Chapter 18

Author's Note: This POV is a continuation from the bonus chapters of "Night the Vampires Came."  It isn't necessary to have read the bonus chapters to enjoy the story. If you want, you can skip to Chapter 20 to return to Grismal & Melody's POVs. 

-Blake "Oslen" Thorne-

"Blake? Is that you?"

Oslen turned at the sound of that voice. It was though his body recognized that sound even before his mind fully comprehended that she was alive.

Melody was alive.

He could barely see her in the darkness of the caverns. There was a flash of her white-blue eyes and then felt the reassuring weight of her body up against his. She buried her face in his chest and muffled her laughter with his shirt.

"You're really—"

Before she could finish, his lips found hers. Oslen picked her up with both hands and kissed her until she was struggling to catch her breath. Suddenly, his chest didn't ache anymore. His ribs felt perfectly fine even though she had her legs wrapped around his waist. Briefly, it was as though they had been transported back in time to their teenage selves in that ballroom in Manna City. He was holding her as he dreamed of doing back then if only he had the courage to give into his most secret of desires.

Since then, he had experienced the many drawbacks of growing old, but the one silver lining was that the woman in his arms was his wife.

Oslen didn't have to say a word to her. There was no need to apologize. He could hold her and kiss her without having to explain why he needed it. Her hair was falling over his face, and her scent was intoxicating. Melody smelled of the crisp night air, of the wind blowing through the wisteria trees that she so loved, of the scent of jasmine she sometimes dabbed behind her ears, but most of all, she smelled of home.

She was the only home he had ever wanted. Not Mearnox, this enchanted graveyard that his mother left him to watch over, or Manna City, this island of skyscrapers doomed to fall by its own greed.

He wanted her.

"You nearly scared me to death," Oslen whispered. He finally stopped to catch his breath. There was nothing he wanted more than to continue, but there wasn't time for that.

Oslen's eyes went back toward the entrance to the caves. The doorway had disappeared.

Damn.

He knew there was no way out once he stepped over that threshold between worlds. But his wife could not stay here. Melody needed to leave.

"The devil exists, and he knows you're here. There is a palace just ahead," Melody whispered and put her weight back on her own feet. She fell back a step and fixed her disheveled hair. "Grismal."

"Yes, I know," Oslen hissed through clenched teeth. Although he was elated to see that she was alive, his joy was dissipating with each passing second. This situation was far from ideal. She wasn't supposed to be involved in any of this. "No one enters Mearnox without his permission."

"No, not his permission," Melody replied and drew the Blood Star from the folds of her cloak. "My permission. I was the one who opened the doors to the City of the Damned."

"What?" Oslen felt as though his entire body was numb with shock. "Melody, you know —"

"I know. I wasn't supposed to lay my hands on it," she whispered and came close enough for him to feel her breath against his neck. There was very little light in the cavern, but he saw only the dimmest outline of her furrowed brows and tearful eyes. "Let me destroy it for you. I can walk it into the sunlight."

"No—NO." Oslen was done. He didn't care to continue this conversation. He tried to snatch the gem out of her palm, but his hands came away with nothing but air.

The gem had attached itself to her.

No one could take it from her.

What had Grismal done to her?

Could it be undone?

His wife wasn't the one who the Reaper wanted. It was him all along. No! This wasn't how any of this was supposed to happen. There must be a way to extricate her from this trap. He suddenly didn't care about saving the world when it meant losing her in the process. There must be a way to save her. He would barter with this Grismal, fight him, kill him. Die in the process, destroy the entire realm. It didn't matter, not anymore.

"Stay here. There must be a way to open that door. Wait here for me," Oslen could barely see in this low light but he headed in the direction of the sulfuric fumes. He didn't get far. Melody caught his arm.

"Wait! Blake, listen to me. You don't need to face him. We can end this now, right here. You don't have to die."

Oslen clenched his jaw. There was so much he could have said in response to that. He had long since accepted that people who had committed the kind of crimes that he had, didn't get to escape life's consequences, whether in this life or the next.

He yanked his arm out of her grasp. This journey to hell should have been his alone.

The path through the cavern opened up to the rest of Mearnox. As the walls of the cave gave away to the empty sky, Melody blocked his path. There was more light here, and he could see her dirt-stained face and pleading blue-white eyes. Melody was holding the gem with both hands as though she was afraid of dropping it. Didn't she know it was now a part of her as surely as her own beating heart?

"Our children need you," Melody said. "They've always needed you more than they need me."

"Our children?" Oslen snapped and could barely believe they were having this conversation. "I nearly murdered our son because he kept your secret from me. As for our other child, I can promise you he'll shed no tears for my fate."

"You weren't too hard on Orion, were you?" Melody's pleas suddenly turned into accusations. Still, at a time like this, she was ever the protective mother. "He only kept the secret because he loves you. Because he didn't want you to die. And listen to me, please, neither do I."

"I ordered you to stay out of it. Orion's a child, but you should have known better, Melody. I confided in you. I trusted you." Oslen shook his head and struggled to repress the need to shout at her. Even though he managed to keep his voice down, his grief overwhelmed him."God, I was so, so very wrong."

"Blake, wait."

"No," Oslen hissed and stepped past her. She wasn't wearing shoes once again. He noticed that her body was laced with purplish bruises in various stages of healing.

What had happened to her here?

The rage was blinding him more surely than the darkness.

Melody shouldn't be here. There was no reason why she had to take part in any of this. He never should have brought her into this cursed family.

From the beginning, he should have left her alone.

Now, she was going to die here. The fault was entirely his.

Why was it that the one person who wanted to accompany him to the very end was also the one person that he least wanted to be here?

An explosion of blue fire erupted around him as he approached the dark towers of a foreboding palace. The place seemed to have been woven out of nightmares. Its steeples and spires melted and merged with the reddish sky. It was as though the rocks forming the structure were alive with ill intention. Demons appeared around them, but they scurried away as Melody's fire carved out a path before them.

Oslen had to wonder if she insisted on accompanying him to keep him from being devoured by monsters on the way to Grismal's hideous lair. He could have dispatched those demons himself. But it would taken far more time had she not come along. Her gift was always the stronger one when it came to combat.

She knew that.

Melody. Orion. Renat. They were all trying to keep him alive. After all this time, he didn't even need to ask. They simply did it. His mother might have been a goddess and his father a giant among mortals, but they left him with nothing but snakes out for a pound of flesh.

In his life, he had built relationships with those who remained devoted to him even at the end of times. Perhaps he was not such a foul excuse for a human being after all. As the doors of the palace appeared within eyesight, Oslen turned to Melody. This could be the end. He didn't want their last words to each other to be those of anger. He reached out and stroked her cheek, even though it was marred by purple blisters.

Melody, I love you.

He struggled to find the words to convey how he felt, but she spoke first.

"There is something you don't know. I didn't take the Blood Star just to save you. I did it because I wanted to know how it felt to be a god. I didn't come to Tercel that morning before my wedding, just to find you. I also did it because I wanted all this. I wanted to rule Manna City with you. I knew what I was choosing when I chose you. From the beginning, from the very first moment we met, I wanted it too."

Oslen opened his mouth, and she kissed his lips before he could say those final words. It was so unbearably hard to say goodbye.

"I didn't want this for you," Oslen choked out. "From the beginning, I only wanted for you to be happy. The more I've tried . . . it seemed, the more we lost along the way. I—"

"I love you too," she whispered into his ear. "I want to be here with you."