My legs carry me through the halls at a startling speed, the grimy dream still stuck to my skin. The space between my thighs is pulsating, both aroused and traumatized by what just occurred to me.
Nothing here makes sense.
I cannot tell what is real and what is not.
My paced walk becomes a jog, my bare feet slamming into the ground, making the soft satiny material of my nightgown billow against my ankles. The corridors and hallways are silent, vacated in the dead of night. The only reason I know that is by the clock reading 3 a.m. in my room.
Still reeling from the absinthe, I turn the last corner it takes to reach Samael's room. My suspicions are answered when I see two men on either side of the double-doors, guarding their master. I wasn't sure if he'd be here.
Seeing me coming, they try to block my path, refusing to let me inside.
"Let me through. I need to talk to him," I growl angrily.
"Mistress, he's sleeping."
"I don't give a fuck! I'm going to speak to him!"
They do their best not to physically touch me, only gently pushing me away. "Mistress—"
My temper is quick, set off by the tricks I'm sure are plaguing me. "If you don't move aside, I swear I will make you fucking regret it—"
One of the monstrous doors suddenly opens, revealing Samael, who is shirtless, wearing black pajama pants. His tired eyes squint as he pushes a hand through his mussed hair.
"What the hell is going on?"
I push off of one of the handsome guards with an enraged growl, and they release me when Samael holds up his hand, ordering them to.
"Come in, Cassandra."
I shoot the men daggers as I pass through them into his room.
"You will not bar her from any room here, do you understand?" I hear Samael say to them. "And you will not touch her again. Ever."
"Forgive us, master."
"Don't let it happen again."
My eyes sweep his room, dejected when I see the sheets on his bed are slept in, his pillow flattened. The door closes, and I turn towards him, on guard. Samael remains by the door, crossing his arms with a quizzical look on his face.
"What's wrong?"
"What did you do? What was that?"
"I'm... not following."
I begin to search the corners of the room, behind the bookcases, the standing mirrors, around the indigo curtain drapes.
Samael chuckles unsurely. "What are you doing?"
"Looking for a door."
"I have two in here. Both you just walked through."
I don't believe him. I can still feel the bite marks on my legs. I couldn't have been a dream. It couldn't...
"Cassandra, spit it out. What happened?"
I turn to look at him, eyes wide. "You were in my room."
He stares at me like I'm insane. "I've been sleeping..."
"No," I snap, holding up my hand. "NO. I know it was some trick, some fucking trick you're playing on me. Don't give me your innocent act now. Own up to it."
"I have no fucking clue what you're talking about, but it sounds a lot like you're intending to accuse me of something, so you better start with that."
My mouth opens, but words hesitate to come out.
It dawns on me how stupid they're going to sound, how delusional.
"Cassandra..."
"One minute it was Elijah... and the next..." I look down, noticing how badly I'm still shaking. "You were on top of me, holding me down."
He has the nerve to look appalled. "I haven't left this room, Cassandra."
"You want me. You're the devil. I'm sure you have ways—"
"I promised you I wouldn't force myself upon you. It sounds like you were lucid dreaming. It happens frequently here."
I glare at him warily. "You weren't in my room?"
He scoffs, clearly aggravated. Crossing the room, he removes a black robe from the hook within his wardrobe, and slides his arms through the sleeves. I become unsettled, embarrassed when I realize he's covering himself up from me.
"I've waited a thousand years for you. A millennium. Do you understand how long that is?"
He ties the sash as I stand rigid, unable to look away from him.
When he looks at me again, his eyes have hardened. "Do you honestly think I've waited all of this time to assault you? To hold you down and force myself upon you?"
"It felt real. It..."
"When I touch your body, I want to feel you respond to me. I want the connection... the yearning to come from us both. I have no desire to cheapen what we are to each other. I can wait."
He approaches me slow and careful, and reaches for my hand. Dazed, utterly confused, my eyes drift to his, watering. I cannot stop the rapid build this time.
I can still feel Elijah's lips, his weight.
He's gone all over again.
And I feel lonelier than I did before.
"I know how those dreams feel. I've experienced them too," he whispers.
I shake my head, refusing to let him see the tears. I already know he can hear them in my voice. "I... don't know how to process any of this."
He lifts my chin, smiling softly. "I'm trying to help you. If you'd stop assuming I'm a monster, it wouldn't be so hard."
Gently, he wipes under each of my eyes, and my heart clenches, remembering when Elijah would comfort me that gently. And when he pulls me in, wrapping his arms around me, I close my eyes and relax into it, embracing the affection despite the person giving it.
That kind of delusion lasts for a grand total of five seconds.
I tear myself from him and his warmth, stumbling back a few feet. The dark ambiance of the room suits him, gothic and mysterious. Seductive. His corruption is gluttony, masked in beauty. Or maybe it's not masked at all.
Maybe I'm just as glutinous as everyone else here.
Maybe I like it. Maybe I enjoy imagining I'm woven into the very existence of the universe, a key component, destined for a life where I'm revered, not feared.
Maybe it terrifies me how much I like it.
Samael recovers from my distance with impressive time, forcing a smile on his face, holding his arm out. "If you'd come with me."
"Where are we going?"
"You wanted to know how I could see you on earth. I'm going to show you."
I won't pass up that opportunity. I follow him, eying the guards with bitterness on the way out of his room. They don't follow. It's something I've noticed. Samael is usually alone, without escorts or advisors and yet, his home is constantly full.
His sleek robe moves against his legs as he weaves me through a journey, taking me to a room I've never been shown before. Like the entrance to the tribunal in Rome, it's doors soar upwards, going on and on, arched with stone.
Samael stops with a cautious gaze.
"I am the only person who has access to this room. No other spirit, soul, demon, has entered without my permission. The doors will not open for anyone but me."
"Lock code?"
He smirks. "A little more advanced than that."
He grabs my wrist, pulling despite my tension, guiding me to the lever beside the doors.
"Try it," he encourages.
I give it a go, expecting budging metal. Instead, the lever slides down with ease, and the doors begin to slide apart. I look at him conscientiously and he nods a job well done.
"Now this room is ours."
I blink, stunned he'd give me access to something so clearly top-secret. I slide through the opening doors with him and stroll to a stop to gawk at the throne room's spaciousness. The floor stretches both vertically and horizontally, formed in set stone. It's majestic, even in it's simplicity. There's the main floor, and two winding steel staircases on either wall that lead to a second, which is where Samael seems to be taking me.
"It's amazing," I breathe, marveling at my surroundings. The three-tiered candelabras, the chandeliers, the yards and yards of velvet draped against the walls. We pass under the three immense chandeliers strung one to the other, and the crystals dance against the light, shining against the floor and Samael's robe as he starts up the stairs.
"Do you have parties in here or something? This place is so empty."
"Rarely. We have other rooms for that."
"Bigger than this one?"
"Yes."
Damn.
The second floor is more lived in, complete with lounges and bookcases stacked against the walls. I walk to the desks nearest to me, observing the texts he has laid out.
"All of this is history," I state.
"It's the recounts of earth through the centuries."
"Recounts?" I reach for the book, but hesitate, glancing to him. "May I?"
"Of course." He plants himself beside me, grabbing another of the heavy journaling's, opening to the pages. "We have other ways of internalizing the past, but I'm quite old fashioned. I like to have the words in my hands... reminds me of how much I've done, how my guidance has steered the human world."
"So you're proud of the death? The wars? The hate?"
"The darkness we inflict brings meaning to their lives. Without it, they'd take it all for granted. Pain unifies people. It forces them to see their lives in a perspective. It's my duty to ensure they never desensitize themselves to suffering, and therefore, in kind, to joy and compassion."
"Does it hurt you... to hurt others?"
He chuckles weakly. "It did once. It's such a distance memory... I can barely remember it now. It made me sick. I cursed my brother, resented my work, the demons... Hell and all of it's inhabitants. It took time, wisdom, to appreciate my role in all of this."
"What is this?"
"Time. That's all any of this is. A never-ending circle of time."
I lean against the desk, closing the book, holding it to my chest. "Never-ending? The damn apocalypse has begun, Samael."
"That doesn't mean the world will not replenish itself. That doesn't mean evil defeats good. I am not evil. I am just the end to a cycle. I am change... and so are you."
"So, you're saying people will live again? The world will eventually return as it is now someday?"
"As it always has, yes."
"How?"
"That's for my brother to decide. He gives life."
"And you?"
He smirks. "I find a way to... complicate things."
Despite my better judgment, I can't help but chuckle with him. "It's sick that you're smiling about this."
"What can I say? I'd prefer chaos to order. Don't you?"
He sounds altogether too sane right now. I push off of the desk, intending to change subjects so I don't give him hope. Also so I don't have to admit that maybe I do see reasoning behind all of his heinousness. "So, is this what you wanted to show me?"
"No." He points to a tapestry, hanging from the wall. "That is."
"The tapestry?"
He rolls his eyes. "Behind it. Pull it down."
I shuffle to the concealed wall, feeling Samael's gaze roaming over my body from afar. Glancing back, as if he'd anticipated I would, his eyes are back on mine, waiting for me to move faster. I grab onto the soft velvety fabric and it swiftly drapes down into a pile on the floor.
I'm staring at myself in a mirror.
An oval, black-backed mirror the size of my torso.
I turn back to Samael, unsure of it's significance.
"It looks old."
He seems to be enjoying every second of this, knowing more than me. "It is... very old."
"Cool. I can hardly see myself in it though."
"Ever heard of scrying?"
My brain, an encyclopedia, searches for an answer to his question. "It's a medium where you can detect messages."
"This mirror can do much more than that."
I check it out thoroughly, becoming intrigued. "Like what?"
He appears behind me in the black mirror. "I'm showing you this because I trust you, and because I want you to trust that I never want to see you hurt. I can be reasonable. I have a heart somewhere in here."
He's making me nervous now. "Okay..."
"Do not abuse the privileges I'm offering. We still have a deal."
"I don't understand what you are getting at here—"
"Say his name," he says.
Mid-speech, I hang on the words, feeling his presence directly behind me. I gather my courage, the hope I'm trying to defuse, preparing for some cruel trickery.
"Are you fucking with me?"
He squeezes my arm, and backs up, giving me space. "I wish I were the monster you believe I am."
Almost scared, I stare into the mirror, knowing I'm anything but prepared to see him.
"Elijah. Show me Elijah," I whisper under my breath, touching the mirror with the tips of my fingertips, instantly realizing I was right.
I wasn't prepared.
It's been just over a goddamn week, and it might have well been months.
It's hard to see him past the wet swells of water in my eyes, tears of shock and longing.
He's sitting. Damien is behind him, tapping into a computer. I recognize the room. He's still in Rome. He is sharpening a blade, staring off into space. His brows are furrowed, crinkling as they always do when he's in deep thought. His hair is tied back, away from his face.
A man immune to the ravages of time, he is as perfect as the day I met him.
With the dream still so vivid, I cannot believe how much my mind remembers, how much of him is memorized internally. His marble-like features, his dewy flesh, his impressive build. Even smaller attributes like the curve of his throat, the shade of his lips, the texture of his hair.
"This is real?" I ask aloud, entranced.
"Yes."
A weak sound bursts from my mouth, a cry. I clamp down on my bottom lip to prevent the other observer in this room from hearing my desperation. My chest is already glistening with streaks of tears.
Elijah.
He feels so far away. Out of reach.
I remove my hand from the mirror fast and the image disappears, replaced by darkness again. I look down, shaking, unable to recover as easily as I may once have.
My head snaps aggressively towards the dashing man leaning on his desk, who strangely is showing no signs of condescension.
"What fucking game are you playing at?"
He shakes his head, calmly. "This right here isn't a game."
I gape, enraged. "Then what?"
"A declaration."
We stare at each other. It could be minutes. It could be hours.
When he finally speaks, he knows he has my utmost attention.
"It is possible to have two homes, Cassandra."
I spin around, scowling, roughly wiping my cheeks. "No."
"The heart is spacious. It has room for more than you are willing to believe."
"You're trying to trick me!"
"You seriously think I brought you here to trick you? That I'm showing you all of this with such trivial intent?" He straightens, scoffing. "I brought you here so that you could see him, see how much you've changed already, and how that isn't a crime."
He walks up to me, grabbing my arm. "I'm not asking you to forget him—"
"Good!" I shove away from him, blistering. My temper brings me toe to toe with him, gazing up into his face. "I'm glad you realize that. Because it's impossible to forget him. Because, in three months, I will leave you, forever, and return to him and all of this plotting will have been for nothing!"
He doesn't say anything. Doesn't move.
I don't think he can.
"I'm sorry you've waited this long for someone like me," I breathe, moving around him for the stairs. "If you knew better for yourself, you'd stop trying and realize I'm not the only person in the world for you."
I've reached the bottom of the stairs when I hear him answer. Not to me. Just aloud.
"Don't you think I've tried?"
I slow in my steps, uneasy as my eyes scale back to the second floor.
He sees me looking... hesitating.
I consider retracing my path, returning to him, apologizing.
But I'm frightened by that part of me, the persuaded part.
It's safer to continue walking. So I do.