(1/2)
Sometimes Rebekah wondered if she should have done more to make Nik see how he was loved. But then again, what else could she possibly have done? Even after all the pain and suffering he had put her through, she had stayed with him, through all of it. No matter how hurt or furious she ever was, she never left. And even that wasn't enough to make him believe. But maybe this would be. Finally. Typical really, she had to go through literal hell before he would see.
She nodded that he could sit, though she did press herself more into one corner of the bed, wanting some distance still between them. Of course, it was futile, he would still be able to attack her if he wanted, a few inches of space wouldn't make any difference to that. But it made her feel better.
"No, wrath was different."
She took a deep breath, opening the book to the poem of the Inferno. "Might as well do them in order, though the order didn't always make sense in there."
Her fingers brushed over the page and she stared at the book instead of at Nik. "'The portal of the faith that you embrace.'" Her translation was flawless, unsurprisingly. "Virtue, Limbo, whatever you want to call it. Every mistake I've ever made, every regret, every choice. The people who died because I was careless, Kol dying alone while I was at a stupid dance with Stefan." She had no idea if she would have been able to save Kol if she'd been there, but she still regretted so much of that so bitterly. That the last thing they'd done was fight.
"Lust. 'Carnal sinners who subordinate reason to desire'. Not shocking. Alexander. Marcel. Thinking maybe they would love me enough to choose me, love me more than anything else. Stefan." Her voice caught slightly. "I saw Elena coming back to Lawrence. Maybe it's prophecy, I don't know. He left me for her. When she was human and innocent, pure. The girl he loved." She did look up at Nik then, a faint scowl on her face. "And before you say it, don't start. I don't want to hear it." Didn't want to hear him tell her that Stefan would ultimately choose the doppelganger, the one everyone loved so much. That once again, she wouldn't be put first. She never was.
"Gluttony, that's obvious. I couldn't feed. I felt my body withering and I just couldn't keep the blood down, choked on it when I tried, felt just so starving." Even now, she felt hungry, hadn't been able to properly drink blood since she'd gotten back, and it showed on her face, how pale she was.
"Greed." She paused and once again read from the poem. "'They struck against each other; at that point, each turned around and, wheeling back those weights, cried out: Why do you hoard? Why do you squander?' Everything I ever owned, turning to ash. My horse, Aphrodite." She glanced over at the kitten, who was stirring and even wandered over to Nik for some attention. "Right down to the clothes I was wearing." Everything stripped away.
"Wrath. And no, it wasn't you. The others were there, the others in the Cage, or at least it seemed they were. And we had to kill each other. I killed all of them. Several times, actually. Killed Rose, even though she's my friend." That had been hard, and probably the one Nik would find hardest to understand, he who wouldn't have flinched at killing anyone.
Ah, the sixth circle. "Heresy. Won't surprise you at all. Mikael. And our mother. Cursing me as an abomination, a vile creature that should have died a thousand years ago. She looked at me and she hated me. Actually hated me, what I am, who I am. Told me she was disgusted by me." And that had hurt. Actually hurt. Rebekah would never be able to forgive her mother for trying to kill her children, and the vampire race, but to have her looking with so much hatred and disgust.
"The seventh was simple, violence, that was just pain, this constant pain that seemed to last forever, but there was nothing special about it. The eighth." This was when Rebekah closed her eyes tightly, and actually began to shake slightly. She had to take a few deep breaths to force back the tears that were just starting to threaten.