Unleash (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 6) (24 page)

“Why?” he whispered, voice hoarse as his emotions tightened his throat. He dug his blunt claws into the cold stones beneath him, tears blurring his vision and burning his eyes. “Why bring me here?”

“Because you must think about your sins.”

He sat back and looked over his shoulder at her. She stood close to him, her white dress bright in the moonlight that played on her glossy black wings and her dark wavy hair.

“I already have… a million times… each day I close my eyes.” He frowned at her, the pain of his memories eclipsed by the pain of her doing this to him, making him suffer like this for no good reason. “I never stop thinking about what I have done.”

Her expression remained flat but the concern in her eyes darkened, verging on anger. “You block your memories. You make yourself forget. You think only of death.”

He didn’t understand. He remembered what he had done. He saw it in his nightmares every day and he despised himself for the things that he had done. He blocked none of it.

“You must face your past if you are to save yourself.” She crouched before him and he growled at her.

“I do not want to be saved.”

She glanced down at her knees and her black wings drooped. “There are those in this world who wish you to be.”

Her solemn tone told him that she wasn’t talking only of Antoine, or even those at Vampirerotique. Tears glittered on her long black lashes, in danger of slipping onto her pale cheeks. The sight of them lashed at him, cutting him deep and making him regret his harsh words. She wanted to save him.

Why?

For the past two thousand years, he had caused her nothing but shame and suffering. If anyone wanted him to die for his sins, it should be her. She shouldn’t want to save him. She should ask her master to kill him.

“Take me away from here, Aurora.” He rose to his feet and towered over her.

She shook her head. “Not until you face your darkest hour.”

His spine froze. Dread weighed heavily in his stomach.

“No.” He glared at her. She wouldn’t. The look in her eyes said that she would.

She meant to keep him here until…

Antoine burst through the doors behind her, dressed in a long winter coat over his black waistcoat and trousers, his expression frantic as his gaze darted around.

The weather turned, white flakes falling thick and fast, driven across the land by a bitter wind.

Snow paused and felt the blood on his hands and his face, chilling his skin. He stared at Antoine.

Blood.

He needed to feed.

The female hadn’t satisfied his hunger. He still wanted more.

He dropped her corpse into the rose bushes and advanced on the new male.

S
now tried to stop himself but his body wouldn’t listen.

The dark urge to taste the new male’s blood consumed him, driving him to stalk towards him where he stood near the chateau, a horrified expression twisting his face and the scent of his fear and anger tainting the freezing night air.

A blizzard swept across the land, thick white flakes obscuring Snow’s vision and numbing his wet hands and face.

The male spoke to him, words that swam in his ears and made no sense.

When he was within striking distance, Snow launched himself at the dark-haired male.

The male evaded him, coming around behind him in one fluid motion. Snow turned on the spot and lashed out, claws sharp now and swiping with deadly intent. The male barely avoided them, leaning back and losing his footing. He stumbled off the edge of the snow-covered patio and onto the rose bushes, close to the corpse of the female.

The male looked down at her, tears in his pale blue eyes. His anger called to Snow, a hint of darkness that laced his scent and would taint his blood. Familiar darkness.

Snow shoved away from the calm that tried to overcome him and attacked again, a merciless combination of claws, fists and feet. The male defended well but Snow was stronger, far older, easily able to land some blows, ripping material and cleaving flesh.

Spilling blood.

Blood that smelled so familiar.

He didn’t want to do this. He glanced at the dead female, recognising her in the midst of the tempest of his fury and thirst. Mama. What had he done?

He snarled and lashed out at the male, catching him unawares and cutting across his chest.

The male fought back, his attacks increasing in strength and determination.

Snow tried to hold back but couldn’t stop himself from throwing all of his power into each blow, beating the male into submission. With each strike that pummelled flesh, each slash that spilled dark blood, his hunger worsened, taking more control, forcing him to watch what he was doing, unable to even attempt to stop himself.

Snow hated himself as he rained fury down upon the male, mindless and vicious, intent on destroying someone he loved with every drop of blood in his body.

The male desperately defended himself but it was no use. He would weaken and then he would die, but at least he was fighting. So many of them hadn’t fought him. They had died too easily, failing to satisfy his lust for violence.

He spoke to Snow again, a strange look in his blue eyes, eyes that were so familiar.

Blood that was so familiar.

Darkness tainted it.

Darkness like the beast he had become.

They were one and the same.

“Snow.” That word breached the haze in his mind and the scent of his blood cleared more of it, bringing him back to awareness again and giving him the strength to fight.

Antoine.

His beloved brother.

Snow fought his terrible affliction with everything he had, clawing himself to spill his own blood, desperate to stop himself. If he could weaken himself enough, he wouldn’t have the strength to fight Antoine. He could save his brother.

Antoine collapsed onto the thick layer of snow on the lawn, blood flowing freely from the deep lacerations across his arms and torso, turning the white into black in the night. He gasped for air, his heartbeat erratic, and Snow roared his agony at the cloud-strewn sky as he realised he had regained control too late to save him. What had he done?

“Antoine.” His own voice sounded foreign to him, the taste of blood like bitter ashes in his mouth now. His heart shattered at the sight of his brother laying broken and close to death, fighting for his life even as it seeped out of him.

Snow ran to him and his knees hit the hard ground beside him. He slashed his wrist and held it to his brother’s mouth. When he didn’t drink, his eyes staring sightlessly at the heavens as his heart gave its last beat, Snow raised his brother’s head with one hand and tried again, letting his wretched blood pour into his mouth.

The world faded back to the present and Snow leaned over, pressed his hands into the overgrown grass, and retched. He shook all over, sick to his stomach from the vivid imagery and the things he had done. He had never dreamed of the full brutality of that night. He could see that now.

He had always seen an edited version. The highlights with the worst parts removed.

He had killed everyone he loved. His aunts, uncles and cousins. His mother. His father.

His beloved brother.

He hadn’t just savaged Antoine.

He had killed him.

His brother had died and only Snow’s tainted blood had given his body the vital energy it needed to kick his heart back into life.

Snow closed his eyes, causing tears to drop, and frowned, grinding his teeth together as the pain of it all overwhelmed him. He couldn’t bear it. It was too much, ripping and tearing at him, making him want to throw up again. His limbs trembled and his heart pounded, as erratic as Antoine’s pulse had been as he lay dying because of him, bleeding out from wounds that he had never truly healed.

Antoine still bore scars from that night, both emotionally and physically.

Who had suffered more?

Snow, who had committed the atrocities, unable to stop himself even when he desperately wanted to?

Or Antoine, who had come upon the aftermath and witnessed the full horror of what Snow had done, seeing his family torn to pieces, and his parents butchered, and then having his own brother, a male who had acted more like a father to him, try to destroy him too?

Antoine should have killed him that night. He should have taken his life as payment for the brief taste of death that Snow had given him. He had asked it of his brother. His brother had refused, making him swear that he would never take his own life.

Snow had been seeking his death ever since.

Aurora was right about him, but she was wrong to choose this method as a way of making him want to live.

He looked up at her, his dark silvery eyebrows furrowed and his body trembling violently as he struggled with everything he had witnessed and the incredible pain it caused him.

He had killed his brother and he had forgotten all about it, tried to erase it from his memories, pretending it had never happened. Antoine knew though. Antoine would have remembered slipping from this world into the endless dark embrace of death, an embrace his own flesh and blood had delivered him into, together with the rest of their family.

Snow growled and gritted his teeth, tears burning his eyes. How could Antoine look at him with any shred of affection? How could he bear to see his face, knowing what he had done to him and their family? Snow deserved to die for his sins. He felt it now more than ever. He had no right to continue living in this world when he had taken everything from Antoine, replacing a world filled with love and light with one filled with pain and darkness.

He was wretched. Despicable.

Aurora stood over him, compassion in her beautiful eyes, hope and faith that he didn’t want to shake, even when he needed to. He couldn’t bear her looking at him like that when he felt so vile and disgusting, and deserving of the death she wanted him to forsake in favour of living.

“Showing me death and the horrific things I have done will not give me reason to live.”

Sorrow edged her gaze and she eased down into a crouch beside him, leaned in and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Her lips were warm against his clammy cold skin and he closed his eyes as that heat spread through him, erasing some of his pain and giving him a fragment of comfort.

The scents around him swirled and he didn’t need to open his eyes to know she had taken him away from the mansion, but he wasn’t back at Vampirerotique. The temperature had dropped and snow cushioned his knees and his hands, freezing his skin.

Snow opened his eyes as Aurora drew away from him and rose to her feet. He eased onto his feet as he looked around.

A pristine snowfield stretched around him in the darkness, inky swaths of trees cutting through it in places, and blended seamlessly into the high mountains that reached up into the black sky. The aurora borealis was in full play above him, beautiful and breathtaking as the turquoise, blue and pink ribbons fluttered and danced.

“Where are we?” he whispered, afraid to believe it until she said it.

“You know where we are,” she softly said and slipped her hand into his, holding it gently. It comforted him this time, restoring his strength and soothing his weary soul, easing some of the pain in his fractured dark heart. “You said that showing you terrible things wouldn’t save you… so I decided I would show you something good… a good memory.”

Laughter rang through the silence.

Snow whipped his head around and saw himself as a boy, swathed in pale furs, running circles around his parents near the fire outside the dark stone castle on the hill.

His mother gave chase, her own darker furs shifting with each step and her pale hair fluttering behind her. The boy squealed and erupted into another fit of giggles. His father watched them both with a beautifully indulgent smile as they played together.

It pained Snow to see them again, to see them happy and know what lay in store for them.

He should have died this night. Aurora shouldn’t have saved him.

The younger version of himself spotted the owl flying overhead and gave chase, ignoring his mother’s warnings. Snow tracked him with his gaze as he struggled through the deep freshly fallen powder, coming towards him, his arms reaching for the bird.

He had wanted to catch it. He had been desperate to kill it and show his father that he was growing up and able to hunt for himself.

He had wanted his father to be proud of him.

Snow lurched forwards when the boy ran onto the lake and stopped himself from calling out in warning. He flinched as the ominous sound of the ice cracking echoed around the mountains. The memory of feeling it give under his feet terrified him even now. He had known what was coming and had known he was powerless to stop it.

The boy went under.

Snow took a laboured step forwards and then held himself back, resisting racing onto the ice to save him. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t happening now. Nothing he did would change the course of history, no matter how much he desired that.

A beautiful light filled the sky and he froze, his breath leaving him as Aurora descended from the darkness, her small pale wings pinned back and her hair streaming behind her like black ribbons.

Her master called to her, warning her to return, but she ignored him.

She hit the lake with such force that a plume of water shot into the air, spraying chunks of ice onto the frozen surface. A heartbeat later, she broke the surface, wings flapping furiously, and water cascading from her and from the younger version of himself.

She landed heavily on the snowy shore and he saw her fear as she resuscitated him, her shaking hands pumping his chest.

Her mouth moved but no words came out. She hadn’t been allowed to speak. It had been her punishment.

Snow moved closer, drawn to her as he had been that night, watching her as she smoothed the wet hair from the boy’s brow and stared down at him. Singing to him. He couldn’t hear her now but he knew that was what she was doing.

She glowed with light and purity as she watched over him, her expression revealing her agony as she waited for him to wake.