The Blood is Love (Dark Eyes 2)

That I was never in control.

The moment I brought Lenore into my house, I knew I had lost it all, all those centuries of carefully guarded, meticulously parceled control gone in an instant when she fixed her eyes on me. I had watched her grow up, intrigued, curious, wondering who she would become. But it was nothing like what I felt once she was in my life. No longer someone I watched at a distance. And so I had to keep her at a distance, in every single way that I could, because the loss of all that control that kept me sane and alive meant that I would no longer be the vampire that I was.

The beast took advantage last night.

My emotions were running too high, out of the locked box, fueled by my love for her, the very love I knew would try to destroy her. The love I’ve been fighting against from the start.

I knew what was happening, felt the change from deep inside, that build-up of darkness and anger and hunger that I’ve done everything to make sure stays buried.

It was escaping.

I told Lenore to run.

But she didn’t.

She’s too stubborn, or maybe she loves me too much, or maybe those two things are both connected, but either way she didn’t run.

She stayed with the beast.

She thought she could tame it.

She thought she could love it.

But the beast doesn’t love her.

Instead, it’s driven wild by her love.

Driven mad.

I slipped away into the black, into the background, but there was just enough of me to make sure I didn’t hurt her. I should have had enough control to stop fucking her like I was, tail and all, but I couldn’t. Part of me wondered how far she would let it go, part of me wondered how far I would let it go. I wanted her like nothing else, even in my most vile form. I wanted to fuck her like the animal I was, make her feel pleasure she never thought was possible.

I’m not sure I achieved that.

My memory starts to sputter.

Then it goes blank.

No, it turns red.

Like the blood that’s everywhere.

The blood of my lover.

Everything inside me breaks.

I open my mouth and roar again, the sound shaking my bones, shaking the room, and then I smell Amethyst and I hear her behind me.

“Solon?” And then “Oh my god, what happened?”

I shake my head, unable to focus, to speak.

The blood, so much blood.

Did I kill her?

Where is she?

“Solon,” Amethyst says again, and I feel her hand on my shoulder. “Why are you naked? Where is Lenore? My god, there’s so much blood…”

I can only stare at it.

If I killed her…

If I hurt her…

“Come on, get up,” Amethyst says to me, reaching under my arm, trying to pull me to my feet, but I’m deadweight.

“What the fuck happened?” Wolf’s voice booms, and then he’s in the room and grabbing me, hauling me up with ease. But I can’t stop staring at the blood, while every structure inside of me is slowly crumbling, cracks in the foundation of everything I’ve tried to be.

“Solon?” he says, holding me by the shoulders and peering at me. “What happened?”

“You need clothes,” Amethyst says, and she disappears into the bathroom. “Don’t you have a robe?”

I nod absently while Wolf digs his nails in my skin to get my attention. I slowly bring my gaze to meet his, the horror dulling my senses. “Solon. Tell me what happened. Whose blood is that? Where is Lenore?”

I swallow. It feels like a brick in my throat. “I don’t know. I woke up and I saw this. I don’t…” I close my eyes, trying to breathe in deeply.

“I couldn’t find your robe,” I hear Amethyst say, though I know it’s in the bathroom. “Pants. You need pants of some kind. I’m going to find you pants.”

I hear the rustling of drawers and it all sounds far away and I wonder if perhaps none of this is real. Maybe it’s a nightmare. Maybe I’m hallucinating.

“You transformed,” Wolf says. He lets out a long exhale and I can practically hear his disappointment. “You don’t remember.”

I nod. My lips feel like sandpaper. “I told Lenore to run. She didn’t. Then I don’t know. Wolf,” I eye him, “there’s too much blood.”

His brows furrow as he looks over the massacre.

“She can heal, right?” Amethyst says, coming over with a pair of black silk pajama pants and shoving them into my hands. Her smile is stiff, her voice full of false hope she’s putting on for show, because she doesn’t want to believe the alternative.

I glance at Wolf for a moment before looking back at her. “We don’t know what can kill Lenore and what can’t. That’s…that’s a lot of blood. That’s too much blood, even for a vampire to lose.”

“Then where did she go?” Amethyst says. “Why not yell for help?”