by Heidi Lowe
She laughed. "Since when did you become a vampire expert?"
I was about to say it – it sat on the tip of my tongue. But I stopped myself before the words came out. No one needed to know that my ex, the woman they'd all been so curious about, was a vampire. Likewise, I achieved nothing by telling them about my newest flame, and her origins.
I didn't answer, not only because I had nothing to say, but because a young couple strolled in looking for assistance.
Dallas was waiting for me on her bike as soon as my shift ended. She hadn't called ahead.
"We've gotta stop meeting like this," she joked with that dimpled smile of hers, and that mischievous glint in her eye.
"Why don't you ever tell me you're coming?"
"I like surprising you. Keeps you on your toes."
She handed me my helmet. It was crazy how used to riding I'd gotten. It still frightened the crap out of me, but in an exciting way. She was about as reckless a driver as there ever was. Had a daredevil approach to her life, and mine. But this was just the thing I needed – to give no shits.
"Where are we going?" I said before I put it on.
"Anywhere you want."
I pondered this for a moment. Then, "Your place."
She frowned, her smile gone. "Why do you want to go there?"
"Because we always go to my place. I want to see yours for a change."
"I meant like a park or something, maybe down to the canal. Not my shack in the woods."
"You said anywhere I like. So that's where I want to go," I said with an air of playful defiance.
She looked as though she was going to say no and ride off. Her reluctance was written all over her face.
"Fine," she said eventually, not without the exasperated sigh. "Get on."
She wasn't lying when she called it a shack. Nor about it being in the woods. Deep in the woods. So deep, we'd had to ride the bike in, leaving the pedestrian trail a mile behind us.
Nature was at its most wholesome out here. Untouched by man, growing wild and free. The midges flitted around my face like crazy when I took off my helmet.
But her shack wasn't the only one close by. In fact, we passed several within a hundred meters of each other. I didn't inquire as to their ownership, suspecting that they belonged to members of her incestuous pack. I did wonder if the abhorrent Gina lived nearby. If they snuck over to each other's shack for nookie when the nights were cold.
Inside had that sort of rustic, abandoned cabin feel to it, like the setting for one of those independent horror movies. The furniture was old and worn. When she flipped the light switch, the room lit up dully, the light source coming from a single, pitiful bulb suspended from the ceiling, and barely holding on.
There was a wooden double bed in the corner – unmade, and a log fireplace low on wood. Peering around the room, at her meager belongings, I finally understood why she'd never made disparaging comments about my crummy apartment: mine made hers look like Buckingham Palace.
The funny thing was, I got the sense that this wasn't a money thing, or lack thereof. This was about living simply, living frugally, living in a way that she could up and leave any time she needed to. Always traveling light, never getting attached to any place. We didn't have much in common, Dallas and I, but we did share that sentiment.
"I know what you're thinking: a place like this must have cost a fortune. What a beauty."
I chuckled. "You know, that's exactly what I was thinking."
"Bet you don't think your place is so bad now, huh?"
"Yours has character. And it's quiet."
She collected some laundry off the two wooden chairs around the table, and threw them into a black bag.
"I wasn't expecting company. Have a seat."
I didn't sit immediately, but wandered around the room looking at her stuff. Weird trinkets, homemade bracelets and necklaces made of natural materials like wood, stone, leaves and flowers. For the first time a real picture of her was starting to form. She'd remained such a mystery to me up until then. These things gave me a glimpse into who she was when she wasn't with me. The picture didn't fit.
"How come you never wear these ones, and only the one you've got on?" I gestured to the array of three necklaces hanging from nails beneath the window.
"I do, sometimes. You've just never seen me."
"I always pictured you as more of a skull and crossbones pendant sort of gal, not the homemade jewelry type."
"It's the bike. People think they know who I am because they see me on it."
I spotted something else, something I'd seen before in the police station, and in a couple of weapon shop windows back in Lox Ridge. They usually sat beside platinum-plated daggers, knives and bullets.
I picked up the glass jar and weighed it in my hand. The platinum powder inside shook. There must have been at least five hundred grams. Although platinum had been cheaper than gold and silver for decades, this amount would still have cost her a pretty penny.
"Why do you have this?"
She took it from me, replaced it on the shelf. "Why would anyone have it?"
"I don't know. That's why I'm asking."
"Don't pry, Liz. Do I go around your place sticking my nose into your crap?" Her tone had turned cold, menacing.
"I just asked you a question," I said defensively.
She yanked open her refrigerator, which wobbled when she did. "I've got orange juice, water and beer. Which one do you want?"
"Orange juice is fine." I stared at her as she poured me a glass. Then I looked back at the jar. I highly doubted she was going to use it to make jewelry. So what exactly did she plan on doing with the stuff?
I should have dropped it, but I couldn't. Not when I knew how deadly platinum was for vampires – for Jean.
"Dallas, what do you use it for?"
She sighed, her back to me as she poured.
"If you must know, I'm designing something."
"Like weaponry?"
"You could say that."
"What do you say?"
She sighed again, louder this time. "It's something to wear at night, something that wards the fangers off. All right, happy now?"
She handed me my drink.
"And it's just for defense, not for offense?"
"Fangers are dangerous, Liz. You always have to be prepared."
It didn't escape me that she hadn't answered my question, but she'd already moved on to another topic before I could dig. I feared she would flip out if I pressed her.
"The others would freak if they knew I'd brought you here."
"So why did you?"
"Because you wanted to come."
"You could have said no. You usually have no problem doing that." Looking at her smirking to herself, I wondered if she got off on putting me in danger and uncomfortable situations. Was she some kind of sadist?
"Are you afraid of my friends?" Her tone was mocking.
"Actually, yeah. What idiot wouldn't be afraid of people who turn into wolves a few times a month?"
She laughed. "You lived with a fanger. It's a little too late to fear for your life."
True, but I'd never felt truly out of my depth with Jean. She terrified me in some ways, but not for the reasons Dallas suspected. She terrified me because of how much I loved her, how much I needed her. I never feared that she would lose control with me. She was never going to make that mistake again; never going to let herself get that weak where she would put my life in danger. That much I was certain of.
I sat down on the chair. But it didn't feel stable, so I quickly moved to the bed, without invitation. I made sure to avoid eye contact, just in case I gave her the wrong impression.
She took off her jacket, threw it over the bed.
"Hey, what happened?" The sight of the bandage on her arm startled me. It looked a little dirty, a few days old.
She seemed to have forgotten it was there, because when she looked down at it, an expression of agitation settled on her face.
/> "Oh, this. Nothing. I fell off my bike. Pothole."
"How bad is it?"
"It's a scratch. I'll live," she said dismissively. She clearly didn't want to talk about it. Why was she so cagey all of a sudden?
"Now I remember why I hate those things." It would be all I'd think about on the journey home.
She took a couple of sips from her glass, then set it down, and crossed the room to me. There was something beastly glistening in her gray eyes. This sultry look that promised to ravage me.
"Why did you really want to come here, Liz?" she said, stopping right in front of me. She looked down at me with a lopsided little grin.
"I told you, I wanted to see where you live."
"Are you sure it's that? Not that you wanted me to screw you in my bed?"
I gulped. Maybe it was that, too. Maybe that was exactly what I needed. It wasn't as if I hadn't thought about it plenty of times. Thought about how she would make love to me. Would she be rough, dominant? Push and pull my body around like it was an inanimate object? Would she keep giving and giving and never stop until she'd paralyzed me with multiple orgasms? Would she expect me to be loud or quiet as I climaxed, so as not to alert anyone around us to my presence?
So many questions, so many different outcomes. Of course I'd thought about it. And perhaps I'd even fantasized a time or two, when she was close, when I could feel the warmth of her body, and smell that piney scent of the outdoors.
When she sank to her knees in front of me, she took the glass from my unresisting hand and set it down on the floor. Then she pulled me into a kiss by my T-shirt.
Our mouths were still joined as she rose slowly, and laid me on her bed. And then she was on top of me, pulling off her T-shirt with the speed of someone whose only purpose in life was to make love to me.
Her breasts were small and pert behind the sports bra, her stomach flat and toned. I got just enough of a view of it before her lips were on mine again.
I was really doing this. Really going to sleep with this woman who wasn't Jean. Adrenaline rushed through me. The violent kissing, her light moaning as her hands massaged my breasts beneath my T-shirt. It was really happening.
And that was why I stopped her.
"Wait, I can't. I can't do this." I pushed her shoulders gently, dragged my lips away when she went to kiss me again.
"What can't you do?" Her face was agitated, her lips puffy from our kissing, her hand still clutching one of my breasts over the bra. "We've already started, Liz. Don't be a fucking tease."
"I'm not being a tease. I think it's moving too fast, that's all."
It wasn't all. The truth was, even if we'd waited a year it would have been too fast. And maybe it would have felt better if I'd been willing to let myself move on. But I hadn't, and it didn't. Because no matter how many times she kissed me, or touched me, it never negated the fact that the only kisses and caresses I wanted were from Jean.
Dallas would always fall short.
"Dammit!" She was still straddling me, but she removed her hand from beneath my top.
I stroked a hand through her hair, pushing out my bottom lip a bit to look pitiful.
"I'm sorry."
"If you're so sorry why'd you stop me?"
"I'm not ready."
We could have had sex, and it probably would have been nice – God knows I'd worked myself into a frenzy. But I'd been having sex with women for years. There comes a time when sex on its own just isn't enough anymore, and only true love-making can satiate you.
I never said this to her, though. It was my secret to keep, my love to endure. Mine and Jean's.
"Can we at least make out for a little bit longer?"
I pressed my lips to hers as my consent.
We made out for a while, petted a little, but it never went any further than that. I did worry that the growing sensation between my thighs would lead me to temptation, and down the path of no return.
Any chance of that happening, however, was thwarted when the cabin door swung open.
"I thought I smelled nasty sape flesh." I didn't have to look up to see who had rudely interrupted us. "The stench is so strong, I could smell her from my place."
Dallas didn't need to turn around to see who it was, either. "Gina, did you come to join the fun? You know there's always room for you." She smiled down at me, winked to show she was kidding.
"Don't make me puke."
"Are they really doing the nasty in there?" It was another voice. Had the whole village of werewolves come to see us? Was it a monumental event in the community, watching Weres and humans screwing?
Either way, it creeped me the fuck out. Eventually, Dallas got off me. She didn't make any moves to put on her T-shirt, and just sat there beside me in her bra and jeans, while Gina and Cory watched us.
They'd both seen her with far less on, I recalled, feeling a little unsettled. What future could we have ever had when everywhere I looked her exes surrounded us? Not only that, but their presence was a reminder of how fucked up her situation was. The more I looked at them, the more I saw her in them.
"What do you guys want?"
"Why is she here?" Cory asked. He'd been more friendly the first night we'd met, or rather, a little less uninviting. Now he seemed to be Gina's right hand man, wearing her wary expression as they both gawked at me.
"Wasn't it bad enough that you brought her to our spot the first time? This is just insulting now, Dallas," Gina contributed.
"We're just having a bit of fun. I'm not showing her the family jewels or anything." Dallas laughed, then turned to me. "There aren't any, by the way."
"I should go," I said.
"Yes, you should," Gina said. "Your kind has never been welcome around here, and it never will be."
"We'll go when I'm ready." I didn't know who Dallas was saying this to, me or them. But I didn't like that I had no say in whether I left or stayed. I really had to stop getting myself into these situations. And why was there always a crazy, jealous ex – or two – ready to gut me and hate me before they'd even gotten to know me? It was Robyn all over again.
I don't know why I noticed, probably because I didn't trust Gina and wanted to keep my eye on her, but I saw when her gaze fell on the glass jar of platinum powder.
Her eyes seemed to grow colder. The color drained from her face. But she said nothing, just shot daggers at me with her stare.
There was definitely more to that powder than Dallas had let on.
Cory twisted one of the two wooden chairs around, sat on it back to front, his arms resting over the top. His grin was the same as Dallas's. Could he have been her brother?
"So, you finally ditched your fanger girlfriend, Dallas tells us. And this must be, what? Trying out the competition? You know we're better lovers, don't you? Bigger everywhere it counts, too..." His lecherous wink was also identical to Dallas's.
"She doesn't care," Dallas laughed. "Fanger or Were, the size of your junk is of no interest to her."
"Oh, but she hasn't seen it yet. It might change her mind."
Wow, how insulting. Now I was starting to wonder who I disliked more – Gina or Cory.
"What's your ex's name?" Gina hadn't moved from her spot in the doorway to the cabin, as though entering would make her catch some incurable sapien disease.
"It doesn't matter," Dallas said, no longer smiling, only shooting Gina a warning glare. When she realized that I was watching her, the smile reappeared. "She's the past. I'm the future."
Gina mumbled something, something I thought sounded like "they all are", but I wasn't sure.
"Well, you two buzzkills have completely ruined the mood." Dallas retrieved her T-shirt and slipped it on. "Are you ready to leave now, Liz?"
"Oh yeah!" I said, springing to my feet.
Although thankful to be escaping them, an unsettling feeling had taken up residence at the pit of my stomach, and wouldn't budge. There was something going on that I hadn't quite pieced together – something I knew would bug me
until I had.
TWENTY-FOUR
It took several days of deep deliberation and soul-searching to come to the conclusion that I didn't believe Dallas. And also to come to the conclusion that something sinister was afoot involving the platinum powder.
I simply wasn't clued up enough about the clandestine operations of non-humans to figure out definitively what she and her pack were up to.
I wanted answers, but I didn't think I would get them from Dallas. And this was where I seized my opportunity. I knew that there was one person who could confirm my suspicions about what the powder was for – the one person in my life who would be directly affected by the stuff.
Laughter drifted from the living room when I entered her house. I waited and listened to see if I could make out the voices.
"And she said, 'No, we're here together, as in on a date.' You should have seen his face!" The speaker erupted in laughter. I hadn't heard Nadine speak much, but I remembered her voice.
The next person to speak was without a shadow of a doubt Robyn, though her voice didn't have its usual dryness to it.
"I don't know how clear I could have made it that I wasn't interested in him, and that I never would be, no matter how many beach houses he had in the south of France."
"Here, let me top you up." That voice I could have recognized anywhere, any time, spoken quietly or loudly, whether I was awake or asleep. As I hovered in the hallway eavesdropping, I looked down at my exposed forearms and saw the goosebumps, the hairs standing up. Jean still had that effect on me.
If she would have asked me if I was okay, I would have told her yes. To save face, to keep up the facade of living happily in my independence, happy in my new relationship. But the truth was that I wasn't okay. And that new relationship? Well, it didn't exist. How could it when I didn't trust Dallas, and I was still madly in love with my ex?
But this laughter, and her sitting among friends, it was as though I had never existed to her. Soon another woman would complete the quartet, and I would be cast out like the stray I was. It didn't matter that Dallas and I had never consummated our union, or that there was in fact no real union to speak of. Jean had had no trouble moving on.
