Lord of Eternal Night by Ben Alderson

31

Iwoke from darkness, to darkness. My hand slapped my chest as I gasped for breath, only to feel it empty. Hollow. Without the tender, gentle beat of my heart. It felt no different than touching an empty shell or a forgotten stone.

Beneath my palm my skin felt strange — cold. I parted my mouth to call out into the darkness, but my throat was dry. I could not form words, only the scratching gasp of a noise that sounded strange to my own ears.

Thirst. The feeling was intense. I smacked my dry mouth together, thinking of nothing but the cool dribbles of liquid that would quench the longing need for something to drink.

It felt as though I had broken free from a dream. A nightmare. Yet the events of what I had experienced were hazy and distant. Kept away by the need for … sustenance.

One hand moved from my chest to my neck. I did not know what to expect, but the soft brush of skin seemed to be a surprise. The other hand moved to my stomach which seemed to spasm deep within, the rippling of a hunger I had not felt before. No. It was not only hunger, but thirst as well. As I woke further, it was as though the feelings awoke alongside me, unfurling like a sleeping cat as it stretched its limbs in waking.

A noise sounded from somewhere in the distance. A shuffling of feet. It was loud, and quiet at the same time, so much so that I could not distinguish its distance. Then, as I came to, I could hear other noises. Sounds I had not registered before. The slight scratching of small legs against stone. A snuffling noise that could only be that of a rat or mouse sniffing for food.

All at once the world, beyond the darkness, came alive, and I heard it all.

Pressing a hand into my gut, I pinched my eyes shut, trying to focus on the one sound that I could understand.

Footsteps walked towards my location. With each step their footfalls grew and intensified in sound.

My stomach jolted and jaw ached as though my teeth danced within my mouth. The burning call of fire spread across my jaw as though it stretched inside my skull. The sensation joined the intensifying burn in my gut and dryness in my throat.

Darkness was a discomfort, a void of agony as I truly woke.

My fingers reached for my mouth as the urge of pressing my teeth back into my gums overwhelmed me. As my fingertip passed my dry lips, I felt a poin—

Voices mixed with the patter of feet.

“… come back to finish you. With the barrier down, you should find cover elsewhere. They have waited years to end you, just as you have waited years to leave. Do not think for a moment they will take their time.”

A deep voice responded, lush tones vibrating the darkness around me. “I will not run, nor hide from the likes of them. They can come. It would be a grave mistake.”

“You took the head of their queen, but that did not destroy the nest of vipers. I have been around them. I know the plans they have for you — please. You must go.”

“Katharine.” The name was spoken as a warning. And the name was equally a stranger, and familiar. “I will… not be forced out my home. Let them come, let them see what I will do to them all.”

“But you are free.” The softer voice responded. “You can leave, Marius.”

Marius. The name slammed around my skull, nullifying the discomfort and pain. My finger fell from my mouth and dropped to my still chest as I tried to focus on its origin.

My mind was a storm, but in the eye of it I sensed that the name brought me comfort. It warmed my insides. Cooled my throat like the gulp of ice water. The name, it calmed me.

I opened my mouth, lips moving in the shape of the name. Again, I tried to force the word out.

“M… ari… us.”

“Not in the sense that I have long des—” The voice spluttered to a stop. It happened quickly that I felt as though I had simply stopped listening. But I sensed the presence, its closeness to me as something joined the dark around me.

One moment I was alone, the next he was with me, weight shifting the coffin, forcing my body to shuffle to the side; the wood creaked in warning, threatening to break beneath the sudden presence beside me.

“Jak.” Hands reached for my face and could I do nothing to push them away. Then a face materialised through the shadows and my entire being melted into his touch. Marius. Looking into his ruby stare brought everything back. I spluttered for breath, crashing through the hazy surface into the world of reality.

Marius. His eyes did not stop searching my face as though he had lost something and still longed to find it. His hands took a hold of mine with such urgency and squeezed, anchoring me to him, as though some strange wind would come and simply blow me away.

“You…” I forced out, swallowing to try and lubricate my throat enough to speak. “Found me.”

I closed my eyes and relaxed into his hands as he cupped both my cheeks. When he replied his voice cracked, and I was certain a splash of wetness clashed against my chin. “You were never lost. Only misplaced for a moment.”

He was different, his touch no longer cold. He just felt… normal.

“You are different…” I said, my voice no more than a rasped whisper.

“No, Jak.” Marius’s eyes misted, his thumb brushing my cheek as though it was a petal. “You are the one that has changed. I am sorry for what I have done. It was selfish not to let you go, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t not try.”

He spoke so fast it was close to impossible to truly take in his words. I scrunched my face and sighed. “What happened, Marius?”

He leaned in, closing the space between us and placed a kiss upon my forehead. A shiver raced down my spine at the touch. He pulled away as he retorted, “What do you remember?”

I blinked, looking into the shadows beyond him. The feeling was like unlocking a gate that had been kept closed, his questioning was the key that unlocked it.

And the memories, the pain, the truth… It all returned.

“She killed me. My mother, my own blood, killed me.”

I stared deeply into Marius’s gaze, remembering how he had violently winced as the blade sliced across my throat. It was the last thing I could remember before the cold, endless nothingness.

“I am sorry, Jak,” Marius murmured, looking down at his hands that now threaded my own and held them. “For everything.”

“How… I mean… what happened? I died and… no, Marius, this is too much.” The pain in my gut, my jaw, my head, all exploded in one large crash. It rocked my core from the inside. If it was not for his hold my hands would have shook where they lay.

“I watched you die. And I acted upon selfish desperation. I took your choice away from you and made you… this. I made you, turned you like…”

“You.” My word was as sharp as a blade. “You turned me, to keep me alive?”

“Jak,” he sighed, sorrow and guilt rolling off him in battering waves. “You are not alive, and nor am I. You are… eternal.”

* * *

Marius was wrong.He had not taken my choice away from me. My mother had. He simply had reinstated what she tried to steal from me.

Life.

Not in the sense of how I had it before. Now my life was different. Never-ending like the man whom had provided me with a second chance.

Night swelled around us as we stood at the boundary of the castle, my hand in Marius’s as we both looked down over Darkmourn far below. Not a single home was without light. Perhaps they prepared to come for us, or they knew what was coming for them. My stomach jolted at the promise of what waited within those homes, what pumped within their fine, pathetic, disposal veins.

Katharine waited far behind us, but the nightly wind blew her scent my way. The smell of her sweet, delicious blood. I longed for it. But she was off limits. Marius had said so when she finally burst into his chamber in the bellies of the now ruined castle. I had nearly thrown myself from the coffin in desperation to… feed.

That was what Marius had explained, lending me a sip of his blood that only curbed the desperation enough for me not to rip her throat out.

If Marius was not holding me, I feared for her. For what I longed to do. But Marius promised the feeling would pass once I had my first fill.

And I imagined I would soon be full past the point of bursting.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked, my hand squeezing his as we looked out over the view before us. I sensed his halting anticipation as if it was my own. It was strange, for I sensed more of his emotions now after he had brought me back, as though a tether of shadow kept me pinned to him.

I had wondered if he felt it too. But it was not the time for questions. We would have time for that after I fed.

“I had imagined the possibility of leaving on too many occasions, I hadn’t dared to keep count. Yet I always believed, if it would happen, I would be leaving this place alone. Not with someone by my side.”

“Someone?” I snapped my teeth, feeling my lips tug into a smile over the new points that protruded from my gums. Sharp teeth that kept ripping at my skin, only for it to heal moments later. Similar to Marius’s who had pressed his own deep into my skin, sharing in a lustful, dangerous kiss. “Is that all I am? Just a someone?”

Marius pulled my arm, spinning me around to face him. He was stronger, but I felt as though I could match him with this new strength. It was one of the many differences since waking. I was resilient. My hearing and sight as sharp as the two fangs that pressed into the skin behind my lower lip.

“You are Jak, my Jak.” There was still sorrow in his eyes for what he had done to me, yet I felt no pain or hate for his actions. Only… relief. Before meeting him I was equally trapped by the curse, prisoner to the fate I had been born into. And now… Now I was free. From my mother whose corpse was rotting in an unknown location, a place I did not care to know. Marius had shattered the bindings on my fate, just as I had for him.

Marius bowed his head as though holding my stare was impossible. With a hand I lifted his defined chin with a thumb and urged him to stop moping. “I am yours, and you are mine. For an eternity.”

“I should have given you the choice.”

“And if you had I would have agreed without question.”

“You do not know what this means. And I cannot explain it either. It was foolish—”

I raised onto my toes and pressed my lips to his, silencing him. Everything about his taste was an explosion, as though my sensations had been set ablaze as I touched him. I wanted more than to just kiss. The action did not feel strong enough, intense enough, for what I felt deep within. Pulling away slowly, Marius kept his eyes closed and mouth parted slightly, wishing for my return.

“We will discover what it means to be… us. It is a big world out there; we cannot be the only ones.”

“And what if we are?” he asked.

I smirked. Was it the thirst or excitement that made me so giddy? “You made me, what is stopping you from doing it again?”

Marius peered over his shoulder to where Katharine hovered in the distance, arms wrapped around her thin frame. “She may not want this.”

“Then you can respect that wish. But what if she does? She has no one left living. Like you. Like me. I promise you, Marius, what you have done for me is a gift. Katharine… well, she may feel the same.”

Marius lowered his head. “Not yet.”

“So, what next then?” I asked, urging for him to look at me. “You are the author. Tell me where you see my story going.”

It must have been something I said that encouraged the beautiful yet deadly smile to spread across his face; his eyes lit from the inside and lines furrowed his forehead.

“Perhaps we start with a feast.” My stomach grumbled in agreement as we looked back to the town and the unsuspecting victims that waited behind their closed doors. “You will need to feed before the urge becomes impossible to ignore. Then, once you are satisfied… and I, we can spend endless nights lost in one another’s bodies. I fear that I have many a thing I would like to do with you, to you.”

I did not hide an embarrassed grin.

“And what of your own story, Marius…?”

Marius smiled, flashing the points of his teeth. “For the first time in a long time I feel as though my story can be left open-ended. And with you by my side it will make turning the page that much easier.”

If I did not have the growing hunger within me I would have dragged Marius to the ground and devoured him in unspeakable ways. But alas, the feeling was becoming harder to hold back, the want to race for the closest living thing to feed off.

I raised a hand, noticing the ashen tones that clung to my skin, and pointed towards Darkmourn. “I know where I want to begin.” Pinching an eye closed, I looked down the length of my finger towards the direction my home would be nestled within. “Leave the coven to me. There are many I would enjoy devouring, whereas some that I would prefer to stay untouched.”

Lamiere. I did not need to say her name to conjure a clear image of her. Although my memories from the attack were hazy, I felt deep in my core that she was not with Mother and her coven when they came for us. Just the thought gave me reprieve from feeling betrayed by everyone I had known in my life. Lamiere had always been different.

She would be spared.

“Jak, I will follow your lead. That is your world out there, and this has been mine. I feel foolish to admit, but I think that I would never have the courage to take the first step out there without you.”

I squeezed his hand, feeling the tingling of fire deep within my soul. “It is your world now too, Marius. Do not fear it. Make it fear you.”

Marius leaned down into my ear, his lip brushing gently across my skin as he whispered, “With you I will never fear anything. Not again.”

His words sparked the kindling of fire into a blaze that poured from my skin. Magic. Dark, burning flames curled against my free hand as we witnessed the pregnant moon crown over the town far below. My magic had not left me with death, not as I had expected. It was just as easy to call upon it now, as it had been during… life.

“If Mother could see me now… she would not be happy,” I said, raising the curling flames before Marius.

“Then let her roll in her grave and seethe with disgust. She cannot do anything about it now.” Marius smiled, flinching slightly from my power.

“I will prove that my power, although the cause of the curse that darkened your life, will light your way forward. I vow it.”

“Then let us destroy, raze and devour, my Jak,” Marius announced, speaking to the night as his own power shuddered the shadows around us. It passed over the moon, blocking out the minimal pearlescent light that kissed down upon us. “Then let us take it and claim the night as our own.”

I grinned, forcing my stare from Marius, my handsome Marius, back to Darkmourn. “Let us take it… together.”