by Ash Krafton
"You okay?" He reached up and stroked the side of my face, concern and amber glints deep in his eyes.
I nodded and didn't barf. Good sign. "I'm fine."
"Okay." He breathed deeply and stood. "Look, I'm going to say goodnight to Shiloh. It's after eight and I wanted to stop in at Cordula's tonight. Need to sign off on a few things."
I didn't quite believe the last part. He seemed uneasy, and I suspected he wanted to find one of his blood dates. But, I didn't call him on the fib because it really wasn't my business.
Didn't have much time to dwell on how he spent his free time, anyway. I still had to unpack my closet. Testing my feet and finding my headache had faded to bearable levels, I leaned and pulled him in a friendly one-armed hug, careful to press more shoulder to him than frontage. The smell of cherry and cologne still lingered and I inhaled his scent—not meaning to do so but unable to help it.
"Thanks, Rode." I'd sleep like the dead tonight, without the worry of actually getting dead. "Don't worry about the ward thing. We'll figure out a way to work together without blowing my head off."
He patted my arm. "You're a trooper, Soph. I'll call you."
Before I went upstairs, I stopped in the dining room, where Bethany was gathering up the tablecloth. An extra thank you for the wonderful meal earned me an invitation to sit and have a slice of cake. With mocha fudge frosting. I felt like a kid on her birthday.
I licked a finger and smiled. "I think I adore you, Bethany."
"Don't you worry, young miss," Bethany said. She flipped the tablecloth with an imperious snap and folded the square over her arm. "I've got all things covered down here. You've no need to worry. You'll see I'm more than capable of handling this house."
She looked around the room and sighed a contented sigh. "It's been my little kingdom for a long time. I pride myself in taking care of the ones who live here. It's nice to have charges again."
I smiled, feeling uncomfortably shy around the stern-faced woman, now that the lines of authority were softened and her maternal side shone through. I could handle iron-handed hausfrau. Softer was, somehow, harder.
A gentle Bethany reminded me of my Aunt Marie, whom I hadn't seen in a long time. My Aunt Marie was all the family I had left. Somewhere. I hoped so, anyway, and left it at that. I didn't need to deal with old issues with so many new ones piling up in the inbox.
"Thanks, Bethany. I like...being taken care of. It's a nice feeling. One I haven't felt in a long time."
"Well." She gathered the stack of napkins and hooked the napkin rings onto her index finger. "You'll never find any shortage of it here. No matter what walks through that door, if it's trouble, old Bethany will see to it. Good night."
She left me in the dining room, alone with the now-bare table and empty chairs, puzzled by her words and the sense of foreboding they stirred inside me.
I decided to head up to Shiloh's room to shake off the weird feeling. If anyone could provide a distraction, it'd be my new housemate. I hadn't had a chance to visit with her in a long time and I'd missed the girl.
I remembered her shoe and handbag fetish, too, so hopefully I could visit her closet. I needed a good closet tour to set me back to rights.
She was busy in the kitchenette when I got to the tri-suites. A pot bubbled on the stove and I sniffed the air. "Whatcha making?"
"Ramen." She yanked open the fridge and pulled out a bottle of ginger sauce. "Want some? I made extra."
"No, thanks. I'm okay. Still a big eater, huh?" She was taller, now, but still slender. "I don't know where you put it all."
"Meh. I have a fast metabolism." She shut off the stove and drained the noodles, shaking a liberal amount of sauce into the bowl. Grabbing a pair of chopsticks, she took her things over to the snack bar. "Hit the Keurig, will you? Dad said you don't drink coffee so there's tea in the cupboard. Earl Gray and junk."
I turned on the machine before sitting down next to her at the bar. "So, how have you been?"
She shrugged and finished chewing. "Okay, I guess. School is stupid. I have a boyfriend, though, so at least that gives me something to do while I'm there." She grinned.
I knew better that to believe she was slacking off. Shiloh was a dedicated student who kept a four point zero with seemingly little effort.
"And...?"
"And...I got a new Coach for my birthday. It's pink. You'd love it."
I shook my head. "I mean, how are you? I mean how have you been feeling?"
She wrinkled her nose. "Fine, I guess. Oh, no. You didn't go back to nursing, did you? I don't want to be your guinea pig."
"No, Shy, not that. I'm just...concerned. You look tired."
"Duh. We moved today." She picked up several long noodles and held them over her upturned mouth, dropping them in like curly worms to a baby bird.
I huffed out a breath. "Fine, I'll just spit it out. What's going on with you? Your dad said you were feeling a little off."
"Oh. That. Yeah, well. I'm a cripple, apparently. Dad says I have to get hypolution treatments. Big deal. I don't see what the rush is."
I sagged my shoulders, relieved. "So you're not deathly ill? Your dad had me worried."
"Well, stop worrying." She downed the last of the ramen and carried her dishes to the sink. "Tea?"
When I nodded, she popped a K-Cup into the brewer and placed a big mug under it. The smell of Earl Gray instantly filled the little kitchen. Not bad. If it tasted as good as it smelled, I might be in good shape.
I really had grown sick of tea bags. They tasted like trips to my Aunt Marie's house—plenty of cream and sugar never quite improved the astringency of her tea. It tasted like proper old lady stuff. As a result, I'd declared myself allergic to Lipton's. "So, what's the deal with these treatments?"
"Beats me," she said. "I don't even know why I have to get them. I feel fine."
"But your dad—"
"That man overreacts to everything." She groaned and started another cup at the Keurig. "Honestly, he is so over-protective. I was just fine living with Brianda. She took perfect care of me. But now dad took over because Bree had to go off somewhere and all of a sudden he's mother henning me to death. So, I didn't cusp yet. Big deal."
"He made it sound like you're going to get sick if you don't cusp—"
She smacked her hands down on the countertop, her back still toward me. "I'm not ready for this particular conversation right now."
I chewed my lip. Her tone was taking on an edge I wasn't familiar with. Teenage cocky, I guess. I didn't have much experience with something like that. Better play it safe and not say anything that might set that tone off again. "Well, whatever. At least we get to see each other more. It'll be fun."
She brought her cup over to the snack bar and squeezed my hand. "I missed you, Sophie. Dad should never have kept us away from you."
I smiled back, caught off guard by the gentleness of her voice. It caught something in the back of my throat. I nodded. "Well. Things can be made right now."
"Except for Uncle Marek." She sipped her hot chocolate. "I wish he could be here, too. I miss him, and I miss you and him together. I wish there was a way to bring him back here, so we could be a family again. I just want him to come back."
I didn't know how to respond. I wanted what she wanted. Difference was, I had a secret. Maybe Eirene could bring him back. It just wasn't fair to get the poor kid's hopes up.
Her phone rang, rattling upon the counter top. She tapped the screen and leaned toward it. "Hang on."
Looking at me, she hung her head. "Can I talk to you later?"
I took my tea back to my rooms. Thank goodness for cell phone interruptions. I didn't need to be an empath to understand her frustration. I wasn't ready to have that particular conversation, myself.
My first night in Marek's room was a complete nightmare.
I tried to give it a chance. I changed the sheets, I opened the bed curtains all the way, and I emptied an entire bottle of fabric deodorizer into the room, tu
rning the ceiling fan on high to get everything to dry. The bureau and wardrobe were empty, so I put my favorite sachets into every space. Remembering my teasing conversation with Rodrian regarding skeletons in the closet, I didn't open the one in the bedroom.
That closet could stay shut for now. I figured, one surprise at a time.
Even though the bed smelled like a lavender cloud, I could still detect Marek's scent. Leather and sandalwood. It was there beneath the fragrances in which I'd drowned the room, lurking like a constant reminder. I didn't know if it was just my mind insisting it was there, exaggerating a tiny wisp of scent. Didn't matter.
I lay awake all night long, restless upon the unfamiliar mattress, feeling contained by the big four poster bed. Memories of our last night haunted me and I replayed the events over and over in my mind. The motorcycle ride. The dunk in the pool. The love we'd made in this very bed. The thoughts kept tumbling around my head like socks in a dryer.
Exhausted as I was, I couldn't fall all the way to sleep until early in the morning. When I slept, I dreamed.
Marek, here, next to me, a presence, at first. A voice. A sensation of heat lying beside me. He spoke to me, nonsense words of comfort and love. I didn't know I was dreaming—I was too exhausted for lucidity. Caught up in the dream, I reached for him. It was our last night together, all over again.
He slid his hand over my bare stomach, wrapping around my side, tugging me, pulling me against him. I melted against his skin, the heat and the muscle so familiar. Lost in his scent. His breath against my neck, he murmured my name, a rumble of bass notes.
"Love me," I whispered.
And he did.
For the length of one precious dream, I was in the arms of the man I loved, allowing him to strip away all my doubts and my grief and he loved me the way he had before. I cried out, I nearly wept. Every emotion I'd swallowed and denied for the last year surged up and out, freeing me. I was loved.
Marek loved me and he consumed me and we reached completion. Every muscle in my body throbbed with longing to stay in that moment forever.
But then, the dream changed. Marek grew chilled, cold to the touch, and I realized he'd become a stranger. He drew back and lay facing away from me, at the edge of the bed. His breathing was low and ragged. Marek sounded like he was in pain.
I reached out a hand to stroke his skin. The coldness of his shoulder made me snatch my hand away. Fingers of fear crept along my spine and I shivered.
He rolled unto his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows, hair hanging over his face like a shroud. I pushed his heavy silken mane back over his shoulder, peering through the shadow at his profile: his proud nose, his sculpted mouth, his high cheekbones, his closed eyes spreading lush black lashes against his pale cheeks.
Marek turned his head toward me and opened his eyes. They glowed pale green, like icy mint, not at all the warm emerald they used to be. The color in his eyes had started to fade, just as his grip on his soul was slipping. He was Brinking.
He would Fall if I didn't do something. What could I do? Would love be enough? Would the Sophia be enough?
"Love me," I whispered, my heart splitting with grief and the desperate desire to bring him back.
"Oh, I will." He leered, sharp canines slipping free of his smile. "But you are not going to enjoy it."
He opened his mouth and grabbed me, dragging me beneath him. His mouth, his snarl, his teeth descended and he took my throat. All of my grief and longing and despair, all of those awful things from which I thought I'd been freed—all of it came rushing back, filling me, drowning me, suffocating me.
I was finished.
I woke up, a scream in my throat, too scared to release it, afraid he'd hear me and come back. I couldn't escape the memory of the glow of pale eyes. They burned on my eyelids whenever I blinked, like a retinal afterimage.
Grabbing my blanket and pillow, I slid off the bed and plodded out to the couch. It was a lot easier to sleep out in the parlor.
Dreamless sleep graced me the rest of the morning, making me think I might have to buy a sleeper sofa. Marek's spectre could sleep in there by himself until he learned to behave.
It didn't take very long for me to adapt to my new surroundings. I didn't even mind living outside the downtown area, where I took the bus or walked when the weather was pleasant. However, living outside the metro area meant I had to drive to work every day. The driving part was a mixed bag, though. The last twenty minutes of my new commute home were pleasant and usually made up for the first thirty.
But the city driving—ugh. I hated driving in rush hour traffic. People did stupid things with their cars.
At least I arrived home in a good mood. On the flip side, I usually walked into work ready to breathe fire, fighting to unclench my teeth and to stop reliving all the flashes of what I wanted to do to some particular driver had there been no laws against dismemberment.
Technically, I could probably have solved the whole morning drive issue by getting up a lot earlier and leaving for work before traffic got heavy. But that would have been ridiculous. Me, give up sleep? Hell to the no.
The commute did have a redeeming quality, however: parking in the garage adjacent to The Mag's building. I'd called the office about leasing a spot after I had my meeting with Rodrian but the gruff manager told me that not only were the spots extremely expensive but there was also an extremely long waiting list.
Stupid adverbs and the mean way people emphasized them.
One little phone call to Rodrian took care of everything, though, because for some unknown reason I soon got whisked to the top of the list. The same manager delivered my parking pass personally and told me that I was only twenty feet from the elevator on The Mag's side. The Pope couldn't park any closer and not just because the Pope Mobile was too big for a compact spot.
The whole thing made me furious; I wouldn't have gotten it without Rodrian's help. However, my indignation completely dissolved the first day I drove out of the garage to go home. For the first time in months I didn't have to run away from that wolf-eyed bastard, and I sang along to my favorite CD all the way home.
Dropping my keys on the narrow table inside the foyer, I hollered. "Anybody home?"
"In here." Rodrian's voice called from the den. The doors were wide open and I could see the fireplace blazing.
I could get used to this, I thought. Feels like coming home already.
Maybe not, I amended as I came in. Rodrian sat on the couch, wearing a concerned face as Shiloh hunched sullenly next to him. Mascara made grey streaks under her reddened eyes, her pink nose hinting at recent crying.
I sat down next to her and patted her leg. "What's the matter? You okay, honey?"
"Just spiffy." Her stuffy nose made her voice sound thick. "If I was any better, I'd be twins."
"Shiloh had trouble after school today." Rodrian slid his arm around her shoulder and gave her a bolstering hug.
"What kind of trouble?" I searched Shiloh's face for a hint but she wouldn't look at me.
"Oh, you know," she said. "The usual hey-look-a-wimpy-DV-chick kind of trouble. I couldn't be normal, could I? Oh, no. I have to be a completely helpless dork whose uncle is the most hated guy in the world."
"What?" I shook my head at Rodrian, hoping for an explanation.
"Shiloh was followed after school. She thinks they might have been Weres."
"And they said that about Marek?"
"No," she said. "That's what the people who pretend to be my friends say. He betrayed all of us by throwing in with the vampires. They say I'm not DV either and God punished me for what Uncle Marek did."
I stifled an angry F bomb, not wanting to curse in front of her. "Jerks! Tell them to go float."
"Oh yeah," she sneered. "Me tell them. They're all cusped already. My whole class and half the juniors, too. All they do is tease me and use compulsions to make a jerk out of me, because they know I can't fight back."
Bullying made my blood boil, especiall
y when the target was a sweet kid like Shiloh. "Brass knuckles ought to help."
"Sure. Me with brass knuckles. Know what Luke said? I'm the most non-threatening person he knows. He said that if I ran at him with a knife, he'd just say, 'Aw, that's cute, Shy, now give me that before you hurt yourself.'" Her voice wavered towards tears and she pressed her face into Rodrian's chest.
"This has been going on for a while, then, huh?"
"Since..." She sniffed, her nose stubbornly refusing to cooperate. "Since Spring. Tess cusped in February and every-one else did before school let out."
"You're not that far behind then, sweetie. Is she?" I looked over her head at Rodrian.
"It's, ah...a gradual process. Most of them started showing signs when Shy was fifteen. She hasn't even started yet."
"I'm right here!" Shiloh punched the pillow on her lap. "Don't talk about me like I'm not here. Maybe I'm not much but I'm still a person!"
"Oh, no," I said. "Honey, we didn't mean—"
"No one ever does. That's the problem!" Shiloh pushed to her feet and ran out, pounding up the stairs to her room. The door slammed and echoed like a boom of winter thunder.
"Okay," I said slowly. "What was that all about?"
"She's really upset. Her friends have been rather insensitive for a while now but being followed today really brought things to a head."
After school, he explained, she'd gone to the mall downtown, where she noticed a group of guys lurking nearby. They followed outside when she left. They never said anything or tried to touch her but by the time she'd gotten to Cordula's she was terrified.
"Were they Were?" My skin crawled as I sympathized, all too familiar with the dread.
Rodrian shook his head. "She can't tell the difference yet. It's an instinct that comes with the cusp."
"Crap, that's awful. Poor kid. I know what she's going through."
He raised his eyebrows. "You do?"
I decided now would be the best time to tell him, now that the problem was solved.
