“I’m not fucking you, Cassia. I’ll never touch you again.”
“I told you not to piss me off…” Cassia said through gritted teeth. “I’ve let you kill two of my closest associates, Iro. I have let Zara run off to wherever she is right now, and I haven’t even sent someone to find her. I am willing to compromise on this Arwen you want so badly that you’re willing to toss aside three hundred years together, yet I haven’t heardyoucompromise at all, and you haven’t even thanked me for being kind to you, when I could have asked any vampire upstairs to come down here and kill you. Where’s the gratitude?”
“You want gratitude for killing Mary? Turning Arwen? What is wrong with you?”
“I am a product of my environment, I suppose.”
“Fifteenth-century Florence?”
“No. Another secret I’ve yet to share, and I don’t know that now is the time, but if you must know, I wasn’t born in 1450, like I told you. There is no year for my birth.”
“Cassia, if this is some kind of stall technique, it–”
“Iro, I’d invite you to have a seat, but I know you won’t, so here it goes. I’m not stalling. I love you. I haven’t told you things about myself because they were never necessary. You havealways been mine, and I’ve always been yours. We did whatever we wanted together, and I saw no point in telling you my trauma, but if you must know, my name isn’t really Cassia. My name is Eve, as in Adam and Eve, although I don’t even know whereEvecame from. We had no names. Someone made them up, but you would know me as Eve from that Bible you were forced to read by that father who hated you all those years ago.”
Iro didn’t say anything.
“Fine. Nothing? Then, I’ll give you the short version. I woke up as a teenager. I was naked in the dirt, and there was a boy next to me. This Adam, in this harsh world where we were the hunted, came upon me and wanted something I didn’t want to provide, so I fought him off me and ran. He found me much later, and we knew we needed each other to survive. We understood very little, but we knew that when we didn’t eat, we got weak. One day, years later, we ran out of food. We’d killed everything we could find and consumed it already. Adam found a snake in a tree. The Bible says it was I who brought hell to paradise, but I did not touch the snake. I didn’t take a bite of the apple, Iro. Adam killed the snake, and he then took on the characteristics of a beast. I ran, but he caught me, and he drank my blood. I died, but he made me drink his blood, and I became what we now call a vampire. Later, I killed him when he continued to try to take what I would not give.”
“You’re trying to tell me that–”
“I am the first woman of the Earth, Iro. I killed the first man. We became the first vampires, yes. New people arrived, but I don’t know when or how. I survived on my own for centuries. I survived on any animal I found until then, and eventually, I began making people in my image because I’d been alone for so very long. If you had been the only person in the world, alive before time itself existed, and understood nothing of your own origin or reason for being, would you not crave company? Wouldyou not want to have people made to be like you? Would you not surround yourself with them?”
“You don’t have to kill people, Cassia.”
“That I do because Iwantto, but sometimes, they deserve it. You have to admit it. That man, attacking the prostitute in the 1800s… He deserved what we gave him.”
“Cassia, you can’t have me. I don’t want you. I don’t want this anymore.”
“It doesn’t matter whatyouwant. It matters whatIwant. And I want you. I want you, and I want power. I am tired of hiding in the shadows, Iro. I am tired of letting humans run around acting like they’re the superior species when they are anything but. I want you to rule at my side. You can keep Arwen for whatever you want, but you and I will rule together. Fuck her every week, if you want, but it’s my bed you’ll be sleeping in every night. I will be your love. She will be a toy you keep for occasional fun unless I decide that it’s time for you to say goodbye.”
“What are you talking about? You can’t rule the world.”
“Oh, I can. I’ve been turning all the right people in all the right places for years, Iro. A prime minister, a president, a king or two, some Queens as well. One of them got down on her knees for me, promising to worship me, and this was only three days after turning her. Yes, they only last for so long because they stop aging, but then, their children take over, or a new one is elected, and I turn them, too. I have people in major corporations ready for my command as well, and all I have to do is tell them that it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time for vampires to rule. Humans will be food and our servants, how it was meant to be. The Earth will finally be ours, and you’ll be right there beside me to reap the rewards. I savedyour precious Arwen.” Cassia stood up. “The least I deserve is your appreciation.”
“I don’t want to kill you, Cassia.”
“Of course, you don’t. I made you. It’s in your nature toprotectme, not kill me.”
“Then, I have no choice but to try something else,” Iro said, causing Cassia to tilt her head in confusion. “Cassia, listen to me. Listen to the sound of my voice.”
Cassia felt dizzy, which wasn’t something she had felt in centuries, since before Adam had turned her into what she was today. Things went blurry in front of her, though, and she could no longer see Miranda’s body or even Iro. All she could focus on was the woman’s voice.
“What are you doing to me?” she asked softly.
“What I should have done a long time ago,” Iro replied.
Cassia fell backward and landed on the floor while Iro continued to talk. Cassia didn’t register what she said. Then, her eyes closed, and everything went black.
CHAPTER 31
Arwen
Arwen had never been the best listener. She’d stayed in that room for a few minutes after Iro had left, but then, she listened as hard as she could, and, hearing nothing outside the door, she opened it. Making no move to exit just yet, she concentrated again and heard people walking outside, cars passing, and birds in the trees, but nothing inside the house. She shifted the box Iro had put to block the door out of the way and took a few hesitant steps into the closet and then into the room. There, she waited a minute before going any farther, and finally, she was back downstairs, looking carefully out the windows, feeling more tired than she’d ever been in her entire life but also wide awake at the same time.
