Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 50954 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 255(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50954 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 255(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
“You are…” Mad was not allowed to finish his sentence before his maker choked his voice away by slightly clenching his hand.
“You were a good boy for a very long time,” he said. “Longer than most. I waited almost three thousand years for your rebellion, and now it is here I am only surprised it is over a pup.”
“He is not a pup. He is a man I love. He is a character of strength and perseverance.”
“You say you are in love with this dog. But you know what happens to dogs, Maddox. It is the same tragedy that strikes them as that strikes us. They never live as long as we want them to, and they take something from us when they go. If I let you keep him, you will only grow more attached. And with every passing year, you will become more desperate to hold onto him, even as he ages slowly at first and then all at once. You will cling to what he was, and not what he has become, and you will suffer his death for the rest of eternity. Make connections with your own kind, Madis. I told you that at the outset.”
Gideon was truly at his most dangerous when he was at his most compassionate.
“Think on this in your chamber.”
Maddox was being sent to his room. His initial reaction was, of course, horror at the indignity of it all, but it was quickly followed by a flash of realization at how amusing Will would have found this if he was here.
If he was here.
Was he not here, in some way? Being carried in Maddox’s own memories, making his reactions softer and safer?
Maddox left Gideon’s presence, all too happy to get away. He looked ridiculous in the remnants of his suit which remained intact only around his shoulders and below his knees. He needed to change. And he needed to make a plan.
9
“What do you think Maddox is doing right now?” Will asked the question with a sad, hang dog sort of yearning. It was the middle of the day, and he had volunteered to stay with Lorien while Henry went out to gather firewood. Lorien’s misery had not gone unnoticed by Henry, or by Will, for that matter.
Will didn’t often feel sorry for Lorien, but he knew what it was like to have to choose between what was safe and what kept one close to one’s lover. At least, he wished he knew what it was like to choose. Maddox hadn’t actually given him any choice at all. In some ways, that had made it easier for Will. Lorien was suffering out of loyalty and love.
“Trying his best to get you back, I imagine,” Lorien sighed. “He’s obsessed.”
The vampire was sitting beneath a shoddily constructed umbrella made of sticks and leaves. He’d made it himself, saying he wasn’t going to try to burrow underground like a mole anymore. It was safe to say that the woods were testing Henry and Lorien’s relationship. Basically, the vacation from hell for the both of them, as far as Will could tell.
“You know, there’s no reason you couldn’t go back,” Will pointed out. “Gideon isn’t trying to kill you.”
Lorien’s expression brightened for the first time since Will had gotten to the forest. “You know… that’s not wrong.” His face fell again. “But I’d have to leave Henry. And I’m not doing that.”
“Are you going to spend the rest of your life in exile, getting progressively hungrier?”
“Vampires can go weeks and months without feeding if they have to. We might not be as strong as we were, and we might get sleepy…” He yawned. He should have been asleep now, but he was restless and out of sorts. Will was actually starting to worry about Lorien. There was a sallowness to his skin and a hollowness to his eyes. Vampires were eternal, but they were also, well, dead. Lorien was starting to look like the latter.
He was exhausted. Anybody looking at him could tell that. He kept closing his eyes halfway and then opening them again, a little wider than normal as if to prove he was actually awake to himself. Will kept an eye on him to make sure he didn’t totally pass out.
Lorien’s eyes had almost closed completely when a freak gust of wind snatched at the branches of Lorien’s umbrella and cast it aside, just at the same time as the same gust of wind made the branches above part and a ray of bright sun pierced through the forest to nail Lorien directly in the face, like a punch from the heavens.
Lorien’s scream curdled Will’s blood.
The vampire was wounded and disfigured, the entire left side of his face bubbled and mangled as if a blow torch had been applied to it. Will did his best to cover Lorien, using his body to block the sun’s rays, but the damage had already been done. Lorien writhed beneath him, coughing and gurgling in an unsettling state.