Torn Asunder

Chapter 16 Valentine

A/N: Look to the picture on the side ---> I'm thinking of casting Chris Pine for Dante instead of Sam Worthington. What do you guys think?

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The body I was wearing had been a vampire when I woke up this morning, but as my Dante's heart continued to beat, I could feel the flush of mortality start to tingle under my skin. Worse yet, I knew that the vampires around me now knew that there was something undeniably wrong with me; namely that I wasn't Dante even though I was wearing his body.

I felt someone stroking fingers across my cheek but I had still not regained control of the body I wore. My eyes were burning with the need to blink and even that was beyond me, helpless to even move the eyeball in it's socket. It was a claustrophobic feeling, I have to admit. My soul was rather used to my own body, but it had adpated rather well to wearing my twin's body. This new development however, was exceedingly complicated and now my soul and the flesh I wore weren't talking.

It occured to me that maybe this was my chance to get back to my own body when this overwhelming horrified terror hit me from my Dante and my soul snapped back into the body and I screamed. Red swam across my vision and I felt like chunks were being torn out of my body and I was being ripped apart. I screamed again, hearing a strange overlap of my own, feminine voice in Dante's husky howl of despair and pain. Something was happening to my Dante and there was absolutely nothing I could do to help. Our strange symbiosis was starting to quake and shatter under the onslaught of whatever was happening to him and I could only hope we were strong enough to endure this together because it was clear as day that we were not capable of dealing with this apart.

Acid lanced through my muscles and veins, tightening and cramping every sinuous fibre in my body, choking off my scream as I arched back in pain. My eyes rolled into the back on the skull I wore as images flashed past that made no sense and held no meaning to me. There was a strange Italian man above me, hands wrapped around my neck while he did unmentionable things to me. The eyes in my skull rolled back the right way and I blinked at the blurry shapes the vampires around me had become. I had no clue where I was anymore, or how much time had passed since my strange fit started. Before I could clear my vision, another strange hallucination grabbed my attention. I felt the body I wore fall to it's knees as the body I wore in my head was chained, naked to a bed. At my feet was my best friend Luka and he looked very wrong. Before I could put my finger on what it was that was wrong with him, I felt someone slap my cheek and I focused on the here and now of the body I wore. At least I tried to.

We were back in the vampire den and I was laid on the floor of Lucretia's bedroom but this time I wasn't being ridden like a mustang in a derby. Above me Lucretia lined up another slap and I weakly tried to stop it. If she'd been a human with that much momentum, I still would have worn that slap. Instead because she had a vampire's inhumanely fast reactions, she stopped her hand well clear of my face.

"Who are you?" she demanded and it was then that I realized I was tied up. Not like in the strange vision, although I was naked I was bound with my hands behind my back and my ankles tied together with what looked like delicate spiderwebs but felt like razor sharp garrot wire. It burned my skin with it's sharp kiss and I could feel the hot trickle of blood from the wounds. I struggled to keep still and not dig the painful bondage in deeper.

Before I could fumble my brain into working order and spit out a response, I drooled a little more blood onto the carpet and she kicked me in the stomach. It hurt but I still didn't feel wholly attatched to the body I was wearing. Instead of comforting me at the thought of returning to my own body, I suddenly felt terrified that it might be because my Dante is dying. I didn't think I could survive knowing that it had cost my twin his life, and I felt shame burn me as I knew part of me was terrified at surviving but trapped in this body. Another hallucination tried to mob my attention but I resisted the pull of it and wheezed around the pain Lucretia's blow had caused.

"Worm, tell me who you are!" Lucretia flooded my body with fear and terror and I jerked against the bonds instinctively, making me scream hoarsely in pain. My sight bled grey and the hallucination I'd tried to fight off before stole me now.

Luka had cold, waxy hands wrapped around my ankle and his mouth hovered over my toe. I felt the pressure of teeth aroun my toe and screamed as pain radiated out as he bit down. I was screaming in the real body I wore as I opened my eyes and finally Lucretia cut the bonds away so I could weakly flail on the floor.

"I...I'm...Dant-Dante's sister." I wheezed, trying to suck in breath but it seemed like the heart in the chest I wore was once again dormant. I gasped like a fish out of whatever before I realized that Dante's body still didn't really require one anymore. "I'm Valentine, Dante's twin sisiter." I spat out after a couple of minutes of frantically trying to not freak out even more while I calmed down. It was a conundrum but dammit that's how I roll sometimes.

My words seemed to stun the room silent and I looked around at the other vampires surrounding me. Isabeau and Lucretia were huddled together, seeking comfort in the touch of the other, curled around their mutual confusion. My Dante's so called friends were gaping at me in astonishment as they tried to wrap their minds around the fact and I was greatful that the rest of the house was kept away. It meant I didn't have a hundred or so fanged leeches staring at me in stunned shock.

"What happened to Dante? Where is my Childe?" Isabeau demanded, stepping away from her Master to run her hand into my hair so she could yank my head up for her to examine closely. I was still too weak to even alleviate some of the pain this angle caused me.

"MY Dante is in my body, safe." I spat, wondering just how true my words were with the hallucinations I'd been having. "MY Dante is where you can't brainwash him anymore." I added smugly, and just because I was the biggest idiot in the world, my stupid mouth had to go and say, "MY Dante is with the Mercy coming to kill your ass." Instead of seeing alarm in her eyes at my words, I felt my stomach fall into a bottomless pit as she smirked at me confidently.

Behind her Lucretia laughed and came to loom over me, grinning. "Well then, I know exactly whom I need to call to fascillitate a trade." she taunted and then knelt down on my other side. I had the two women I hated the most crouched over me and I wanted to kill them both. It burned in my blood weakly, faintly evoking the domant Hunger. But her words meaning sunk in and I felt the blood drain from my face. "Salvatore took over the Mercy years ago my darling slave and he has a secret. He was dying of AIDS when I strung him up with a cure. The deal being that he and his no longer hunt me and mine. You, my fine little idiot, aren't going to be rescued at all." with those words she slapped me and stood up.

I felt a fine tremble start in my hands and slowly spread up into my arms. It wasn't just fear making me shake, instead there was something in my belly that churned and frothed with an emotion I couldn't name. It didn't feel good but it did feel powerful and I was more afraid of the emotion in my gut than I was the vampire queen standing over me. One would just kill me, the other would destroy me forever.

"I want my Dante back. Change back now." Isabeau demanded of me, lips pouting and eyes cruel.

"Your Dante? YOUR Dante? He's MY Dante. He is MY twin. You are nothing more than a harlot who lured him in and ripped his throat out. You are a disgusting LEECH!" I screamed at her, body weak but that horrible wrongness in my gut giving me the strength to say my mind anyways. "You gave him up to the queen suck face without a fight, you don't care a single fucking bit about Dante. You just want a pet that can fuck you sensless whenever you want and be out of the damn way the rest of the time." My body shook now and I couldn't hold back the darkness crawling it's way from my gut, up my throat and crushing around my heart. I felt cold inside and my worry over this strange emotion faded, forgotten as soon as I lost my will to fight against it.

If the vampires in the room had been paying attention to the body I wore instead of who I was inside and the words I was saying, they would have noticed that my temporary brush with mortality was over with. THe wounds I'd been given were healing and the strength had returned to my muscles. Around me the golden tint showed me which vampires around me were actual threats and which were just passive, useless obstacles. They were all in my way. I needed to get to my Dante and these fools were trying to stop me. Instead of crushing the Hunger down, I called to it, summoned it forth and let it fill me up, writhing just under my skin while I smiled a feral smile. If they had been paying attention they would have seen the predatory gleam in my eyes and my fangs in full, blood thirsty display. But they were complacent and weren't paying attention to me, and soon I would rip them all to pieces and hunt down the other half of my soul. If I had to go through the Mercy and my own friends to save him, so be it.