Chapter 169: 169-The master’s task
Taratoya loved being a vampire. She enjoyed the hunger, got a high on the instincts that could turn affection into possession and fear into violence at any given moment.
She was thrilled by the fact that every bond she formed carried the possibility of outliving the humans around her.
If vampirism vanished, all of that would go with it and so would the body that carried her memories, the power that protected her, and the future in which she could finish what her mother had left behind.
She could not tell whether she feared losing vampirism because it was part of her or because she had built so much of herself around it.
Accepting the master’s tasks could make her an accomplice to her own extinction.
She could take the boxes, learn what he wanted, and betray him when the time came. That was the obvious answer and the practical one that she debated but what if there was no time to pull that off?
What if the master succeeded before she recovered the set? She would be left with one silver box in her hands and twenty-three pieces of her mother forever beyond reach.
Worse, she might survive long enough to understand that she had traded her mother’s final legacy for the comfort of doing nothing.
Her gaze shifted toward Zazen. She could kill her now. End the conversation, sever the master’s first thread into her life, and keep the threat from advancing.
The thought came easily. Too easily. But Zazen was also the only path Taratoya had been offered. Killing her would not erase the master or undo the danger. It would only make Taratoya feel righteous for a moment before leaving her alone with the same unanswered questions.
Destroying her might protect vampirism for a little longer. It might also condemn Taratoya to spend the rest of her existence wondering whether the next box had been within reach, whether her mother’s memories had been lost because she had chosen safety over truth.
And if the master could reach her through Zazen once, he could find another way which meant that neither choice was clean.
One demanded that she risk the future to recover the past. The other demanded that she abandon the past to preserve a future she was not even certain she wanted in its present form.
Her mother had already died once. Taratoya would not let fear kill what remained of her a second time but neither would she let grief make her careless with the lives that still stood beside her.
Still, another question gnawed at her. How had this mysterious master obtained the boxes at all?
If he had gathered them, then he knew something about her mother, her legacy, or the forces that had hidden them. Perhaps the offer was not simply a bargain, it was bait designed to draw Taratoya into a game whose rules she did not understand.
That possibility should have made her refuse but istead, it made the box feel heavier in her mind and captured her interest completely.
Taratoya’s eyes narrowed. It seemed she met her match, someone just as crazy as her and just as good at playing games.
"Agree quickly," Zazen challenged.
She picked up the little silver box from her lap. Taratoya’s gaze followed it with her eyes.
Just then the door opened and Katrina stepped inside after returning from her late-night run.
She stopped when she caught Zazen’s scent and looked up, her eyes widening as her gaze traveled from Zazen to Taratoya and then to the vampire sitting shamelessly on Taratoya’s lap.
For a moment, Katrina simply stood there without knowing how to react to the scene.
Zazen noticed her. A slow smile spread across her lips.
"Yes or no?" she asked, deliberately lacing her voice with sweetness and temptation.
Taratoya looked at the box, then at Katrina. The sight of Katrina should have reminded her what she stood to lose: the people who trusted her, the fragile life she had built, and the danger of binding herself to a master who wanted to erase the very nature that kept them alive.
Instead, it clarified the choice since Katrina was not merely another person Taratoya might fail to protect.
She was a reminder that protection could become its own form of control. Taratoya could keep Katrina safe by hiding the truth, by cutting away every danger before it reached her, by deciding on her behalf what risks were acceptable.
But that would not be protection forever. It would only leave Katrina defenseless against a threat Taratoya refused to understand.
Taratoya could not protect anyone by remaining paralyzed between grief and fear. If the master truly intended to destroy vampirism, she needed to know how, why, and how far his plans had progressed. Refusing would not make the threat disappear. It would only leave her blind while he moved forward without her.
And the boxes, she wanted them to have them, not as trophies or payment but because they carried every last piece of her mother that the world had failed to bury.
She wanted to know whether the memories inside them could give her something more than longing, even if the answer hurt her. She wanted the choice to face her mother’s legacy herself, rather than let another vampire decide what it meant.
She would accept the master’s hand, but she would not become his servant. She would take his tasks, study his agenda, and use every reward to pull her mother’s legacy back into her own hands.
If he tried to destroy vampirism, she would turn against him. If he tried to use her, she would make certain he regretted giving her a reason to learn his secrets and if protecting Katrina meant standing between her and the master’s plans, Taratoya would do that too.
Whatever price came with the boxes, she would pay it. But she would not pay with obedience, and she would not pretend that wanting her mother back was the same as having the right to endanger everyone still alive.
A wicked smile curved across her lips. "This wicked soul agrees," er eyes gleamed. "What would this master of yours have me do?"
Zazen smiled. She lifted her wrist. A barrier bracelet activated with a soft pulse, forming a thin invisible barrier around them.
Katrina’s expression changed when she realized she could no longer hear their conversation.
Zazen leaned closer. "By every means necessary..." her smile widened. "...get Maisa and her mates to fall madly in love with each other."
Taratoya’s eyes narrowed.
Zazen delivered the final words. "So the flower of fate can bloom as soon as possible!"