The Vampire & the Rebel (Completed)

Part 3: Chapter 23

An inhuman shriek sounded from somewhere deep inside me as I watched Jamie's body fall backwards to the ground. It was not possible, it could not be possible. I would not allow it to be possible.

"Ivan, I am going to strip your flesh from your bones!" I screamed as I ran at him.

He pulled down his mask and grinned coldly at me. "You can try, youngling." He laughed. "But it'll have to wait until next time. It seems that you've got some injured to attend to." He laughed harder, and then stopped with startling abruptness.

He and the remaining attacker disappeared into the thick foliage, as if they had never been there to begin with. Blood thrummed in my vision, and my first enraged thought was to hunt him down and destroy him.

And then my eye caught on Jamie's prone form lying on the leafy ground, and my rage melted into fear. I crumbled down beside him and inspected the damage.

It was bad. Very bad. My eyes leaked; there was no way he was going to live. It was more than a stab. It was a slash that rent his flesh from his abdomen to his chest, slicing through vital organs and exposing bone and flesh. "Jamie..." I whispered, although it came out as more of a whimper. I tried to stem the escape of his precious living fluids with pressure even though I knew it was futile.

I was not ready for this yet. I wanted him to at least open his eyes so that I could look into them again, but my wishes, my prayers went unheeded. I would not even have a chance to say goodbye to him.

Somewhere, a million miles away, a body crouched down beside me.

"Vienne." Drak's voice echoed out of the nothingness surrounding Jamie and me.

My eyes burned.

"Vienne. Turn him."

I tried to hold back my tears. I could barely get the word out. "No."

"Vienne, do it."

"No! He clearly made his choice," I snarled. My heart ached as if it were not merely a useless dead organ. I was so tempted, and it would be so easy to bite him and to simply force my own blood down his throat and wait for time to reverse him to an indefinite shadow of his human self.

My dark desires sang in my own mind. I had inflected so many other things upon him and he had forgiven me, what more would be this one small thing? Would he really want to die when I could save him in a half-life like my own?

We could be together, almost forever.

I wanted it so badly. My fangs ached to keep him by my side.

It would be so easy.

What would it matter if he would hate me for it?

The battle I fought with myself over every human I had cared for surged through me, but with far more fury than I had ever experienced before. I had lost so many, why not this one time? Even Drak thought I should. It was not as if I no longer made fledglings, what reason was there not to make one more?

I was running out of time to decide. His stubborn heart was slowing, fighting for each spasm. It was unbelievable that it still beat at all. Did he yearn to live?

No. He was like me, he did not fear death.

I kissed Jamie, one final time, and stood up. I would never be whole again, but I would honour his choice.

I met Drak's sympathetic blue gaze.

"He didn't want this life."

And I ran, because otherwise I would give in to temptation.