I blinked, then shook my head. “No. He’s dead. You’re …” I took a step back as he approached and lay a cool hand upon my cheek, grinning down at me.
“Lucian, Lucian, Lucian,” he tutted. “You turned out to be such a disappointment. I had high hopes.”
I gazed uncomprehending into the face of the man who’d torn apart my classmates, who’d forced me to kill my family, who’d taught me the fine art of killing people to sate inhuman desires.
“No,” I gasped.
“Come, Lucian,” Konstantin sighed. “Don’t be such a bore.” He shifted forms again, into the duke, smiling coyly at me. “You’ve buried a knife in the backs of so many of us now that it’s hard to know who to best torture you with.”
My heart leveled off. Not Konstantin. This was merely Vrykolakas toying with me.
“Of course, all my children of the night are a part of me. And I am a part of them.” Vrykolakas took a step toward me, the duke’s grin widening ghoulishly. He chuckled. “Don’t fret, Lucian. Your treachery has made me very proud. You were my greatest triumph.” His grin twisted into a frown. “Until you were my greatest failure. Your anger should have overcome your heart when you learned the identity of the vampire hunters, what vipers you lay with.”
I glared at him. “You knew about the duke’s family.”
“I suspected.” Vrykolakas sniffed. “But your soft heart … you actually fell for one of the humans. How utterly absurd. They are like the rats that crawl through these walls, and you lost your heart to such vermin.”
Vrykolakas shifted once more. The face staring back at me had a cruel mouth and eyes deadened to emotion, save rage. It was a cold yet beautiful face, and one I recognized all too well.
It was my own.
I swallowed hard, wondering how I could ever have been this creature before me, but I had been, and not long ago. The promise of death in his gaze had been in mine. I began to tremble as Vrykolakas’s fingers reached up to trace my lips. “Such a lovely face. Perfect for a monster. Humans are so unsuspecting in the presence of beauty.” He shook his head.Myhead. “I was intrigued when Konstantin made you one of us. I could feel your potential. All for naught.”
I swallowed hard. “Humans are not … they’re more like us than you imagine. We come from them.”
“And they were once fish who grew legs and pushed their way out from a primordial soup. And even they eat fish for dinner.”
I shuddered as the smile returned to his face, his hand sliding down to my neck. His fingers dug into my throat, but he didn’t squeeze hard. Yet.
He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “Maybe I expected too much of you, Lucian. Perhaps I need to wipe your memory of this time and try a new tact. This will all be like a fading dream, and you can reclaim your place.”
Forget … everything? Forget Maxwell? Forget Ambrose and my friends? I shook my head.
“Think of it as mercy.” Vrykolakas sighed. “Just as Konstantin took mercy on that angelic face centuries ago.” He leaned in and opened his mouth to show me his fangs. “We’ll have to work harder on that soft heart of yours this time. I don’t know where thisempathycame from. Konstantin almost made you perfect. Next time, I’ll drive every ounce of humanity from your bones, so there’s no going back.”
Vrykolakas grunted then, eyes widening as he stared back at me.
I was confused for a moment, until black blood spilled out from the corners of his mouth. I lowered my gaze to his chest, where a point of wood stuck out from his heart, more of the oily substance dribbling down his naked chest.
I watched, mesmerized, as my doppelganger slid to the ground, then fell back in a heap. Was he … could he die, after all?
I looked up to find Maxwell standing there, heaving, holding tightly to the vampire hunters’ symbol of the moth. I recognized it at once from when I’d noticed it hanging from the wall, the dried meat that made up its wings, the skull of a ghoul, and of course the wooden stake that made up its body, now slick with blood. Apparently not all of the wood had been reduced to ash in the fire, as this had been high enough on the wall to escape the flames.
“Maxwell,” I said, reaching out to him. “You did it.”
Maxwell looked back at me before casting his eyes down to the moth. He flung it aside. “I … I did.”
We both watched as Vrykolakas’s body seemed to crumple in upon itself, his husk of a body turning to ash in death. That was the end of the vampire god. At the hands of a mere mortal. It somehow seemed fitting.
The remaining bats flew up the staircase leading to the garden all at once, leaving the rest of my friends in peace.
“Ew,” Isabel wiped at her face where several cuts were already healing. “Remind me again what the appeal is in turning into one of those?”
“You saved me,” I said, smiling at Maxwell, my heart soaring. I reached out to embrace him, pulling him into my arms and kissing the top of his head.
Maxwell gazed up into my eyes. They seemed haunted and faraway for a moment, but then a clarity washed over his face and his lips pulled into a smile. “I did, didn’t I?”
“It was very brave,” I commended, leaning down to offer him my lips.
