down onto the table, his mouth already on mine and his eyes glowing scarlet, impossible to look away from.