Page 25 of Paying The Vampire

I floated the possibility, perhaps because there was still a desperate, vulnerable part of my heart that wanted it to be true. I must confess that I even felt a flare of hope when she did not deny it immediately. She looked away from me, as though she was ashamed of it. I pressed my advantage.

“The one thing that disappointed me most about Clea was how she let her fear rule herself. When she found out what she thought was the truth she would not hear any argument against it. I think she was already beginning to doubt her place here before she discovered what resulted in her departure. I thought that you would have a stronger constitution and would be able to better steel yourself against such things. I assumed that you would be able to cope with the unexpected in a more rational way, and after all I have done for you, after I have made you a guest in my home, should I not expect a little more respect? Should I not expect you to be willing to hear my side of the story?”

“So you can lie to me again?” she asked weakly. This time she did look up at me, but she only met my gaze for a moment. She placed a hand on the edge of the pool. Her fingers briefly grazed the surface of the water, but it was enough to create ripples that spread out and reached the other side of the pool. It reminded me how even the smallest decisions could have far reaching consequences. I swallowed my anger and took in another deep breath. It would have been so easy to cast her out, but if I expected better of her then I had to expect better of myself as well. I had to be the man she deserved, and that meant I was going to have to try being honest.

“Sometimes it is easier to deny the past than to talk about it,” I said.

“So you don’t deny that you killed them all? I was down there in that tomb Cassius. I saw them all lined up. I read Amara’s diary.”

“And you think that explains everything? Why would you trust her word over mine?”

“Because you’re still here.”

I cocked my head and couldn’t help a wry smile from appearing on my face. “If you met her it would not be so easy to believe her. By the time she was done with you…” I sighed, not able to finish the thought. As I continued speaking I paced around the room as it was the only way for me to gather my thoughts. I kept my hands clasped tightly behind my back. “Amara was a ruthless woman. She did not have a bone of kindness inside her. Any last shred of humanity had vanished long before she found me.”

“But she gave you this new life. She saved you.”

“Saved me? She promised me something that she could never give. She harvested me. She changed me, took something that was precious to me and then made it so that I never had it again. I had to leave everything I knew behind.” I stopped walking and turned to face her. My voice grew deeper and more resonant as every word passed my lips, for emotions were pouring forward, emotions that I had not faced for a long time. “She took my life away from me! She took everything I was, everything I knew and she twisted me into what I am today. She was not a good person, and she was the liar. She lied to me!”

Willow stared at me. I trembled. Then I turned away from her in shame. I had shown her a glimpse of who I was before all this, of who I truly was and now I knew this was a mistake. I leaned against the wall and spoke in a low voice.

“You are right Willow. I am a liar. I am a fraud. You are better off not knowing me. You should leave. I will conjure a portal and you can return home. It’s better for you to be away from me,” I said. I was meant to be alone. It was clear to me now. I was a king without a kingdom, without a queen.

I was a man without hope.

Chapter Twenty

Willow

Cassius had shifted through so many emotions it was hard to keep track. I had done the same. He had been angry, so angry that I thought he was going to toss me off the top of the castle and I would plummet to my death. Then he had been calm, wry almost, and now… now he was showing me a side of him that I had not seen before. Even when he had caught me speaking to Clea he had not been like this. The sheer ferocity of his emotion, the rawness and rage that was present in his eyes was intense and I knew that it was not directed to me.

It was all for Amara.

And while I was scared, while the smart thing to do was to have left, I could not deny that he was right. I had believed her over him when she had not earned the right. She had not plucked me from a dangerous situation. She had not praised me or made me believe in myself. She had not tried to make me feel whole and complete, when before in all my life I had been made to feel less than I truly was. All that had been Cassius, and I had turned my back on him as soon as one element of fear had crept into my mind. I hated myself in that moment because I knew I was no better than the wolves who had shunned me.

I did not want to leave him.

“You’re right Cassius. I’m sorry,” I said in a small voice.

Cassius raised a hand. His back was turned towards her. His voice was low and heavy. “You do not need to lie any longer Willow. I will give you what you seek. You can leave, and you never have to think about me again.”

There was something so painful about the way he spoke. I could feel the anguish in his words and I knew that he was suffering. He had been suffering for so long, and for most of that time he had been alone. The truth was that I did not want to banish him from my mind. When he showed me how angry he had been at Amara it made me wonder what she was like and what all the other vampires had done to him. I remember him speaking about his life before, and could not imagine what it was like to have that taken away.

“Cassius, tell me what happened,” I asked.

He angled his head towards me. I could see the barest gleam of his eye peering through the shadowed darkness. “You do not care Willow. You believe what you want to hear. You believe the worst in me. When you see me you see nothing but a vampire, the monster from all the stories you were told as a child. It was naïve of me to think that I could have been anything else to you.”

“No, that’s not true Cassius. I’ve seen the musician. I’ve seen the poet. I’ve seen the man who just wants some company.”

Cassius let out a dry laugh. The sound was cracked and hollow. “It has been a long time since I have been called a man. You do not need to lie and flatter me any longer Willow. Just leave. Leave me in peace with my own thoughts.”

I regretted the way I had acted towards him. I regretted how the truth had been mixed up in all the lies because not everything I said had been a lie, but how was I going to make him believe this?

“I’m not going to promise you that I’m going to stay Cassius, but I want to know what happened. Just tell me. Be honest with me. It didn’t sound to me as though you missed the way your life was before this.”

“Not the circumstances perhaps,” he replied, “I do not miss the struggle or the humiliation. I do not miss the rejections. But I miss the hope. I miss the dreams. I miss the ambition. It is something I alluded to when I was talking about death. When Amara made me into what I am today she took away that part of humanity that strives to make the most of every day. When I was born a vampire I was something new. I did not have to worry about accomplishing everything I could before I died. I did not have to stay awake for hours on end, fighting against hunger and fatigue to write the last notes of a symphony because I could simply return to it at a later date. I had the luxury of time, this endless path laying ahead of me, and instead of feeling any urgency about it, I just had to wander aimlessly, knowing that eventually I could do everything I wanted. But even then it wasn’t the same. There was a woman in my past. Her name was Imogen. I met her when I was very young and I fell in love with her immediately, well, what I thought was love anyway.”

As he mentioned Imogen I shifted my weight slightly, feeling an uncomfortable itch of envy at the back of my neck. I should not have been jealous of a woman who had been dead for centuries.

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