Valentine

Chapter Eleven - Elizabeth

It was hard hearing those words come out of my mouth, but they were true. Everything he said, in that moment, seemed logical. The things he did, the way he caught up to the car, how he cleared fifty feet in a flash, there was just no other way to describe it unless he was a magician, and that would be just as remarkable.

“Excellent, Orion said you are indeed a worthy Candidate.

“Candidate? You mean to be a vampire queen? I’m going to go with probably not.” I chuckled. How could anyone think they were worthy of being royalty when they hadn’t even made it past the first day of this lunacy. Just saying the words I Believe You seemed to be a monumentally difficult step in the wrong direction and now I was supposed to know if I wanted to be a queen? It was all just too much.

“Why not?” Orion inquired.

"Because I don't know anything about your customs and your traditions. I'm just some girl, there are definitely better people out there for the job. I'm nothing special, you know. I don't understand why you'd even want me to be your queen."

“It’s not about what you are now, but what you do that defines you. You have the potential to be a queen, a great conqueror of lands with vast power and wealth. Respect and strength that you’ll never be given if you go back home to Meyerton. It’s your choice, Elizabeth. If you wish to return home, I’ll wipe your memories and you can freely go back to the way you were before, but I saw it in your eyes from the very first moment I met you…” Orion paused, his hand sliding around my wrist, a smile on his face. Butterflies billowed in my belly, even his cold fingers felt warm against my skin, and I wanted to lean in and kiss him. It was primal, almost animalistic; with no reason in the action. Maybe it was because he was handsome, maybe it was because of the way he spoke to me, or maybe I just wanted to be with someone for the first time in my life, “You’re not cut out for that life. You want something different, you want to be more and escape the way your family has acted around you forever. You, like me, have ambitions and dreams and none of them will come true if you go back to Meyerton tonight. Forget about your old life, and embrace the new.”

“You’re asking a lot though. You’re telling me to give up on my friends and family and just come live with you in a cave. I don’t even know if there are any actual benefits to this. Your mother’s sick and dying, right? Says that it’s not eternal life if I get turned anyway, so what’s in it for me, really? Apart from watching the world burn for a little bit longer while I toil on, growing tired of a life that’s long ago exceeded its value.” Orion pulls his hand off of my forearm and for a moment I wished he didn’t. There was something comforting about his touch. Something that came about knowing he was actually what he said he was. A moment before the situation was craze, and now with all the prejudice at the wayside, something about Orion is infinitely more alluring.

“I’ve said everything I can to get you to want to stay. The choice is yours, Elizabeth.” Orion finished, gesturing to the door to let me out.

“Do I at least get to say goodbye to my parents before I go?”

“Yes. I’ll give you one week to get everything in order, to say your goodbyes and all the rest. Take your time and think everything through, but remember that nothing we have discussed can be carried out to the rest of the world.” Orion finished, leading me back out through the door, out the palace and through the city once more. It was deathly quiet now, no stirring or noise, no pitter patter of feet, just an empty town while the vampires slept.

Orion left me in the hands of one of the many that worked on the farms in front of the cave entrance. With the day’s light shining, he couldn’t leave the safety of the black cave. I was taken home in an old pickup truck that must have come from the same era as my parent’s own.

A week to make the most important decision of my life:

Sounds reasonable.