by Tara Brown
I stop fighting him, hating the tears rolling down my cheeks. “I didn't mean to hurt you. I just couldn't see why—why you would want to kill me inside like that.”
He grabs the hair on his head, looking like a mad man. “I wanted you to stay safe. That horde of vampires in that cave scared me! I hadn’t been scared in hundreds of years, you asshole! You scared me!”
I grab his hands, pulling them down. “I don't want to love you, any more than you want to love me but here we are.”
He starts to laugh like a madman.
I let go of his hands, hating that I have spent fifty years away from him. They feel wasted, abandoned and worthless without him in them. I start to sob harder as words stumble from my lips. “I hate that I have saved hundreds of lives. I have killed monsters in every corner of the world and none of it feels like it’s worth a single damn, because every moment is missing something I made myself live without. I don't want to live without it anymore. I don't want to fight my feelings for you. I don't want to pretend that what you done for me don't matter none because Angie can’t come back. I don't want to pretend that every single moment with you in it isn’t better than any moment without you.”
He grabs my face, crashing our faces into each other. His lips are just as desperate for me as I am for him. Hands scramble, clothes fly away or are obliterated, and when my back crashes into the leather of the couch and he enters me I feel like I am home. I close my eyes, gripping to him as his fangs pierce my flesh and his thrusts lift me from the couch. I hold tight to him, scared I might be dreaming again, or wasting my time with another man I don't know or like.
He kisses and licks all of the places that missed him the most. He flips us over, pulling me on top of him. I ride him, hanging on to his neck and jaw for dear life. He moves my body with me, gripping to my hips and forcing my movements. I like it. I love it. I love him and I don't think I can stop loving him until I see her. The redhead. I’m mid-orgasm when I see a painting of the first woman in Henry’s memories. I can’t stop the orgasm but when it’s done I stop moving, completely. “Who is she?”
He shakes his head, trying to keep me rotating and riding. “Whoever you want her to be.”
“The redhead?”
He stops moving too, looking back behind the couch to the huge panting on the floor. It has the same custom framing my painting he got me has. I would even say the same artist painted them.
“She’s dead. A girl I used to know.”
I pull back. “Who is the other redhead then?” Oh God, what was Henry trying to show me?
Marcus’ breath hitches, he is frustrated and contemplating lying. “The girl of the woman I loved.”
“You been watching her?”
He swallows hard, licking his lips and squinting. He’s going to lie and then he nods. He looks like he might start a sales pitch of some sorts. “She’s like you. She can make vampires feel.”
I climb off, leaving him erect and naked with just the sleeves of his shirt on. I grab a blanket from the back of the couch and shake my head. He can see he’s said the wrong thing. He opens his mouth but I hold a hand up. “She’s like me. She makes you feel something. So I’m replaceable now that I can’t make you feel things? I can’t—” Tears rain down my cheeks as I pause. “I can’t make you feel with my blood because you killed me so you need a new me? So because you broke me, you don't want me anymore? Oh my God.” I turn and run for the front door. I cover myself with the blanket the best I can and a protection spell I make up as I sprint out into the morning sun. It stings a little but it doesn't burn.
He tackles me to the ground and covers me with his body. “DON’T DO THIS! I DIDN’T MEAN IT THAT WAY!”
I kick him away, pushing with air and fire. He screams something but I turn and run for the woods like I did once before. I run naked as the day my momma birthed me in the woods.
Until I realize I left my cell phone and my keys.
Unlike in the ‘50s, I have to go back. I don't want to. I face the sun and look at his house where he is still kneeling in his driveway.
I heave a sob from my lips. I can’t go back there. I can’t face the hurt inside of me. I don't have the emotional body to cope with it. I don't think I even did when I was human.
Something in the wind whispers to me. It tells me to be strong and remember who I am. It takes me a second before I realize I am standing in the sun, feeling the stinging warmth of the morning sun on my face. I can feel the glow. I’m not alone in the dark anymore. I’m not surrounded by the bad. The sun is touching me.
He can’t hurt me anymore.
And I can get new keys and a new phone.
He is pacing the driveway shouting at me now. He’s demanding I come back. I turn and walk into the woods and remind myself to listen to Henry more often. He’s my grandfather, after all.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I run from the woods and down the road wearing the sheet I stole from a clothesline. It looks like a toga.
I sprint across the lawn and dive through the door at Lydia’s, slamming it and pressing my back against it.
“Remind me again why you didn't want to just have sex with me?” Dorian asks as he saunters down the hall. Seeing his face, I break. I slump to the floor. He lifts me into his arms and winks. Suddenly we are overlooking a massive valley like I have never seen before. There are craggy rocks with mist lifting from them. The grass on the red and brown hills of the jutting mountain tops is green and yellow, making it so colorful I can’t take it all in. But the showstopper is the emerald pool at the bottom. It is a single pool, quite large and so bright green I can’t imagine it’s real. I have never seen anything so beautiful at the same time as I have felt so much pain.
He wraps his arm around my shoulders and he doesn't ask. He doesn’t say a single thing. He sits next to me and he holds me and lets me cry. He lets me melt into him until I fall asleep, regardless of the sun stinging my skin. When I wake we are still there. The sun doesn't sting me anymore. It’s setting. I’m lying on the ground, wrapped up in my toga, and my head is resting on his lap. He’s running his fingers through my hair, twirling it around his fingers.
I don't have a lot of moments that I can say are amazing. I have been in the dark for fifty years loving a monster from afar. But this is amazing.
This is more than amazing.
I don't have fancy words to go along with what this is.
“Where are we?”
“Cerce Valley in France. It’s my favorite place in the world.”
I sit up and scowl. “You brought me to your favorite place in the whole world? Is this where you bring all the ladies?”
“I don't bring anyone here.” He shakes his head, not meeting my gaze. When he does finally turn to look at me, his black eyes look haunted. “But you seemed like you needed a miracle.”
I nod. “I did. Guess you were my miracle. Thank you.” I lean my head on his shoulder and look out at the amazing view as the sun vanishes behind all the mountains.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I shake my head again.
“Good. I thought it might be the polite thing to say but I really was hoping you would keep it to yourself.”
He makes me smile.
“How were you in the sunlight?”
“A spell. I panicked, leaving in such a hurry I cast something around myself and it worked. I don't even remember what it was.”
He gives me a funny look. “Have you gone out in the sun at all since you changed?”
“No.”
“So the sun might not have hurt you all along?” He grins.
I slump. “Well, shit. I don't know. The last time I was a vampire I burned my ass off.”
He starts to laugh, making me laugh too.
“I feel like some kind of fool now. Fifty years in the godforsaken dark and I might have gone in the sun. If that don't just put the icing on the fuck Lorelei cake I call today, I don't know what will.” I slap him in the arm.
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“I do like it when you get all country bumpkin on us.”
I roll my eyes as he nudges me. “Can I show you something?” He sounds funny.
I glance down at his lap. “No. You have been sweet to me. Don't go wrecking it with your smarmy sexy side.”
“I suppose I earned that,” he laughs. “Can we pretend for just a moment that you don't know I have a smarmy side? Then could I show you something completely unsmarmy?”
“That's not a word. I’m from the South and we make up words all the time and I’m dang sure that unsmarmy hasn't come about yet.”
“It hasn't been given a fair chance then, because I dare say it would catch on.”
I lift my hand. “Can I get clothes first?”
He shakes his head and winks. We’re in a forest and I’m in a toga still.
I sigh as he drags me to the edge of the forest where a fence meets the woods and we follow it behind several houses. He leads me to a street and I stop. “I need clothes.”
He takes my hand and winks. Suddenly we are inside of a building full of books. It’s a library. He pulls me along the rows and stops, pointing at a girl at a table. She’s reading peacefully. The book looks massive. When I turn to ask him what the hell we’re doing here, I see it. His eyes are glued and his lips are parted and he’s in love, stalker style. I step back, shaking my head. I stand in the aisle where she can’t see me and whisper. “She’s like fifteen.”
“I’d say closer to seventeen but what does it matter? She is perfect. She has a book about neoclassicism and a college-level course on microbiology. She is the most sarcastic human being I have ever heard speak, but earlier today when I first saw her, she turned right around on the sidewalk and crossed the road. She must have just barely seen this old lady about to cross and went back for her. She gets the lady to the other side and carries on like she hasn't done a single thing.”
I grab his hand and pull him into the shelving. “This is creepy. Like super creepy. You watched her help an old lady and now you're all into her?”
He scowls. “We were talking about miracles, I think she might be one. That's all.” He is rigid again and smarmy. “I didn't think I should see if I could take her to prom. I just wanted to show you something that was perfect in the world.” He winks and we are back at Lydia’s in the yard. He turns and walks away. I realize what he was showing me and run after him. “I get it.”
He looks back, conflicted looking.
But I hold his arm and sigh. “I get it. She is that possibility. If you were a guy and she was a girl, she would be your girl. She is the wish, like looking down at the green pool at the bottom of that mountain. You look but you don't swim. You live but you never do anything but watch. You don't experience.”
His brow furrows and I hang my head. “I get it. I go and visit my sister and use glamour to make sure I look like an old hag like her. I sit on her porch and pretend I still like sweet tea. I don't get to live it. It’s an act for a day. I didn't earn a single gray hair or a single wrinkle. I don't get to be an old woman with her. I don't get to have any of those things because I’m frozen here, watching with you.”
His face draws in. He looks worse. I lift my hand to his cheek and run it down it slowly. “But there is nothing I would rather be doing than seeing that mountain side and that valley and that girl with you. There is nowhere I would rather be. I’m tired of looking at the things I can’t have. I won’t ever have Marcus and he won’t ever have me. But I can have other things and other experiences. We save people. It’s what we do. We save the world while it’s sleeping and that's an experience ain’t none of them other people are gonna have. Not ever.”
He smiles and I swear he has a soul for half a second. “And that is why Lorri chose you.”
I nod. “And I see why she chose you. You are the least smarmy of the smarmy guys.”
He bends and kisses my cheek before he steps back and winks himself away.
“You act all high and mighty, and here you are cavorting with my brother?”
I turn to see Marcus on the road in front of the house.
It makes me snap and shout back at him like a crazed women in a toga. “I never acted high and mighty. I acted sanely. You are stalking a girl who can make you feel again because you broke me. Don't change things up.” I point. “And me and Dorian are friends. We ain’t never been anything but.”
He paces in front of the drive but doesn't come down it. I don't think he can cross the guard so I walk down the drive to him, tauntingly. “You are a sick bastard and I’m done.”
He points at me. “You gave me your heart, it’s mine. I refuse to give it back. You are done when I say you are.”
I shake my head. “No.”
He paces, pointing at the ground. “Come home with me. I want to show you something.”
“What? The obsidian room with the devils rock? I saw that room already.”
He winces, knowing exactly what I’m talking about. “How sorry I am.”
“I don't want to play. I want off the crazy train, Marcus.”
He shakes his head. “Please. Don't give up on me. Please.” He means it but I have to choose myself. He is a mess, even more so than I am.
“I won’t ever give up on you. I will always be your friend, but that's it.” I step back from him. “You keep that heart though, I don't need it.”
He starts his rage. His screams and horrors begin. He’s a baby when he loses. I feel sorry for the red-haired girl. But I need to go home.
When I get inside a guy with dark hair and green eyes meets me in the front entry. He smiles and cocks an eyebrow. “You smell interesting.”
Brandon Green walks up behind him and shakes his head. “Interesting isn’t the right word. He hugs me, scooping me into him. I sigh and let the hug block out the raving psycho on the road who is still having his fit. “That’s Marcus?”
I roll my eyes. “When isn’t the raving lunatic Marcus?”
“He’s pretty hung up on you,” he chuckles.
I hold a hand up. “I don't even want to talk about it.”
“Fair enough.” Brandon holds his hand at the guy with the green eyes. “This is Luke.”
Luke gives me the cutest grin I have ever seen. I moan and walk away. “Why are all y’all hot? Why can’t we find some ugly supernatural beings to befriend?”
I go right for my room and my bed. I need a bath and I don't want to talk about the fact every word he screams on the road makes me want to buckle. I want his display of madness to be because he loves me as much as I love him.
I want a lot of things. That don’t mean I’ll get any of them.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Em pours me a tea. She is still agile for her age. She looks far better than Greg, but she loves him so much she doesn't even see it. “The kids wanted to take a ride in the boat after dinner.”
“Y’all go on, I’m tired.” I nod.
“I’ll stay with you, Greg can take them. Though I will say his eyesight is getting worse. We have to let Gregory Junior steer the boat. That man is falling apart. I keep telling him I got at least twenty more in me and he best not die before I turn ninety.” She sips her sweet tea and cracks a grin. “Lord, Momma and Daddy are almost ninety and they’re both going strong.”
“That is true.” I sip mine, almost gagging. Real food tastes a bit like death now. My hot cocoa with Annabelle hasn't exactly been amazing either. It's sort of like punishment for being dead.
Em offers me a lemon biscuit. I shake my head and she giggles. “That's how you stay so fit. No cookies.”
I look down and realize I always age myself but never make things sag. I mutter. “Boob job.”
She snaps her fingers. “I knew it. I told Greg you did, but he was all devastated I made him look.”
I swat at her, giggling along. I don't have a single thing in common with her. She must think I’m a narcissistic dipshit. I fix my hair and drink my tea and ask her about the kids and grandkids. She s
hows me pictures and we reminisce. I make myself come because one day she will be gone and I will be alone. I dread that day.
“Did Daddy tell you he and Momma are taking a cruise? I don't know where they get the energy.”
I smile, knowing exactly where they get the energy. When she gets up to grab her iPad to show me something, I stir magic into her tea to help her. Greg comes in the house giving me a brother-in-law sort of smile. I have always liked that I am not a female to him. I am an unknown but I am not something he gives anything but a simple smile to. Like you would a cat or a dog.
I get up and grab the pitcher of tea. “A drink?”
He nods. “Yes, please. I’d love some. Em makes the best.” I stir in some magic and hand him the glass. “She sure does.”
He drinks it back fast and sighs, no doubt starting to feel the magic. He taps his cap at me and walks back into the backyard.
Em comes and holds the iPad so I can see the pictures of their last vacation to Palm Springs. I can’t help myself. I nudge her slightly and whisper. “Has it been enough, Em? Was it enough to marry and have kids and be a mom and a wife and work in the library?”
Her eyes glisten and I swear she’s gonna say no. But she sits across from me and nods. “It was more, Lorelei. I don't know how to explain it but it was more. My heart is so filled with joy. I don't know where all the years went or where all the wrinkles came from, but it was more than I ever hoped for. You must feel the same?”
I force my lips into a smile and nod. “Of course I do. We are lucky to have such wonderful lives.”
She laughs. “I remember when I was gonna work and be a newspaper woman or something like that. I swear I was so crazy.”
“We both were.”
She nods. “You and Angie were worse than crazy.” Her eyes go dark. She remembers things about that day. They aren’t clear but I know she does. That day was the worst for me.
I reach over and hug her. I don't say why. I don't know why. I just do it. She hugs back, doing the thing humans do when they pat you on the back ‘cause they’re nervous of a hug. They don't know how lucky they are.
