AN: Hey, I updated. Can I get some feedback with this reading? inspiredthoughts@hotmail.com =) ************ Curiosity Killed... Chapter 34 *************** I’m not particularly known for my bravery, just my foolishness, but I’m also not a coward. I still waver before stepping up to Stephen’s grave though as I bite my lip. It isn’t that I can’t stand to see him cold and buried within the ground though. I wept enough at the funeral to know that his death, no matter how much it hurts, isn’t enough to kill me. Pity that. I’m just not sure that I can face his mother when I can barely face myself in the mirror. It’s hard to see myself and know that Stephen will never be there with me again. Will never pick me and squeeze me until I can’t breathe. Will never kiss my cheeks or tell me how much my life doesn’t suck. And I’m going to miss that more than words can say. Elaina doesn’t look up at me as I step up to her side. We’re nearly equal in height, standing in an empty graveyard, staring at a mound of newly turned earth. Her hand reaches out blindly to clasp my own. “I want you to know,” she says softly in a shaking voice, “that I will never regret you coming into his life.” My head snaps up in surprise and Elaina smiles wearily. “Oh Cat, we both know he never would have lasted this long without you. You’re the only thing he’s ever really cared about.” I open my mouth to contradict her, but close it just as quickly. Elaina laughs bitterly. “I know I was never the Mother I should have been, not when he needed me most. I didn’t get my act together until Stephen was old enough to be a stranger. I may regret that, but I always knew you were there for him. It didn’t really matter as long as he was happy, you know? God knows I didn’t deserve a second chance with him.” I remember too many drunken nights spent locked in Stephen’s room to disagree. Elaina is a good woman when it came right down to it, just never a good mother. “I didn’t protect him well enough.” She drops my hand and steps closer, until her hazel eyes are intensely commanding my own. “What… how he died. You know what did it.” It isn’t a question, not really, but I nod slowly anyway. “I… it’s best if I don’t tell you what.” The hazel of her gaze flames. “I don’t care what it is Cat. Just promise me, can you make it pay? Can you put it in the ground too?” I swallow as hysterical laughter bubbles up in my throat because she’s only asking if I can kill Lydia, the first of a line. She’s only asking me to risk the Council’s wrath and eternal damnation. It’s my own fondest desire. “Yes,” I whisper, “Yes, I promise.” I’ll put Lydia in the ground if it’s the last thing I do, granted it probably will be but hey, I’m okay with that right now. It’s not like I have a whole lot to live for anymore anyway. And Stephen is worth it. Howie and AJ and Brian and even stinky Nicky are worth it. Kevin is worth it, despite the fact that he doesn’t love me, damn him. They’re all worth it. Elaina nods grimly once, satisfied, and reaches in the pocket of her overcoat. My open hand trembles as she drops my engagement ring in my palm. I close my hand into a fist so tight I can feel the diamonds cutting into my skin. Stephen’s mother leans over and kisses my brow. “Good luck Cat.” We both know I’ll need it. ******************************************************************* The phone in my apartment is ringing as I slam the door shut. I pick it up warily on the sixth ring and sigh as AJ’s voice rolls over me like a wave. “Cat, child, you all right sweetie?” I drop my purse to the floor with a thud and sink bonelessly into an overstuffed loveseat in my living room. I consider my answer as I stare moodily at the ring gleaming on my ring finger. My voice sounds thick and strange even to my own ears as I say, “I dunno. I mean, I’m here right? And it seems wrong, you know?” I trail off. “I’m not supposed to be the one alive Aje. You know? I… We… Stephen always thought he’d be the one mourning me.” “I know Catling, I know. Where are you?” “In my apartment.” “Are, will you be okay?” I think of what’s to come and shudder. “Yes,” I say softly. I know he can hear the lie, but he doesn’t call me on it, bless him. There’s a hesitation from his end of the line before, “Kevin…” “Don’t,” I reply tiredly, “just, not right now.” It will only make things harder. “Not now.” He sighs. “All right sweetie. All right. Call me soon, okay, let me know what’s going on? Kev… we’re all worried and thinking about you.” “Thank you,” I whisper, and hang up. There’s really nothing left to say. It’s a first for me. ******************************************************************* “You didn’t tell him…” I look up sharply at the gentle condemnation in Dracula’s voice before returning to my curled position on the loveseat in my living room as the Prince of Darkness glides through my apartment and seats himself on my couch. I knew he would come. How could he not? He always has the best timing… “It wasn’t my place to tell him. He, they have to learn what it is to be Vampire.” Dracula flows off the couch like liquid silk, dark and beautiful and so pretty to look at. I avoid his empty gaze as he kneels and white hands cup my own pale face. “Is it your place to teach them to be Vampire? We believe in survival of the fittest.” I sigh softly and shudder as his cool lips find my brow and both my cheeks. They linger above my lips before pressing against them in a chaste kiss that chills us both. “If they survive it will not be because of my charity,” I reply, shaken by the kiss. I have forgotten what it is to be the sole receiver of Dracula’s affections. Never mind the whole murder of one of the three people in this world I love. Funny how the other two are immortal huh? He laughs and the sound is rich, dark, like something that crawls out of the shadows to brave the light. I wonder again how much Dracula misses the sun. I think I would miss it a lot. I think I will. “Sometimes I forget that you are as cold blooded as we, for all your life. You made Kevin Richardson my equal by making love to him, by submitting what you always refused me, but you conveniently forgot to tell him that he can demand nothing until he is my better. Pray tell, pet, what would make him my better?” I close my eyes against his laughter and the merry dancing of his vermilion eyes as I will the tears away. “Loving me back…” I whisper. Dracula has never held me as a lover. I have denied him that. But he loves me, loves me with all the heart left in his unmoving chest. I love him, as much as I’m able. I love Kevin Richardson too, the best I can, and he has held me in passion. Has seen the sun light my sleeping face. But he never dared to give me a part of himself. He never bothered to love me back. He told me so. I knew that was a risk, when I didn’t make him stop the seduction. I knew that I might love him without him ever returning it, and knew what it would come to in order to save them all. I’m the only girl in the world to fall in love with one of her kidnappers, the pompous one at that, and then have to protect him because he’s not cold-blooded ENOUGH. Lucky me. “Does jealously drive you to this?” Dracula asks as his thumbs trace lazy circles along my jawbone. “No.” My reply is honest and true. I am not punishing the Backstreet Boys, merely teaching them a lesson. “They do not understand the world that Lydia has thrust them into. Their ignorance will kill them.” “And you assume that I will not?” Dracula demands, amused. I shudder in response and his smile grows. “Will you preach mercy to me now, my pet?” The trap is inherent in his question and I laugh myself, the sound bitter in its truth. “I would not so presume. To do so would only be hypocritical. It is not in a Vampire’s nature to be merciful.” Dark brows rise in silent appreciation of my tact. I may be blunt but I know when to play nice, especially when permanent death is involved. “And what would you give me then in order to ensue that I spare the five men who have so successfully wormed their way into your affections?” I know what he’s asking, damn him, and I would hate him for it if I didn’t already hate myself. It’d be so easy to avoid this all… it would have been avoided if Kevin Richardson had simply bothered to love me back, especially since he made me fall in love with him in the first place. It’s funny how regrets can creep up on you like that. Stupid Mr. Dumb Pants. It doesn’t matter though, not really. I don’t know if I can abandon strangers to the whimsy of the Council, let alone men I have come to care for as friends, not if I can stop it. I know I can’t leave the Backstreet Boys to Dracula. Not without some reassurances. The Prince of Darkness will protect them though, teach them survival in ways I can barely fathom, or comprehend, if I simply give him what he desires most in the world. Besides, I have Lydia to consider and a promise to my dead best friend’s mother to consider. I close my eyes and sigh before replying, sealing myself to a death I knew awaited me the day a Vampire first drank my blood so many years ago. “I’d do anything,” I reply tonelessly, “anything at all.” “Very well, Catherine,” comes his breathless response as lips crash down upon mine with a passion that has been restrained for nearly three long years. And I finally accept what has been offered to me on a silver platter, if only to save five men I consider my good friends, one of whom is my lover. I wasn’t in time to save my fiancé. I’m not going to loose anyone else. Self-sacrifice is a bitch and well, the revenge is a perk.