Eli, I don’t—I don’t understand. Why are we seeing this?
I didn’t answer. I knew what was coming next. On some level, perhaps, I had always known.
“Do it, boy!” Magnus’s voice sharpened, growing colder. “Feed, or I’ll end your brother’s miserable life in front of you.”
Somehow, even though I hadn’t seen it back then, because Nicolas and I were connected so intimately here, I knew that his maker, Magnus, was holding a wooden stake to Thierry’s chest. Even if Nicolas couldn’t yet bring himself to use the wordvampireto describe what they had become, he still knew that driving a wooden stake through Thierry’s heart would end him.
“I’ll do it,” Nicolas said. Then he paused, and I felt his anxiety. “And I don’t need to hurt them? Do you promise?”
“Ofcourseyou don’t need to hurt anyone.” I could hear the wicked amusement in Magnus’s voice. “Just a sip. That’s all I ask. You can stop after that, if you wish.” His voice became soothing. But through the bond I knew the awful truth: Nicolas saw the anticipation in Magnus’s eyes. And on some level, he understood that Magnus was lying to him. His maker added, “After all, I can hardly let you go until you understand your new condition, can I? Why, that would be… irresponsible.”
“And you’ll let us go? You promise?” Nicolas wanted to believe him—badly. Even if, deep down, he didn’t.
“Yes. I promise that you’ll walk free tonight, if you only do as I ask.”
“I—I don’t know how.”
Magnus laughed. “Don’t be silly. Feeding is as simple for a vampire as breathing is for a mortal. Your body will instruct you on exactly how to take what you need.”
Then Nicolas’s hands gripped my past self’s shoulders hard enough to leave bruises. He hadn’t understood his own strength yet. There was a long pause, and the past version of me sat in disbelief that any of this could be happening—but I was unable to speak a single word. And then came a searing pain as Nicolas’s fangs sank into my throat.
And the moment my blood touched his lips, he needed all of it.
His hunger was a wild beast, demanding to be sated. And though I tried to cry out to him to stop—that he was hurting me—I couldn’t even scream. Soon enough, it didn’t seem to matter anymore. The pain subsided until I didn’t feel anything at all except his lips on my skin as he drank. And the darkness causedby the hood over my eyes was replaced with an even deeper, more total darkness.
Then my heart stopped in my chest, and I was no more.
In our first life together, Nicolas had killed me.
Because Nicolas and I were so deeply connected now, the vision didn’t end there. Instead, I saw through his eyes.
When Nicolas was done with me, he let my body slump to the ground. Then his gaze fell on the next of the three young men Magnus had brought him. And Nicolas didn’t see a person—only a way to sate his clawing, burning, inhuman hunger.
“Nicolas, stop!” Thierry cried when his twin reached for the next young man. “Not him. Don’t!”
Nicolas didn’t listen.
When he had finished, three bodies lay on the ground, and Nicolas was covered in crimson, his eyes wild with grief and horror as the spell of his frenzy finally broke.
“Hmmm,” Magnus said, tapping his forefinger against his pursed lips. “That’s usually enough by itself. I think you need a push.” Then a wicked smile transformed his face, and he pointed to my body. His silver eyes gleamed with malice. “Removehishood.”
“I—I don’t want to,” Nicolas said, his horror choking his words to a whisper. His hand flew to his mouth as he took in what he had done. “Mon Dieu, I’ve killed them all. I didn’t mean to.”
“They were merely human,” Magnus said dismissively. “There are plenty more where that came from. And soon you won’t be able to get enough.” He paused, his grip on Thierry and the wooden stake tightening. The tip of it drove into Thierry’s chest, causing a line of dark blood to pour down the front of his white shirt.
“Remove the hood, Nicolas. Do it now, or I’ll kill your brother. And I won’t give him an easy death.”
With shaking hands, Nicolas crawled forward on hands and knees until he was next to my body. Then he removed the hood from my head.
When my staring, sightless gaze met his, he let out a sharp cry of agony, his eyes wide and filled with disbelief.
For a long moment, his horror and grief were total, eclipsing everything else. He couldn’t wrench his gaze away from me—from what he had done to the only man he had ever dared to love. All of his hope collapsed in on itself like a dying star just before it goes supernova.
Through the bond, I felt it as something cold, clear, and predatory threading through him—a whisper in the back of his mind. It carried with it the seductive promise that he didn’t have to feel any of this—the enormity of what he had done. He could make all of the pain and guilt go away. Didn’t he want that? After all, how could he live with this? All he had to do was let the coldness in.
For just an instant, Nicolaswantedto give in to it, even if he didn’t understand what he was doing or what it meant, that it was something he couldn’t take back.
And then everything human in him went quiet, buried under the icy, sharp-edged predatory instincts of a vampire. His horror and pain receded into nothingness. In the next moment, as he looked down at me, I was just a means to an end—a bit of pleasure he was done with now. He could hardly remember why any of it had mattered at all. The idea that he had ever been able to love anything was a trivial human notion. Silly and beneath him.
