Solon’s estate is large, many acres, spread across the undulating cliffs, part of it reaching all the way down to a private beach you can only reach by a creaky staircase. We go down there each evening to watch the sunset, sit on the beach as the strong waves pound the shore, his dog Odin running up and down through the sand. Solon throws him a stick constantly and the dog never tires out, happy to be with him again.
We’re here right now, sitting on a plaid blanket, a couple of bottles of red wine between us. Odin is finally tuckered out, lying in the sand, his tongue hanging out, watching his master with a loyal gaze.
The beach itself is only accessible via Solon’s property, giving us complete privacy, the short stretch bracketed by cliffs dropping down into the waves. Anyone else would be cold, the mist rolling in off the Pacific, but luckily we’re vampires.
I sigh and lean back into Solon’s arms, never wanting to leave this place.
“I don’t even know how you live in the city,” I tell him in a dreamy voice. “I would spend all my time here.”
“I do come here often,” Solon says, running his thumb over my bare arm in light circles. “But then I miss the city. You’d think after so many centuries I’d be over people, but I’m not. I like the hustle and bustle. The smells. The sounds. If it’s too quiet for too long, then I start looking for problems, usually within myself.”
“I’m going to guess that you have properties all over the world,” I tell him.
“I do.”
“Are you planning on taking me to all of them?” I ask, tilting my head back to look at him.
“If you wish,” he says with a soft smile, kissing the top of my head. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
I think that over. I’ve traveled quite a bit already, but right now, with eternity stretched out in front of us, I feel like the world is our oyster.
“I know this sounds silly after everything that’s happened,” I begin. “But I still want to finish my degree. I still want to do the things I had planned.”
His face grows serious. “That doesn’t sound silly, Lenore. That sounds like the right thing to do. Most vampires go to school, over and over again, in as many different areas of expertise that they can.”
“But, you see, I have this internship in August, on a dig in Egypt…”
“And so we’ll go. Together.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. If it’s important to you, it’s important to me. Besides, it’s been a century since I’ve been to Egypt.”
I think about that for a bit. “Do you travel by private plane?” I ask.
He gives me a smug look. “The one thing my money is really good for.”
“I don’t know,” I muse, staring at the orange sun as it starts to disappear under the horizon. “I think this place is more than good. In fact, I insist we use this at least once a month.”
“Oh really?”
“We live in a vampire frat house, Solon.”
“What did you just say?” he growls sharply, and then starts to tickle my sides.
I squeal, trying to get out of the way, but he holds me down, and Odin gets up, licking my arms, trying to figure out what’s happening. “Not fair that I’m still ticklish,” I cry out.
“Your senses are permanently heightened,” he says, gripping me hard and pulling me back into him. “We’re the most ticklish creatures on the planet.”
“Good to know,” I tell him, shooting him a wicked grin.
I relax against him again, Odin sitting dutifully beside us, as the sun sinks and sinks. There’s the green flash and then it’s gone, leaving the sky a beautiful shade of orange, red and pink. We’re in a living painting.
It makes my heart pinch, fear rising up from under me. So much beauty makes me worry that it might be taken away again.
“What next?” I whisper to him, my words almost lost to the pounding waves, thinking about Elle, about Matt, about what other darkness lurks around the corner. “What happens the next time I can’t control myself and I fuck up?”
“We take it as it comes,” he tells me.
“You say it so simply.”
“Because it is simple,” he says, rubbing his thumb over my shoulder. “We will never escape who we are, moonshine. The best we can do is to just do the best we can. That’s all.”
That’s all.
“And your father?” I ask, swallowing hard. “I killed Yanik. That won’t go over well.”
He presses his lips together, looking grim. “We take that as it comes too.”
We go back to watching the waves.
Darkness descending.
A waning moon ascending.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Welcome home,” Yvonne says to me, coming over and enveloping me in a strong hug.
I drop my luggage in the hall, and let her hug me, spying Wolf over her shoulder, leaning against the doorway to the kitchen. I give him a quick smile, grateful to be here.
“Mom,” Amethyst chastises her. “Give her room to breathe.”
“It’s okay, I can hold my breath for a long time,” I manage to say as Yvonne pulls away, holding me by the shoulders as she looks at me. “It’s nice to see you too, Yvonne.”
She pats me on the back and passes me along to her daughter, while Yvonne turns to Solon behind me and affectionately coos, “Mr. Stavig.”
“Hey,” Amethyst says, giving me a quick embrace. “How was Shelter Cove? You know I’ve always wanted to go up there, but someone says it’s his private escape away from people like me.”
She’s giving mock daggers at Solon now, who has his arm around Yvonne, the housekeeper so tiny underneath Solon’s hold.
“We all need a break sometimes,” Solon says, coming over to Amethyst, appraising her with a sly grin on his face. “Isn’t there a reason why you disappear to Palm Springs every month with your latest boy toy?”
Amethyst’s violet eyes go wide, and my gaze goes right to Wolf. As I expected, he’s practically bristling like his namesake.
“Boy toys?” Amethyst repeats, giving Solon a dirty look. “You’re mistaking me for an employee who actually gets time off.”
While the two of them are sparring, I go over to Wolf and give him a quick hug. I haven’t seen him since I was tied to the chair in the barn.
“Hey,” I say, staring up at him. “Thanks for coming to get me, golden boy.”
He tears his eyes away from Amethyst and smiles down at me, putting his arm around me and giving me a tight squeeze. “You know I wouldn’t let Solon do that alone. When one of us is at risk, all of us are.”
“So you’re pretty much The Three Musketeers,” I tell him.
He rolls his eyes. “Don’t even say the words,” he says under his breath. “Ezra brings it up all the time. That, or we’re the guys from The Hangover.”
“Where is Ezra, by the way?” I say, looking around. “I wanted to thank him too.”
I mean, we never really hit it off, considering Ezra kidnapped me, elbowed me in the face, and then was all weird and predatory with me. But still, I trust Solon, and so I think I have to trust there’s a reason Ezra is around. After all, they wouldn’t have found me without him.
“He’s out,” Wolf says. “But he’ll be back for the dinner.”
“The dinner?”
“The dinner!” Yvonne exclaims, clapping her hands together. “We’re all having dinner together tonight.” She notes the concerned expression on my face. “And by dinner, I mean actual food. I’ve got some rare steaks and everything you could want with them.”
At the mention of steak my stomach growls. The two weeks I spent in Shelter Cove I barely ate anything. But I did feast on Solon every other day, so that’s been more than enough to keep me going.
“Odin!” Wolf suddenly cries out, dropping to his knees as Odin comes barrelling inside the house after us. Odin goes straight to Wolf, jumping up on him, licking him all over. Of course, with Odin giving Solon his stamp of approv
al about me, we brought him back into the city. It was the right thing to do, with Odin acting like he owns the place more than Solon does, and the groundskeeper Angelo looked relieved to not have to dog-sit anymore.
“Come on,” Solon says, grabbing my hand. “Let’s get you settled.”
We go up the stairs and I glance down over my shoulder at Yvonne, Amethyst and Wolf, the three of them now doting over the dog, feeling a rush of protectiveness over them all.
Several flights later, Solon brings me up to my level, but we don’t stop there, going straight up the stairs to his bedroom.
“What are you doing?” I ask him as he lets go of my hand and opens the door. He then quickly scoops me up in his arms and carries me in through the door, all the way over to the bed before he places me back on the floor.
“What was that?” I ask, though I have to say it did tick off a few romantic bucket list items.
“I thought we should do this properly,” he says to me, grabbing my hands. “It means something to carry someone in over the threshold. You know how the myths speak of inviting vampires into your house? Well, those myths are more or less true. But for us, if I carry you in through the door…you’re living here now.”
“I already live in the house,” I tell him. “You mean…in your room?”
“That’s exactly what I mean, Lenore,” he says with tried patience, but he still kisses the back of my hand.
“Do I get a say in this?” I tease.
“No.”
I’m smiling. Honestly, this feels right. My bedroom on the lower floors was nice and all, but it made no sense after a while, when I was spending every night in his bed anyway.
“Fine,” I tell him, placing my hand at his chest. “I’ll move in with you. But I do think I should choose what side of the bed I get.”
His jaw almost drops, nose flaring. “I have spent eight hundred years on the left side of the bed, and I am not switching now.”
I laugh. “Okay, fine. You win. But you will have to owe me something for this sacrifice.”
He rolls his eyes to the ceiling.
It was just a quick action, but my eyes are drawn up there.
To the ladder that leads to the trap door in the ceiling.
“And what you owe me is taking me up there for once,” I say, pointing up.
He looks at me for a moment, thinking, then shrugs. “Alright.”
He turns and then heads to the ladder, his long, large body climbing up with ease.
I follow, placing hands and feet on the rungs and going up until he’s reaching through and pulling me up by my arms.
I’m finally up here.
I look around. “Wow.”
The tower is nothing like I expected. It’s a smaller space than I thought, just a small square room, the wallpaper dark blue and peppered with stars. There’s a couple of black beanbag chairs in the corner, an overflowing stack of vinyl records and a record player.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“This is where I come to think,” he says, settling down on one of the beanbag chairs. The sight of his big, well-dressed frame in it tickles me. He pats the space next to him. “Come here.”
I go over to him and sit down. The bean bag chair moves under me, tipping me on my back, and I’m laughing, helpless, looking up at him and the top of the tower behind his head. The boards in the tower have been removed, so all you see are the rafters going up and up and up. Except on the left side, there looks to be a mummified animal staring at us from over the edge.
I squint my eyes. “Uh, is that a bat?” I ask. I look back at Solon and he’s grinning at me. “Well, is it?”
“I didn’t put it there,” he protests. “Let’s just say the people who used to live here with us were into a lot of acid.”
“I would say so,” I muse. But the mention of bat reminds me of something else. “Hey, not long ago you mentioned something about Dracula being Dramacula, which is a great pun by the way. But…Dracula isn’t real, is he?”
Solon’s smile turns secretive, his eyes gleaming. “I’m not sure I should tell you the truth. You’d probably go and fall in love with him.”
My eyes go wide. “You mean he’s real and he’s alive?”
Another sly smile. “Let’s just say that Bram Stoker got a lot of things wrong about Vlad. And, by chance, he got a lot of things right.”
I ponder that, thinking back to all the Dracula movies I’ve seen, wondering what parts were real and what weren’t.
Then I flip over on my side and look at Solon. “Okay. So on the subject of Dracula, who is your favorite vampire?”
His dark brows shoot up. “My favorite vampire?”
“Besides yourself,” I quickly add.
“Oh. Well, then I’d have to say The Count.”
“…Count Dracula?”
He grins at me. “No. Count Von Count,” he says. “From Sesame Street.” He twitches a finger at me. “One, ah-ha-ha,” he says in his best impression as he brings his hand to my neck, tickling me. “Two, ah-ha-ha.”
I yelp, trying to move, but the damn bean bag chair is sucking me in and then he’s kissing me.
We spend quite a bit of time up there in the tower room. Putting on music, getting naked, you know, the things you would do after a long drive back from the north coast.
Eventually, we come back down the ladder, to his bedroom, to my new room.
And that’s when it all hits me.
The changes my life has suddenly made in the last couple of months.
Being in Shelter Cove was sheltering. It made me forget what was really happening in my life, what had happened to me, my family, what had happened to Elle, to Matt, letting me push them to side in the incoming fog.
Now that I’m back in the city, it’s hitting me hard.
“What’s wrong?” Solon asks me, putting his hand on my arm, eyes peering at me inquisitively.
I swallow hard, trying to wrestle with the feelings.
“I still don’t know my place in this world,” I whisper to him.
“What do you mean?” he asks, coming closer.
I glance up at him. “I feel…like I don’t know what to expect from myself anymore. I saw what I did to Yanik back in that barn, I felt the fire, felt the power, but I don’t know what it means. I’m half a vampire. Half a witch. But I’m not a whole of anything.”
“But you are, Lenore,” he whispers fiercely. He grabs my hands, pressing my knuckles to his lips. “You are my whole heart.”
If he wasn’t holding onto me, I think I’d fall to my knees.
Dear lord.
I shake my head at him, willing myself to not cry for once. I can’t cry every time he says something so incredibly heartfelt and romantic, or I’d be a puddle of tears for eternity.
“Come on, let’s have dinner,” he says, holding onto my hand and leading me out of the bedroom.
I follow him, going down the stairs, passing by dead roses and making them bloom before my eyes.
We’re right on time, because the table in the dining room is all set and as we step inside, I realize this is the first time I’ve been around all five people in this house (and now a dog) at the same time, in the same room.
And at the table there are only two empty seats.
At both ends of the table.
Solon goes to one, and I go to the other, taking our place as the heads.
I look down at Solon and give him a shy smile. It feels so lofty to be sitting here across from him, but at the same it feels…right.
Meant to be.
“Well this looks wonderful, Yvonne,” Solon says to her.
I look over the food. There are nearly raw steaks, seared just so for us vampires, and then medium steaks for the normal folk. There’s salads of sliced fennel and oranges, there’s potato, cucumber, even a seafood salad. There’re also huge carafes of red wine, and it seems everyone has already poured themselves a large glass. Perhaps they’ve had several already, given the happy and g
lazed expressions on everyone’s faces. Even the snarly Ezra looks relaxed.
Solon and I quickly catch up, filling our glasses, and then Solon gets to his feet, raising his wine glass.
“Here’s to us, here’s to this house,” he says, looking everyone in the eye. “I never really get a chance to be with you all like this, and I have to say, it makes me realize that despite how different a lot of us are, I do consider you all my family. Vampires know all too well that family can be only blood and yet sometimes more than blood, and with you all, I feel…that we’re all in this together, as terribly maudlin as that might seem.”
Everyone nods, and Yvonne is tearing up, dabbing her eyes with a napkin. I’m not used to everyone in this house being so sentimental.
Solon flashes her a charming smile, then looks at the rest of us. “As a very old proverb says, we are all visitors to this time, to this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love…” he looks at me at that, “and then we return home.” He pauses, raising his glass higher. “May we all not return home for a long, long time.”
I look around the table at my new family, my found family, joy leaping up inside of my chest. It doesn’t negate the family I already have, my parents at home, just like my vampire side doesn’t negate the witch side and vice versa. I am an Ouroboros, one side feeding the other, and I have other beings in my life who care for me and look out for me, too.
And then there’s the one at the head of the table, raising his glass of wine.
Staring at me with all the devotion and intensity in the world.
Because he knows that the world belongs to us now.
And some day, together
…we’re going to change it.
THE END
Special note from the author: Thank you so much for reading Black Sunshine. I tried to keep this book as a standalone, but as I wrote, and fell deeply in love with these characters, I realized there is so much more to Solon and Lenore’s world. While I do think this stands alone for readers who do not wish to read any more about this couple and can be satisfied with their “happy for now,” I’m also dying to keeping writing. If this book has bewitched you like it has bewitched me, please let me know by leaving a review, or messaging me on Instagram, or commenting on my posts. I would love to bring you more of everything.
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