Page 148 of The Vampire's Mercy

“Let me guide you,” Caer said, her body beginning to fade away. “I’ll be inside you. When I tell you it’s safe, we will return to the Carving Glade. I managed to make that disk for you, and my presence allows you to use the magic. But I cannot do it without the glade. As soon as the time is right, we will go there.” She smiled.

Why did she sound, I don’t know, kind of cold when she spoke? Was it a deity trait?

She sighed. “Be careful, Paris. I’ve lost you twice now, although I’m not sure how.”

Erm…“You… Huh?”

“A double blackout. The first time you were gone, you then woke up on the ice. Last night, you vanished again, only to return in the palace garden.”

Vanished? Didn’t she see the king kill me? Which meant she didn’t know why I’d awoken on the frozen river.

She disappeared, her voice now speaking in my head.“There is something else in here with me. Hidden. It won’t show me what it is.”

What. The. Fuck. I wrapped my arms around myself as a series of chilly shivers passed over me.

“You mean, you didn’t give me the crystal dagger?”

“No.”

“And the screaming darkness isn’t…”I didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

By Aidan, what the hell did it all mean? My head spun harder than before, these answers coming with a side of questions.

No. Not by Aidan. Never byHim. Not anymore.

He was…

He was a monster…

“Take your time to ponder this information,”Caer said.“And grant me the grace to do the same. I will call on you again soon, Paris Raine.”

She didn’t speak again.

Something else did this to me? Something else lived inside me?

I drew luck down my chest, ready to puke again.

“Paris?” Medusa said.

I blinked at her, her face filled with kindness. “Y-yeah?”

“We have to go.”

I nodded and let her lead me across the room with Silvanus flanking my left, catching a glimpse of the blood streaking down the vampire king’s face.

Bloodsuckers cried blood. I’d forgotten that.

What could I say to him? Where did this leave us now? And why had I been chosen? Did I get the random short straw, destiny deciding I’d be a vessel for the elf deity to fight Aidan with?

He…he’d stolen everything from me; my faith in Him massively misplaced because of a lie he’d spun over everything.

If I thought I felt shame from fucking Silvanus, it didn’t have a patch on this. My soul had been dipped in slime that’d never come off.

Why, Aidan? Why?

He doesn’t give two shits.

When we passed through the portal back into the king’s bedroom, I collapsed onto his bed without thinking, buried my face into his sheets, and screamed my lungs up.