Chapter 150
I sat up and screamed, “What do you want from me?”
“You have nothing of value to offer me,” Ian replied, his voice echoing through the hallway. “I simply want you to think.”
“That doesn’t make any sense! You’re always calling me stupid and acting like I know all of these things, but I don’t! I’m not a vampire! I’m a werewolf! I’m not one of you! I want to go home! I want Candido.”
He sighed again then seemed to walk through the wall and stood in front of me. He was fully dressed and looking down at me with a sneer.
“Must you continue to whine?”
“You’re just playing with my emotions,” I sniffled. “I’m never getting out of here. You’re doing this one purpose!”
He tutted. “Don’t be ridiculous, as if I’m deriving pleasure for watching you mope about. I have better far more interesting things to be doing. The only one prolonging your time here is you.”
He crouched in front of me.
“Think you, idiot,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Your mother died giving you a blessing of blood.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Do you think your wretched stepmother would have been able to poison you for most of your life if you were a mere werewolf?” He asked. “You may not like the truth, Hedy, but certainly benefit from it and if for a moment, you would accept it, embrace it and use it, perhaps you could get to your beloved Candido before I get tired of his endless growling.”
My jaw trembled as he conjured a mirror between us. I could see Candido, pulling at the chains that bound him with a large bandage on his shoulder. The skin there was still blackened, but he was awake and alert, baring his teeth at whoever was in the room.
“Who are you? Where have you taken Hedy, vampire?”
“You’re both sickening, and stupid,” Ian said as the mirror vanished.
“Wait!” I cried, lunging for it. Ian stood.
“Sufficient motivation?” Ian asked. “So long as you are strong enough to actually get to where he is held, you will get there. Despite your beliefs, I am not aiming to kill you.”
I sniffled. “But you wouldn’t care if I died.”
“Is that really your concern?” He asked. “Are you so empty inside that you need everyone around you to care about your well-being? Are you so important?”
He scoffed. “Grow up. No one can care more about your continued existence than you do. Not even your precious daddy.”
“Candido would die for me,” I said. “And I would die for him.”
“Is that really relevant to the statement? Fool-hardy acts of passion is not the same as continuous, deep care.” He said. “You should learn the difference and stop with these wild fantasies about love.”
“That is love—”
“That is passion,” he said. “It’s lust and several other things, but it is certainly not love.”
“You don’t know what love is.”
“Given the chance, and I assure you there is always a chance, you would throw yourself in front of a silver bullet for him and die, leaving him with the memories of your death, haunting him for the rest of his life until he either dies out of melodramatic despair or old age?”
“He would die with me, he’s my mate.”
“And if he doesn’t? You would want that for him?” He asked, peering at me. “Are you so selfish that you would want him to be miserable for the rest of his days if you were to die before him?”
“He would.”
“Answer the question,” he said. “Would you want that miserable, imitation of life for him?”
My lips trembled. “That’s… That’s not fair.”
“Answer,” he said. “Tell the truth to yourself even if you cannot admit it out loud.”
I thought about Candido moving on after me. I thought of him building a life with someone else and grit my teeth.
“Yes…” I whispered. “I’d want him to mourn me.”
“Even at the cost of his life and any other happiness he may have without you?”
“He wouldn’t be happy without me!” I cried. “He said that himself.”
He scoffed. “He said that mates kept people stable. He said nothing about you in particular. Millions of werewolves have loved, lived, and died without their mates and after their passing. I assure you; he could find happiness.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” I said. “He couldn’t.”
“He was at least content before you, Hedy.”
“Not with Sibyl!”
“She was window-dressing, a means to an end. Your Candido has twenty more years of experience than you do. Do you really think you are the only woman he’s ever loved?”
“Yes.”
“Really?” He chuckled. “You just imagine an endless stream of faceless bedpartners in his past, hm? Women he doesn’t even remember by name or taste?”
I crossed my arms. “You’re mocking me.”
“You are a mockery of sense. I assure you, given time and devested of the ridiculous notion that you have to die with your…” he scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Mate, he would find happiness. Another lover, maybe even more than one. Marry, have children, grow old in happiness as millions of have done before him.”
“No, he wouldn’t! That’s not who he is. He’d mourn me until he dies!”
He shook his head. “It is exhausting talking to someone with such a narrow view of things. Why does mourning have to devour one’s entire life?”
“Because we’re mates!”
He nodded and tilted his head. “You have not even consummated your relationship. You really think the mate bond as werewolves call it would drag you into the afterlife in the event of his death?”
“Mate bonds are more than sex.”
“I will take your evasion as a no.” He shook his head. “Look, I would not usually bother to impart so much wisdom on someone who cannot and will not absorb it, but in your case, it is relevant and a fact you need to understand.”
“I don’t need to understand anything. You’re just trying to tell me that Candido doesn’t love me, and he does. And we’re mates, and we’re going to be together forever!” I sniffled. “If one of us dies before the other, the other will follow soon after so we can be together in the afterlife. I don’t care what you say. I know the truth.”
He pursed his lips. “Do you mourn the relationship you could have had with your mother?”
My jaw trembled, at the thought. Once, I had. I’d longed to meet her, to know her, but now… I didn’t. She was a vampire. Candido’s enemy. My enemy and the sister of this madman holding me hostage in this tower filled with monsters.
He smirked. “Not if it meant that you couldn’t be with Candido, hm? I assure you she mourns the relationship she could not have with you, but she does not want you to join her in death…” He turned. “The love of my eternity passed on, yet never would she want me to hasten my death to be with her again nor stop living because she was not here.”
“It doesn’t sound like love,” I said.
He scoffed. “And you believe only in the melodramatic. I have no wish to further debate this with you.”
“It’s not a debate. No one can talk to the dead! You’re just crazy.”
He eyed me and smiled. “Well, perhaps when you finally get yourself killed during your escape, you’ll be able to ask her yourself and see what the truth is… or maybe you will simply realize it when Candido dies and you have no knowledge of it.”
My heart lurched. “You can’t!”
He turned and vanished. I stood, struggling to my feet. I felt… better. Restored somehow having seen Candido, having heard his voice calling for me. I turned back down the hallway. My heart was racing, but I ran forward into the dark. Whatever was out there, I would just have to face it if I was going to see Candido again. I wouldn’t let Ian kill him. I wouldn’t let them take him from me. I ran through the darkness. Rather than the caves, there were stairs leading me down to the lower floors. The lower I went, the colder it grew until my breath hung in the air. I slipped on the bottom step and fell into a room that reeked of blood and rotting flesh.
The large beast turned to me with familiar eyes. It was the same lumbering creature that had been dead in the forest after Candido dropped me in the forest. It turned with a furious roar that shook the ground and I braced myself.
Nearby I saw the glint of a dagger or a sword, and I lunged for it as it rushed across the room with heavy lumbering steps. I dodged the swipe of its claws and tried to stab it, but the blade trembled and snapped as it turned back and flung me across the room.
