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“Life!”
I laughed, and it was cruel. I heard it in my voice, but couldn’t stop it, didn’t care. “Yeah, and I’ve enjoyed it so.”
“More than you would have if I’d done nothing!”
I’d finally managed to pull away, and had started to walk off to clear my head, but at that I rounded on him. “How do you know that? How do you know anything? You don’t know much about me, and less about her! Maybe she could have compensated in time; maybe we’d have reached some kind of balance. Or maybe not. Maybe we’d have been torn apart like all those other dhampirs, and died screaming, but you don’t know. Because you had to interfere, to handle everything, just like you always do—how has that worked out, Mircea?”
“Better than the alternative!”
I spread my hands. “How? I’ve spent centuries scrabbling, half-mad, on the edges of a society that hates me, looking for a foothold I only found because of her. Meanwhile, she’s been caged like some kind of animal, only able to emerge when there’s something to kill, abandoned, alone—and now you’re planning to do it all over again!”
A hand like steel found my arm. “I am planning to save your life! Something you will not have if she banishes you. And you’ve thought about it—don’t deny it. That word came from your head, not mine. You’ve thought—”
“Maybe I have.” I struggled with his hold and went nowhere. “It doesn’t mean she’ll do it!”
“And it doesn’t mean she won’t. Vampires have a constant war between our two natures, pulled by the beast on one hand and our humanity on the other. Forced to reconcile the two because we don’t have a choice. You do. And now so does she—”
“I’m not listening to this.”
“Yes, you are. For once you are going to listen—”
“For once? For once?” I stared at him.
“You never listen—”
“You never talk!”
“Well, I’m talking now.” It was grim. “We vampires have no choice but to blend our two natures, to come to equilibrium or to go mad—and some do. Unable to reconcile the monstrous part of themselves that every human has, but that every human does not have to feed. We cannot hide from what we are; we have to prey on others to survive. But we cannot give in to it utterly, or we risk becoming the monsters we are so often thought to be. It is a constant balancing act and there are times—oh, yes, there are times—when we would love to banish one part or the other.
“What if we could?”
“You wouldn’t. Go back to being human?” I laughed, because that comment deserved it. “No vampire would do that.”
“You might be surprised. But that isn’t the offer on the table, is it? Not you becoming human but Dorina becoming vampire. Fully, completely, with no human side to hold her back, to rein her in. You’ve thought about it—don’t you think she has, too?”
“Damn it, Mircea! You can’t just—” I stopped the explosive comment I’d been about to make, tried to compose myself. Arguing with him made me see red faster than anything else on earth, and then nothing productive happened. “She could do it,” I admitted, after a moment. “I know she could.” I met his eyes. “But she hasn’t. And she’s had plenty of time.”
Mircea didn’t even blink. “She’s had a few weeks. To our kind, that is nothing. To her, it is nothing. Her viewpoint today—if she even knows it yet—may not be the same tomorrow. Or next week or next month or next year. The fact is, she can banish you at any time, force you out and take over, and you have no defense against it. Save one.”
“You mean by doing the same thing to her.”
“Not the same thing. She will still be alive.”
I looked at him, and wished I had his way with words. Wished I had a way to make him see. “That’s not living.”
It never had been.
But I didn’t have the words, and maybe there weren’t any, because Mircea was as stubborn as I was. He’d found a solution once, at great cost to himself, when everybody had told him there wasn’t one. It hadn’t been perfect, but from his perspective, it had kept both versions of his daughter alive.
Why change it now?
But for me . . . it wasn’t that easy. I hadn’t known what was happening before, hadn’t even known Dorina existed. Much less the price she’d paid for my continued survival. And now that I did, how could I send her back to that? What right did I have to send her anywhere?
“You have the right of any creature to survive.”
“Get out of my head!” I turned away, furious and frustrated, and afraid—more than I wanted to admit. And angry at myself for feeling that way.
Because she’d never given me cause, had she? Not once. And she’d helped me, all those times she’d fought for me. Maybe I hadn’t needed it, but maybe I had. Maybe there’d been things she’d picked up on that I hadn’t seen, dangers I hadn’t noticed.
