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“Embrace it!?” Adrian frowned, as if awakened from a deep, long slumber. He got up quickly, and the chair raked against the brick floor. “I am not like him! I will never be like him!”
“Adrian, Adrian…” I rushed over to him, taking him by the hand. “No one is saying that. Of course you’re not like him. Just… please, calm down, please…”
My words barely reached him. Before I could say anything else, he rushed out of the witch’s hut, not even bothering to close the door behind him.
“I’m sorry,” I looked at Lorna, feeling helpless.
She shook her head. “It is a hard truth he found out today. Let him be. Do not push anything, for it will bring no good.”
I knew better than to push anything with Adrian, but at the same time, I couldn’t allow him to just rush outside like that, on his own, with God knows what on his mind. I had to be by his side to make sure he was alright, to make sure he didn’t get any crazy ideas.
I lifted my hand in a wave goodbye as I was leaving the hut. I could hear the witch shout after me. “Good luck! You’ll need it…”
Chapter Thirteen
Adrian
I knew that this was a possibility, and yet, I was still hoping that the scroll was wrong, that Lilith’s father made a mistake. I was already sitting atop my horse, the powerful creature underneath me steady and patient, everything I was not at this moment.
The weight of the day’s revelations pressed heavily upon me, and I had no idea what to do, where to go. Moments after I rushed out, Lilith emerged from the hut as well.
“Adrian!” she called out to me, looking at me with those eyes that held both love and concern. “Wait a moment, please…”
“I can’t, Lil,” I told her what I had been thinking from the moment the witch revealed it was all true. “I can’t go back with you.”
Her eyes widened in shock and disbelief. She remained standing where she was, as if frozen in time and space.
“What do you mean?” she managed to muster.
“Exactly that,” I repeated. “I can’t go back with you.”
“You can’t mean that,” she spoke softly, as if losing her voice. “You need to come home with me, home where your daughter is waiting for you. What am I supposed to tell her when I return without you, Adrian? What!?”
I could hear frustration and fear in her voice, and I understood where it was coming from. But this was the first time I couldn’t protect her, because this time, I would need to protect her from myself.
“Tell her I will come back later,” I replied. “I’m not leaving you, Lil. It’s not that. I just… I’m afraid of what I might become, of the unknown depths of my nature. What if I hurt you? Or even worse… what if I hurt Cass?”
The possibility of hurting those I loved the most loomed like a shadow over my soul.
“You would never do that, Adrian,” she replied immediately, taking a step towards me, as if to show me that she wasn’t afraid. “You have always been my protector. You have saved me so many times, in ways I can’t even begin to comprehend. You have always been my rock. You would never harm me or Cass. I know that.”
I wondered if I should tell her my deepest fear. I’d been keeping it to myself all this time, and it had been eating me up alive. For a while, I even thought that I managed to push it into the darkness of my subconscious mind, that it would not follow me any longer. But now, it was exactly the opposite.
I had always been afraid of the vampire inside of me. My human parents managed to help me keep it contained, to keep it under control and it never surfaced, unless someone I loved was in mortal danger. Then, I would allow it to come to the surface and do what it was meant to do.
Now, with this newfound knowledge in sight, I wasn’t sure whether I was actually controlling the animal inside of me or if it simply allowed me the illusion of control. But how could I explain any of this to Lilith? Would she understand? Or would it be a burden she wouldn’t be able to comprehend? It was best to keep her away. At least, she would be safe from me, from the darkness inside of me.
“Adrian?” Her voice brought me back to the present moment.
I struggled to find the words to explain my decision, my voice quivering with the weight of my fears. “Lilith, I... I can’t go back with you. I need to come to terms with what I've learned today, with this connection to Constantine. I’m afraid of the darkness within me, of what I might do.”
Her eyes welled up with tears, with a deep sense of love and empathy. “Adrian, I… I love you. Come back with me, please. We’ll face this together, just as we have always done. Please, don’t turn your back on us, on everything that we’ve built together, just because of this senseless fear.”
“It is not senseless, Lil,” I tried to explain, keeping a safe distance between us, as if something terrible might happen if she came closer. “I’ve always been afraid of this darkness inside of me. Every vampire has it. Your father knew that. Maybe that is why he kept that scroll a secret from us both. I don’t know. I guess we’ll never know. He had his reasons. But, just as he thought that the truth should be kept from us, I think I should be kept from you… at least for now.”
Tears glistened in her eyes, and I knew that her love was unconditional. It was unwavering. But I also knew that this was a journey I needed to undertake alone, to explore the depths of my true nature and to confront the shadows that were threatening to consume me.
“Go home, Lil,” I urged. “You can stop at the village and spend the night there, so you don’t travel alone at night.”
