Page 52 of Love Heals
"What's it like?" I asked as I poured the blood into the glasses. "Why do you want to drink with me?"
"No ulterior motive," he promised.
"You really think we should get drunk with Vlad in the other room?"
"It'll be fine. He's... I don't trust him, not entirely, but I don't think he means us any harm. He's not like Nicolai."
No, I had to agree with that. The vibes they gave off were completely different.
Crimson picked up his glass and peered into the liquid. "You know," he said after a moment, "you offered me your friendship, back in the basement. Because you thought I needed a friend. I think you could use a friend right now."
"I... thank you." I picked up my own glass and raised it to my lips, oddly touched by Crimson's words. The truth was that I could use a friend—and I could probably use a drink too. There'd been alcohol in my memories. I used to like it.
"Cheers," Crimson said and clinked glasses with me. He drank, and so did I.
The blood tasted odd on my tongue. Not in a bad way, but different from what I was used to. Different from what I'd been expecting too. It wasn't sour, the way it had smelled, and it wasn't bitter—the way I remembered alcohol tasting back in my mortal days. Instead, it had an almost too-sweet taste that had saliva gather on the back of my tongue. I took another sip and swished it around in my mouth, looking at Crimson.
If we were friends, that meant I could ask him things, even if they were a little more personal, right? Back when I was a street rat, my friends and I would talk abouteverything.Especially when the liquor came out. Maybe that was why Crimson had suggested we drink?
"How did you do it?" I asked.
Crimson set his glass on the counter and gave me a sharp look. "Are you asking about the bomb again?"
"No, not that. I want to know how you broke the bond."
"Oh." Crimson stared down at his drink, rotating the glass between his hands. "I guess maybe mine wasn't as strong as yours... But the way Talon explained it to me, our sires control us by controlling the part of our souls that are purely vampiric in nature. It makes sense, right? He created that part of you, so he rules it. It's part of why we lose our mortal memories, and why we have spirit animals. They're expressions of our mortal souls."
Expression of our mortal souls? I'd never heard that before. "I'm a canary because my mortal soul wanted to be a bird?" I scoffed. "And here I always figured I got a lame animal form because I was a lame vampire. Hardly any magic to speak of."
"Birds are cool," Crimson said. "I think it suits you. I wish I could fly."
"Yeah, well..." I took a sip of my drink again before I could tell Crimson that there was nothing cool about having wings you couldn't spread.
"I think my connection to Luke helped me break my bond," Crimson said after a moment. "It reminded me what it was like to be mortal."
"I always thought my mortal life used to suck," I admitted. "Now I know maybe it wasn't all bad." Now I also knew that Nicolai was a big fat liar who didn't deserve my devotion. But somehow that didn't bother the voices in my head. Or the images that flashed before my mind's eye whenever I tried to mentally cut the bond connecting me and Nicolai. Memories of him petting my hair, reminding me that not everything had been bad.
Quickly, I took another sip of my drink.
"You need to hang on to that," Crimson said. "To the person you used to be. Nicolai doesn't control that person."
"I don't think I can go back to being that person."
"You don't have to. Believe me, I know that's not possible. You just have to remember what it's like to be mortal. Keep those memories close to your heart. Lettheminform your decisions rather than the voice in your head that sounds like our sire."
I raised my glass to my lips and took a big gulp, if only so Crimson couldn't see how deeply his words hit me. He spoke of the voice inside my head as if he actually got it, as if he'd gone through this too and I wasn't just going insane. "I used to have a crush on Jared," I said after swallowing the too-sweet liquid in my mouth. With every sip, it seemed to go down a little bit easier. "I want to help him, and I want to tell Nicolai to go fuck himself."
Crimson's eyes widened and then he gave a little laugh. "That's the spirit."
"I don't know how to go about that, though."
Crimson thought about this for a long moment. "You gotta find a way to become something other than what Nicolai wanted you to be."
Something other than what Nicolai wanted you to be.The words rang through my head. I'd spent so much time trying to do the exact opposite. I'd tried so hard to be what Nicolai wanted me to be. Because I'd had to. Because I didn't know who I was if I wasn't my sire's pet.
But that was different now, wasn't it?
I remembered who I used to be, at least.
