Page 70 of Blood Lovers

I just furrow my brow and continue to stare at him. Then I place my hand on his chest, right over his heart. It thumps under my touch. “But you have a heartbeat.”

“I do.”

“And a pulse, and warm blood, and—”

“Because I am not dead, Ryet. I drink the Black blood. And you will too, if you want to be like me.”

“Be like… a vampire?”

“It’s a nice word. It’s got a lot of interesting lore attached, hasn’t it? And I am ‘the vampire.’” He does air quotes around that word as it comes out of his mouth. “I am the monster they are referring to when they tell the stories. But it’s just one of many fancy ways of saying ‘demon.’ You sold your soul that night, Ryet. You understood that.”

I sigh out my words. “I did.”

“And now the piper’s here. It’s time to pay. Unless…”

“Unless I become like you.”

“Why do you say it that way? Am I so bad? Sixty-five years. You know me better than anyone these days. Far better than Lucia, certainly. And Josep. He’s just a casualty of his own sense of righteousness at this point. Unable to get past the guilt. At least Lucia relishes her life and doesn’t waste it the way he does.”

My foggy brain has no chance of keeping up with those words. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

He places a gentle hand on my cheek, soft smile on his face, gazing into my eyes. “You do. You absolutely know what I’m talking about.”

“Hell?”

He shrugs. “It has many names.”

I push his hand off me, turn away, and walk across the room to create some distance. “OK.” I turn back to face him. “All right. I’m ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“Hell. Just… how do we speed it along? How do I get my memories back? I don’t care where I end up, I just want to remember them.”

Paul’s stoic face breaks into a sad smile. “It’s funny, you know.”

“What is?”

“That you are willing to go to Hell to remember them when sixty-five years ago you were willing to go to Hell to forget them.”

He’s right. That’s some next-level irony right there.

“But…” Paul… well, I hesitate to use this word. Because it’s typically not a word that describes him. But he wilts. He visibly wilts. “You’re not going to Hell, Ryet.”

“You just said—”

“You’re going to drink the Black witch, Ryet. She’s the answer for you. She’s what you need to be worrying about.”

My breathing is suddenly erratic. “So it was a lie?”

“What was a lie?”

“I won’t get my memory back.”

“Is this really all you can think about?”

“Yes.” I growl the word at him. “Sixty-five years, Paul. I’ve been walking around with no memory of them for sixty-five years. They’re all I’ve ever thought about.”

“That’s not true and you know it.”