by Heidi Lowe
"Can you believe it took being attacked by werewolves to bring us back together?" I laughed, but she didn't.
She looked away, but held my hand. "We should talk about what happened that night, Lissa."
I didn't want to. It was bad enough that I'd had to relive it every night in my dreams, every time I closed my eyes. I thought I was going to die. I should have died. The universe had pulled out all the stops putting Robyn and Nadine, of all people, on that road that night. It was so much of a coincidence that it started to feel like divine intervention.
"Why do we have to talk about it?" I knew that sooner or later she would ask me, that once we'd gotten back to a good place together we would be ready to talk about it, about everything. But I would have preferred to forget the whole sorry mess – erase my time with Dallas from history.
"I need to know."
I sighed, but squeezed her hand tighter. I wouldn't let go of her unless I had to. "I thought I was going to a surprise birthday party for Dallas. That's what her friend – well, her ex – claimed the day before." Telling it, saying it out loud made it sound all the more absurd. I couldn't believe I'd fallen for it. "I didn't realize it was a full moon. I know that sounds crazy."
Jean's eyes were no longer placid and filled with love. There was something vengeful in them now. "You mean they really did set the whole thing up? That they sent you out there to kill you?"
I nodded slowly, uncertainly. Uncertain not as to their true intentions, but about what trouble this revelation would lead to. That look in Jean's eye, I'd never seen it before, and I knew instinctively that someone was going to pay.
"They should not have done that," she said, so calmly it unnerved me.
"It doesn't matter now. I'm alive, we're together. Let's just forget about them and move on."
I don't think she even heard me. I imagined she was stuck in some momentary revenge warp.
"Jean, I love you and I don't want anything bad to happen to you."
That drew her out of her haze, returned her to the here and now, to the girlfriend who loved and needed her. She threw her arms around me and held me so tightly I thought my ribs were fracturing all over again.
"Oh God, baby, I'm sorry. I get so carried away," she said when I moaned in agony.
I let out a little, winded laugh. "You're going to love me to death."
She kissed me all over my face like I was some precious thing she was afraid of losing. I always felt delicate, made of glass, when I was with her, even before the attack.
"How do you feel, generally? Everything healing all right? Anything you need me to kiss better?"
"I'm doing good. I won't be able to go back to work for another few weeks, though. I miss it."
"I'm sure they'll manage without you. Your job right now is to rest and get healthy again." She kissed me softly on the lips. "And to be pampered, and spoiled by your adoring girlfriend."
"You know I'm totally going to milk this situation, right?" I chuckled. She pressed her head to my forehead and rubbed her nose against mine. We were so in love it was sickening!
"Oh, absolutely. I'm fully prepared to be at your beck and call, my darling." We made out a little then she jumped up. "I have something for you. Close your eyes. And no peeking."
I did as I was told, giggling like a kid, eyes squeezed shut. Moments later she took my left hand and I felt her slip something onto my finger.
My eyes sprung open before she'd given permission, and I stared down at my hand, at the new, sparkling piece of jewelry decorating it. A white gold ring topped by a huge diamond, with smaller diamonds surrounding it. I thought my hand was about to fall off, that was how heavy the thing was.
I just gawped at it, admired how perfect it looked on my hand. My mind fogged up as a million thoughts swam through it at once.
"Do you like it?" I'd almost forgotten she was in the room. She beamed at me, and sat down beside me again. "I wasn't sure about the diamond. It took me months to find something that I thought would be worthy on your hand."
"Months?"
She nodded. "I started my search a few weeks after we moved here. I bought this while you were in hospital."
I couldn't take my eyes off it. "It's perfect."
"So you like it?"
"I love it. But...what does it mean?" It may have seemed obvious, but it wasn't. Not when it came to our situation. "Human/vampire marriage isn't legal in any country."
"I know that. It's more of a promise ring. My promise to always love and cherish you, to spend my nights making you happy, and to never hurt you or let anyone else harm you." She brought my ringed hand to her mouth and pressed a kiss to it. "And if they ever do change the law, this is my promise that I'll get you an even bigger diamond engagement ring."
I didn't need a ring or a diamond of any size to believe that she loved me, and that she would protect me forever. But, well, I wasn't about to give it back. It must have cost a small fortune. I wanted to ask how much, but didn't. It didn't matter. A piece of aluminum foil would have sufficed in its place, as long as it came from her. The promise was the all important thing.
"And I promise to do the same." I didn't know how I could, but I was damn sure going to try.
We sat together, saying nothing, the way only true lovers could. Happy to be together, happy to be in love.
Then she said, "Just out of curiosity, if the law had changed, and this was an engagement ring, would you have said yes?"
"In a heartbeat," I said without thinking.
TWENTY-EIGHT
It had been over four weeks since the attack, and although there was still some pain when I did anything strenuous – like lifting something heavy or bending down for too long – I was fighting fit. There were now three long red marks on my face where the claws had scratched me, but with each day they got a little fainter.
"This diamond keeps getting caught in the material," I said, as I attempted to put on a knitted sweater.
Jean rushed to my aid and helped me into it, making me feel even more helpless than I had been the past four weeks. Once upon a time my pride would have stepped in and told her to stop. Now, any contact from her was cherished. I wasn't helpless, and I wasn't a child, but I wanted to be taken care of, and she wanted to take on the task. The perfect synergy.
"Oh, well if it's too big for you, my love, I can always take it back..."
When my head poked out the other side of the sweater, I saw her grinning.
"You know the only way you get this ring back is if you pry it off my cold, dead hand."
She pulled me into a kiss, snaking her arms around my waist. "Is it wrong that I already think of us as married?"
"No." I had the same thought. "We're as good as."
"Except you insist on keeping your apartment." This wasn't the first time she'd brought it up, and I knew it wouldn't be the last.
"My tenancy isn't up yet. I can't just bail."
"I can buy it out, that won't be a problem. We can get the rest of your things now, and you'll never have to go back there again."
It was all so easy for her. She wanted to see the back of that place as much as I did. She wanted to close that chapter of our lives, which included my pulling away and our break up. And, of course, Dallas.
I planned to surprise her when I got back home, once I'd met with the property agent and he'd agreed to let me out of my tenancy early. That was where I was headed that evening.
It was hard keeping a straight face and voice, telling my untruths after I'd promised never to lie to her again. But I wanted to give her something, something she couldn't buy, something only I could do for her.
"There are only three months left on it. And I'll come round all the time..."
"I know. I just thought that..." The disappointment in her voice tugged at my heartstrings, played me like a guitar. "Never mind. The important thing is that we have each other. And I'll move in there with you if I have to."
Oh! I couldn't keep up the charade. I thought I w
ould burst.
"You really haven't been paying attention to me these past few weeks, have you?"
She furrowed her brow, looked at me, worried.
I smiled. "Didn't I tell you that I never wanted to spend another night away from you?"
"I don't understand."
"I'm going to meet the agent right now to hand over the keys, get my deposit back and collect the last of my things. That's if he lets me."
Her eyes were wide as saucers. "You mean–"
"Yep, I'm moving back in, back home. I never should have left. I hated it there. I hated being without you."
After she hugged and kissed me with elation multiple times, told me I was mean and adorable for playing her like that, she went to retrieve her keys.
I stopped her.
"Jean, let me do this on my own. It's one bag of stuff, and I want to say goodbye to my neighbors."
"You'll need someone to help you carry it."
"There isn't much left that Robyn didn't already bring here. Honestly, I'll be fine. I'll be gone an hour and a half tops."
She wasn't happy about the idea, insisted once more that I let her take me, but she finally backed down.
"Call me if you need anything, Lissa," she stressed, kissing me on the doorstep, just before I set off. "If you have even a little trouble with your landlord, or you can't lift something, you call me, all right?"
"Yes. Stop worrying about me." I laughed and gave her one final kiss.
"I'll never be able to."
The agent was due to meet me at eight, so by the time I got to the studio, I had half an hour to pack up what was left of my life in that dump.
I never did get around to getting a frame for the mattress. Or blinds for the window. The two dirty dishes and cup were still in the sink where I'd left them four weeks prior, their filth clinging so resolutely, it looked like part of their design.
There wasn't much left to take: some books, some clothes, some pictures, a pack of souvenir playing cards, a sketchbook, some other little bits I could have left if I'd wanted to.
My neighbor came to retrieve her TV and DVDs from me, and wished me luck on the next chapter of my life.
It took me about fifteen minutes to pack up, do a quick clean and make the place look habitable – the opposite of how I'd found it. And when a cockroach scurried across the bathroom floor, I shuddered and thanked the gods that I had finally come to my senses.
"So it's the end of an era," a voice behind me said. I'd forgotten that I'd left the door ajar.
I froze. Although I hadn't heard that voice in several weeks, you never forget a voice like that.
Dallas was wearing her usual conceited, devilish smile, which I'd grown to detest. In it I saw plotting and scheming, and the person responsible for me almost losing my life.
"What do you want?" I said through gritted teeth.
"I came to see how you were doing. Checking up on an old friend, you know."
"No, I don't. We're not friends, old or new. We never were. Friends don't let their friends wander into the woods and be attacked by their other friends," I spat.
She chuckled, an act that left me open-mouthed and speechless. Was this really just a source of amusement for her?
"Okay, first of all, what moron goes into the woods with known werewolves when there's a full moon?"
It was foolish of me not to have noticed. I'd been too busy worrying about how I would bring up the suspected platting and the shelter attacks without making it sound like I was accusing her.
"And secondly, I had no idea you were coming. By the time I saw you, it was too late. We can't change back until the night is over. There was nothing I could do." She shrugged nonchalantly.
I shook my head at her, seeing not someone mysterious and interesting, but a reckless, self-centered beast who had briefly pulled the wool over my eyes. She'd arrived at a time when I'd needed a distraction, when I'd lost my way.
"You know what, I don't even care anymore. About your excuses, about your freakish, twisted family situation, about your rituals." I saw the leather jacket she'd helped me choose, and snatched it off its peg, before tossing it at her. "You can have it. I don't want any reminders of you. It was a stupid jacket anyway."
She let it fall to the floor, pressed a booted foot on it as she stepped closer to me.
"Why do you always take everything so personally, Liz?" She smirked coolly. Except it wasn't cool now, not to me. It just made me want to slap her.
"Don't call me that. In fact, don't call me anything ever again. You know where the door is."
She didn't use it. "The fanger's taken you back in, is that what this is? So now you don't need me anymore? That should work out really well for you." I saw her eyes fall on my hand, and her smirk grew more wicked. "Ahh, what did she do, promise you the world? Promise not to suck all your blood while you sleep? And you bought that?"
She was getting to me. My temple throbbed, my breaths came in erratic, short bursts.
"She didn't have to promise me any of that. It was enough to know that I would never have to sleep with a rabid dog like you, whose idea of a partner is one of her equally rabid, flea-bitten brothers and sisters. That sick, incestuous thing you creatures have going on, I'm glad I'm not a part of it. I groom animals, I don't screw them!"
It seemed as though her eyes flashed that terrifying shade of yellow I'd seen on the wolves. For the first time I saw it in her, saw what she really was. And she was no longer smiling.
"Don't you ever talk about them like that, do you hear me?" The chill of her voice reached my bones. I shivered. "You know nothing about us. You're lucky we didn't rip the skin from your body."
I prayed that when I spoke I didn't sound rattled, but brave. "Like the pack of wild beasts you are. Yeah, that was lucky. And I've got some advice for you. You should leave town while you still can. I know you guys were the ones behind the shelter attacks, and the platting."
She narrowed her eyes at me but didn't refute it.
"I could easily make sure the vampire alliance knows where to look for you..."
I thought she was going to hit me when her hand flew up. But she pointed a threatening finger in my face. "If you make trouble for us, Lissa, it's going to end badly for you."
"Great, you finally got my name right. Now get the hell out of my apartment."
She did leave, but only after shooting me one long, threatening glare that sent more than one shiver down my spine.
I was glad to be moving, in case she and her wolf buddies decided to show up on my doorstep uninvited.
But the encounter left me so shaken up that, once I'd handed the keys back to the agent, I got on the phone to Jean and asked her to come and get me. She happily obliged.
TWENTY-NINE
There had been another time when I'd wanted to make love to her this way. When I'd been this happy and thought nothing could steal that from me. When I'd gone to the closet to find an instrument to pleasure her with, but instead found something else – a picture – that had destroyed my world.
There was no picture this time, because no secrets lay between us. Our happiness was real. I could feel it. I felt it when she was on top of me, when she kissed me, when her hands roamed my body, caressing everything as though it was new to her. She didn't cry after we made love, and she didn't look at me with that old pity.
I came back into the room, having finished in the bathroom, and found her just the way I'd left her. The thin sheet draped lazily across just half of her naked form, one pale, perky butt cheek and thigh exposed. Her head rested on her arms, and her eyes were closed. She still wore the same contented smile.
She couldn't have been more perfect. Objectively so; no one would have denied it. And the blood rushed to my head, made me feel dizzy and giddy and alive just looking at her.
This woman was mine. I let that sink in for a second, let myself get over the sheer absurdity of it. Nothing had truly ever been mine before – but she was.
I crept
to the closet and fumbled through it.
"What are you looking for?" she asked with that tired after-sex drawl to her voice.
"You'll see."
She laughed. "That sounds ominous."
"It won't be," I promised.
I found it and strapped it on. It wasn't the first time I'd used one, but the first time with her. So my nerves were all over the place.
I kissed a gentle, slow trail up the back of her leg, up her thigh, across her butt, and swished the sheet away to expose the rest of her.
She giggled as I kissed. "That tickles."
Then I continued my kiss trail along her back, letting her feel the instrument between my legs as it dangled and pricked.
I nibbled on her ear, my hardened nipples grazing her back.
"Are you sure you'll be up to that, honey?" she said.
"Of course. I've never felt better. And I've been dying to do this to you."
Up until then we'd avoided doing anything strenuous in bed, and I'd mostly played the pillow princess role while she sent me to Heaven and back.
Well, not anymore. I was ready for her. My wounds had healed, my chest was mended, and my appetite for sex was at its most intense.
I pulled her into a kneeling position so she was on all fours. I kissed her sex from behind, snaked my tongue inside, tasting her. She was already moist. Or was that the residue from our love-making earlier? It had that cold feel to it that suggested the latter.
She was addictive, and I spent longer lapping her up than I'd intended. Half because of her taste, half because her little moans when my tongue swam and poked were like music to my ears. I loved that I could make her moan like that.
Once I'd filled myself with her sweet nectar, I replaced my tongue with the tool between my legs, entering her slowly and gradually. I waited for that jolt that always came when I entered her – a new beginning each time – and the gasp that accompanied it.
My initial strides were careful, until I was sure she was comfortable and could take it. But then I really let loose. I was in my element. One hand clasping her butt, while the other, wet with my own saliva, reached forward and massaged her bean.
