Page 146 of Blood Lovers

Paul.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX – SYRSEE

It’s not gonna happen that way because of me.

I am lost in a forest, running and yelling. “Ryet!” I scream it. “Ryet!”

But he doesn’t answer.

I’m barefoot and my feet are all cut up. Every step comes with pain, but I keep going. I keep running. And then a path appears and up ahead there’s a small meadow with sunshine.

If I could just get to the sunshine…

Lucia is suddenly in front of me. I stop abruptly, almost crashing into her. “Well, this isn’t how I saw it going.”

“You bitch! You fucking bitch!” I lunge at her. Not with any kind of cognizant reason, but then again, maybe there is. Because my hands are outstretched, my fingers making a ring, and I’m going to wrap them around her neck and choke the—

“I’m already dead, Syrsee.”

Then I’m on the ground, looking up at her now. “What have you done?” Purple mist floats all around us.

“What have I done? I told you to kill yourself and feed the baby! And what are you doing? Writhing around on the bed with two monsters, sucking blood, and getting off, and none of this was my doing!”

“How?” I’m breathless when I get to my feet. “How am I supposed to do that? I’m stuck between them! I’m literally in the middle of a fucking blood orgy!”

“Didn’t we go over this? The cloak, darling! The fucking cloak!”

And just as those words leave her mouth, the forest fades away and she goes with it.

The cloak.

The purple.

Shit. She’s right. I totally forgot.

I’m… the… night mare?

Whatever that is.

It doesn’t matter what it is. I’m not even sure I want to know what it is. All that matters is that I know what being the night mare means.

I control the dreamwalk.

And I can trap Paul here. I can take him out of our world and leave him in this one. All I have to do is find him, really. And… then… well, I’m not sure.

But ya know what I am sure of? Fuck this shit. Fuck. This. I will not spend my life between these two monsters in a blood orgy.

I won’t.

I’d rather die.

And just as I think these words, like the goddamned purple is a living, breathing thing that can read my mind, I’m in that snowy clearing again. The very one where I saw Paul the vampire for the first time.

Only he’s not here.

Something else is.

A baby wrapped in furs. It is crying softly. Leftover sobs, maybe. Like it’s been crying for hours already and has finally given up. I take a step in that direction on instinct, but then I hear the sound of footsteps on snow behind me and when I turn, I find him there. Watching me.