Page 24 of Love Heals
"He got a mark drawn in dhampir blood," Vlad corrected. "It never had to be you drawing the mark."
Collin's mouth opened, then closed again. A few steps behind him and to the side, Luke's face fell. "It was Puck," he mouthed, his words barely audible. "This is my fault."
Collin whirled around to him. "What are you talking about?"
Luke stepped back and nearly bumped into Jared, who put his hands on his younger brother's shoulders.
"Everything okay?" Jared asked.
Luke shook his head. "I made a deal with Puck. He got a vial of my blood. It was stupid, but I didn't have a choice!" His eyes sought Crimson, who was standing by his side.
"We'll talk about that later," Crimson said. "For now, how about we deal with the vampire in the room?"
All eyes returned to Vlad, who still seemed fairly unperturbed by the events transpiring around him. "What did I do to inspire this much animosity?" he asked.
"Well, for one, you barged in here without permission." Collin again. "That doesn't exactly make you super trust-worthy."
"You didn't leave me much of a choice. We needed to talk."
"What do you want to talk about?" Collin asked.
"I believe we share a common goal."
"What would that be?"
Vlad let his eyes sweep across everyone in the room. "You want to be safe from vampires, don't you?"
For a long moment, nobody said anything. I thought it was a bit of a silly question. Of course they wanted to be safe from vampires. They'd gone so far as to blow up my coven's headquarters to achieve that goal—although I wasn't sure how much that was going to help them, in the grand scheme of things.
Why did Vlad want to align himself with Jared’s family, though? Wasn't he a vampire too?
Then again, so were Talon and Aldrich and Crimson...
"You must know of the prophecy by now," Vlad said when his audience remained quiet. "The one that makes vampire-kind so scared of you."
Talon spoke up. "Puck mentioned it, but it appears he’s not the most trust-worthy person either."
"The prophecy is real," Vlad assured Talon. "It was made nearly five-hundred years ago, and its effects were devastating for dhampirs all over the world." He spoke as if he'd been there to witness it, as if he’d personally known some of the first victims, and with how much magic was coming off him even while he wasn't doing anything, I was ready to believe that he had.
I even kind of believed that the events had saddened him.
"Why do you care?" Aldrich asked. "You're a vampire."
"Perhaps," Vlad conceded, "but I don't have to be proud of my species, or defend the many crimes it has committed over the course of its existence."
"So you want to end all vampires?” Aldrich’s voice was laden with skepticism.
"I want to end this senseless crusade against dhampirs. It's been going on for long enough.” Vlad’s expression didn’t change as he spoke, but I picked up on the barely concealed hint of anger in his voice. If I wasn’t so used to hiding my own frustration, I might not have noticed it. As it was, though, his tone struck a chord with me. This was someone who knew what it was like to suffer more than you could bear.
I cast my gaze aside, away from the ancient vampire as he continued speaking. He wasn’t someone I wanted to feel sympathy for.
“I have watched you and your family for quite some time now,” Vlad said, “and I believe you have what it takes to fulfill the prophecy so we can end the killings on both sides."
On both sides... at least I wasn’t the only one who thought that Jared and his family weren't completely innocent here.
"What does the prophecy say?" Collin asked.
"That is an excellent question," Vlad said with a grim smile. "I've been trying to find out for a long time. Sadly, the original prophet isn't alive anymore. I've heard variations of different translations, but they're all either missing pieces or they're poorly translated or they've been intentionally altered to incite more violence. My research is telling me there's only one person alive today who still knows the original text the way it came from the prophet's mouth. Alas, I haven't been able to find them."
