A Muse of Night

SEVENTEEN

Vampires can't get drunk.

Trust me I'm trying and it's clearly not working, other wise the last four bottles of alcohol would have me falling over. Pushing the empty wine bottle away from me as I crossed my legs on the roof of the palace. I would have went to the train tracks if I knew Holstein and Kazimir wouldn't come looking for me. I want to be alone and drunk in my own misery, so then tomorrow I could forget any of this ever happened and move on.

That last portion of my statement was a little bit harder that I thought it was going to be. Watching the clouds conjure in a mid winter's night, I moved the snow off the roof. Melting away as I sat down on the damp area. Watching as a pair of tan fingers pulled her body up as Kate faced me. "I could smell the wine from a mile away, if you were trying to hide you should have just moped without the alcohol." She told me, pushing her body up from the edge as I reached out and helped her up.

I didn't mind Kate's presence, I knew she would do much to bother me. I snickered, putting my hands into my face, "It doesn't work anyways, that's what really sucks. I was only allowed to get drunk once in my life." Watching as Kate played with a strand of her dark ruby dyed hair.

"I'm going to be honest, Holstein asked me to talk to you." She started, I sighed. Rolling my eyes as I leaned back against the roof, my hair getting wet from the rain water. I knew why everyone was worried about me but all I wanted was to be left alone. "Delia, he thinks you might be slipping away from us." It might have been the sound of her voice calling my name, but all of my annoyance had been washed away with her presence. Lately, I had been so busy with the Night Court and her with Holstein that we hadn't found time for one another.

I crossed my heart in this moment, that after all of it was over I would do what I could to spend time with the people I had been trying to protect. That thought only caused a string of words to follow behind it, "I'm only doing what I can to protect all of you." I told her, Kate seemed uncomfortable with my words.

She shook her head immediately in disagreement, "We can protect ourselves. You are our first priority." They always said the same thing, it was like replaying the same fucking track.

Anger blistered out of me as I slammed my hands against the roof, a pint of laughter escaping from my lips. "Damn that! Kate I can't lose any more people, why can't you all understand that?" I asked her making an attempt to maintain my anger but at the same time releasing it. I didn't really have a care in the world right now because it seemed to me that every person I was fighting for was fighting back against me. "None of you are helping me by throwing yourself in front of danger! We are immortal not indestructible, I need you all here with me but when you throw your lives away- it makes me want to give all up." Not my life, I thought. I fought too damn hard for my life.

I wanted to give in on Alex, play his Queen. Damn myself for an eternity with him and be the puppet. I wanted to release my anger on the world and burn it all down with a single snap of my fingers. I wanted to destroy anything and everything in sight.

Kate grabbed my hand, searching for something in my eyes. "Don't you dare think like that." She told me, my face stoic.

Fixing my voice as I turned back facing forward, there wasn't an ounce of light in the sky. The clouds slowly drifting away to reveal the half moon staring down at me. "How many times do I have to be the cause of death?" I whispered low against my own breath, my heart bounding in my chest as I tried to control my emotions. I was too exhausted to cry now, "How many times are people going to die because of me?" I asked the world, my shadow still and my eyes drifting down to the spiral tattoos in my palms. Where originally it consumed my body with dark magic, now it was a symbol of the Mother Goddess.