My Familiar Stranger

by Victoria Danann

  After Monq left, Elora told Elsbeth she wanted to take a shower. Instead of answering Elora directly, she looked at Ram. He knew Elora would press to know what that was about.

  “Can we have a minute, please?” Ram asked Elsbeth.

  “Sure,” she said to Elora. “Be back in a few.”

  When she closed the door behind her, Ram turned to face her. “You heard what Monq said. By lunch time you will be your perfect self.”

  “He said good as new.”

  Ram’s mouth twitched at the edges. “So he did. Will you trust me in this? Please. Just wait until after lunch to take your shower.”

  “I feel grungy.”

  “And will you have whine with that?”

  “Oh. And I’m not entitled to a little whine? What have you got to entertain me then?”

  Ram looked around. “I could make my six pack dance. I know you like that one.”

  She snorted. He picked up the room phone, called Kay and asked him to grab Elora’s laptop and bring it.

  “How about shoppin’? All that stuff you wanted at Bloomin’dale’s that we could no’ carry? You can buy it and have it delivered.” She smiled brightly. “See? There’s nothin’ like spendin’ money on shite you do no’ need to change your outlook.”

  When Kay brought the computer, he stood in the hall and talked to Ram for a little while. “You’ve changed, Ram. You strike me as mated and mature.”

  Ram grinned. “Tis cruel of you to insult me so when I can no’ defend myself.”

  Kay laughed, started to slap him on the shoulder, and stopped his hand mid air just in time. It wasn’t easy to think of Ram as fragile.

  While Elora shopped online, Ram stayed in bed like a good boy, answering occasional questions about what he thought of this or that. Truthfully, he was so relieved she was alive and getting well, he was happy to be close to her no matter what she was doing.

  A little after eleven he turned his head to answer a question about whether she looked better in gray or black and found himself peering into turquoise eyes with a kaleidoscope of golden and yellow flecks. Sunlight shining on a Bahamian sea. He would have laughed with joy, but the sight had taken his breath away.

  “What?” she asked.

  He reached for the call button. A female voice said, “Yes?”

  “Get Monq up here now.” Turning back to Elora he said, “Your eyes had temporarily lost their very fetchin’ color. But, thank Paddy, you appear for all the world to be well. Take a shower when you wish.”

  She blinked at Ram. “I looked like a vamp?”

  “Aye,” he said flatly.

  She processed that. “Wow. Everybody did a pretty good job of covering that up.”

  “Tis how much they care about you.”

  The nurse staff gathered some soap and shampoo for Elora’s shower. Afterward, she put on a clean gown and left her hair combed out to air dry.

  Monq was waiting when she returned to the room. The first thing he wanted to know is if she was hungry. She thought about it for a second and realized she was.

  “Can I get the I.V. out if I eat?”

  “Yes,” Monq said. She sat down on the bed and pulled a blanket over her lap. “And I have more good news,” Monq went on. “The Order has been actively seeking a cure for the vampire virus ever since we had enough scientific understanding to know that it is a virus. It seems this incident made you an accidental catalyst. We believe your blood will serve as the basis for an antidote.”

  “You can cure Baka?”

  “Definite possibility and we need a test subject.”

  “Let me ask him. I want to do it in person. Can you arrange for him to come here?”

  “Given Sir Storm’s surprisingly stellar recommendation, I don’t think there will be a problem with that.”

  “Thank you. Will somebody bring me my phone?”

  Ram was aghast. “Please tell me you do no’ have his bloody phone number!”

  Elora looked sheepish. “He’s so lonely, Ram. He’s got no one.”

  “Great Paddy Shits in the Mornin’, Elora! He’s a vampire! No’ a stray dog!”

  “See? I knew that’s how you would react which is exactly why I didn’t tell you.” Ram was too agitated to respond so she added. “Do not even think about hyperventilating.”

  He shot her a look of pure venom.

  She laughed at him, but paid for it. “Ow.”

  “The death of me, Elora.”

  Two hours later Baka arrived at Elora’s hospital room, surprised to be escorted with courtesy and without chains. He suspected that her request to see him was a thinly disguised trap to get him back into custody, but he didn’t really care one way or the other. His hell was having to live inside his own body. It didn’t matter that much where he was.

  All four members of B Team were present. He nodded at Storm and Kay as he entered then turned his attention toward Elora, but didn’t move closer to the bed.

  “Hi,” she said. The back of her bed was raised so that she was half sitting.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better. I want to thank you for your part in this. And, I have a question.”

  He shrugged with an elegant roll of one shoulder. “Ask.”

  “What do you want more than anything?”

  He looked around the room at the faces fixed on him and then back at Elora. “That’s a strange question. Certainly one I never expected to be asked. What is it you’re after? Just speak it plain.”

  “It is a strange question, but humor me please. Pretend I have a magic wand and anything is possible. Would you want to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company? A Broadway star? Professional athlete? Hugh Hefner?”

  He smiled sadly and shook his head. He didn’t need a lot of time to compose an answer. Abject loneliness is fertile ground for self-awareness.

  “Very well. You want soul baring. Sure. What difference does it make?” He glanced at the men in the room again.

  “Nothing like any of those things. What I want is just to have back what was taken from me: a wife, children, a trade I can be proud to work every day with a sense of purpose and accomplishment, a bowl of stew at night, a warm bed with a soft and willing woman who thinks she loves me, a chance at old age, and people to mourn me when I’m gone.”

  Elora nodded. “Baka. You don’t disappoint me. Nobody was ever more deserving of having their wish come true. Monq thinks something good may have come from this.” She gestured toward her body. “He thinks he has a cure for the virus and needs a test subject. We suggested you.”

  Baka was speechless. A couple of times he opened his mouth and then closed it. When he finally said, “Thank you,” his voice broke and the men of B Team looked away, moved by the palpable depth of this vampire’s longing to be nothing more than a simple man with a simple life. Once again.

  Elora asked Storm and Kay to show him the way to Monq’s lab and then said to Baka, “I hope you get what you want, Istvan.”

  He smiled. “My Lady.” He inclined his head in a gesture that was a marriage of nod and a bow.

  When they were alone in the room again Ram said, “So how did that feel, Gepetto?” Elora gave him a blank look. “You turned the vampire into a real boy, did you no’?”

  “Why, Ram, have you become a story aficionado?”

  He snorted.

  ***

  CHAPTER 20

  The spell is broken by a kiss. - Snow White

  Within two weeks both Ram and Elora had their external stitches removed and were given clearance for leave for the holidays. Black Swan teams only get holiday leave once every four years and this was B Team’s year. Even though they had recently had extended time off, it would create havoc to change the schedule. So they were to enjoy December 20th through December 30th as away time.

  The first day of her release, Storm caught up with Elora as she was walking Blackie early in the morning. He said recent events had made it clear to him that he couldn’t postpone speaking for her. Life is
too short and too uncertain. He asked her to go home with him for the holidays and meet his family. He said he knew it was selfish to ask her to take up an occupation less perilous and be a wife instead, but he didn’t care.

  “Is that what you want more than anything in the world, Storm?”

  “Yes.” He answered without hesitation.

  “Okay then.”

  It wasn’t resounding joy, but he’d take her agreement any way he could get it and call himself lucky.

  When she brought Blackie back from his walk, Ram was waiting in the hall by her door with the intention of asking her to spend the holidays with him. She invited him in and told him about her decision.

  He took a step toward her looking suddenly intense. “No. Elora, you can no’ do this.”

  “Of course I can.”

  “You love him?”

  “Like a brother.”

  “‘Tis no’ enough.”

  “Well, it will have to be.”

  “No.” He kept shaking his head resolutely like he was prepared to dig in and battle if necessary. “You do no’ understand. You’re mine. My mate.” He made her stop and look into his eyes. “The only one I will ever have.”

  “Ram,” she pulled away and laughed, not taking him seriously. “Don’t be ridiculous. I made up my mind a long time ago that I’m not going to end up like one of your toss-aways.”

  “My what?”

  “I know about your slutty reputation. Elsbeth told me.”

  “Els…!” Ram was confounded. “Elora. You’ve got this wrong. I have no’ so much as looked at another female since layin’ eyes on you. Other women – t’was practically masturbation. Just markin’ time while waitin’ for you.”

  “Ram,” she laughed disbelieving, shaking her head.

  He went to her dining desk and started frantically searching for something. After a couple of minutes he found what he was looking for buried under piles of stuff. It was the book he had given her. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Elves But Were Afraid To Ask.

  “Did you read this?” He held it up so she could see it.

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of?” He gaped and started rifling through the book. He found the page he was looking for, grabbed a yellow highlighter from her cup of pens, outlined a passage, then handed Elora the book. “Read this!” She took it. “Out loud.”

  She looked at him like she didn’t approve of the imperious attitude, but let it pass and started to read out loud. “As a species, elves have a strong sex drive. Male elves, in particular, are highly promiscuous until they recognize their mates. Afterward they are singularly devoted and strictly monogamous.”

  Her smiles faded as she let that sink in. “And you believe I am your mate?”

  “Tis an instinct unerrin’. One that can no’ be either changed or denied. That day in New York when you asked me what I want more than anythin’, the reason I could no’ say was no’ because I did no’ know. It was because of the fuckin’ office romance idiocy. Of course I know. ‘Tis you, Elora. Only you. And it always will be.”

  Elora looked away shaking her head and her mouth formed a grim line. “I hope that’s not so, Ram.”

  He moved closer. “Elora. Please. Do no’ do this thing. If I recognize you as my mate, there must be a part of you that knows we fit together. We’re so right. You must know it. Come home with me. Marry me.”

  “You know what you mean to me, Ram. I’d do anything for you. Anything but this. Storm saved my life. Twice.” Ram flinched.

  “That’s a reason to be grateful. ‘Tis no’ a reason to give yourself to someone you do no’ love.” Ram grabbed her shoulders and searched her face. “I know you’re tryin’ to do the right thing. ‘Tis part of who you are and I love you for it. Of course I get that. But, if you choose Storm, you’ll be sentencin’ all three of us to a life of unhappiness.”

  She shook her head, looking miserable, but resolute.

  “Elora, you can no’ say no to me. This can no’ be right.”

  He pulled her closer, put his forehead against hers and said, “Kiss me.” She could feel his body heat, smell the carnality of his musk and wild fern scent, and could sense the energy of distress coming off of him in waves of vibration that were invisible, but powerful enough to be staggering.

  “Kiss me,” he repeated. The words were ragged, like desperation being raked over his vocal chords.

  “I can’t, Ram. Please. Stop. My mind is made up.”

  He took a step back, looked at her and seeing that she was determined – that she would not be moved - slowly a pall of sorrow washed over him, graying the light of his golden aura with shadow and the unthinkable happened. The playful gleam that perpetually twinkled in his eyes went out.

  Blackie whined. Ram stood for awhile in the silence, then turned away and left without another word closing the door quietly.

  Elora spent the evening packing, trying to keep herself occupied and distracted from thinking about the encounter with Ram. She and Storm were to catch a ride to San Francisco on one of The Order’s jets the day after next.

  The following morning she answered a knock at the door. Ram stood there in a pea coat with a duffle slung over his shoulder. He was handsome as ever, but looked very different with unanimated expressions.

  “I’m goin’.”

  “Now?”

  He handed her a wrapped package. “Happy Yule. If you change your mind or, if you need me, this is how to find me.” He handed her a handwritten note.

  She hesitated for half a second before throwing her arms around him. He shut his eyes tightly and hugged her back. Though he fought it, he could not help turning into her hair for just an instant to take in the scent of jasmine one last time.

  She put her lips next to his ear and whispered, “Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m no’ mad, Elora,“ he said into her hair. “I can no’ be mad at you. You’re my darlin’ girl.”

  He jerked away quickly, hiding his face. And then he was gone.

  When Elora closed the door, a fissure of loneliness opened in her solar plexus and began to spread outward, working its way to every extremity until she was permeated with a sadness heavier than any she had known before, even when she grieved for her family. As the hours went by that fissure grew into a chasm.

  She spent the rest of the day packing and unpacking and trying not to think. She didn’t see Storm as he was busy tying up loose ends.

  Late in the day Kay knocked on her door to say goodbye. “Are you absolutely sure you’ve made the right choice?

  He was sure he saw doubt flutter across Elora’s face. “I think maybe none of us can be absolutely sure we made the right choices until we’re looking back from our last breath. You know, you can’t connect the dots going forward or something like that.”

  “You’re wrong about that, Elora. Every cell in every fiber of my being knows Katrina is the one for me. Absolutely. If you don’t feel that way about Storm - please - back up and think this over again.”

  “Ram says I’m condemning all three of us to unhappy lives.”

  “Please don’t make me say, ‘Ram is right,’ out loud.”

  She smiled. “You know, Kay, you’re the best mother hen in all of Black Swan. I’m sure of it.”

  “Somebody has to be the grown up.”

  She gave him a hug. “Have the very best holiday ever. Ram told me once that most knights die of old age in their beds with great grandchildren standing around. I swear I see that for you.”

  “Be happy,” he said and walked away.

  Suddenly she remembered that was the last thing her Monq had said before she left her world to be reborn into a new life. She had teased Kay about mothering, but respected him immensely and, if asked, would say he was without doubt the wisest of them. Perhaps the best of them, too.

  His question surely gave her pause and even more uncertainty that she was already experiencing. It forced her to ask herself if she was sure that “doing the right th
ing” was always the “right thing to do”. When it was time to meet Storm at the front entrance where they would catch a ride to the airstrip, she still wasn’t sure she had answered that question satisfactorily.

  Their ride let them out at the hangar, set their luggage on the tarmac, and said the plane was just landing. Elora was thinking that her commitment to Storm felt more like a business transaction than she had expected, almost like an arranged marriage. She was sure of Storm’s devotion, but…

  Just then, as if he heard her thoughts, Storm turned to Elora and smiled. “We’re going to have a wonderful life”, he said as he leaned down to kiss her for the first time.

  She tilted her face up to receive his kiss. The touch of his lips on hers was electrifying – but not in a good way. The instant they came in contact she jerked like she’d received a heavy duty jolt of electrical shock.

  In the blink of an eye, in the mysterious dreamlike space in the brain where time moves differently, she saw a rapid fire series of images. Ram’s delight on discovering that she lived next door. Ram reaching for her hand under a white linen tablecloth. Ram hyperventilating because of fear for her. Ram sitting in Blackie’s cell waiting to be found. Ram looking up from bartending to smile at her like the sun had just risen. Ram looking at her across a poker table with embers smoldering behind his eyes. Ram flirting with a toddler in the coat check line. Ram with French fries hanging from his nostrils.

  Then, in a tsunami of recall that almost made her knees buckle, she remembered everything that happened the night she was drugged: his conflict between wanting to give her the relief she demanded from him and not wanting to take advantage.

  He had been her lover and her physician. She relived every word, every touch, every sensation. These have been the sweetest hours of my life. She saw him rising above her, skin flushed, eyes shining, a faint sheen of sweat on his body. The spicy smell of aroused musk, and wild tree fern. Last, she saw the look of desolation that claimed his beautiful face when she told him she was going with Storm. You’ll be sentencing three people to a life of unhappiness.