CHAPTER FIVE
“When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and then take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for you to stand upon or you will be taught to fly”
PATRICK OVERTON
THE DUKE
We drove slowly, I had instructed Arthur to take his time driving because I did not want her to be discomforted. Closing my eyes although I wasn't asleep reduced her anxiety in being alone in the carriage with me and so I closed my eyes, all of my other senses super aware of all her movements. She was twirling fingers and glancing at me from time to time, I could hear her breathing and could smell her scent so strongly.
"Can you not teleport?" She asked me after some time
"I can"
"Then why are you riding in this carriage." She asked again, her voice getting stronger
"Teleporting drains energy"
"What do you when your energy is drained."
"You are awfully curious." I responded opening my eyes to observe her
"Seeing as we are to be married, I need to know what I am dealing with and the books I have read are not saying anything I do not already know." She muttered, her voice breaking as she tried to avoid my gaze
"Blood" I stated and watched her go rigid
"What?" She asked suddenly afraid
"I drink blood when my energy is drained." I told her and watched her eyes shift from me to the roof of the carriage.
She was afraid of me and although, it was something I did not want but it was something I could not help. I wanted her just as I wanted her blood and she had every right to know that I would take it.
"Are you going to kill me?" She asked again
I did not respond to this not because I wasn’t going to kill her but because I had no response. I have been in this world for centuries and I have lost loved ones, some of which have died by my hands. It had been years I had thought about Katherine but her question jogged that painful memory back to life.
Katherine was the only woman I had ever loved, centuries ago I was human too. An unassuming human who had stumbled upon a gathering of Vampires and had been taken hostage and turned by their leader. I was made to run errands and do things which a normal me wouldn't do and even though I tried to run away, I couldn't because of the sire bond. There was one person that treated me better than the others and that was his daughter Katherine, she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. At that time the vampires were at war and their mortal enemy was the witches, they now had a weapon that could destroy them and the vampires were not having it.
The reckoning came and all vampires were killed including Katherine, she had died in my arms while I cowered in a corner like the coward I was. Humans got rid of all witches by burning them at the stake during the reckoning but I ran out of town with nowhere to go.
Years ago I had come back to the very same town that Katherine had died, I was made duke even though some people knew I was a vampire they employed my help for different jobs they could not do themselves. You could say that I was some sort of assassin. It was for a job that I had gone to the manor of the Pedros and that was when I had seen Guinevere, she was a replica of Katherine. I had heard of reincarnation but never had I believed that it was possible, now she was grown into the woman that Katherine was before she died and her scent was irresistible. I know she is not Katherine but I cannot be away from her.
I could sense we were close to my home and as soon as Arthur stopped the carriage, I opened my eyes. Guinevere was fast asleep beside me with her mouth slightly agape, she was beautiful and innocent.
"We are here" I shook her gently
She turned and stretched, opened her eyes and then flinched at the sight of me
"What are you doing?" she asked, sliding backwards
"We are here" I repeated my jaw hardening in anger
For a moment I had thought... never mind, it was better this way
GUINEVERE
Immediately his eyes had blanked off at the way I flinched when I looked at him, I mentally beat myself on the head. He did not speak a word to me as we went into his home, he gestured to the maid to show me my room and walked into a place I assumed was his own study.
I followed the maid silently as she welcomed me smiling, I wondered what she was happy about because I could see no reason to be when I was soon going to be food to a starving vampire
"What is your name?" I asked the maid
"Amelia, my lady." She curteised
" Amelia, what is your lord like?"
"I am afraid I do not understand." She muttered
"Is he cruel?"
"Never my lady, my lord has never being cruel to anyone as far as my knowledge serves me." The girl said looking me over like I had blasphemed
"That's fine, thank you for your help but I can take it from here."
She nodded and ran out of my room muttering things under her breath I could not make out. I looked around the room I was and was it breathtaking. The ceilings were so high up and the bed so soft, the room smelled very clean and the curtains were drawn, my favorite color pink was used to decorate everything in the room and I wondered how he knew what color I liked.
I left the room and took a walk around the house looking at pictures of none other than the duke from different times hung, he had the same face from photographs to drawings. I came upon a picture that stopped me in my tracks, it was a photograph of the duke and a woman that looked exactly like me!
I could hardly breathe as I looked at the photo, it was definitely not me because I could not have been born in that time but the resemblance was striking.
"What are you looking at?" I heard him say behind me and turned around in surprise, I had not heard his footsteps. Silly me, he was a vampire.
"Who is she?" I asked suddenly curious
"That's Katherine, my wife" he said
CHAPTER SIX“There is only one kind of shock worse than the totally unexpected: the expected for which one has refused to prepare”MARY RENAULTGUINEVEREI froze where I stood and glanced up at him definitely sure he was joking, his wife… how could that be?"You are surprised" he stated simply observing my face"Why do we look so alike?" I asked him trying hard to regulate my breathing"I have no idea, I aim to find out." He mutteredHe aims to find out, my brain echoed"How, pray tell do you intend to find out?" I blurtedHe merely looked at me not acknowledging the fact that he heard what I said. I stood in front of the photo for several minutes critically assessing it, the only difference between myself and the woman in the painting was our hair. While mine was red, hers was jet black although I could not be sure; the artist might have just painted her hair in that shade.I turned to ask the duke another question and noticed he was gone, it was bad enough that I was here and now I
CHAPTER SEVEN“She is clarity and confusion, never enough… always too much. A simple, complicated and perfectly flawed mess”PERRY POETRYTHE DUKEShe was watching me, staring at me eat even when she knew I was aware. She was supposed to be afraid of me, what was she doing staring at me with those soulful and innocent eyes."Aren't you supposed to drink only blood?" She had asked me.I had wanted to respond immediately and tell her the food wasn't enough and that blood was my main source of nutrients but I decided to tease her a bit and asked if she was offering herself to me.Her expression showed she took me seriously and I winced as she sat up straight in her chair and focused solely on her food not glancing at me even once againI heard her exclaim and turned, she had cut herself and I had immediately taken her finger in my mouth forgetting that her scent was something I could not resist. I had been anticipating tasting her for quite a while but it did not compare to the rush of b
CHAPTER EIGHT“There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have the feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well”NICHOLAS SPARKSGUINEVEREHe was right, I was not his wife and would never be, so why was my heart beating in such painful ways and why was I blinded with tears as I fled his presence.Did I want him to love me?I shook my head at the thought, I barely knew him and while I found the Duke attractive, he was a vampire and he only wanted to kill me.Words my mama had told me flew into my heart as I fled, she had been right. I was nothing to the duke but food and he was going to marry me out of pity for my parents so I did not die without the name tag "marriage"I walked into my room and flopped on the bed before pulling the blanket over my head. I must have dozed off for a bit as I did not notice the maid enter my room, I only heard her moving about singing under her breath."What pray tell are you muttering about?" I
CHAPTER NINE“Energy is the essence of life. Every day you decide how you are going to use it by knowing what you want and what it takes to reach the goal and by maintaining focus”OPRAH WINFREYTHE DUKEI had almost let myself be consumed by her… I had watched her try to hide from me because I had hurt her. I wasn't one to feel sympathetic or sorry about anything but I was sorry I had made her cry. She was of the idea that I was going to kill her, I was but she did not need to know that.The only reason I had Guinevere over at my place was because she looked like my dead wife, their resemblance so uncanny that if someone from that time saw her right now, they would mistake her for Katherine and have her killed right on the spot."Arthur!""Yes your grace, you called for me.""Send a carriage to the account of Hemishire, let him know that the duke requires his presence.""Am I to escort him myself, your grace.""There will be no need for that, he is capable.""As you wish" Arthur bowe
CHAPTER TEN“Luxury lives in the finer details. It is a cloth napkin at a dinner table. It is a mint on your pillow before bed”IGGY AZALEAGUINEVEREWe arrived at the house of my papa with the duke and I not talking to one another. His eyes were closed just as it had been when he had taken me from my papa's house and his hands fisted by his side. At that time I had wondered at why he kept his eyes closed but now I could imagine it was because he did not want to be involved in a conversation with me which was for the better because it gave me ample time to think about what I shall do immediately I become his wife and how I could avoid whatever experiments he had planned for me.I was deep in thought when the carriage came to a stop in front of my papa's manor, the duke opened his eyes and turned to me."You should go inside first, I have something I need to take care of first.""I shall wait here for you and then we shall go in together." I told him.I did not want to go into the hous
CHAPTER ELEVEN“Find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all”ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSONTHE DUKEI was smiling...I was alone in my bed chambers and smiling which did not bode well. The thoughts of the evening replayed in my mind, her father trying to get me to cancel the wedding with his daughter and Guinevere's eyes pleading that I do not believe a word he was saying.Humans were funny creatures and although I had been one myself, I could hardly understand how their mind worked. Did he really think that I was going to cancel the wedding because of a baseless rumor such as that? Of course he had no idea that his daughter was the exact replica of my deceased wife, hence the lies.I smiled again shaking my head at the look on Guinevere's face when I had asked if she wanted me to confirm her status, she had thought I was serious. Well, I was serious but she was not ready for any intimacy with me and I wasn't ready until I was sure o
CHAPTER TWELVE“The most common emotional defense is avoidance [an ineffective coping skill for any stressor] as expressed through denial [e.g. that wasn’t really bad, I barely remember it]BRIAN LUKE SEAWARDTHE DUKEI tried to avoid her for days till the arrival of my friend, the witch turned accountant but I could not. It was as if she always knew everywhere I was or maybe it was me seeking her out against my will. She wasn't speaking to me, I noticed. Whenever we met, she just bowed and hurried away like she had just seen a demon. I wasn't supposed to feel bad about it, I had caused it and I wasn't human so why have human feelings? But deep down I noticed I was having some discomfort about the silent treatment I was receiving. The next day was to be our wedding, was this how it was going to be permanently between us? What exactly did she want from me and even when I asked our butler to ask her to join me for dinner, she always refused claiming she was ill.It wasn't that I could n
CHAPTER THIRTEEN”I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift”STEVEN PINKERGUINEVEREMy mama took so long in arriving at the modiste and so I browsed through the materials she had to make dresses and I made a mental note of some I considered beautiful and would go well with my skin tone and eyes. I was not going to let Calista ruin a good day in my life even though as I went around, the thoughts of what she had said was threatening to have me thinking about how exactly the duke had considered me pretty enough for marriage or was it because I was like the one percent of the ton that would not be missed should incase anything happened to me.It was highly unlikely that that was the reason he had chosen me as his wife. I shook my head dispelling the horrible thoughts. Greta must have noticed the internal struggle I was going through because she came over to stand beside me and placed her hand
THIRTY TWO"Love is like a sudden flame; it springs up in the heart and often consumes the whole being in a moment." HONORE DE BALZACTHE DUKEWe walked stealthily to the place we had seen in the vision, I could see that it had been made into a garden and in the garden were two cottages. I signaled on Henry to follow closely behind me as I did not want to alert them of our presence.We hid watching when we saw somebody come out of one of the cottages, I instantly recognized her as the new maid the one that worked personally for GuinevereSo it was she who had stolen Katherine's body, I thoughtWe watched her until she had gone into the second cottage before advancing to the first and true to what I thought Guinevere was tied there, her eyes closed at first and I thought she was dead until she moved, opening her eyes. I rushed over to meet her but she was looking beyond me at something or maybe someone.It was then in dawned on me that I had walked into a trap, there was a man standin
THIRTY ONE"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." NELSON MANDELAGUINEVEREThe torturing had been going on for quite a while now and every time I was cut I healed back, it almost seemed like I was healing quicker with every cut. I did not understand this and I was pretty sure neither did my captors who were…well looking at me with a look of surprise and concern on their faces.I felt every pain inflicted on me but it was almost like I was feeling it from another body, there was something wrong with me and it had to do with Katherine. I knew they did not want me dead if not they would have driven a stake through my heart already; they wanted answers I could not provide and I also wanted damned answersI wondered why I was being loyal to the Duke, was he even looking for me? Did he even care enough? Why was I trying to protect him what kind of loyalty was I feeling
THIRTY“Courage is the resistance to fear, mastery of fear not absence of fear”MARK TWAINTHE DUKE"We need to all calm down." Henry started as he watched me.He could already tell that I was revising a means to save Guinevere"We need to go after her." Damien said, he could never sit still so he was pacingI still was in a world of my own thinking about what had just happened and its correlation to Katherine; I had not seen who had killed her then but what if it had a correlation to what happened today"I believe they thought she was Katherine, hence the kidnap." Henry continued sayingI wasn't paying any attention then; I could only think about was why they had taken her and what they wanted"They knew who she was” I finally spoke up… “They knew she was not Katherine and I believe somebody very close to us is messing with us right now. I don't think we are going to find out where she is except they invite us over.""So what are you trying to say, we wait?" Damien asked, incredulou
TWENTY NINE“The realization of ignorance is the first act of knowing”JEAN TOOMERGUINEVEREHe was staring, waiting for me to say something to support my claim about his love for Katherine. I took a deep breath, hoping I had not just gotten myself into trouble before saying"I just was thinking about everything and why you have decided to tell me of this story; one between yourself and Katherine and I think it is pretty obvious, I did not just want to see it. You loved her and she did not return your feelings, is that it? She preferred the duke to you and that was what had fueled your actions from then till date”"That is not true but great job in trying to decipher why I am doing what I am doing. Katherine loved me; we were childhood sweethearts but this was before she turned the duke or at least her father did. He was her first kill, her father made her do it and then they became inseparable. She had only felt pity for him of course because he was a coward and no other person wante
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT“Love is a reciprocal torture”MICHEAL PROUSTGUINEVERE"Before you guys begin torturing me, I think I need to state that I am not a vampire, I am human like you and if you killed me right now I'm actually going to die for real.""Then you found your way to make yourself human or you lying like you always do. We have been trained not to ever believe a word Katherine says so if this is your ploy to push us off our mark, you are desperately failing." The girl smirked"Oh this is no ploy I assure you, how exactly do I have proof to you that I am human and not Katherine without killing me of course” I said in exasperation."Of course silly, there are ways to check, we just have to cut you and then if you heal you're lying but if you don't that is a whole new thing we have to explore and that is how you are now human, Katherine." The lady said pointedly"For the last time I am not Katherine, I am Guinevere Berkshire, my father is Sir Collins Berkshire and his Lord of
TWENTY SEVEN"Often, what seems like an impossible climb is just a staircase without the steps drawn in."PAULO FREIRE THE DUKE"She is going to see her family?" I echoed scratching my jaw."Yes my lord, I will be accompanying her, she is waiting downstairs as we speak.""Do not bother, I shall accompany her myself." I said, rising from my seat"Really? We have a lot to discuss" Damien interrupted, rising with me."It will have to wait till I am back, make yourself at home. Henry, please watch him like a hawk for me, will you? I don't want him touching things he isn't supposed to.""I will watch him." Henry said smiling.Damien rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue at me; he had always been a child.Arthur followed behind me, his head lowered. I knew immediately that something was wrong, the carriage sat on its own outside the house but I could feel a very strange energy around it, an energy I hadn't felt in a very long time. I raced to the carriage and as I feared it was empty, Guine
TWENTY SIX“The world is vast, beautiful and fascinating even awe- inspiring but impersonal. It demands nothing of me and allows me to demand nothing of itHERBERT SIMONTHE DUKEI walked out of the shadows and headed towards him just as Henry walked in stopping in his tracks"Yes I know you both are glad to see me and I'm glad to see you both also" Katherine's brother said smiling"How are you alive?" I asked"I honestly have no idea too. Just last week I woke up with no memory of myself nor of my life." He said scratching his head"What kind of bullshit is this?" Henry started"You have been dead for centuries Damien; there is no way you would wake up with no memory of yourself.""Oh, you are talking about the purge, I did not die then. I escaped and then I wandered about and then I met a girl. It is a long story but I was wandering ever since up to the time of my death...again, I believe I died but how am I alive?." His voice trailed off as he considered this turn of events"Is th
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE“Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get- only with what you are expecting to give- which is everything”KATHARINE HEPBURNGUINEVEREHe is an unbearable bastardI screamed this aloud as he disappeared from my bedchambers after bringing me to heights I never knew existed. What we just shared was something I knew I was never going to have with anybody forever; I was his through and through.There was no strength left in me to cry and so I lay, curled up in a ball thinking about how much I wanted to die. Maybe if I died, maybe then he would finally see me, I thought smiling cynically.Of course not, it would always be Katherine no matter what. I was just a person that looked like her and a puzzle for him to solve, I was never going to be someone he cared anything for.But he was everything to me, I mean how could I be so attracted when I barely know him barely know what is going through his head. How could I be so utterly attracted to a man who consi
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR“Everyone suffers at least one bad betrayal in their lifetime. It is what unites us and the trick is not to let it destroy your trust in others when that happens; do not let them take that from you”SHERRILYN KENYONTHE DUKEShe was cryingWhy the hell is she crying, I thought to myself as I walked stealthy to her room"What is the matter? Is your stomach still upsetting you?" I asked, looking at her, she must know that I know that there was nothing wrong with her stomach and there was some other reason why she was crying"Yes yes, I'm just under the weather thank you so much for asking." She said sniffling"What is the matter, Guinevere; Talk to me you seemed happy this morning. What changed?""Can we not do this right now? As you can see I am not in the proper state of mind for this.""Does it have anything to do with last night? Are you regretting allowing me to touch you, if this is what it is about, I am sorry and I shouldn’t have" I told her"No please, do n