Eternal Kiss of Darkness

It was clear from her tone, scent, and body language that he was not invited to join her bathing activities this time. He wasn't surprised. He'd known she would confront him about the ghouls. He'd only hoped Vlad might not be within earshot when she did.

He supposed it didn't matter. Whatever his plans were before to end his life, they'd changed. He'd have to be forced into the grave now instead of embracing it as he'd intended before. Death meant separation from Kira, something deplorable to him. It might come soon regardless, but not with his assistance anymore.

Kira left the room after murmuring thanks to the young man, who bowed to Vlad before he walked away. Mencheres exchanged a long glance with Vlad. His friend had a knowing curl to his lips.

"From the sounds of it, you're in trouble," Vlad drawled.

He shrugged. "I have it coming."

Chapter 27

Mencheres waited in the bedroom he'd left Kira sleeping in hours before. Even though the hidden house inside the mountain was extremely spacious, it only had one shower, the water pumped from an interior well deeper back inside the dwelling. The shower was on the lower level, and the sounds were fainter, but he had heard Kira finish ten minutes ago, yet she was still not back.

After another ten minutes Kira appeared, re-dressed in the same sweater and pants she had on before, her hair still damp. She gave him a long, measuring look before she sat on the bed and then uttered one word.

"Why?"

He didn't bother to pretend ignorance about what she was asking. "For much the same reasons my sire had, I imagine. My line didn't need me anymore with my co-ruler to tend to it, Radje began spoiling for another fight, and I was tired. Furthermore, my visions of the future vanished except to show darkness approaching, so I knew my end was near. I decided to meet that end sooner rather than later, before Radje could conjure up charges against me that would ensnare my co-ruler as well."

Kira kept staring at him. "You forgot to mention that you were twisted up with guilt over your wife's death."

He smiled faintly. "I actually didn't realize that until recently, but yes. That also is true." She lowered her gaze. "I ruined your plans, didn't I? I crashed the warehouse, then you saved both of us instead of letting the ghouls finish their job. After that week we were together and you let me go . . . were you planning to let someone kill you again?" Below them, Mencheres heard Vlad grind out a curse, but he ignored that and kept his attention on Kira. "Yes. I still intended to, once another opportunity presented itself." A tremor went through her, but she kept her head lowered, looking at the part of the blanket she crumpled and uncrumpled in her hand. On the floor below them, something smashed into a wall. Neither one of them reacted to that.

"And now?" she asked, her voice so soft he could barely hear her.

He wanted to go to her. To press her to him and promise they would never be parted, but that would be a lie. Instead, he'd give Kira the same unguarded honesty she'd shown him throughout their time together.

"No, I don't want to die now, but death comes for me regardless. I told you before that I wasn't long for this earth, Kira. It is not by choice, but my fate remains the same." Her head snapped up at that, her eyes sparkling with pink unshed tears. "bullshit. I don't believe you're fated to die any more than anyone else is."

He was used to his visions being questioned. Few believed in them until they'd seen them come to pass, and even then, some still doubted.

"My visions are never wrong." How often he'd wished they were.

"You ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy?" she asked, jumping from the bed to stand before him. "It's when people believe something so deeply that they do things to make it happen. Maybe you saw this darkness in your future because some part of you had already decided to throw in the towel, but your consciousness hadn't acknowledged that decision yet. So when you looked, you saw death in your future because, subconsciously, you'd already decided to kill yourself."

He shook his head. "I looked again after I wanted to live. Nothing had changed. The darkness was still there, even closer this time."

"But that doesn't mean it's inevitable. Okay, you changed your mind about killing yourself, but because you saw death when you looked before, you're expecting to see it again. And then you do, so you don't even bother to fight to live, making death that much easier to sneak up on you when Radje pulls something. It's just more of the same self-fulfilling prophecy you need to snap out of, damn it!"

Mencheres almost smiled. No one else had ever told him to snap out of his visions before. "I wish it were that simple."

"It is." She seized his arms. "You trust your visions implicitly, but when did you lose the ability to see past the darkness you're talking about? There's something else that might be going on. Survivor's guilt. You're all messed up over what happened with your wife.

You blame yourself for every death she caused plus your part in her demise, so you might not see a future for yourself because you don't believe you deserve one."

"My visions cannot be altered due to emotional distress," he answered.

"Says who?" Kira replied sharply. "Just because it's never happened before doesn't make it impossible. After Pete died, I went to some group-therapy sessions to help deal with what happened. One guy whose family died in a car crash after the other car ran a stop sign all of a sudden couldn't see the color red anymore. Just couldn't see it! And yet you've blamed yourself for probably dozens of murders your wife committed, plus her death, yet you don't think that could freeze or alter your visions? The mind is an extremely powerful thing, and when it's paralyzed by grief or guilt, it can mess up just about anything."

"Kira . . ." Mencheres did not know what to say. He'd expected some form of denial from her over his fate. Sadness also, but this flat defiance that what he'd seen was not going to happen was somewhat startling.

"You've been through hell," she went on in that same intractable tone. "I'm sure I don't even know half of it, but I do know it would have broken most people. It almost broke you, too, because you were going to kill yourself, but I'm telling you that you are not doomed to die soon. I'd feel it if you were, just like I did with Pete, Tina, my mom, and even myself that night with Radje. Yet all of my instincts are telling me that you and I are long term, which means you'll be around. No matter what darkness you're seeing now." She'd almost rendered him speechless again. Kira was barely thirty years old. How could she think her instincts were more accurate than over four thousand years of his visions?