He chuckled, placed the bloody knife on the tray, and wiped the blood on his arm away with a tissue.
“I’m a vampire, Sam. And each of us have an eternal out there. I realized you’re mine, and I want to turn you, live forever with you at my side. Cancer won’t kill you, you’ll never worry what blood tests will say. I can give this to you.”
He made promises I’d only entertained in my dreams. I was processing the whole “he’s a vampire” thing, and slowly what he was offering me trickled in.
“You want me to be a vampire too?”
“I do.”
“With you.”
“Yes.”
“Forever.”
“Yes, Sam.”
I blinked. “Because I’m your eternal?”
“You are.”
I pressed a hand to my chest. My heart was beating a mile a minute, and my legs were weak. I moved back to the couch and sat.
“Did you discover I’m this eternal thing after I told you I was out of remission?”
His eyes widened. “What? No, I knew before. I was going to tell you everything, ask you, but then you were finding out your cancer returned and needed space. When you told me your news, nothing changed. I still wanted you—I just believed I’d have a better argument, and you’d agree.”
“To being a vampire, with you?”
“Sam, I love you. This life has been amazing but the last many years, I struggled to find a purpose to go on. I didn’t want to.”
He loves me? Oh, wow…wait a second.“You wanted to die…could vampires even die?”
“We can only die by a special sword the council possesses. I asked them to end my life. I won’t lie to you, Sam. They refused. I came to Lancaster Island as my next assignment, expecting to dwell. Exist. I never expected you, Sam.”
“You were going to have them kill you?” My heart ached with the thought.
“But I found you.”
“Lukas, a person can’t be your reason to live. That’s unhealthy and a lot of pressure for one person.”
He sighed. “No, it’s not like that. Yes, for a human that would be true. You can’t do that. It’s toxic. For vampires, it’s often believed when they’ve lived for hundreds of years they begin to dwindle in their minds. Depression, we’ll call it for lack of abetter term. It’s their need to seek out their eternal. When we find them and turn them, it completes us both.”
“Is this true for all vampires? Like, eventually you’ll need to find one?”
“I discovered it recently. Vincent told me a lot about eternals, but I did research on it as well.”
“What happens if a vampire wants to be with a human, thinks they are their eternal, but the human says no?”
He flattened his lips. “The vampire remains at the human’s side until they pass.”
“And then?”
“Don’t worry about that, Sam. I want you to make this choice on your own.”
“Lukas, tell me.” My voice rose.
He clenched his jaw before answering. “The last time it happened the vampire starved herself, withered away without dying. It’s excruciating but won’t kill you. The council took mercy on her and used the sword.”
