There Is No Better Love
‘ I know I've never given you reason to trust me, Helene, not since I left all those years ago, but I need you to try and put your trust in me now, ‘ the vampire is watching her with every wish and hope held deep within his un-dead heart that has been burrowed for centuries, unwilling to risk it all but knowing she had never once given up on loving him.
‘ You left for a long time, Lestat. Why should I have faith in your words after so long? ‘ she worships the ground he walks on, but her heart had been deeply scarred by his leave and though she felt great happiness upon his return, she isn’t as naïve as she once was.
The vampire crosses the large space between them to be closer, the warmth of her mortality easing every woeful response he experiences in that moment, albeit fleeting as she seems to take a single step or two away from him.
Helene is confused; she wants to be near him, but she also wants to keep her distance out of fear her heart will be broken again. There is tension that rises between them then, as much as it appears on his refined features with a clenched jaw and a resisted urge to just reach out and pull her toward him.
‘ I never stopped, Helene, ‘ he confesses, his hand rising to his chest as he offers her something more apt for the time period to which he had once belonged. Tears prickled his brilliantly blue eyes as he continued. ‘ I love you, still. ‘
The woman’s breath catches in her throat for a few seconds, with an audible gasp shuttling out alongside the words she follows it with. ‘ I don’t believe you do. Did you ever? ‘ her brows rise as she questions his moment of weakness, given the likelihood of it being a lie just to worm his way back into her life. ‘ Are you capable? ‘ she adds.
Lestat takes another daring step forward, this time reaching out to grasp her arms within his hands so she cannot turn away from him. His jaw is all the more tense now, the anger she had once known beginning to slip through the cracks at the audacity of her remark.
Maybe a part of him is also angered that she is partially correct, but what follows tears those beliefs of hers down almost immediately and she is stunned into silence.
‘ I have loved few in my time, Helene. I have lived for so long and yet, not many held my affections. You.. you are the calm through the storm. For the darkness that plagues my existence, you saw the light sheltered by the scared little boy that still resides in me, ‘ his words completely flip and reverse her previous statements and she tips her gaze up.
‘ I never stopped believing you were nothing more than misunderstood. I had hoped one day you would believe it yourself, ‘ she gives him the softest of smiles, reaching a hand up to rest against the cool flesh of his cheek, allowing him to feel that warmth he had always sought from her.
