Page 146 of Eternal Craving

I stepped out from the shadows. “Even your brother isn’t immune to your madness.”

Delacroix’s hands shook with anger.

“You can’t blame that on me.” I tried to keep my eyes off the decapitated head.

Delacroix gazed down at Roman. I wondered if he’d been this evil as a mortal. I dashed away from the nave and down into the lower chambers. He followed me, closing in, and soon passed me, almost colliding with the far wall.

“Dead end!” He spun around and headed back the way we’d come, passing me again.

I rammed the silver stake into his back, straight through his heart and he stumbled and fell.

I knelt beside him.

He lay conscious, but incapacitated.

I buried my fangs into his neck and closed my eyes. A wave of images flashed before me, dragging me with them. Macabre visions of Delacroix’s life unfolded with each mouthful, revealing a million fragments of moments, experienced over centuries – a continuous revolving nightmare. Slipping away, the present was no longer perceptible as my mind struggled to grab hold of something solid, something real. Drowning in him, I lost my way and had to pull back.

He picked up on my reluctance and his mouth slid into a smile. Pressing my lips against the neck wound I’d made, I gulped the scarlet flow again, impossible to subdue the turmoil. As if peering into the blackest mirror, my authentic nature was realized. I barged past his resistance. Tortured faces appeared, each human life we’d taken, the madness of murder – and I was unable to ignore the visage. I faced my own atrocities as they intermingled with his.

The Count didn’t have my son.

I tried to pull away, but something held me at his neck, an invisible force. It wasn’t Delacroix, it was something supernatural that kept me drinking, and it came from within. No turning back. Secrets passed over, information unraveled, and all sinuous links disintegrated.

This is what Sunaria had whispered about to me, an ancient caution breathed between kisses and candle smoke. It was far too late forme. Too late to unbind the invisible chains of that otherworldly will, too late to resist the rapture of descent, as the darkness claimed me with all the gentleness of a lover – and none of the mercy.

Chapter Forty-Six

“Breathe, Daumia…breathe.” Marcus’ voice sounded distant.

Lost somewhere within the deepest recesses of my mind, I had an out-of-body experience that led to a glorious feeling of empowerment.

Breathe. So simple and yet so unnecessary.

“My name’s Orpheus.” I felt a tingling all over my body that settled in my groin, the rush causing me to shudder, an experience unlike anything I’d ever known. My body pulsated and I quivered in response to the sensations, enshrined within these invisible pleasures.

Marcus’ breath felt warm on my ear. “I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered.

“Glad you could make it.” I rose up.

Marcus looked confused. “Somehow you look...”

“What?”

“Different.”

Everything felt different. My movement seemed effortless, spectral even, and I took my time to adjust.

I heard footsteps descending the stairwell, heading our way fast. I yanked at the stone door of the passageway, and it scraped open.

I turned to Marcus. “Go.”

“Not without you.”

I shoved him through it. Stone grated against stone as I secured it shut.

I sensed Elijah before I saw him. With my back against the clandestine wall, I waited. Elijah flew around the corner. Underneath his arm, he carried Roman’s head.

“I was hoping I’d never have to see that again,” I said.