To Vanquish Darkness (Le Sombre #1)

Chapter 9

9

1836 MORDELLES, FRANCE

T he biting chill of the night seeped into Amalie’s bones as she lay huddled on the rough stone floor wrapped in a musty potato sack she’d found in the corner. She’d stripped off her damp clothes the second she was sure Theo was gone.

She could only shiver to warm herself. There was the box of matches, but there was nothing to light besides the wood beams of the shed itself. Part of her wanted to shatter the oil lamp and allow the flames to lick across the fuel and shoot up to the thatched roof. To breathe in the smoke until her lungs seized and her heart stopped beating. But if a stake to the heart didn’t kill Theo, perhaps all she’d be left with was pain and char for the rest of eternity.

She didn’t know how long it had been since Theo disappeared—it could’ve been five minutes or thirty. Amalie pulled her knees closer to her chest, her breath blooming in front of her. At least her nose no longer ached. She’d always healed quickly, though Uncle Oren forced her to stay home whenever she hurt herself. A cut, a scrape, a bruise, it didn’t matter.

“You heal when you rest,” Oren always said. “You must be careful with your blood .”

Truthfully, she’d been glad for the excuse to skip her daily chores. She clung to her thoughts and memories, but they were sluggish, numbed by the cold. Eventually, Amalie drifted in shadows tinged red.

The creak of hinges slashed her consciousness, and her eyelids flickered.

“That doesn’t look comfortable.” Theo’s voice struck like a slap, and Amalie’s body tensed until her bones cracked. His shadow stretched across the room, and she squinted to find the source of the light. Another lamp. It sat on the rough-hewn table.

She flinched at a sudden clatter and pressed her forearm against the stone to gain her bearings, then gasped as the potato sack didn’t come with her. She scrambled to cover herself, but Theo didn’t so much as glance her direction. He was wholly focused on stacking wood in the ancient hearth across the room.

Amalie's fists clenched involuntarily, nails digging into her palms, while her heart tattooed the backside of her ribs. She clutched the rough fabric to her bare skin and shuffled to her knees. He’d come back. He’d brought wood for a fire. Briefly, Amalie wondered at the act of kindness, then quickly crushed her thoughts.

“Is this how it goes? You bite and then play friendly?” Her teeth chattered.

“Do you wish me to be your friend?”

Amalie bit the inside of her cheek. “Gods, no.”

“But you do wish to be warm?” He raised an eyebrow, and Amalie shot daggers at him. He was like a wolf offering a rabbit a saucer of cream.

Theo Vallon had created her. He only wanted to keep her alive until he could use her for his own purposes. That was when fear finally gripped her. She was alone. In the middle of the night with a creature who relished killing her kind. Nobody knew where she was, and her only friends thought her a monster.

Amalie shivered, then gritted her teeth and sat straight. She needed to work faster. Hours. Days. She didn’t know how long she had. “I thought vampires had to give up some of their own power to create another like them.”

Theo grunted but didn’t answer. He stacked the wood and tucked splinters of kindling between the logs, then reached for the matches he’d used earlier and struck one against the bottom of his boot. He tucked it against the kindling and crouched on all fours to blow on the tiny flame.

Amalie’s breath caught. The sight of his sleeves rolled up his forearms. The golden glow highlighting the damp waves of his hair. He was beautiful, and she hated it. She’d so rarely had a reaction like this to a man that it felt as if he were stealing more than just her blood.

She hated her fingertips for twitching to trace the line of his jaw. She hated her tongue for losing its ability to speak when he was standing in front of her. It had been over a year since she’d taken a lover, and here her body was betraying her.

Amalie willed her mind into submission. She didn’t want this attraction. She wanted an experience of flesh and blood, of heart and soul. Not of lust and glamour and darkness. She wanted to be filled, not swallowed whole.

Amalie wrapped her arms around her knees, as if to prove her humanity. At least for a few moments more. Her eyes stung, and as a flame took hold, Amalie forced herself to stay pressed against the frigid stone. She would not take his offering. She’d rather her toes froze off than?—

Amalie again flew from the ground and gasped. In a blink, she was sitting in front of the fire with the sack nowhere to be found. Her whole body seemed to be made of stone. She’d been— How had he?—?

How dare he touch her? Amalie curled into herself, her cheeks burning at the lingering sensation of his fingers on her skin, then realized she was sitting in front of him completely nude.

The shame only lasted a moment once she felt it. The warmth from the fire. Heat seeping into her bones.

She nearly wept at the relief and couldn’t force herself to search for the sack or scramble back to her damp corner. The crackle of flames consuming the dry wood filled the silence, and Amalie despised her own flesh for being so weak.

The scuff of Theo’s boots on stone sounded behind her, but she refused to turn her head. Let the monster look. She swiped the tears collecting in the corners of her eyes, pretending the smoke was getting to her. She wouldn’t thank him. She wouldn’t be a willing participant in his ruse to lure her in and gain her trust.

Unless . . .

Perhaps she should pretend to give it. Pretend she was grateful. If he thought she’d accepted her fate, perhaps he’d bring her into the fold?

The idea made bile rise in her throat. She could pretend, but he wouldn’t gain her trust. Not ever. No matter how many fires he built or how many times he swept her off a muddy road or freezing stone. She knew who and what Theo Vallon was.

Amalie’s stomach twisted. And she would soon become exactly like him. A cold-hearted animal. A killer. She wanted to weep.

Movement caught her eye, and she whipped her head to the left. “Don’t touch those.”

Theo held her trousers by the waistband. “I was laying them out to dry.”

“Don’t touch them.” Her voice shook.

His face was dispassionate as he set them on the table. “I didn’t realize you had an affinity for burlap.” He tossed the sack, and it landed next to her on the floor.

Amalie almost screamed, whether from the rage she felt at Theo’s comment, the knowledge of what she had to do, or the burning in her toes and fingertips as feeling gradually returned to her nerves, she didn’t know. She spun away from him and pressed as many parts of her toward the heat as possible, nearly whimpering at the pain.

Amalie’s bones ached against the bare stone. Breathe. She swallowed, forcing the venom from her tone. “How are you still alive?”

He had to be arrogant. Self-obsessed. If he wouldn’t answer questions about her, she could at least flatter him into talking about himself.

Theo grunted. “After you stabbed me, you mean?”

Amalie sensed his every movement behind her. “Yes.” She ignored the fact that most of her upper thighs were exposed as she shifted so the fire could warm the side of her body, like she was slowly roasting on a spit.

“My curse keeps me alive.”

Amalie didn’t have to feign interest at this. She turned her head to look at him. “Is your curse different than everyone else’s?”

He stared back at her, his eyes two shards of midnight. “No.”

“So when you became a vampire, you became immortal.” That thought filled her with dread so heavy she nearly dropped to her forearms on the stone. How could she live like this? How could she live like him? She could not be a killer. She could not?—

“Not exactly.”

Amalie’s eyes snapped to his. “What then?” She worked to keep her breathing even. This was it. If he told her why vampires weren’t fully immortal, she could take the information to Marcel and Olivie.

Theo leaned over the table, his shirt barely rumpled from the night’s escapades. Amalie shrank into herself, realizing for the first time how she must look. A feral cat hovering for warmth. When she turned, would she be beautiful?

“You will learn more once we leave this place.” Theo watched the flames curling against the stone.

“I want to know now.” Amalie’s heart picked up speed.

“Eager to attack me again?”

She nearly flinched. “Of course. As soon as my clothes are dry.”

Theo chuckled, and his smile created lines near his eyes that looked almost . . . kind. It was sickening.

Amalie spun back to the fire to keep her head straight. The effect he had on her was lessening, or at least she thought it was. Perhaps a consequence of whatever transformation was happening inside her body. That thought sent ice sliding down her spine. Time was slipping through her fingers, and he was dancing around her questions.

“There are very few ways for us to be released, and they have nothing to do with your stories.” Theo’s voice was clipped.

At the sound of his steps moving closer, Amalie snatched the sack off the floor and covered herself. “Then what do they have to do with, Theo?”

His eyes snapped to hers. “You know my name.”

Amalie scoffed, pulling her knees closer. “You shouldn’t be flattered.”

“Too late.” He pushed off the wooden table and strode toward the hearth, stopping in front of her. She had to crane her neck to see his face. The flames reflected in his eyes. “An answer for an answer. Why were you hunting me?”

Amalie ground her teeth. She didn’t have time for games. “Because you kill my kind.” The sack scratched her skin as she shifted her arm away from the fire. Maybe she should’ve let Theo lay out her clothes to dry, but the idea of him touching her underwear made her insides hollow out.

He waved her off. “All vampires kill your kind. Why me? Specifically?”

Amalie opened her mouth, then closed it. His voice sounded almost eager. She thought of at least ten answers that could work, including the fact that he was the one who’d passed her on the street that night, but settled on the truth. “Because you killed my mother.”

It was difficult to rouse the anger she’d felt earlier now that she was thawing out. Grief was strange in that way. Sometimes it filled her to the brim, and sometimes she felt nothing.

A muscle in Theo’s jaw twitched. “I didn’t kill your mother.”

Amalie glared at him. “I saw you. In the woods. You were covered in her blood.”

“I didn’t kill your mother.” Theo spoke slowly, his eyes sharp and focused.

“Then who did?” Amalie couldn’t look at him. The outright lie made her blood boil.

“I don’t know.” Theo’s voice was tight.

Was he pretending he knew nothing of her death? Amalie had seen his face, she’d never forgotten it. He’d been covered in her mother’s blood. Did Theo even know who her mother was, or did she blend into the thousand other humans he’d fed on over the years?

Panic rose in her chest. She couldn’t think about this. She needed to find her answers, then she could focus on revenge. Amalie drew a breath and tried to center herself. Her turn for a question. “If the truth about death for vampires has nothing to do with the legends, what does it have to do with?”

“I liked the way you asked it better last time.”

Amalie shot him a look of disgust. “Just answer me.”

“There is only one who knew the location of a relic, an ancient sword, that could release me.”

“Who is it?”

Theo stepped back and leaned against the table. “One of your ancestors. That’s why I didn’t kill you. Why I’ve brought you here. You’re going to help me find it.”