Page 47 of Kept 3
Gasping in horror, I look to where Nicholas kneels before Gerald. He looks as though he has no strength left at all, his hands hang limp at his side, and I watch as in slow motion Gerald takes his head between his large hands and begin to squeeze.
Rising, I run stumbling and crying towards Gerald, and plunge the wooden stake into his back between his shoulder blades, pushing with all my weight as I fall against him and he, in turn, falls onto Nicholas.
But he recovers instantly, the stake had no effect, and he swats me away like a fly before standing. Shrugging the stake out of his back, he stalks to where I lay, winded and gasping on Constance’s grave.
“You,” he mutters, “are nothing but trouble. It will give me the utmost pleasure to drain you before I kill my friend.”
I screech in terror as he leans down and hauls me up to his lips with one hand, as though I am lighter than a cat. As he brings his lips to my throat and bites me, hard, I wince and glance towards Nicholas, terrified, wanting him to be the last thing I see. I realise he is unable to move, his body has been broken completely and will take a few minutes at least to repair – minutes I don’t have.
His gaze shifts to my boot, but I roll my eyes and shake my head as I feel the life being drained from me – I know what he is suggesting, but I will not do it. If Gerald is truly the original vampire, killing him will also kill the one I love.
I begin to feel weaker, my heart slows, the pain as Gerald draws deep from my carotid is excruciating, and I hold Nicholas’ gaze as he moans, “Josephine. Do. It. Now.”
Part of me screams ‘no, never,’ but another part, perhaps the stronger part of me that has always wanted to survive, no matter what, knows that when he has drained me, he will kill Nicholas, so nothing will have been gained. But if I kill Gerald, I might live, and Margarita will be free.
Sobbing, I raise my knee and withdraw the silver weapon from my boot. Meeting the eyes of the one I love more than anyone I’ve ever loved before, I plunge it into Gerald’s side.
Gasping and spitting out my blood, he pulls away, his face incredulous as smoke begins to rise from his body. With a roar-like scream he lurches away from me to face the church as he disintegrates into a million pieces, the force of the explosion so strong, it knocks over every gravestone in the cemetery, bar one.
Sobbing, I crawl to where Nicholas lays, unmoving, his eyes staring, unblinking at the stars, and realise what I have done. I draw my hand across his eyelids, gently closing them, and lay my head across his chest, clinging to him, my grief so great, I can’t even cry.
Hours have passed by the time I realise I must rise.
I am stiff from lying across Nicholas’ body, and a coat of snow has fallen all over me, covering us both so that to the casual observer, we would simply look like a drift.
Wiping the new snowflakes away as they fall, I look down at the face of my pursuer, captor and ultimately, lover, so still in death, yet so beautiful.
“Nicholas,” I call softly, cradling him in my arms, this man who had consumed so much of my time and thoughts and emotions over the past 12 months. “I’m so sorry. I should have just agreed to be your Kept. I’m so sorry.”
Slowly, incredibly slowly, he opens his beautiful eyes and looks up into mine.
“I’m not dead,” he whispers.
I stare sadly at him, shaking my head before bending down to kiss him gently on the lips.
“Not yet,” I shake my head, “but any minute I expect 500 years are going to catch up with you, and you are going to turn to dust in my hands.”
“Always thinking the worst,” he shakes his head, grimacing. “Although that is certainly and ending I would wish for Elsbeth.”
“I’m sorry,” I moan, pressing my forehead to his and closing my eyes.
“No, it is me who is sorry. I should have let you go. I should never have tried to own you. I know what it is like; I knew better.”
“I love you,” I whisper, kissing him on the cheeks, the forehead, the mouth.
“I was not destined to enjoy love in my lifetime,” he whispers back, “she told me so, and it is true.”
I sit back and stare at him. The colour is returning to his cheeks, a rosy glow shows beneath his skin, and he feels warmer in my arms. Surely if he was going to age and disintegrate, it would have happened by now?
“How about third lifetime lucky then,” I murmur, a smile slowly running across my face as the sun begins to rise, and nothing untoward happens to him.
He frowns and sits up, looking in wonder at his hands and flexing them before him.
“Could it be true? Could all vampires be allowed one more lifetime? As a human?”
“If that is the case, Lord Montague,” I shake my head, laughing, tears inexplicably coursing down my cheeks, freezing where they run, “you should know I plan to keep you.”
“But… Elsbeth.”
I shake my head.
“She’s about to find out what it is like to be a human teenager alone in a big, unfriendly world; something I previously wouldn’t have wished on my enemy – but I sure as hell do now. Now, come on, we have to go inside before we freeze to death.”
“I think I know a way we can keep warm, my keeper,” he murmurs, as he pulls me down to his broad chest, and his lips claim mine.
