Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
He was with Valtu that first meeting in the new exhibit, eastern art, and he was there. After that we would go to the opera together, Van Helsing was like a chaperone to us, and then he was the best man at our wedding, and then he was my doctor when I was pregnant, and he took out the baby and—
“Oh my god!” I cry out, bending over and clutching my stomach.
“Dahlia, are you alright?” the doctor says, putting his hand on my back.
I need to get out of here. I’m Dahlia but I’m also Lucy and I’m also Mina and I don’t know what to do.
“I’m going to be sick, excuse me.” I push past him and hurry to the woman’s washroom on this floor, relieved when I find it empty.
I take the furthest stall and drop to my knees, vomiting up the negroni. It does nothing to stop the flood of feelings and emotions that pour through me, all the moments and scenes, the trauma, so much fucking trauma.
I throw up until I’m dry-heaving, then I flush and sit back against the toilet on the floor, my head in my hands, trying to make it stop. I’m dizzy and exhausted and I feel like I’m on the world’s worst drug trip.
I remember it all.
All of it.
I am Dahlia and Lucy and Mina.
I am three different women in one.
Three different lives in one.
And Valtu…
Valtu.
Oh my god.
Valtu.
He’s not some man I just happened to fall in love with.
He’s a man I’ve already loved.
I’ve carried his child twice.
I was married to him.
I’ve died by his side.
And he’s here.
I found him again like I promised him I would.
Suddenly I get to my feet and burst out of the stall, putting my head under the tap and rinsing out my mouth, then splashing water on my face in an attempt to gain clarity, and when I look back in the mirror I see myself across three different centuries, my outfits and hairdos changing and evolving but my face staying the same.
“Are you okay?” Margaret, the girl from my class says. I didn’t even notice her standing beside me at the sink.
“I think so?” I tell her.
Then I run out of the bathroom, needing to find Valtu.
I bump into him right away.
“Are you okay?” he asks me, holding onto my elbows, his eyes searching my face with concern.
Oh god, Valtu.
My lord.
I place my hands on his face. “I’m okay. I’m here. Don’t you see who I am! I’m here, I found you, I found you Val! I said I would!”
He looks taken aback, gently places his hands over mine and lowers them so that no one around is too suspicious of our relationship. “I was looking for you,” he says. “Van Helsing said you were talking and you suddenly got sick.”
I stare at him, giving my head a slight shake in disbelief.
Why doesn’t he…?
And that’s when it hits me.
It’s like what happened with the doctor. He can’t really see me. He’s never been able to. This glamor hides who I really am, and it only works on vampires. I look familiar to them but they can’t physically see me as Lucy. They can’t see me for who I really am because the glamor doesn’t let them.
“What color are my eyes?” I suddenly demand.
“What? Green. They’re green.”
“And my nose, I have this bump on it right? Right?”
“I love that bump,” he says quietly.
“And my hair?”
“Red,” he says, eyeing me uneasily. “Did someone slip something in your drink? What’s happening in your head?”
“You can’t see me?”
Now he looks concerned. He straightens up. “I’m going to take you home.”
“I’m fine,” I tell him.
But I’m not fine.
Valtu sees me but he can’t connect me to Lucy or Mina.
He won’t know it’s me until I lose the glamor.
But if I lose the glamor, he’ll know I’m a witch.
Specifically of the vampire-slaying variety.
And I can’t tell anyone, I can’t tell Livia because then the guild is going to come after me, knowing I’ve been compromised.
What was I saying earlier?
Oh, yeah.
That I’m fucked.
Chapter 22
Dahlia
I don’t argue when Valtu wants to take me home, but I’m only going back to his home, not my apartment. All that distance I felt between me and my slayer life, even before the evening started, has tripled.
He takes me by the arm and leads me down a corridor to the back of the conservatory where there’s a small dock with a bunch of boats tied up. He takes me to his and helps me in and then we putter off down the narrow canal behind the school until we get to the Grand Canal, passing through the mist and fog. If he’s worried about people thinking we’re heading off somewhere together, he doesn’t show it.
We don’t speak, letting the space fill with the sound of our motor, of the passing boats and vaporettos, the sloshing water, the music drifting in and out of different calles as we pass them by. By the concerned looks he keeps throwing my way, I know he’s worried about me being sick.