Page 114 of We Were Eternal Once

“Her name is Zora,” I say. “She is a friend, and I wanted to have a friend. A companion. She was one, and she wanted to turn, and it’s not…” I trail off, my thoughts a mess. I shake my head and try to start again. “I think I forgot something. It’s been hours.”

“You’ve been down here hours?” you ask, looking around the room once more. There is something haunted in your eyes as you glance between me and Zora.

“Yes,” I whisper. “I drained her blood, then I fed her mine. And then her heart stopped, but she never woke.”

“You’ve missed no steps,” you say, considering the body. “Where did this come from?” you ask, pointing to the cross embedded in the wall.

“She had it.”

“Why?”

I lick my lips. There are traces of Zora’s blood there, and I am hit with a thrill again at the taste of it. “She is a hunter. Was a hunter. She decided to abandon it to become like us.”

You are quiet a long while, staring at me. Your silence loosens my tongue and then I cannot stop.

“I met her months ago. She caught me compelling a human, or at least—she did not see that part of it, just that I could convince him to give up something. When I tried to compel her to forget, it did not work.”

You make a noise that I think might be in pity, and I continue on. “At first I thought to ignore her, to forget about her. But she taught me to steal. She saw me as an equal. A friend. I’ve not had one of those in…” I trail off.

“Am I not a friend to you?” you ask.

“Please, don’t misunderstand me,” I beg. “This is not about you and I. This is about me. I’ve been lonely these last decades, centuries even.”

“You never want to stay in one place long enough to make roots!” you exclaim.

“Because it’s not safe! Isn’t that what you always said? If we linger, then we open ourselves to questions! Every other vampyr we meet decides to worship you or I. There is no equal, no companionship, just tedious affairs of the immortal.”

“And she is a hunter?” you ask.

“Yes. I…” I trail off again, unwilling to admit how blind I was to this fact. How I’d heard the warnings of hunters and brushed them off as irrelevant. I’d lived over a thousand years without worrying about dying, why should I care about a mortal? “I found out recently. I confronted her.” I glance to the cross in the wall. “She admitted it. But she had no desire to be one any longer. She wanted to drop the chains of mortality. She wanted to see the world.”

I look down at her still form, at her sightless eyes and pale skin.

“Melinoë,” you say softly, taking a step toward me. You reach for me, your fingers brushing the sleeve of my dress. “Hunters cannot turn. Their blood does not allow them.”

“What?”

You catch me as I collapse, trembling too hard to stay upright. You fold me into your arms, rocking me like an infant as I shake my head. “No, no she said she wanted this.”

“She likely did not know. The line of the hunter is long, perhaps it is no longer known,” you murmur into my hair.

“I killed her,” I whisper. I’d known I might have to, but not like this. I would have killed her if it meant saving your life, saving my life. But that’s not what this was.

My ignorance.

“Shh,” you say, trying to soothe me.

But I cannot be so easily consoled.

“I killed her. I killed her and she thought she would rise again, that she would see the world. She was so young and I took that from her. I took…I took…” I cannot get the words out.

I wail in grief. You never let go of me, rocking me, holding me close.

“I am sorry,” you whisper into my hair. “I am sorry that you did not come to me, that you did not think you could.”

“You would have been angry,” I protest.

“Yes, I would have,” you agree. “But you are my everything, and I would do anything for you.”