We Were Kings
When your world comes crashing down around your face, sometimes all you can do is sit there with a smile on your face and take it...
I knew it was going to happen, eventually. But I didn't see it happening so soon.
Not him; it was never supposed to be him. But hubris got to both of us in the end, leading us to believe that he was immortal, as long as I was by his side to protect him. I was supposed to die first, weaken the enemy so that he would then be able to rip and tear and kill. Heh—so much for the legendary grace of the vampires.
It was supposed to be me lying there on the cold stone floor, losing sight and life and maybe a little bit of blood, if I had fed recently. It was supposed to be me who fought the monster slayer and brought him to his knees as my master killed him with one fell swoop. All of that—supposed to be me, but wasn't. Because I was too slow, because the damned piecemeal monster had been kept alive, because the damned Van Helsing still had friends.
I stood there, on the rafters, unable to move, as the werewolf killed my lord, and then the princess. I stood there as the death-symbols were burned into my arm and my lord was once more granted eternal life, yet unable to move from the coarse, strong magic flowing through his veins, just as blood once had flowed.
I remember saying something, but I can't remember what. It was something to him, something for him, but the words never reached my ears. I had grown deaf, and only the voice of my dear count could shred the cotton filling my ears to pieces. But my count wouldn't be able to move for another year; wouldn't speak, walk, hunt; wouldn't thank me.
I vowed vengeance upon this man who had killed my count, whether it would take me two years or twenty, with or without my count. I would kill him, mercilessly, because he had mercilessly killed my heart. An eye for an eye, a life for a life; and someone to witness the exchange.
My count would have been proud, and I think he was, when he finally woke a year later.
We started planning.