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But where had he been this last year? I didn’t know, but he sure showed up in the nick of time. Or had he?
“By the way,” he said, “you should also know that I killed Lazlo.” Stark looked away, gazing toward the glow of the fire. “Fiona, too. If I could, I would’ve tortured them for eternity. They had no right to touch you.”
I was just glad the two were gone.
Stark continued, “Masie, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I have come across vampires who claim they were awake during their transformations.” He brushed my hair with his fingers, playing with the long black strands. “They say they were awake but unable to respond.”
Yes. Yes. That’s me!
“I think you are in that place—wherever it is—where your soul cannot decide.” He took a deep breath. “At least, I pray that is what is happening.”
The man looked genuinely distraught, which was no small thing. Montgomery Stark wasn’t known for being weak or easily rattled.
I don’t know what’s wrong, Stark. I just want to wake up and see my family again. But maybe that was the problem. Waking up as human probably wasn’t an option. I would’ve healed by now. And waking up as a vampire went against everything I believed in.
I’d been raised to be a polite, kind, and selfless person. The vampires I’d met were none of those things.
Sure, my boundaries—even cussing—had been pushed to the limit ever since Stark walked into my life and confessed he wanted me from first sniff. And, sure, I’d been slowly shedding my protective armor and letting my emotions out. But those changes were nothing compared to becoming a vampire.
Still, I didn’t want to die. I couldn’t do that to my family. I also felt a strange connection with this vampire, even if I hated to admit it. I had every reason to go back, but my soul was resisting.
“Masie, if you can hear me, if you are indeed fighting to stay with us—with me—then please give me the chance to tell you what sort of man I was, and who I will be to you, if you choose to live.”
Not live, Stark. I’d be like you.Forever between life and death.
He stood, walked across the room—I could hear his heavy steps—and then returned with a chair. He sat beside me and took my hand.
“I cannot tell you everything, because I have been alive for a very, very long time, and I fear there isn’t time. What you need to know is that my past is dark and unpleasant, but if the journey has led to you, then none of it was truly a mistake.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
STARK
1590. Northern Italy
“No, Father. Please don’t make me go.” I looked up at the man who claimed to love me, but like every other moment in my life, he’d chosen himself. Food, wine, or paying off his gambling debts.
“Do you wish your mother and sister to be out on the streets?” my father said sternly. “Do you wish them to starve?”
“Then seek employment. Earn a wage. Do not sell me, Father!” I cried.
My words were met with a hard slap. He then dragged me off, kicking and screaming, to meet my fate.
It was the last time I would ever look at my father. I would never see my mother or sister again either. My father had sold me to a man he claimed was wealthy beyond my wildest dreams.
“If you’re a good boy, Monty, he’ll pay you in sweets, and you’ll never want for anything.”
A lie, of course. The gentleman turned out to be a ruthless vampire who would force me into his servitude for nearly two decades.
I always wondered if my father knew what Charles was, or if it would have made a difference, but I would never find out.
Posing as a wealthy merchant, Charles took me and his other human slaves (mostly swordmen for protection) to the farthest reaches of Europe, Asia, and Africa in search of his maker—a vampire who had turned him and abandoned him three centuries prior.
Charles never told me why he refused to give up looking, but I suspected he wanted answers. Why had he been left alone to fend for himself? Or, perhaps, he simply wanted to find others of his kind and learn what he could.
I do not know how I survived during those eighteen years, but I saw the most amazing places—pyramids, mountains, oceans the color of jewels. I met people who, at the time, seemed like they were from another world. Some primitive and some so advanced I could hardly believe my eyes. They wrote on paper, carved enormous statues, farmed more food than they could eat, and had indoor plumbing—a marvel in those days. The world was wild and savage, and humans were determined to tame it.
And then, one day, Charles finally gave up. After three hundred years, his maker’s trail had dried up, and Charles concluded his maker was dead. Any vampires we came across wanted nothing to do with Charles. They were also very suspicious and untrusting in those days.
