Page 118 of Her Vampire, His Ruin

“Yes. I was returning to the house when I felt this intense pain. Pain like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.” I allow my gaze to fall to my hands, the barbed vines a reminder of everything I lost that day. “These tattoos appeared on my skin, and then I felt this ripping feeling deep inside, as though every cell inside my body was reforming, shaping into something else. I fell to my knees, dragging Sybil with me. And then…”

“And then?” she whispers.

“And then I felt the sun burn my skin as though someone had set me alight. It was utter agony, Edie. I watched my skin redden, then bubble with blisters. I remember Sybil’s screams, too. I remember dragging her into the lobby of my home.”

“That’s horrific.”

She reaches for me, her fingers hovering over my arm, but she snatches her hand back before she can offer me comfort. She’s right to withhold it. I don’t deserve comfort, not now, not then, and especially not after what I did to Sybil.

“I wasn’t myself anymore, not physically and not mentally. I could feel this darkness blooming inside me, and this unquenchable desire for something I couldn’t name. When I looked at Sybil, all I could see were her veins lighting up beneath her skin like a map of rivers. That’s when my canines dropped. I could feel them growing, sharpening, and with it came the urge to drink her blood. I couldn’t stop myself.”

“You changed her…”

“No, a bite alone won’t change a human. If it did, you’d be one of us now, too.”

“How does that happen, then?”

“I drank her blood. I was in a fugue state, unable to stop. Every part of me that had been human was gone at that point. I was little more than an animal needing only to feed, to satiate the bloodlust that had overtaken me. Sybil died in my arms. The second she did, I felt overwhelming grief and guilt, as though my humanity had resurfaced in that moment of death.”

“You killed her?”

“Yes, Edie. I killed her.”

Edie tenses, and any moment now I expect her to bolt. I wouldn’t blame her.

“So how did you bring her back?” she asks instead.

“I pierced the flesh at my wrist and fed her my blood. I don’t know why I did it, only that I did. I held her in my arms with the last threads of my humanity until she came back to life. For the next fifty years, we learned to live together as these creatures in a human world. It was a… difficult time. Sybil and I bonded, not through sex, but through friendship. I have never been with her sexually since the day I turned.”

“And Basilia?” Edie questions, her gaze flicking back to the mural.

“We found her in her bedroom, dying. Her wrists were slit. She had painted… Fuck,” I exclaim.

“What? What is it?” Edie asks, eyes widening as I push to my feet and step away from her.

She rises, reaching for me. “What, Dorian?”

“What I’m about to tell you, only Sybil knows. Not Logan, not Viktor, not my clan. It’s not a life I want for anyone. You have to understand that I turned Logan and Viktor much later out of empathy.”

She nods. “Okay. Tell me.”

“Basilia was a gifted artist. She painted mainly landscapes, but she was also gifted at portraiture. Before I turned, I wanted her to paint my image. I was a vain man. I knew I was handsome, and I wanted to look upon my face and be reminded of that beauty as I aged.”

“What has this got to do with anything?”

“On the day she died, Basilia painted a portrait of me. I believe, somehow, that painting was the catalyst to my curse. Though I’ve never truly known how because she died before I could ask.”

“You didn’t change her?”

“No.”

“And the painting?”

“Still in that room at Grayhaven. I haven’t seen it since the day I laid eyes on it. Sybil and I left the following night and never returned.”

“What happened to Basilia’s body?” Edie asks, the intensity of her stare burning my skin.

“I couldn’t bring myself to bury her. Sybil did it for me,” I explain, guilt, anger, sadness, and pain rising within me. Yet my tattoos don’t throttle me like they do when I feel those same emotions towards Edie, and I don’t understand why.