Chapter 48

ELIZABETH

The thick summer grass was heavy with dew. I walked slowly, my bare feet enjoying each squelching step I took.

Above me, the full moon shone brightly, an array of stars scattered around it.

I had watched those stars twinkle in the distance for centuries, some disappearing, some appearing—an ever-constant array of dancing lights.

I had often compared my existence, our existence, to those of stars. Distant, bright, misunderstood, and dangerous, prone to violent, all-engulfing explosions, hurtling through space at incredible speeds, lethal.

Seemingly eternal, but they all died in the end, just like we would after watching generations of humans squirm their ways through their short, violent lives.

I stopped in the middle of the field. In the distance, I could see the Velebit mountains, their snow-capped tips glinting in the moonlight.

A light breeze swooped over the field, lifting my white dress to dance around my ankles.

It brought with it the scent of sunflowers, bowing their heads in the adjoining fields, the scent of the nearby highway, and the humans, fast asleep in their homes.

The ground below my feet was soft and lush. I crouched down slowly, placing my hands on the dark, damp grass, and digging my nails into the dirt. I could feel the different layers, the roots, the dirt, and the rocks.

I could smell a thousand years of scents. Layers upon layers of earth, roots, stone, ash, rotten wood, and the underground critters that slowly ate everything away.

Though I knew this was where he lay, I could no longer smell him—the only human man, boy, whom I ever loved.

Romulus Augustulus’s body had been laid to rest deep underground after his death. When I first visited him, I could smell him, his body slowly deteriorating.

When I returned a hundred years later, only the faint scent of his bones remained. Eventually, all scent, all trace of him completely disappeared, completely eaten away by the earth.

There was nothing left of him now.

My love for Romulus was something that I could never logically explain.

My love for Damon was deep, passionate, and founded in trust, longing, and joy. We had fallen for each other quite quickly.

We had met when I traveled with the Romans to his homelands in northern Scotland; though I was still under four hundred years old, I had known he’d be the only one for me.

And, incredibly, he had thought the same. I didn’t hesitate to set aside my crown and dive into his arms.

My sons, Angus and Demetrius, were born from our passion, and my love for them had always been fierce, undying, and violent.

When they had grown and married and had their own children, my love spread to their families.

But Romulus, I could not explain. I often thought it was because he was the last one of his kind. The last Caesar after centuries.

Or possibly it was because he was like me, royal, and raised with incredible pressure.

But children had been crowned before him and many after him. I never saw them the way I saw Romulus.

He was not especially smart, not particularly sweet-smelling, but he was alone, and he was mine. Never again had I felt that way about a human. He was my exception.

His betrayal broke my heart more violently and deeply than I had ever imagined it could.

Growing up, he had been a joyful, albeit very loud, child, with a mop of curly brown hair and the largest brown eyes. He would follow me around the court.

At the time, my family had been staying in Rome, and I had integrated into the Roman court. I would appear at night, to care for and tutor the boy.

After he was crowned, he came to me more often to seek my wisdom and guidance, as his mother had perished years before.

Our kind avoided being too closely linked to famous humans. We depended on their ignorance of our existence. Despite our long lives and strengths, we are, in fact, easily killed.

My presence in the Roman court had not gone unnoticed by my father, and he had sent for me to be taken away, despite my having already married Damon.

I was away from Romulus for only a few years during which I’d returned to northern Siberia. During that time, Romulus’ army was defeated, and the Roman Empire came crumbling down.

I immediately went to find him. He was still just a boy. He was being held by Odoacer, who was quickly slaughtering the rest of the Roman royal family.

Odoacer had been a short, thick man with wild black eyes. But a man, all the same. It had been easy to manipulate him. He didn’t kill the boy, but he did force him to give up his crown.

I took the young Romulus to Dalmatia, to this very field where a village of stone houses had once stood facing the Velebit mountains.

Romulus was much happier in Dalmatia, though as the years dragged on, he grew into a tall, wiry, and frustrated man.

One night, over a bottle of wine, he shared with me the utter desperation he felt at losing his empire.

Telling him he had only been a child, just sixteen years old, had not been a comfort to him.

So, I told him about my life, about being raised royal among vampires, of the hundreds of years of Caesars and Romans I had met. I told him what I was that night.

It was the first and last time I ever told a human.

When I went to sleep that day, I began to smell fire and smoke—our worst fear. The house beneath which I was sleeping was on fire in the middle of the day.

I flew out of the bed I’d constructed in the cellar and burrowed furiously deep underground in the dirt, like a worm. The blazing house crashed and burned around me.

When I was deep enough, I stayed buried underground all day, listening as the house finally tumbled to the ground in a pile of ash. The hot earth burned my skin.

When night came, I was half-dead. Heavy burns scarred my skin. I dragged myself out of the dirt into the moonlight, where Romulus and his men stood around waiting for me to see if I survived.

They held blazing torches and stood in a circle around the burnt house. They called me a witch, then attacked me.

Their flames came close, but humans are slow creatures. At night, without the fear of the sun, I had the upper hand.

Within minutes his men lay bleeding out on the ground, their torches burning the neighboring houses. I left only Romulus alive, staring at me with the widest eyes.

He was afraid but also angry. I left him that night and never returned until I heard of his death.

Since then, I’d returned many times to this spot, where he’d tried to kill me and where he was finally laid to rest.

I had not known of any other pureblood vampire caring for a human before Rose appeared with that baby.

I had never even spoken of Romulus with Damon. It had only been a small blip of my life, over a thousand years ago.

But that human Rose had brought into her family, fearlessly showing off her love for it, had brought up all my old emotions for Romulus: love, fear, and betrayal.

I did not want Rose to have to go through the same heartbreak as I, let alone so publicly. Seeing that child die at Rose’s hand had broken my heart again.

She had the strength to snuff out its life when I had not.

I stood up carefully. In the distance, the sun was rising, and I could feel its warmth in the air. Below me, the earth teemed with life.

I let out a heavy breath, then stepped away, skating over the field, away from the rising sun.