I have not updated in forever so I give you all free flaming rights for this chapter only.
GAH. have mercy...
Enjoy.
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Chapter 27: Plans
"You survived. I'm glad," the Count drawled slowly, giving her a full over examination with his eyes.
Terra stood, drinking greedily in the sight of her once sire. "Terra?"
"Hi-um- hello. I came- I need..." Flustered looking into his deep sapphire orbs, she looked away, rubbing the back of her neck. Deciding on being in control, she started again. "I'm not here to fuck around Count. I need your help. That's all."
"Oh, and what would you require of me? I thought you were finished with me." Her head whipped around to catch his fleeting smirk.
"Don't be an ass," she snapped. Oh god, your backtalking the son of the Devil. Good going idiot. Time to change her tune just a bit.
"What I mean is-" She walked towards the Count, stopping until she was within arm's reach. "I need you to um...bond with me." His eyes turned pitch black with a sudden ferocious anger and she stumbled away from him as he coldly turned and stalked away.
"No-wait! I need your help! You don't understand...it's because of Eleric-" Until then, she'd been running behind him down the richly draped hallway. The instant her sire's name passed her lips, Dracula stopped, a pillar of stone implanted into the marble floors.
Terra crashed chest first into the ... deliciously muscled back of the Count. Feeling heat flash through her face, she muttered a quiet apology and stepped back from him.
Control yourself! She wasn't here to relive the past. She would probably only need him once or twice and then she would never have to see him again.
Terra wasn't ready to be clamped under iron hands and stared down by pit-black eyes. Terra shrank back and met the wall, which only brought him closer.
"Do you have any idea how long I've waited to hear you say that? And to hear the reason for it... I won't be used and thrown away like some puppet," he spat, his nose an inch from her own.
"No, it's not like that! Listen to me!" She pushed him away with exhausted arms I've done research, I've gone to my contacts across Europe. They've all come up with the same answer for my 'ilnesses'. You know the one that Eleric left me with?"
Dracula visibly bridled, she could envision his fangs tearing flesh as his slender hands flexed at his sides. He folded his arms and snorted. "What of it?"
"I'm dying from it. These memories that I have- they're not mine. And that darkness we both felt? It's a curse he left in me- or something like that. I'll explain. Have you heard of unShine?"
"Hasn't all of the undead?" He responded curtly. He was not fond of unShine. It had an unpleasant knack of making him quite dizzy during flight.
"Of course they have. I'm just stating... never mind.There's been quite a few different versions of it- the earlier ones were all destroyed as you know. Except for the fourth version. Again- it was completely destroyed by the manufacturers- but do you know who originally made unShine?"
"..No. I do not. I'm assuming you do."
"It was Eleric. He was the only one with the original blueprints of all the unShine versions. He kept the fourth one secret because it has a side effect the First Covens wouldn't like. It takes away immortality. Aliana told me about it. You should know about it...I mean you turned her."
"I- I turned ... yes. I understand what you're saying. This has to be taken care of." But Terra could sense suspicious plots beneath his hesitation at the idea of him turning Aliana.
Had he not been her second sire? Or was there something else going on all together?
"But you must be tired now... the unShine problem can wait another day can it not? You should heal before we .. before I heal you properly. I'll show you to one of the guest rooms."
Terra trailed after him, feeling like she was wandering in syrupy plots left and right no matter how many loose ends she tied up.
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Later
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Terra lay in a silk draped room, splayed out on her stomach atop a canopy bed. Retelling her dreams and memories of unShine, her time with Eleric; what she'd talked of with Aliana and what Paris looked like now the schism was over.
Terra had finally come to a conclusion about the destruction of her home city, because now she knew what powers unShine possessed and what it meant for the vampire world.
And Dracula had agreed to her plan- with a few changes of his own. He had ,of course, at first refused to consider lifting the bond after she'd been healed- but she'd managed to get him to lift some of the finality on that point. Freedom was one thing she'd never give up no matter how badly she wanted to live.
As Terra lay befuddled and unhappy on her bed, she could not imagine the horrors the leaders of the immortal race had set on her trail- ones which were even now crossing the border into the forbidding territory of Transylvania.
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Oh gosh. Suspense.
PS: I came up with the most dramatic and upsetting ending and the best happy cliche one lol... now to choose between the two.
