Chapter 30
So many memories flooded in Nikola’s mind. Of all the times he had fought with Dimitri. All his crimes and good deeds. Everything was going in his mind at the same time. He clung to the memories of his last life and this one, forcing them to the forefront.
He had been a distant survivalist in the last life, but he had been humane about it. And in this life, he hadn’t even committed any crimes. He saw the memory of which Dimitri had just spoken of. Of how Nikola had injected the blonde with anesthesia after tricking him into a kiss. Of the gloating he had done as he opened the latch and threw Dimitri into the disposal chamber.
Nikola felt disgusted with himself. What sort of animal had he become, not an animal even, as they didn’t torture their kills, to enjoy a death? Even if it was Dimitri, the man who had hunted his family so many times.
He couldn’t let all those memories overwhelm him. He felt a hand on his forehead, and he wrenched himself from his memories to see Malkav standing over him with an unreadable look.
Now, the vampire knew everything. Was looking at it from Nikola’s own mind. Was he judging him? Was he going to leave him? The emotions of his past life overwhelmed Nikola. He needed to make this right.
“Malkav…” and his lips were captured in a demanding kiss. There was forgiveness in it too, and Nikola welcomed it. He felt fingers in his hair and he looked at Dimitri, who was smiling softly. Their hatred for one another was over. It had been over since love replaced it in the last life. Nikola blinked back tears.
“Now, now, Niki. Don’t cry. You are so pretty when you smile. Do that instead?” Nikola smiled into Malkav’s kiss, and his forehead was kissed by Dimitri.
He was ready for a fresh beginning. One where he was not a vampire and, with his newfound immortality, one that would last. He suddenly got the urge to go back home and lose himself in his two lovers. Dimitri smirked at him.
“Eat your stew when your headache passes,” commanded the blonde. Malkav released Nikola, and he slowly stood back up and picked up the spoon. He knew so much now, it was astonishing.
To think that once he had managed to make electricity out of seawater, or that he had made a lethal poison that created cancer in the body. He had ended up electrocuting Dimitri with his invention in one life and got the death sentence for it. Him poisoning Dimitri had gone unpunished, but Nikola had still aged and had been used to produce bioweapons for various criminal groups. He had not cared, Nikola resolved to care from now on.
“Do we still need to explain the clans to you?” Most of Nikola’s vampire knowledge came from his last life. He had been crazy about lore back then.
In his attempt to get as much information on Dimitri, he had read all the books available and had even written a letter to Beckett, the elusive lore master who kept the company of the prophet of Gehenna Anatole.
“Gehenna,” Dimitri groaned at the word and mumbled something resembling “here goes again”.
“Gehenna can’t be allowed to happen! We have to contact Flavius Aetius,” continued Nikola, much to Malkav’s confusion. Then, Nikola felt a prob in his brain and Malkav’s eyes became clearer.
“You wish to avert disaster?” Malkav spoke softly, but there was an urgency to his voice.
“Gehenna can’t be allowed to happen!” Exclaimed Nikola. Gehenna was the end times, and it would affect everyone, he knew. Dimitri huffed from next to him.
“You are better at starting Gehenna and waking Caine than you are at stopping it,” supplied Dimitri. Nikola shifted through his memories, attempting to find such instances, and, to his shame, he found at least a thousand. Each time, he had tracked Caine to the ruins of Enoch in the desert and had woken the first vampire.
“I know where he is!” Realized Nikola with a triumphant grin.
“Doesn’t matter, he is still more powerful than you,” retorted Dimitri, then he added more than a little ashamed. “Or me.”
“So, there is nothing to be done? Do we just wait for the end? I am finally on the right track, and now you tell me to give up?” Nikola’s nostrils flared at the audacity of the blonde. Some of his past hatred bled through his mind, but, when he realized it, he clammed down on it and stomped it. “I’m sorry.”
“One life doesn’t wash away lifetimes of strife,” said Dimitri with a shrug. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think we can ever have what we used to, in your past life.”
Nikola bowed his head and looked down at his stew. That, the fact that Dimitri still harbored some ill will towards him, made his heart clench.
“We can have something better,” Nikola looked up at the grinning blonde. “A fresh start that is based on honesty and goodwill. For what is a better goodwill than forgiveness?”
Nikola hugged Dimitri tightly and inhaled his scent. He smelled of the stew and had a musky scent underneath that. It was all so endearing. He felt arms on his back and turned just enough to see that Malkav had joined the hug.
“It seems unfair that I can’t join in the remembering process,” murmured the Antediluvian. “Even when I can see all the memories. I can’t see what I have been thinking, or feel what I have been feeling.”
“Playfulness at the start,” supplied Dimitri. “You pretended to be under a blood bond, and so you pretended to be in love. But then, Niki won you over. He looked up to you so much, and I was so jealous.”
Malkav grinned at Dimitri and spoke.
“And you? How did I win you over? Or did our heart here won us both for each other?” Dimitri frowned, remembering how Malkav had nearly had Nikola kill him. Maybe he was a masochist, to fall in love with people who, at one point, had wanted him dead.
