Page 4 of Filthy Rich Vampires: For Eternity

I closed my eyes and tried, but the melody I’d heard in limbo was unlike any I’d ever heard before. I didn’t know that song. Taking a deep breath, I tried to fade back to limbo but there was nothing but silence now. Disappointment swelled inside me as I looked back at her. “What does it sound like?”

She paused, her eyes pinching at their edges. “I don’t know. Only sirens know that music.”

And I wasn’t a siren. Not really. I bit back a scream of frustration. Only half my blood contained the magic that I needed to call upon. The other half…

“I can’t do it.” My voice sounded hollow even to my own ears. I dropped back and pulled my bloody hands from Julian as the last glimmer of hope began to fade. In its place grief threatened to overwhelm me. It dragged at me like a hidden current, and at any moment, I would be pulled under.

I wasn’t sure I even wanted to fight it anymore.

“She’s not strong enough,” Zina proclaimed from her throne. “I told you.”

“The crown chose her,” Mariana said softly.

“The crown chose poorly.”

I didn’t bother to disagree. She was right. Whatever power had called the crown to me was gone. Extinguished. There was nothing left except two broken creatures, both dead in their own ways.

“I’d like a minute alone,” I whispered, swallowing back the words that wanted to follow: to say goodbye. There would be no farewells between us.

“I’m not sure.” Mariana hesitated, and I saw the doubt in her stormy eyes.

But Zina had already risen from her seat. Delight danced in her eyes as she approached me, the only emotion on her stoic face. “Come,” she said to Mariana. “Let her have these final moments.”

Final moments.

I didn’t process their departure as I considered what she meant. If she was right, this was the end. Eventually, they would come for Julian, and I would be forced to part with him. But I wasn’t ready. Not when I’d felt him so clearly only an hour before. Not while I could touch him.

His blood had cooled. It no longer warmed my hands. Now it felt slick and oily, and I was torn between wanting to wipe it away and wanting to let it cling to my skin. This was all that was left of him, and it wasn’t fair.

I didn’t realize I was crying until a tear fell onto the back of my hand and met with his blood. There would be no wedding. No children. More tears fell until I could barely breathe. I thought of all the places we had planned to go. I would see none of them. Why would I want to, without him there by my side? I gasped as each second brought more loss. I would never catch him watching from the shadows as I played my cello again. We would never build a new home in Paris to replace the one his sister had destroyed. There would be no reverent touches. We wouldn’t make love in the moonlight.

I’d spent so much time, recently, wondering about what the future would bring, feeling uncertain about what to do next, that I’d lost sight of the truth. The future was always right there. It was his smile. It was grumpy exchanges with his brothers. It was his hands finding my body in the dark of night. The future—the only future worth having—was us.

It was him.

And without it, I wanted none of this. Especially not a stupid throne or a stupid crown. I tried to grab the crown to hurl it away from me, but it resisted as though it wasn’t simply an object but a living thing that refused to be rejected.

“I don’t want you!” My scream echoed around the empty room and came back to fall on me. Collapsing against his middle, I dissolved into the weak creature I knew I was. If I was what they said, I could save him. I could call upon this stupid song. I could heal what I had broken. But I was nothing. I wasn’t a siren. Or a vampire. I was just some half-breed that had no place in this world, and if I couldn’t save him, I didn’t want this world anyway.

So, I let myself cry and scream until my throat was shredded, and there were no tears left, only the ghost of them throbbing behind my dry eyes. I thought of the night we’d met–when he’d looked at me like he might rip me apart–and softly began to hum the andante con moto. The last song I’d played before he charged in to save me, and changed my life forever.

It wasn’t the song of life that my kind was supposed to wield. It was the exact opposite–a song about a maiden meeting death, and I finally understood it. I’d thought it was the story of an innocent fleeing from the clutches of an ill fate, but it wasn’t. It was about loss. The frantic desperation that accompanied that grief. It was fear and wild hope and panic…and finally acceptance. I couldn’t remember more than the part we’d played. I couldn’t recall anything past that final bit of the quartet, except Schubert’s sense of resignation. Not relief, because it held too bitter an edge.

And I couldn’t hum any more as I came to the end of the andante. I wouldn’t. Instead, I found a new melody, one as sweet as the taste of his kiss at midnight. It changed into the longing I felt when he touched me and the quiet contentment I found in the safety of his arms. I wrote his eulogy—my final farewell—in music, because there weren’t words for what I felt for him. There was no way to capture everything he meant to me and everything he would continue to, except through the notes that swelled and flowed from me.

When I reached the last lingering note, I knew that this song had no ending. We had no ending. We were the true magic, and maybe that’s why the crown had mistakenly been called to my head by that symphony our bond had written. But for now, I’d finished my work and silence fell.

A hand coasted up my shoulder, and it took me a moment to feel it—to feel him.

“My love.” The words were anguished and brittle, but they were his.

I sat up and his hand fell away, landing on the stones. Julian groaned, a sound of true pain that twisted inside me. I grabbed hold of it and dared to finally look at him. Blue eyes stared back at me, flashing with lightning as the magic did its work. I stared as the bone protruding from his chest retracted. Color returned to his pale skin.

“Thea.” Agony twisted his voice.

I hushed him. “Don’t talk. Just heal.”

I pushed onto my knees, so I could brush back a bloody strand of hair from his eyes—his eyes that were full of life and love and a future.

---