Part Four

Blaine had trained his body years ago to wake to an internal alarm, so when his eyes shot open in the dead of night—about an hour earlier than planned, judging from the cast of the moon through the window—he could instantly sense that something was wrong.

He could sense what was wrong.  He shot out of bed, stirring Kurt where he rested beside him.

“Blaine?” Kurt said, sitting up and blinking groggy eyes.  “Is it time to go now?”

“Not yet love,” Blaine said, swiftly kissing his forehead, grateful that Kurt wasn't alert enough to read the worry etched in his face.  “I need you to stay here.  Can you do that for me?”

“Yeah,” Kurt nodded faintly, sinking back into the covers.  “Gonna go back to sleep.”

“You do that,” Blaine said, smiling sadly as Kurt closed his eyes and gave himself over to dreams once more.  He traced his fingers lightly over the shape of Kurt's face and left the room, moving quickly.

She was waiting in the parlor, staring vacantly at the unlit fireplace.

“Selina,” Blaine said carefully.  “What brings you here?”

Selina turned to face him, her beautiful, delicate figure giving way to cold eyes and a conniving smirk.  “Blaine.  Can I not visit my family?”

“You can drop the pretense,” Blaine said, his body tense, prepared for an attack.

“I fear you've been spending too much time in the company of my young grandson,” Selina said, slowly stepping closer.  “This new generation has no sense of decorum.”

“What do you want?” Blaine gritted out, forcing his body to stay still.

“You've betrayed me,” Selina said, locking their eyes.  “Among our kind, there are consequences for that.”

She was a mere foot away now, and Blaine inhaled deeply, his body on the verge of fight or flight (fight, he had to fight, he had Kurt he had to fight…)

“Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in this house?” a voice suddenly called out.  Burt stepped out of the darkness, rounding on Selina rapidly, and Blaine felt his breath leave him in a rush.

“Burt, don't,” he cried out without thinking.  “She's a vampire!”

Disregarding his warning, Burt got right up in the woman's face, so close they were nearly nose-to-nose.  “That's not all she is.  She's a witch, too.”

Selina smiled cruelly.  “It's not often I meet a fellow gypsy, especially one of my caliber.”

Blaine gasped.  Suddenly so much made sense.  Rebecca's hatred of Burt…

“How did you get in here?” Burt demanded.

“Don't you know?” Selina said, her tone conversational.  “Your family is my blood.  That means that in spite of your little protection spells, I can come and go as I please.”

Blaine growled and launched forward, halted at the last moment by Burt's hand against his chest.  “No need for that,” Burt said.  “She was just leaving.”

“Was I?” Selina said.  “I'm afraid I have relatives to visit first.” 

A cloud of smoke billowed through the room, and when it lifted, Selina was gone.

“Kurt,” Blaine said under his breath, instinctively darting off towards his room.

“Shit,” Burt muttered.  And then he did the strangest thing.  He spread his arms, closed his eyes, and began to chant. 

Blaine froze in the hallway, watching him, transfixed.  After a few moments, a high-pitched cry filled the air, and the smoke returned, Selina's face appearing… within it?

“Just give Blaine to me,” she pleaded, sounding like she was fighting for breath.  “He's stolen away your child, Burt, surely…”

“I don't allow your kind around my family,” Burt said resolutely.  “You won't be coming back.”

“This won't be the end,” she swore.  “There are consequences, Blaine.  Conse—“

And then, just as suddenly as she had appeared, she was gone.

“Burt, what was—“

“I want you gone.”

Blaine blinked at him, unable to process the words.

“Don't think I won't perform the same spell on you, Blaine Anderson.  Don't think I haven't known all along.  You've gone too far, farther than even I had ever feared.”

Blaine studied him carefully.  “How much do you know?” he asked slowly.

“You're the same as she is.  Vampire.  Bloodsucker.  You've had my wife bewitched for too long, and now you've corrupted my son, tried to lure him into your bed—“

“Kurt is in my bed.  Right now.  Kurt is my mate,” Blaine drew himself up to full height in front of the warlock, his fangs dropping unbidden.  “As much as I've been hiding I'm a vampire, you're no better.  A gypsy.  Do your children even know?  Does Elizabeth?”  He shook his head, looking down at his hands and tracing the faint hint of claws that had formed there, willing them away.  “The irony is, Rebecca never even knew she had gypsy blood herself…”  He considered Burt again, meeting the man's eyes.  “And now you'll judge me the same way she judged you.”

“You've already mated,” Burt whispered, ignoring all else, his face falling into deep sorrow.  “This changes nothing,” he declared at last.  “I want you gone.”

“Over my dead body,” Blaine hissed.  “Would you do that to your own son?”

“I'm not so certain I would win that fight,” Burt admitted.  He sighed deeply, his hands coming up to massage his temples.  “I should have acted sooner,” he murmured to himself.

“Papa?” a soft voice carried across the room, accompanied by the sound of footsteps padding towards them.  Katie wore her pink nightgown, a yellow quilt wrapped snug around her shoulders.  She looked back and forth between the two men in confusion.  “It's early.  Is something going on?”

“Nothing now, sweetheart.  Get back to bed.”

Katie ignored her father's request, standing her ground.  “Did you find out?” she asked Burt, “about Blaine?”

Burt glanced at Blaine, jaw set and eyes weary.  “More than you know.”

“It's alright, Katie,” Blaine tried to assure her, even though it was sounding very much like it wasn't.  “Go back to bed.”

“Kurt loves him,” Katie said obstinately.  “Please consider that, Papa.”

Burt had no answer, the three of them standing there awkwardly until finally, Katie spoke again.  “Alright,” she stepped close to her father, leaned up on her tip-toes to peck his cheek.  “You should get back to bed too, Papa.  The rest is good for your heart.”

“Of course,” Burt told her.  “I was headed there now, dear.”

With one last knowing look she finally left them.  Burt spun around to level with Blaine.  “Leave,” he said firmly.  “Don't make me force you.”

“I can't,” Blaine countered.  “Selina is my sire.  I swore an oath to her that I would remain here, protect her descendants.”

“This oath,” Burt said.  “What did you swear it on?”

“What?”

“For a witch to bind you to an oath, there must be some talisman involved to seal the promise,” Burt explained.

Blaine felt as though the floor was falling out from under him.  “I… I don't remember.  She told me that it was a commitment I made to her in exchange for my life, that I'm bound to her as a vampire.”

Burt shook his head.  “That's not possible.  Vampires have no such ability, and magic is binding through objects, through memory.  If you have no recollection of it, it didn't happen.”

“I—“ Blaine stopped, his mind spinning, not sure what to say next or even if there was anything to say.  Could it be true?  The last two-hundred years of his ‘life', a lie?

“I want you gone,” Burt repeated once more.  “I'm—“ Blaine could have sworn the man was about to apologize, but he managed to stop himself mid-sentence.  “Vampires and gyspies have bad blood between them.  I can't let you stay, Blaine.  And what you did to my son was wrong.”

“It was inevitable,” Blaine said, and Burt didn't argue.

“I should have stopped it,” he muttered instead, rubbing absently at the bald spot on his head.  “You have twenty-four hours.”

Blaine nodded in resignation, his mind spinning with all the implications of what had just occurred.

When he returned to his room Kurt was still there, tangled in his sheets and sleeping peacefully.

Blaine wished for his sake the boy never had to wake up.

*******

He let Kurt sleep late into the morning, surprised when they weren't disturbed by Burt or either of the women.  Surely Burt would tell them, and their opinions of Blaine would change accordingly.  Not that they mattered.  The only opinion that mattered to Blaine was Kurt's.

When he finally woke Blaine told him all that had happened, his heart breaking when Kurt began to cry.

“Do you have a plan?” Kurt asked him, eyes bright and full of fading hope.

“Kurt, I can't be away from you now.  And it would hurt you greatly to be away from me.”

Kurt hung his head.  “That was never a potential solution anyway,” he said quietly.  “I'll… I'll talk to my father.  He'll change his mind.”

“Kurt…”

“Let me try, Blaine.”

Blaine nodded, knowing instinctively that it would all come to naught.

*******

Unfortunately, Blaine was right.

“He said…” Kurt's voice broke, silent tears trailing down his face, his breath hitching every few words.  “He said that I'll be welcomed back anytime, if I'm not with you.  If I'm not… if I'm not like you.  I thought he loved me.”

“He does,” Blaine assured him, cradling Kurt close and stroking down his back.  “Of course he does, Kurt.  But love doesn't allow for everything.”

“Does our love?” Kurt asked petulantly.

Blaine didn't answer for a long moment, continuing the gestures that were comforting to them both.  Finally he whispered, “Our love can move mountains.”

*******

Kurt spent the entire afternoon with his sister.  Katie had been much more accepting of Blaine's nature than he had anticipated.  At the moment she was, unsurprisingly, the less clingy of the two siblings.

“I always knew there was something strange about him,” Katie said, jabbing her brother sharply in the ribs with her elbow.  “Why didn't you tell me?  We tell each other everything!”

“Come on, Kate.  This was different.  Would you have told me?”

“Maybe.  Probably not.”  Well, there you go. 

“I'm… you know I'm going to miss you, right?”

Katie smiled at him, taking his hand.  “No lies now.  You won't have time to miss me, what with all the adventures you'll be having!”  Kurt hiccupped a laugh, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, and Katie snuck a wink at Blaine where he was sitting off to the side.  “You know, I think I like him better now that I know he's a vamp.”

“Katie…”

Katie leaned closer to him, speaking softly enough that Blaine probably wouldn't have heard, had he still been human.  “Does he, you know, do the biting thing?”

“Katie!”

“Fine!  Fine!  Abandon your poor sister here to her humdrum life without any juicy details to keep her occupied!”

Kurt really did laugh this time, doubling over and clutching his stomach, and Blaine couldn't help but beam at the pair the two of them made.  They'd certainly kept his life interesting for the past seventeen years, to say the very least.

“I'm going to miss you terribly, you know,” Kurt said, once he'd calmed down enough to speak.

“You already said that.  And you can always write!  Maybe throw in a few of those juicy details…”

“Katie!”

“Yeah, all right,” she sighed, laying her head down on her brother's shoulder.  “I'm gonna miss you too.”

In contrast, Elizabeth only spent an hour with Kurt, having devoted most of her day to trying to change her husband's mind.  That went about as well as it usually did.  Blaine tuned most of it out for once, but one part of their exchange in particular caught his attention.

“She's got a spell on you, you know.  It's how Blaine's gone undetected all these years.  If I could remove it, you'd see him for what he really is, Elizabeth.  You'd see him as a monster.”

“Kurt doesn't think he's a monster,” she bit back stubbornly.

“Kurt's been cursed just like the rest of you.”

Blaine bit down on his lip hard, tasting his own blood.  The thought was jarring and painful.  He hadn't known.

It didn't really make a difference.

“And your solution is to send our baby out there alone with him, when that's what you really think?”

“You're not helping your case at the moment,” Burt pointed out.

“You didn't answer my question,” Elizabeth countered.

Burt sighed.  “Kurt's an adult; there's nothing I can do.  And they've already mated.  Even a vampire won't hurt their own mate, and it would be… difficult, for Kurt to be without him.”

“I hate you for this,” Elizabeth said, her voice breaking.  “I don't understand why they can't stay.  I don't understand why you didn't stop it.  I don't understand why you're sending my son away from me, Burt.”

There was silence for a long while, and when Burt spoke again his voice was much softer.  “I'm sorry,” he said, barely detectable even to Blaine's ears.  “He's my son too.”

*******

It was a few days later when they realized the true disaster that had befallen them.

Elizabeth had talked Burt into letting them stay one more night.  It had been the first time they slept together without any sexual contact.  Kurt had folded his long limbs up, making himself impossibly small against Blaine's more compact body.  Blaine should have gone hunting that night, gathered his strength, but he couldn't bear to leave his mate when Kurt was so brokenhearted.

In the morning there had been a lot of hugging and more tears—even from Burt, which made Blaine feel a bit resentful because damn him, really, and Kurt didn't understand.  And then, hand in hand, both with small packs on their backs filled with clothes and food and money (Blaine had accumulated more than enough over the years, thank God, plus there was what Elizabeth and Katie had slipped them, and what Burt had openly given—Burt was making it very hard to hate him, and that just made Blaine hate him all the more.  He'd blame the gypsies if Kurt wasn't one himself), they set off.

Katie had called it an adventure, but it felt like anything but with time dragging as much as their feet and scarcely a word passing between them.  But their connection was still there, maybe stronger now, and eventually, Blaine told himself, this would all be a distant memory for the both of them.

That night, Blaine reluctantly confessed to Kurt that he needed to feed.  He was grateful when Kurt offered up himself—he couldn't imagine it would be safe to leave Kurt behind to hunt, especially in his condition, although he would need to do so eventually.  For now Kurt's own warm blood sustained him, and if the two of them got lost for a time in the touch and taste of their lover's body, it was a well-deserved distraction.

On the third day they managed to find a small village where no one knew them and secured a place to stay.  The lack of blood was finally taking effect, making Blaine slightly dizzy and off-kilter.  He had refused to feed the night before, too concerned for Kurt's safety, and tonight he only took the bare minimum.  He would have to go hunting tomorrow.  Kurt would be safer now with a roof over his head.  He would understand.

Except Kurt didn't understand, not to the extent that Blaine had hoped.  Blaine couldn't blame him for feeling a little possessive when his own jealousy flared so strongly at the mere thought of Kurt sharing any sort of intimacy with someone else.

As it turned out, though, Kurt had nothing to worry about.

Blaine was still heaving when he stumbled back into their room.

“I can't feed,” he managed to tell Kurt before vomiting into their chamber pot. 

“What?” Kurt asked, rubbing his back and offering him a damp cloth he'd readied in the water pitcher.  “Why not?”

Blaine shook his head.  It was several more minutes before he managed an answer.

“The blood… it turns to poison in my mouth.  It's not only foul anymore; I can't keep it down, Kurt.”

Kurt looked deeply troubled.  “Is that… is that because of me?  Because we mated?”

“No.  That wouldn't make any sense—your blood alone cannot sustain me.”

“Then… what is it, Blaine?”

Blaine sighed, straightening up the best he could from where he was still bent over the chamber pot, finally turning to face his mate.  “I think it's Selina.  I think she's cursed me.”

“Cursed you so that you can't feed,” Kurt clarified.

“Yes.”

“That doesn't make sense,” Kurt said.  “You've still been feeding from me.”

Blaine took Kurt's hand and tugged him over towards the bed as gently as possible, collapsing onto it and pulling Kurt to sit next to him.  “It wouldn't work on you.  Nothing—not even magic—can penetrate our bond.”

Kurt looked like he was still putting all the pieces together in his head, but Blaine could see the shock, the fear settling into his eyes as realization began to dawn.  “Except death?” he asked in a tiny voice.

Blaine squeezed his eyes shut.  “Except death,” he admitted.

“But, it can't be so simple,” Kurt said, hysterical urgency creeping into his voice.  “It can't just all… end.  Not because of her.  We have to be able to fight this!”

“Kurt,” Blaine said, placating.  “I'm already beginning to grow weak.  We don't know where she is.  Even if we did, she's not going to remove the curse… and I don't have magic to make her.”

“You…” Kurt stood up, hands ransacking his hair and tugging at the chestnut strands.  “You said I was yours.  You said you would never let me go!”

“Kurt…”

“Why are you so complacent about this?  So what… you just… you just leave and I'm alone forever?”

“Of course you don't have to be alone,” Blaine said, each word a dagger in his heart.

“You said that we're mates.  You said I belong to you, Blaine, so how can you just leave me to be with someone else?  I couldn't.  You have to know that.”

Blaine closed his eyes once more, feeling the threat of tears for the first time in all his years as a vampire.  How could Kurt think that this wasn't ripping him apart?  He'd never felt so powerless before, so hopeless, and it was painful to see Kurt laying it so bare before him. 

“I want to…” he started, his voice a whisper.  “I want to rip her apart, Kurt.  And not for deceiving me all these years.  For you.”  He swallowed thickly, wincing at the taste of bloody bile lingering in his mouth.  “I should have done it that day at your father's house.  I should have killed her when I had the chance.  I'm sorry.”

Kurt finally stopped his frantic pacing and really looked at him, his blue eyes glistening with tears.  “Blaine…” he said, coming over and dropping to his knees in front of Blaine on the bed.  “She might have killed you too.”

Blaine chuckled weakly.  “She's trying.”  He paused.  “Selina's almost three hundred years older than me.  She's… stronger.  Especially with her magic,” he admitted reluctantly.

“But you're kinder,” Kurt said, placing his hand over where Blaine's heart used to beat.  “I don't want you to give up.  I want you to fight, for me… for us.”

Blaine offered him a small smile.  “I would fight for you to the ends of the Earth, if only there were the smallest chance of me winning.”  He brushed his fingers down the side of Kurt's beautiful face.  “But there isn't,” he said at last.  “She's stacked the odds against me, Kurt.  She's taken the one thing that gives me power.  And if I try to fight, she'll take you too.  I can't let that happen.”

“I don't want to live without you.  I won't,” Kurt said with conviction.

“Kurt…”

“There's a library here in town.  Let me see if I can do some research.  We can find a way.”

Blaine opened his mouth to protest but found he couldn't bear to kill the glimmer of hope alight in Kurt's eyes.  “Sure,” he conceded at last.

“Great,” Kurt said with a smile, rising to his feet and heading toward the door.  “I'll go now.  You rest up.”

“Kurt.”

“What is it?”

“It's nighttime, love.  The library won't be open.”

“Oh,” Kurt looked dumbfounded for a moment, but he soon sighed and moved to take a chair.

“Come lay with me?” Blaine asked, laying back on the bed and opening his arms in invitation.

To his relief Kurt did so, curling against his body as he had so many times before.  Blaine gratefully wrapped his arms around the boy, feeling the muscles in Kurt's body relaxing in his embrace.

“You should feed from me,” Kurt said quietly after a few moments.  “Keep up your strength.”

“My strength is your weakness, Kurt,” Blaine pointed out.  “I'll take a little tomorrow.”

“It won't be enough.”

Blaine didn't know what to say to that, so he hugged him a little tighter and kissed his brow.

*******

The library was a flop—as Blaine knew it would be—and it seemed to bring back Kurt's distress full-force.

“You said you'd feed from me,” Kurt reminded him.

“I said a little bit.  We can't have sex right now, Kurt.  It would be far too dangerous for you.”

“So you're just… you're just going to die without ever making love to me again?”

“Kurt…”

“I hate this!” Kurt cried out, his fists clenching and his face scrunching up alarmingly in a matter of seconds.  “I hate this and I hate you and my God, why did you do this to me!  I wish I'd never met you!”

“You don't mean that,” Blaine said, his heart plummeting.

“Of course I do!  How could you do this to me?  How could you put me through this after—“

“DO YOU THINK I WANTED THIS!!?!  Do you think I want any of this!  I would never have chosen to be a vampire if there'd been another choice—God, I don't even remember it!—and I certainly wouldn't have chosen to be mates with a sniveling teenaged brat like you!  I don't want to die!  I don't want to leave you!  It makes me sick, the thought of abandoning you here to spend your life with someone else…”

“I don't want someone else!” Kurt said frantically, moving until he was right in front of Blaine's face.  “I don't want to be alone; I don't—“

“You're mine, Kurt,” Blaine cupped his face, helpless to the feeling coursing within him, hating everything about this discussion.  “Mine!”

“Yes, God I—“

Unable to think clearly anymore, Blaine advanced, taking Kurt's mouth and body with every ounce of strength he possessed, shoving the boy back several feet to collide painfully with a desk.  Neither of them seemed to care, however, too caught up in the frenzy and the heat of their bodies moving so sensually together.  It had been several days now since they had been intimate like this, and Blaine suddenly couldn't conceive of the reason why, all thoughts of Selina and Kurt's family banished from his mind as his lips blazed a path down Kurt's perfect, pale neck.  This was what being alive felt like!  Why had he been denying them both for so long?  He needed to take Kurt, remind him who he belonged to, sink his teeth into Kurt's yielding flesh and taste the source of his life—

He wrenched himself back, away from Kurt's body, his own heaving with the violence of his repression.  “You need to leave,” he told Kurt, not looking at him.

“I… what?”

“You have to go.  Now.  I'm too weak, Kurt, in so many ways.”  More ways than he knew himself.

“I can't,” Kurt said, his voice breaking.  Then, more determinedly, “I won't.”

“Take the money, all of it.  I'll be dead in a few days anyways.”

“Blaine, no.”

“Go!”

“I WON'T!”

It was the last thing Blaine wanted to do, but he closed his eyes and forced it to happen.

His fangs extended, and he could feel his features sharpening slightly, the nails on his hands and feet lengthening into razor-sharp points.  The change was subtle but powerful.  One glance and any bystander would now recognize him for the monster he was.

Kurt, however, stared at him with stubborn resolution.  “You can't scare me, Blaine.  That's a poor trick.”

“Maybe not,” Blaine said, his voice smooth and sinister.  “But I can go out there and scare them.”

“You wouldn't!”

Blaine lifted an eyebrow.  “Try me,” he challenged.  “I've got nothing to lose.  Now get your things and go.  Your father will take you back.”

“Blaine…”

“Leave, Kurt.”

“Fine,” Kurt finally said, marching across the room to snatch his bag off the floor.  “But this isn't the end, Blaine.”

“It is for me,” Blaine whispered.

Kurt came close as he made his way to the door.  “I love you.”  He looked Blaine pointedly in the eye for a long moment, maybe hoping he would change his mind, maybe waiting for him to resume a more normal appearance.  Blaine remained steadfast.

Kurt tilted his head down slightly to brush a kiss across Blaine's distorted cheek, lingering there.  Blaine trembled as Kurt's warm breath danced across his face.  He hoped the boy didn't notice.

And then his mate was gone.

*******

That evening a knock sounded at Blaine's door.  He opened it reluctantly, unwilling to deal with whomever might be standing there, but there was no one—only a large, stoppered glass vial on the floor with a note tied around its neck. 

“Please, do this one last thing for me,” the note read.

Blaine shuddered at the thought of a knife dragging across Kurt's perfect skin.  He knew it would only be delaying the inevitable.

He drank every last drop.

*******

The effects of the blood Kurt had left him made him feel almost normal for about a day, but swiftly after he began to decline.

He spent his time holed up in bed.  Sometimes hallucinations would overtake him.  There were good ones where he was with Kurt, bits of memory tangled with fantasies of the life that had been stolen from them.  Other times he saw Selina, always laughing and taunting and then once, only once, on the day she had saved him.

Towards the end he saw his family.  His older brother with his little sister swung high up onto his shoulders.  His mother laughing.  His father sitting in his favorite chair, smoking his pipe.

He saw Sam being slaughtered, felt the despair of reaching out to save someone who was already gone.

He could feel again.

His heart was heavy, too heavy.  It strained and weighed until it began to melt away, thick crimson droplets falling into darkness…

Then everything went black.