Dinner With a Vampire (The Dark Heroine #1)(100)
Author: Abigail Gibbs

A minute passed and the tingling sensation increased. Needle after needle felt as though they were being thrust into my arm – but I didn’t mind, because as the sensation increased, the bleeding receded.

More importantly, can I forgive him? He had killed so many during his night-time prowls: the rogues and hunters in the name of the Kingdom, but the image of the girl in the catacombs, Sarah, refused to leave my head. Yet I knew the answer to my question. It was no less sickening for it, but my heart had already forgiven him without ever consulting my rationality.

What does that make me? What he did to her was worse than what Ilta did to me. He killed her.

‘You have dreams about a cloaked man, don’t you, Violet Lee? And a voice too.’ The sound of her voice so surprised me that I yanked my arm from her grasp. When it registered what she had said, I took two steps back until I hit the rock.

‘How do you know that?’

She smiled. It wasn’t a reassuring smile, but something more sinister; a knowing smile, except her eyes betrayed her: they were as wide as mine and full of the same fear.

Suddenly, she lurched forward and grabbed the hand of my injured arm, clutching it in two of hers. I looked down, astonished at the contact. As I did, I caught sight of my arm. Not a trace of the wound remained. My skin was completely unblemished, as though I had never fallen. Reluctantly, I looked back at her.

‘Oh, tell me you have a vague idea?’ Gone was her composed, unreadable face. Replacing it was a barrage of emotions – fear, desperation and urgency, formed in the shape of her wide eyes and parted lips.

‘Of what?’ I asked slowly.

Her grip on my hand loosened and she took a step back. ‘Eighteen years ago, a second child was born to a rising MP and his wife, in Chelsea, London. That same night, a group of young vampires were out hunting in Westminster. Amongst them was Kaspar Varn, who that night, first heard a voice in his mind that would plague him for the next eighteen years.’ She paused and took another step back. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. ‘Almost from the moment you arrived at Varnley you started hearing a voice in your mind. You started having vivid nightmares too.’

‘Stop it,’ I breathed, pushing my back into the rock as though hoping it would swallow me.

‘You were that child, Violet Lee, and Kaspar is both the figure of your dreams as well as your voice, as you are his voice.’

Through lowered eyes she gauged my reaction as she had done with Kaspar the day before. Behind her, I could see the light advancing towards us as the sun rose higher in the sky and emerged from behind the rock.

‘You’re lying.’

‘I’m not lying, Violet Lee.’

I gripped the handholds in the rock. The cloaked figure I could believe. But to be a voice in his mind without knowing? For eighteen years? My whole life?

‘You’re lying because I would know if I were his voice.’

She sighed. ‘Your voice is subconscious. You are not aware that your mind is tied to his, as he is not aware he is tied to yours. But I wish it were a lie, Violet.’

Her voice trailed off into silence, pitying at the end. But the pity only doused my emotions, already tattered and on tenterhooks. My head fell into my hands, defeated.

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because there’s no time left.’

‘No time left for what?’ I raised my head out of my hands, slowly raising it up to meet her eyes, golden and full of sympathy.

‘To choose.’

‘What do you mean?’ I breathed. That word again. Choose.

Her eyes lowered to the ground, not raising her gaze once as she spoke, almost guiltily. ‘The first Heroine is indeed of noble blood, Violet. Neither is she is far from the control of the Athenean court; although as Heroine she takes precedence over even the greatest of Kings.’

Last night she had no reason to curtsy … You forget yourself, Autumn. You are in the presence of royalty, remember.

‘Her grandmother died alone so she could awaken the nine, leaving her the last Sage of her family.’

An innocent must die …

‘In short, Violet, she is the last of the fall.’

In front of me stood not a girl bathed in sunlight, but a girl I had only just met, covered in a cloak and curtseying with the smallest of smiles in the gloom of the night.

Autumn Rose, House of Al-Summers, Your Highness.

‘You,’ I whispered. ‘You’re the first Dark Heroine.’

She nodded to the ground. For a minute I could only stare at her, before I closed my eyes, reeling in stupidity. It was so obvious. It had been staring us in the face the entire time.

‘I … why didn’t you say anything earlier? Why did you lie?’

‘Because … because …’ She wrung her hands together. ‘Because I have to doom another to the same path as mine. Now. Here.’

‘It is my duty to ensure you die before you ever fulfil your fate … You will have no choice, Violet Lee. So do not weep, child, for I am saving you this night.’

As Ilta’s words echoed and then died, a sort of quiet acceptance came over me. I let my head slowly fall back against the rock, running my fingers through my hair.

‘You know why I am here,’ she said softly.

‘Wherever the second Heroine goes, so does the first. No sane person would want to be stuck alone with a fate like that for long.’

‘But the only person I know who has died is Greg, that’s not two innocents,’ I reasoned quietly, clawing around for flaws in what I knew she was about to tell me.

‘Your brother was the first. Queen Carmen was the second.’

‘But I’m not a vampire,’ I muttered to the darkness behind my closed eyelids.

‘No birth, no time, no choice, Violet. The second Heroine was never meant to be born a vampire. But you must become one to fulfil the Prophecy and become the second Heroine. And soon.’

The early morning dew was fast melting, as was the sun. Already it was becoming a feeble blotch behind dark, menacing clouds that almost certainly constrained the rain. I stared up at them, willing myself to remain calm.

‘I don’t want this. I can’t be a part of this. I don’t know a thing about the dark beings, Autumn.’ My voice sounded oddly serene compared to my inner turmoil. ‘Four months ago I didn’t even know this whole world existed. I won’t be dragged into this.’

‘You have no choice.’

‘You have no choice. You never did! Nobody chooses their fate when they get involved with dark beings. Nobody! Wake up, or die dreaming, Girly!’