Damnation

Velkan wondered if it was wrong of him. If it was a sin to look at Anna, but see Marishka. To think of her and want for her to be the one holding him as he drew his last, painful breaths. To want to feel her one more time before he entered purgatory.

He knew it was wrong to do that to Anna. He knew. But he could not stop his mind, his heart. They wanted Marishka. They would never have her again. He would be in purgatory for all eternity, or until Anna and the other killed Dracula. Then he would be in Heaven.

But she, Marishka, would burn in Hell, all for the sins of her sire, and those she committed under his spell, with his vile nature corrupting her soul.

Velkan cried at the injustice even as he asked his sister for forgiveness. He knew that she would never grasp at the truth behind his words, the real reason he had said them.

He had tasted the devil's fruit. Perhaps, perhaps that meant he would not enter Heaven's gates. Perhaps he would burn in Hell with his sin, his temptation given into.

He wanted forgiveness for almost wishing that would happen. He wanted to be punished and sent to damnation with her. He wanted her to be pardoned. He wanted to be with her. He wanted her. He wanted her still.

There he lay, dying in his sister's arms and all he really wanted was to be back in Marishka's cold embrace.

She was always so cold. But he loved it. It was like holding ice, without melting it. Her kiss was like that of snow, her breath the winter's wind. Her touch was chilling and exciting, her eyes were freezing, she turned him to ice and broke him into thousands of pieces and put him back together again.

And he would burn her, scorch her, set her on fire beneath her frigid skin, and then she would cool slowly as she trembled from the white heat of him.

They would set the night ablaze and turn it into ice, they would burn each other, cold and hot, they would drive each other mad, they would break each other down, they would tear each other's throats, they would lick each other's wounds. They were forbidden, they were desperate, they were frantic, they were gentle, they were everything and nothing and they could never make sense of it even though they once tried.

It had taken him time to see that it was not just him. But he had felt it first. He was warmth though, and her heart was hard and cold. Yet he had melted it, even as she drove him deeper into the ground.

Giving in to her had tainted him. Wanting her had destroyed him. Loving her had damned him.

He was dying, and he wanted her parting kiss instead of his sister's arms and tearful eyes and forgiveness. He was dying, and he was damned.

They were both damned. Damned by the same being, her sire, his slave master, the one who turned her, the one who set her on him. He had set them on the road to Hell, but Velkan did not regret.

Velkan asked for forgiveness from his sister and drew his parting breath, all the while wishing it was a parting kiss with winter's wind and damnation's promise.