Darkly Devoted (Book 1, 2, 3)

OTF Chapter 5 - Lonely Nights

Chapter 5

VIVIENNE WAS back in the caves of Remin. She saw Zissa, eyeless, and bleeding appear out of the dark waters. Tell me, Viveen, she said, how many parties I didn't get to attend. How many boys I didn't get to kiss. Vivienne backed away, she summoned the Segais, but it was deaf to her need. Perhaps, it had decided she just wasn't worthy, after all. As she fell to her knees in the Dark Waters, icicles formed from her fingertips and froze her to the underground lake. As she struggled to free herself, the demons of the deep advanced on her, their glowing eyes and fangs the only things visible the in dark cave.

Vivienne woke up with her heart pounding.

It was nearly dawn, and the sky was starting to turn blue. Vivienne still couldn't forget her fear of the coming of dawn despite being out of the Remin. She put on her satin robe and went to Blake's bedroom. She found him sleeping inside his bed. His bedroom was pitch black from the heavy light-blocking curtains. Vivienne wondered if it was ironic that she now preferred the night because the thought of dawn filled her with fear since the trials. She crawled into bed beside Blake and wrapped her arms around him as she had back then.

He stirred as he felt her touch. He rolled over, onto his back and peered at her under one partially opened eye.

"I had a nightmare."

"I'm here," he sleepily whispered back and hugged her tightly. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

"I had a nightmare that I was frozen to the lake in Satan's Hollow. The ice formed from my fingertips, and I couldn't move. The Segais didn't come to save me. Zissa, Ashlar, Nicole, they were coming closer and closer."

Only silence answered her. She heard him take a breath as though he was unsure of what he wanted to say.

"Blake," Vivienne said as she stared into the darkness. "The people you kill, how do you get them to stop haunting you."

Blake sat up and lifted her chin with one bruised hand. His sleepy, emerald eyes studied her. Vivienne noticed they weren't glowing like the demons in her dreams. Maybe it was a trick of her mind, but at that moment, he looked like his old human self.

"I've been giving some thought about your place here. I was selfish to bring you back here. You don't have to go through with this," Blake told her in all seriousness. "I could send you away. You can go back to Remin. Be with your sister."

"No," Vivienne said and sadly shook her head. "I'm in this now. It's too late. I can't leave you and Allison here, not like this. I can't hide like some coward."

Blake laid back down and stared at the ceiling. They laid side by side in silence for a long time. Finally, Vivienne reached over and placed her hand over the wound over his chest where she had stabbed him with Magalania's cane.

Finally, he said, "They never stop haunting you. I killed far more than you ever will, and their faces are always there. If anyone is going to hell, it's me."

"We'll go together," Vivienne said. He the only one who will ever understand the impossible choice she had to make." She laid there, on his chest, feeling it rising with his breathing. With his strong arms around her, Vivienne wondered what nightmares would come if one day she would have to choose between Blake and Allison.

Finding she couldn't sleep anymore, Vivienne sat up and glazed into Blake's face until he noticed and opened his eyes too. She leaned in and kissed him on the tip of his nose.

"Sometimes, I wonder what would have happened if I went home with you the night of the Midnight Masquerade," Vivienne whispered in his ear. "If you would have ripped my dress off me and had your way with me."