Part 22 (2/2)
”You what?”
”All I ever wanted was a normal life,” she whispered. ”A family, a home.”
She turned and started walking away.
”Get back here, I am talking to you!”
She ignored him. In a rage, he was suddenly before her, pus.h.i.+ng her back against the wall with tremendous strength. She fought him, but he was very powerful. Flush against the wall, she suddenly discovered that he had a very sharp knife against her throat. ”What is it? What is it about me? Lucian forced you to him, and you remain friends. Should I not do the same? Force you with the superior strength of a mult.i.tude of decades? Force you to learn, to see what you are! To see that we are as necessary as hyenas, vultures, buzzards, wolves? Look around you- the world is a cesspool, and there are many who would welcome a kiss of death!”
”Let me go, now.”
”I could kill you. Sever your head.”
”Then Lucian and others would be forced to destroy you.”
”Lucian is king now, but I grow more and more powerful! Lucian has lost his blood l.u.s.t, and thinks that he can form us into a society of scholarly intellectuals! Hah!
Lucian will fall from his mighty pedestal, because we are animals. As men seek cattle, we seek men.”
”Let me go!”
At that moment, Peter came out of the pub, calling her name. ”Megan?”
She was suddenly alone in the swirling fog. She hurried to Peter, explaining that she had thought she heard a cry in the streets, but she had been mistaken. They started walking, seeking a cab. They heard the clip-clop of horses' hooves, but the fog had risen so high they couldn't see. ”I'll just look around the corner ...” Peter said.
Megan waited. Waited and waited. Peter didn't come. In terror she began to look for him.
Forty-five minutes later, she found him, slumped against a building.
She instantly looked at his throat, and leaned back, breathing far more easily. He was clean. She was about to seek a.s.sistance when he groaned and came to. ”Megan. . .
sweet Lord, Megan, I left you alone in this awful place and I... I just blacked out! What is wrong with me? Too many hours? Am I losing my mind?”
”It was a blackout, Peter, nothing more. Come on, it's nearly morning. If Laura wakens, she'll be worried.”
They went home. The light had come. It was early morning; the sun rose. She slept deeply, then felt a summons with a power unlike anything she had experienced in years. And she suddenly found herself before Lucian, who was in a cool, regal fury.
Aaron Carter was there as well. She was grateful to realize that Lucian's fury was directed at Aaron. ”You tempt fate with the games you play, Carter. Throughout the centuries we have made our rules, and the first is that we let each other live our lives as we choose- and keep our distances. Leave her be. The world is a vast place when we realize that we are perhaps no more than a few thousand, and the world is so very large.”
”We could be so many more!” Aaron argued.
Lucian shook his head. ”If there were no rules, there would be no food!”
”Lucian! You are a fool, thinking you can turn lions to lambs!” Aaron told him.
”The lions perish if they eat all the lambs! We are prey to the balance of life like all creatures; the laws were written by the ancients, creatures before even my time! And my preferences are none of your concern, except that you are the fool if you can't see that the world is changing. Perhaps not this decade or the next, but each year the world inches closer to a higher technology, and if we do not learn to live with it, we are doomed. I warn you, don't let this quarrel affect our world. And remember! If either of you truly seeks to destroy the other, you will be condemned by your peers en ma.s.se, and h.e.l.l will be all that awaits you-should those fires indeed exist.”
Aaron lashed out furiously. ”You took what you wanted, Lucian! Why can't I?”
”Each new being must have a teacher; I was that with Megan. She has learned. She has made her choices; she is an ent.i.ty in her own right.”
”Indeed? Because you have had what you want, Lucian? Because you call yourself king?”
”I am king, because I know the difference between desire and excess. I have survived, because I know that there are boundaries of sanity, even in our world. Would you test me, Aaron? Would you come after me? Come- come take me on!”
Lucian spoke quietly. He lifted his hands, his lip curling, and he invited Aaron to provoke battle between the two.
”The day will come, Lucian, I swear it.”
”The day will come when your s.a.d.i.s.tic excesses bring about your destruction.”
Aaron swore vociferously, and stared at Megan. He pointed a finger. ”You, too, will have your day!” he promised, and he disappeared then, into a swirl of spiraling mist.
Lucian shrugged.
”Well, he is gone. For the time.”
”Thank you,” she said softly.
He nodded. ”I have a soft spot for you, you know. Even if you so foolishly prefer mortals. The time will come when you realize it isn't to be. And then I'll be there.
Waiting.”
She laughed softly. ”Waiting- with your harem.”
”Ouch, not fair.”
”Absolutely fair.”
”I still love you, you know.”
”Lucian, in your own words, you don't believe in love. You l.u.s.t for me- but only for the seconds it takes you to find new entertainment.”
Lucian laughed. ”Perhaps. Still, I do have that fondness for you.”
She hesitated. ”Lucian ...”
”What?”
”Alec ...”
Lucian arched a brow. It had been a very long time since she had mentioned Alec.
”Yes?”
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