30. Learning To Live Lies

To Lily´s surprise and luck William had told the truth. There never was a wedding night or anything like this. Sometimes he kissed her but she had learned to accept it soon enough. Though he never hurt her. It was the look in his eyes when she refused to kiss him that scared her so.

The years passed. It was in 1689 when Lily gave up every hope. William didn´t allow her to leave the cave once. But he also stayed there the whole time.

At night his arms were snaked around her waist from behind. It kept the two of them warm and was more comfortable than Lily had thought.

Still her eyes were locked on the dark sky for hours, looking for a winged creature she loved so. Will would have been a good husband. Gentle and caring. But still Lily couldn´t feel any feeling stronger than sympathy for him.

Turning her look back at the stone floor once more she laid her own arms on William´s. He mumbled something in her hair she couldn´t get.

"What?", she asked. She didn´t look at him but felt that it would do no good to do so.

"Accept your situation. It´s better for you." Although he couldn´t see Lily rolled her eyes. They had had this conversation many times before. "William, you know I..."

"And call me Will. And you know that I know Dracula doesn´t search you anymore. If he ever did", he told her. She knew that he could be right but she refused to believe it. "How can you doubt that? How can you doubt that I meant nothing to him?", Lily demanded to know.

Finally she rolled over to face him. And his face wasn´t full of anger as she had expected but filled with worry.

She could feel one of his hands rub her back in comfort. "It just isn´t him. I´ve been in his orders for many years before he turned me. I´m still wondering why nobody has noticed. Even his brides aren´t anything serious to him."

Lily smiled a little at that. It was finally something she had wanted to hear. "It was the same with you and Cassandra, right?"

It took a few seconds until he nodded. She noticed now that it was the first time they spoke of Cassandra.

"I just couldn´t be with her anymore after she got pregnant. The child in her lived until I made it die inside her. She noticed nothing of that but I couldn´t let her give birth to a vampire. No human had done it without dying during the birth..."

"So you wanted to protect her in such a way?", Lily interrupted him. "But bearing a dead vampire would have been just as dangerous!"

Will sighed in a kind of sorrow that was unfamiliar to her. "And it was. She died during the operation a couple hours before your burning."

Lily gasped. Hearing about that hit her hard. After all Cassandra had been her friend. Tears were already forming in her eyes when he continued: "She loved me just as I love you."

Looking up at him in surprise the salty water in her eyes disappeared. "What?... But... Will, why...?" Her voice trailed off.

"But deep inside I know you´ll never be able to give me that love back. Now I know how Cassandra must have been feeling towards me... Well, I deserve nothing better. I can´t blame you for that. In fact I´m not really immortal."

Getting everything he had said in the right place of her mind was very difficult. After she found her voice Lily opened her mouth but he was faster.

"I won´t age but I´ll die without being killed when my time has come. I think in exact two centuries."

His wife stared at him in wonder. She didn´t love him but she didn´t wish him death. So she would have to see him die. And Lily had hoped so much that she wouldn´t have to see anything like that again. But it just seemed to be the beginning of it all.