Eleventh Grade Burns(86)

Dorian had saved him. What’s more, he’d saved him from someone that Vlad had begun to trust once again. Quickly—quicker than Vlad thought was possible—blood seeped from Dorian’s back onto the ground, soaking Vlad’s jeans. A lump formed in Vlad’s throat and tears welled in his eyes. Dorian—the only vampire in existence who knew the truth of the Pravus prophecy—was going to die in his arms. He swallowed hard. “Why are you here?”

Dorian coughed, blood spattering his lips. “I came ... to tell you my secret.”

In the distance, Vlad heard movement. Feet moving over grass. He searched the darkness but couldn’t see Joss anywhere. If he didn’t get him and Dorian to safety soon, they’d be in real trouble. But there was no way Dorian was going to be able to move like this. He met Dorian’s eyes. “This stake has to come out, Dorian.”

Dorian closed his eyes briefly. “No.”

Vlad thought about the night he’d been staked and how Otis and Vikas had saved him. He gripped the stake and pulled hard.

Dorian screamed, but once it was out, he looked much more comfortable. Vlad flung the stake behind him and put his wrist to his mouth. He was about to bite the skin open and feed Dorian, when Dorian grabbed his arm and spoke sternly. “No, Vlad. No. I’m ... dying. Drink from me. Quickly. Drink deep.”

Vlad furrowed his brow, darting his eyes about their dark surroundings for any sign of the slayer. “Why?”

“Because of my secret. I told you that four vampires can know the prophecy, but I only told you about the Foreteller, the Transcriber, and the Keeper. Do you recall?”

Vlad did. It had been that day in New York, the day before Otis’s pretrial. That night Otis had changed. Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Vlad was only seeing the real him for the first time. He shook his head, clearing his mind, and listened.

“There is one more. You, Vladimir. You are the Subject of the Prophecy. Therefore, it is yours to carry. As the Pravus, if you drink my blood, you will begin to understand all that was foretold about you. I couldn’t tell you before, because you weren’t ready. But you are now. I can feel it. You’re ready to know the truth. The truth of everything.” Dorian gasped, then settled again and spoke with urgency. “The knowledge will come slowly. Drink, and you will know much of it, but over time the parts you do not understand will become clear. It is a lot of knowledge. It will take time to become known to you.”

“No. Dorian, I—”

A twig broke behind him. Just yards away.

Dorian grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him close, so close that Vlad could feel his heartbeat weakening. His eyes were narrowed, his words forceful, desperate. “Drink, before I die. This is the duty which I spoke of—my duty—to pass this knowledge on to the Pravus. Now drink. Quickly.”

After a pause, one filled with thoughts of how Dorian’s blood had infected Otis, Vlad nodded slowly and leaned forward, biting into Dorian’s neck. He swallowed mouthfuls of blood and with each, he felt a strange surge of power. He pulled away, unwilling to take Dorian’s life. Dorian stared up at him, an odd smile on his lips. “How strange. It’s true about your eyes ... that was the one thing I doubted.”

Dorian stretched out a hand, his skin paling drastically, and brushed the tips of his fingers against Vlad’s Mark. In an instant that took Vlad’s breath away, Dorian’s eyes flashed iridescent blue. Vlad gasped. Dorian smiled. “Foolish of me to doubt, or perhaps arrogant. The other two, the Transcriber and the Foreteller, their eyes were the same as ours, but orange and red. We were chosen, the four of us, by something much larger than any of us, for a purpose that must be served at any cost.”

“But why? Why do our eyes do that? Why were we chosen?”

A knowing smile, full of wisdom that Vlad couldn’t comprehend, knowledge of the ages. “You’ll know that soon enough.”

Vlad spoke, his voice gruff, the weight of the world on his shoulders as Dorian’s life slipped helplessly through his fingers. “Why now? Why didn’t you come to me when I was ten or thirteen? Why did you wait?”

“You were a boy before, but with this—” He sucked in his breath, the pain on his face intense and real. “—all of this, you’ve become a man. You’ve finally become the vampire I see in my visions. The timing of our introduction was never up to me.”

Fresh blood, warm and heavy, drizzled from Dorian’s back. Vlad tensed, realizing that he could see the end. His voice grew hoarse. “I wish we’d met sooner. There’s so much I need to ask you, so much I don’t know.”