If This Act is My Last
Chicago, Illinois, 1864
Back in the room that she had been sure she would never see again, Astra sat on the same chair as the night before and was once more lethally attacking Elijah the second he came too close to her. Even going so far as to try and entice her with a cut on his wrist or palm, Astra flat out refused to allow him to draw her in with the sweet smell of his blood a second time. She wasn't so foolish as the fall for the same thing twice. Until he promised to free her, she would rather let herself slowly die of organ failure.
"You are acting like a child," Elijah accused harshly, getting a deadpan stare from the woman on the other side of the room, her arms crossed and hands tucked beneath her arms to prevent him from taking her ring that had cost Astra her health in the first place.
"I was unaware that children sought freedom through death or fleeing for their lives," she returned, getting a nearly inaudible growl from the man that had silently and discretely dragged her back to the dreaded room he had paid for.
As blood began leaking from her ear, she ignored it.
Elijah, however, zeroed in on it and she could see his eyes narrow at her ignorance. The warm drop had already slipped down the curve of her jaw and was part way to her dress collar when Elijah had rushed across the room and reached for her throat, hoping to hold her still and force her to take his blood. She was fast from feeding on him the night before, however, and her own hand snapped up to take his throat in hand and her chin lowered to hide her paling neck.
"You are acting like a child," she hissed up at him before pushing the elder of the two back, glaring at him as she did so. Her dress was now stained with blood, and the trail that had begun down her neck was smeared on her skin and Elijah's palm when he narrowly missed his target.
"Just let me heal you, Astraea-"
"Stop that!" she snapped violently, rising to her feet in one swift, fluid movement. "Do you think that dredging up the past will make me change my opinion of you? Astraea died a long time ago, Elijah. Accept it and move on—better yet, accept and allow me to move on."
Elijah's brown eyes darkened to near black.
"You are mine, Astraea, and nothing will change that. You do not have to right to go back on the promises that you made-"
"That were built on lies!" she screeched as she interrupted, her hands fisting as though she wished to strike out at him, which could very well be true with her behaviour thus far. "All of it was a lie. We met while you sought to kill me, you knew exactly why I was sick and you kept it from me you selfish, greedy manipulative bastard."
Blood had begun to leak from her nose as she yelled, her eyes beginning to turn red as her anger brought for her vampire instinct to maim and kill. There was an instinct inside of her that was telling her to kill the threat to her person, but at the same time her heart hated every single insult that left her lips. With every syllable she yelled at Elijah, she felt pity for him at her own fault.
They were sure to be drawing attention from the guests in the rooms that were near theirs, but neither took a moment of pause to act as though they actually cared.
"You wish to speak of lies? What of the lies you told me?"
"Are you truly bringing that up? It wouldn't have changed anything anyway," Astra hissed back at the older man, her eyes held in a firm glare. "Things could have changed drastically if you had actually had the brain to tell me what the hell-"
Elijah's hand was closed around her neck and he had drawn her face up close to his before she could finish her sentence, stopping her from continuing her rant. His eyes still held a black appearance in his anger for her. Astra didn't allow herself to show the sharp pang of fear that bolted down her spine when his fingers encased her throat, but instead looking into those black eyes with defiance and bitterness.
"Go ahead," she hissed out instead.
He looked like he wanted to tear her apart, he really did, but at her words the darkness began to bleed from his eyes until he appeared at peace. His hand loosened on her throat, but didn't release her. Astra knew that the second she moved, his fingers would tighten again and keep her in place.
"I hate fighting with you," he mumbled finally, his once angered eyes taking on a sad appearance. Astra's heart constricted at the sight and she sudden felt overwhelming guilt from what she had put him through.
Letting out a sigh, she allowed herself to lean to the side slightly so that she put a kind of reassuring pressure against her hand. "I do not like it either, Elijah. But we do have a lot of bad blood between us-" she cut off at the look that he gave her, both amused and offended that made her smile ever so slightly. "Not your blood, not literally."
Before she had a chance to speak more on it, Elijah had leaned forward to press his lips along hers in a kiss so light it was a ghost's caress. Astra made a faint, pained sound in her chest at the feeling but didn't try to pull away or fight against him as she had been doing for the past two days.
"I beg your forgiveness of my transgressions, Astraea. I meant only to protect you."
The blonde woman fought the urge to sob as she lifted her hands up to gently frame his face with long, nimble fingers. The magic influenced ring was cold against his cheek, Astra's own fingers beginning to lose their warmth. Elijah's hand released her neck to instead slip up into her hair, cradling her skull as his lips descended to hers once more, with more pressure than the first.
The anger and hatred seemed to completely dissipate between them as Elijah pulled her securely against his body, revelling in her familiar softness. Her amethyst eyes closed in peace and tired happiness, blood seeping from her nose to glide down to their sealed lips. Elijah pulled back at the feel and smell of it, licking it from his lip as he looked down to the trail of red.
"Let me heal you, Astraea. If you ever let me do anything for you again, let me save you," he short of begged, gently messaging the back of her skull soothingly. Astra wanted to protest, she opened her mouth to do so, but no sound left her lips. Instead, her eyes fell closed once more and her head fell back to lean on his palm. Taking the silent invitation, Elijah bit down on his own tongue before he claimed her lips in a messy kiss that allowed the blood to flow from his mouth to hers.
Astra could nearly immediately feel the effects of his blood, healing the damage that had been done to her body because of the spell.
It almost made her forgive him.
Roman Empire, Stabiae, 78 A.D.
Astraea didn't want to say anything to Elijah, but for the remainder of the day she continued to feel the stabbing pains in her stomach at random intervals. The food that Rebekah had gotten for her didn't help in the slightest—in fact, it seemed as though the pain only got worse after she had eaten. Discretely, she made sure not to move around too much, taking the opportunities she had to sit down and rest, hoping the pain would not return again.
As the night drew in, Elijah guided her toward the inn that they were lucky enough to find room in. Many people were present in Stabiae at the time, mostly due to the curiosity brought about by the eruption in Pmopeii and the present trading. However, Elijah's family wasn't exactly short in gold or silver and they were easily able to 'find' a room.
"Are you sure you are feeling well again?" Elijah asked as they sat in the room that they would be sharing, the window across from their bed open to the cool air coming off of the sea. Astra smiled in assurance, though it was fake, and took Elijah's hands in her own to try and calm his worry.
"I will be just fine, Elijah," she promised softly. Elijah could see that her smile didn't reach her eyes, though, and it only worried him more that she felt the need to lie to him. Freeing one of his hands, he laid it gently on her cheek and frowned thoughtfully.
A knock on the door prevented him from speaking again, however, and Astraea felt a moment of relief at the interruption that saved her from having to admit to her lie.
Elijah hesitated a moment before he rose to see who had come to their room, leaving Astra to sit in silence as her hand drifted to her stomach. It wasn't in pain at the present time, but she knew that it was going to start up again at some point. Lifting off of the bed, she moved over to the window to try and get to some of the fresh salty air. Swallowing at the sudden dryness in her throat, she leaned against the cool stone of the window sill and rubbed at her neck irately.
She was quickly coming to the conclusion that something had gone wrong when she came back to life. Something that had to do with the act itself, or perhaps it was because of Elijah's blood. Looking over to the door of the room, she spotted Elijah standing out in the hallway, distracted with speaking with Nicklaus.
Leaning out the window, she knew that she could easily slip down to the ground below. Maybe getting away for a while will help her to clear her head, instead of constantly turning to Elijah for the answers to all her questions. Swinging her legs over the sill, she silently dropped to the ground before she had a chance to second guess her decision.
The sand beneath her sandals made scraping sounds against the stone walk that led down to the pier, the sound of the water a soothing and familiar comfort. Some men paused at the sight of her walking near the docks, but remembered her from that morning and didn't question her presence. She didn't stop until she found a place away from the clusters of workers so that she wasn't in the way and sat down to let her feet dip into the cool water, not bothered by her sandals still in place.
An irritating pulse began behind her eyes and she let out a frustrated sigh, trying to get the pain to dissipate by rolling her fingertips gently against her temples. Taking a deep breath of salty air, the aroma seemed to clear the sudden stuffiness in her head and she let out a breath of relief when the pressure against her skull began to clear away.
"Are you alright," a voice asked hesitantly from a couple yards away. A man was carrying a sack of wrapped fish over his shoulder, his tunic soaked through from the ocean water that was dripping off of the dead aquatics. "Pale, uhm…you 's a bit pale." His words were a bit clumsy, whether because of his apparent shyness or because he was uneducated she wasn't sure. He was still quite young, probably only just beginning this type of work professionally.
"Boy! I do not have time for your laziness!" A stronger, older voice yelled from the other end of the docks. Astraea jumped at the booming sound, scurrying to her feet and turning to face the man that was making his way down the docks with a quick stride. "Back to work!"
"Please, he was only checking on me-"
"Enough from you! Coming from that damned city, you probably brought the wrath of a God down on us as well," he growled out, turning to face her with fire in his eyes. Astraea was left shocked and slack jawed for a moment as she tried to fathom what she could have done to upset the man so much. She had never seen him before, but he clearly knew she was one of the group that had docked that morning.
"You are disgustingly rude," she accused, outraged that he would treat people in such a manner. The young man that had first spoken to her was still standing to the side, looking pale as a corpse and glancing quickly between the two of them, concern clear in his eyes.
The larger man, however, looked as though she had just outright spit in his face. "Snarky little bitch," he cursed in a low voice, stepping into Astraea's personal space. Her stomach cramped painfully in that moment, but she fought against keeling over in pain and instead held his gaze with defiance. She was used to the actions of drunks from Pompeii, especially when her father decided to be host to celebratory dinners, but this man did not reek of the drink and his language was far fouler.
"Sir-"
"I already told you to get back to work you rat, now off!" he snapped as his head whipped around to snarl at the young worker. The pale colour of his skin was accompanied by sweat a moment later before he gave Astraea a sad look and took off at a quick pace as he hid his face behind the sack of fish. "Stay away from my workers," he growled out as he turned to glare down at the Roman once more. She reeled back at the rank smell of his breath and the sight of his blackened teeth.
"He was questioning my wellbeing, nothing more-"
Instead of telling her off again, he shoved her roughly to the side to continue past her, the way that the boy had originally come from. She staggered to the side as her back went rigid at the feeling of something warm and wet come in contact with her bare arm. Looking down, it was streaked with a smear of blood that she was positive had not been there before. A glance to the man's hand confirmed the source when she saw the jagged cut on the side of his palm.
"Y-you are bleeding," she mumbled to herself, watching blood drip onto the wooden boards of the docks in an almost teasing manner. Come get me.
The worker barked a laugh as he lifted his injured hand to glance at the injury as though he hadn't even known it was there. "Afraid of some blood there, sweet?" he mocked, flicking his hand in her direction that caused more drops of blood to land near her feet. When she turned away, she wasn't sure what was going on. Her mouth went dry with a feeling akin to thirst and her stomach clenched painfully once more, as though she was craving food.
"You should…you should get medical attention," she gasped out, looking away from the sight of the blood droplets.
"You are a pathetic little brat, huh? Bet you have never even set foot in Pompeii," he sneered, getting in her face for a second time. Astraea wasn't sure whether to scream or cry, but as she looked back over to him, she felt her throat constrict at the sight of a speckle of his blood along his jaw. Come get me.
As she opened her mouth to speak—to say what? Back up before I bite you?—the man was suddenly wrenched away from her with superhuman strength, dangling pitifully from Elijah's hand. The man gave a shout of surprise as he was dumped onto the ground, a painful 'thunk' punctuating his fall when he hit the wooden boards. Elijah's eyes were trained on him with death in his gaze.
"What were you doing to my wife?" Elijah demanded in harsh Latin with venom on his tongue. The worker looked prepared to yell back at him, but with the appearance of Nicklaus at his elder brother's side, he went silent.
A soft hand on her shoulder drew Astraea's wild, wide eyes away from the men to where Rebekah was looking at her in concern. "Come, let us go back to your room," she whispered softly, trying to translate her words accurately. Astraea found she couldn't peel her body off of the wall that she had been so closely leaning against, her nails almost imbedded in the brick from her internal war. "Astraea?" Rebekah prodded gently.
"Something is wrong."
Been a while, and I'm sorry for that. But, good news, I've already got the next chapter written so I should be able to get that out really quick as well, as soon as I edit it.
Reviews, please! It's always great to hear from you!
Chapter 48 – A Curse of the Blood
The sickening part was that there was splattering of blood on the floor and the cabinet beside the door. The red stood out on the white tiles, stark and screaming. Blood smeared Astra's mouth and jaw, tears of salt water and blood alike streaking her face. She didn't appear responsive, her amethyst eyes blank and starting up at the ceiling.
She looked like a corpse.
"Is she alive?" Elena asked desperately.
Elijah had shucked off the jacket of his suit and was kneeling beside Astra, uncaring of the blood on the floor that he was smearing and staining his already ruined clothes with. His movements were gentle as he touched her cheek, felt for a pulse on her neck, and wiped the blood beneath her eyes. "Astraea?" he called softly, his voice thick with a Latin accent. When he spoke again, the words were foreign to Elena, but they reminded her of the spells Bonnie would cast.