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“Why didn’t I feel it when Dredge turned me? Does every other vampire know about this?”
She shook her head. “No, only those who’ve reached a great age and choose to end their life, or those brought as a guest. Menolly, you repress yourself. You spend enormous energy denying your nature, and that is more dangerous than accepting who you are.”
As she whispered in my ear, a sweat poured over my body, and I hadn’t sweated since I was turned. I glanced at the beads of perspiration and they were bloody drops, saturating the white gown that I wore.
“I cannot give in. It’s too dangerous. I will not turn on my friends. I will not become a mindless hunter in the night.”
“You do not have to,” she whispered. “But you must accept what you are, fully, and embrace it. Any lingering shreds of doubt and regret must be swept away if you are to fully become the vampire you’re destined to be. You are half-Fae, yes, and half-human, but you are all vampire. You feed on animal blood instead of keeping bloodwhores. Why?”
“Because it’s vile—I do not want the responsibility for their lives in my hands. What if I make a mistake? What if I can’t control myself? What if I hurt someone I care about?”
“A bloodwhore lives to serve.”
“I will not keep a stable.” I began to cry, bloody tears streaking down my cheeks. “I hate the very thought of it. I hate that Roman does it. I find it…”
“You find it an abomination? But you do feed on humans. You are no saint.”
I wanted her voice to stop. Clasping my hands to my ears, I shouted back at her. “I feed on the scum—those who hurt and harm and maim…those who will never be redeemed because they are beyond all repentance.”
“Then you are their judge and jury, Menolly, and yet you pass judgment on those who willingly give of themselves that we might live?” Blood Wyne grabbed me by the wrists and turned me so I faced the veil that rippled in front of us. “Very well, you do not wish to keep bloodwhores. But until you can plunge yourself into the veil and understand your true nature, you will always be running from yourself. Until then, you can never be a part of my lineage.”
I understood then. She would kill me unless I walked into the veil. Terrified—what would it do to me? what would I become?—I tried to look away, but she shoved me forward.
“Step into your nature and learn. Or be destroyed. It is your choice.”
Weeping as she ripped my robe away, leaving me naked, I stumbled forward. There was no more leeway. Either I stepped into the veil—embraced the unknown—or I let Blood Wyne destroy me.
“Promise me one thing.” I turned to her, straightening my shoulders.
“You ask for favors, girl? Well, what do you want?” She did not flinch as she looked over the scars that shimmered on my body.
“Promise me that if I turn into the predator I fear, you will instruct Roman to stake me, and that my family will be informed.” I held myself straight, looking her in the eye. Against protocol or not, I didn’t care.
Blood Wyne nodded, slowly. “Deal.”
I turned back to the Veil. It rippled like a waterfall, and, feeling like a dead woman walking, I held out one hand to touch the shimmering field. My fingers touched the edge and then, as I walked into the Veil—
—The world fell away.
Everyone and everything was gone, and there was only me standing in the midst of the energy as it undulated around me. I’d expected to lose my mind, to be held in the grips of the blood-hunger, but instead, my mind cleared and I shivered, suddenly feeling the cold for the first time in a long, long while.
A shower of cool rain washed over me, except the rain was as blood, and it trickled down my body in rivulets, finding the channels of the scars that lined my body. I watched it flow, and for once, the smell didn’t set off the thirst. I was able to take it or leave it. I turned back, to ask Blood Wyne what this meant, but she was not there. Only the static of the Veil.
Power does not have to corrupt. You do not have to be afraid of your power if you are its mistress.
The thought raced through my mind and I frowned, not sure where it came from. I thought about walking somewhere, but there was nothing save for the waves of energy flowing around me, and I was a little afraid that I’d get lost in the currents if I moved forward.
To take control over your self, to master your powers, you must accept them, embrace them, and wear them with humility and with pride.
And there it was. On a gut level, I understood what Blood Wyne was saying, and I also knew where I fell short. I wasn’t proud of who I was. I didn’t revel in it except rare times when the bloodlust caught me up.
“I don’t know how to be proud of what I am.” I said it aloud, and my voice pierced the Veil, dancing through it with shattering effect. Shaken, dizzy from the constant movement that shifted around me, I said it again, louder. “I don’t know how to be proud of my powers…Dredge turned me, and how can I be proud of a curse given by a monster?”
The Veil twisted, coiling as I began to scream. “I don’t want to be proud of what he did to me! I don’t want to accept what he did to me! I will not forgive him, nor will I give him credit!”
As my anger grew, the crimson strings of energy began to twist and dance in on themselves, and I fell to my knees, caught in the full fury of my anger and memories. “I killed him—I dusted my sire and I’m proud of that! So how can I ever, ever embrace what he did to me?”
And then, Blood Wyne appeared in the middle of the Veil, and she knelt to take me in her arms. She lifted me to my feet, like she might lift a child, and lowered her fangs to my neck.
