SEBASTIAN
“If I do this, you will be mine. Do you understand?”
Perhaps the vampire queen’s words should have frightened me. Perhaps I should have stared into those dark, empty eyes and quaked at the reminder of my own mortality. The moment Queen Marguerite crouched before me, I probably should have told her to kill me.
But I didn’t.Instead, I nodded wearily.
A wolfish smile graced Queen Marguerite’s face, and I watched her from weary, pain-filled eyes.Reaching out, she ran a sharpened nail down my skin.
Her fingers were hard as she turned my chin, eyeing me carefully. “You know, I’ve been searching a very long time for a mortal with as much potential as you.”
I stared at her. I couldn’t believe I was even considering her offer. What would my parents think? My brothers?I supposed it didn’t matter. What good were thoughts of the past, now?My life as I knew it was over.
One thing was clear to me: I should have never left home. If I had remained with my family., I would never have found myself tied to a stake with my back ripped to shreds.
The queen’s nail dug into my throat. “What do you think, boy? I need to hear you say the words.”
I wasn’t a boy. Before leaving home, I had seen twenty summers come and go. But I supposed to her, I was as young as a newborn calf emerging from its mother’s womb.
“Just so I’m clear, Your Majesty, you want me to become like you?”
A predatory smile emerged on the queen’s face, and I caught a glimpse of her sharpened fangs.
“Not just like me. My son.” She raised a brow, her voice growing wistful. “It has been a few years since my last son died. I am finding myself in need of another one.”
My body tensed and alarm bells rang in my mind. “What happened to him?”
Her black eyes hardened, and I glimpsed violence within them. “He forgot how to listen.” She inched closer to me, shadows swirling around her hands. “If I provide you with this gift, will you forgo your pitiful mortal life, and doexactlyas I ask?”
I stared at her. She was offering me immortal life. A chance to be like her. The opportunity to live beneath the moon and be freed from the shackles of my mortality.
Why shouldn’t I say yes?
“Sebastian.”
A desperate voice called my name, but I could barely hear them. It was as though the sound came from underwater. Something was wrong. Everything was fuzzy. The lines between the past and present blurred as I tried to locate the source of the voice.
“Sebastian, look at me!”
That voice. It haunted my dreams of late. My fantasies. My desires. I moaned, struggling to open my eyes. Why weren’t they doing what I asked?
There was an urgency here, but I couldn’t seem to put my finger on where it was coming from. A strange scent filled my nose. An achingly familiar iron tang. One that I desperately needed.
Why did I need it? Why was I so hungry? My stomach twisted in a painful knot, and I groaned. I could vaguely remember that there was a reason I wasn’t eating properly, but I couldn’t seem to recall it right now.
“You need to look at me,” the voice said.
I shook my head wearily.
“Open your eyes, dammit!” they ordered. “You’ve lost so much blood.”
Blood.
That’s what the smell was. I wasn’t surprised. Not really. Ever since I was Made, it always came down to blood.
I groaned, “I’m so tired.”
“I know, Sebastian,” the voice whispered. “I’m tired too. But you can’t go to sleep yet. I need you.”