by Sotia Lazu
Here are your council bank account details and a credit card.
Let’s go over the prophecy again.
The last one never yielded new results. We had to have sex and be sucked near-dry while climaxing. He was convinced forcing Alex’s blood through my lips when I was near perma-death would spare Constantine and rehumanize me. And probably Alex too. There was no recorded case of vampires trying this before, but Constantine believed if I turned human again, so would the only vampire I made—Alex. There were no guarantees. At least Constantine wasn’t in danger of dusting. Worst case scenario, it didn’t work.
Wesley was pulling a vanishing act and only showed his face to bring coffee or reheated blood with Ruby’s brew. With the other human and the vampettes out of the mansion, he didn’t need to prepare meals for us, and he spent his free time in his rooms or visiting Sheena. He reportedly was teaching her to cook.
To add to the discomfort of my new reality, since Alex’s self-actualization journey teamed him up with my grandma, all I heard from him was, Ruby is so cool and Ruby knows what to do and You should hear Ruby’s rendition of Any-Song-Ever.
He didn’t say those three little words again, but I didn’t mind. It made it easier for me to function without constantly wondering about the mess that was our relationship. If there still was such a thing.
The morning before we were supposed to talk on Skype, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned, wondering how he’d take the news. Wondering why I cared. He left me. Now we had a chance for a real life. I had a chance for a real life, with or without him. If Alex couldn’t push aside his ego and give it a try, Constantine and I would have to find someone else for me to feed on during the ritual.
If I went ahead with the ritual.
I had to put on my big-girl pants and talk to Constantine.
No time like the present.
Fresh out of big-girl pants, I pulled on a pair of sweats and dragged my feet to his door. There’d be time to sort things out after we talked to Alex, but I had to know now—if I became human again, would Constantine have a place in my life? Would he want one?
I tapped my fingertips on his bedroom door. It wasn’t two seconds, before his voice in my head said, “Come in, Cherry.”
I turned the handle and pushed, praying he was dressed or covered, so I could stay focused.
He was propped up in bed, blood-red satin sheets mercifully covering him well above his waist. He was still breathtaking, with his long golden hair draping his muscular shoulders and his angular face cast in the soft glow of candles.
His expression wasn’t seductive, though. It was concerned. And I was thankful for it.
“Are you all right?” he said aloud. “Is something the matter?”
“I just want to talk. Is that okay?”
“Of course.” He sat up higher, and I was relieved to see the waist of his PJ bottoms peek out from under the sheets. He patted the mattress next to him. How convenient that there was nowhere else to sit in the whole room. He sensed my reluctance, because he said, “No funny business.”
I climbed on the humongous bed and sat cross-legged, facing him.
“Is this about Alex?” he asked through our mental link.
“Yes and no.” I still felt weird, thinking things at him, so I didn’t.
“Tell me,” he said with a sigh.
“You really believe the ritual’s going to make me human? Alex too?”
A shadow darkened his blue eyes, and he averted his gaze. “I do.”
“And it’ll keep you safe?”
“It’ll keep me from dusting.”
Not the same. “But you’ll be affected in some way?”
His smile and eyes were brilliant when he looked at me again. “Undoubtedly. The mere thought affects me.” He glided his palm down his thigh, and I saw the outline of his erection under the thin fabric of his sheets.
I set my jaw before I did something stupid, like bite my lip and moan. When I regained control of myself, I said, “A breeze affects that.” We had this exchange before, but it held true. The man was a horndog. “I’m talking about actual physical harm. Will the ritual cause you any?”
“No. I’ll remain my devastatingly handsome self long after he’s old and senile and can’t get it up.”
I stared at my hands, folded in my lap. “And if it works, what then?”
“You and Alex get your happily-ever-after, I guess.” He sounded like a different man to the one who days ago said he burned for me.
“What will happen to us? You and me? Will I still see you?”
He got to his knees and leaned closer. “Why would you want to? You’ll get back the life that was stolen from you. You’ll build a family with the man you love. Why should I be a part of that?”
I started to say because he was my friend, but it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. And it was a lie.
He grabbed my wrists, and I looked up at the storm in his eyes. “If you ask me to be in your life, I will,” he whispered, “and it will hurt me with every breath you take. Every time your heart beats, I’ll be reminded... Spare me and let me go, Cherry. You’ve obviously made your decision. Don’t make mine for me.”
I wanted to scream that this wasn’t fair; he’d made decisions for me before. I opened my mouth, but what came out was, “But I love you.”
“Then choose me.” The hope and yearning in his voice closed like an iron fist around my unbeating heart.
It would mean remaining a vampire. Giving up on normalcy for good. Giving up on Alex.
Did I want Alex back? Shouldn’t I have the chance to find out? I knew I loved Constantine the moment I uttered it, but I also loved Alex. Could I be with either of them, after how both relationships ended?
I needed more data, damn it, but one thing was certain.
“I can’t,” I muttered. I resented my vampire nature for years; I had to give being human again a shot. If I chose Constantine now, I might end up hating him.
He let go, and I felt bereft. “I could erase your memory when you’re human,” he said. “Make you forget all about us. You might be happier that way.”
“No.” Out of the question. My past was part of who I was, and nobody tampered with it. Funny how I once thought taking away Alex’s memories of me was a good idea.
Constantine nodded. “It might be safer for you to move to Europe, to make sure the council doesn’t catch wind of your new situation. Alternatively, you could stage a semi-public staking or walk in the sun and stay here, incognito. Even so, I’d move to a different state. You’ll have to find a place. Maybe a job—though I know someone who can funnel money from your council funds into an untraceable account.”
My gut twisted at the thought of leaving everything behind. Or maybe it was because of how detached Constantine sounded. As if we’d already said goodbye. “I’ll stay in L.A.,” I said. “I respect that you don’t want to see me after, but I’m not starting over again. I’ll talk to Sheena. See if I can help her with the agency. I’ll find an apartment.”
“So your decision is final?”
Was it? Doubt threatened to choke me. “Maybe. No. I’ll let you know when it is.”
He surprised me by sliding back under the covers and folding one corner back for me. “It’s late,” he said. “Let’s get some sleep.”
I slipped in next to him, and he gathered me close, my head on his chest. “I missed this,” I murmured, splaying my palm over his bare stomach. I ran my fingertips over the soft down beneath his navel. I was playing with fire, and part of me hoped I’d get burned. That he’d suck me back into the vortex that was loving him, and make me forget my need to see what could be. That he’d fuck me into oblivion and delete all other options from my mind.
He didn’t. He tangled his fingers with mine and brought our joined hands to his chest. “I want nothing more than to bury myself inside you, but I won’t be a diversion,” he said in my head.
Infuriating man.
He held me until I fell aslee
p, and then he joined me in my dream and lay beside me on the beach till late in the evening.
When we were to talk to Alex.
Chapter Six
“CHERRY, CAN’T YOU SEE he’s lying through his teeth? I can, and I’m in a different continent.” Alex shook his head, the motion pixelated by his crappy internet connection. He didn’t sound half as upset as he’d have been a month ago. “This is desperate, Cee. What happened to not being the default choice?”
I sighed. “As fucked up as it sounds, I don’t think he made up the prophecy. Let him explain.”
Constantine sat back in his chair, arms folded over his chest, looking from me to the screen.
“Aren’t you gonna say something?” I asked him. Under the harsh artificial lighting, the intimacy we shared earlier was replaced by our usual snarky banter.
“Anything I say at this point will be held against me.” A smile curved his full lips. “Besides, this is fun.”
“See? He’s messing with your head, so you sleep with him.”
But I already slept with him, and he made no move to take what was obviously on offer. “There are easier ways to go about that,” I said.
“Nice.” Alex scowled, but his voice held no anger. It was a refreshing change from the growly, jealous, and ultimately dangerous side of him Ádísa and Willoughby had spent months bringing to the surface. “If vampires could become human again, Ruby would have told me.”
Because they were so close. Ugh.
“She told me,” Constantine said, before I came up with a snarky response. “You’ve known her for all of a fortnight. I’m her maker. Besides, I happened upon part of the scripture several centuries ago, and Ruby knew that when she discovered the translation.” His flared nostrils were the only indication of his annoyance.
What Constantine didn’t say was that Ruby didn’t want Alex to know. The prophecy was about vampires who’d killed their makers, and Alex’s maker was yours truly. If he was determined to become human again, I might be at risk. Constantine convinced her there was no chance Alex would do something like that.
Alex leaned closer to the screen. “How come you’re only now mentioning it?” Seeing him in detective mode was familiar. Soothing.
“I didn’t know what it meant till Ruby filled in the gaps,” Constantine said. “I’m still not entirely certain—”
“I knew it. You’re working an angle. I can’t believe you’re using Cherry’s grandmother as a cover. She’s literally a wall away. I can easily check your story. Good idea, poor execution. You should have gone for something vaguer, man. You’re losing your touch.”
So my latest ex was giving my previous ex advice on how to... get in my pants? “Both of you, shut up,” I said, before that thought led me astray. “Constantine, take it from the top. Alex, please don’t interrupt this time.”
“I’ll try.” Alex sounded tired.
“Right. As I told Cherry, I was in the Varangian Guard in Byzantium, in the tenth century. Back then, it was called—”
I rolled my eyes. “Without the history lesson this time, please.”
Constantine sucked in his cheeks, accentuating his cheekbones. After sleeping in his arms, I found shooing away lustful thoughts about him was harder than ever.
But my lack of a sex life wasn’t the focus of this meeting, though it was heavily involved.
“Here is the condensed version, then, for those among us with the attention span of a coleopteron.” Constantine smirked. “Our job was to protect the emperor. During the battle of—”
I faked a snore.
“During a battle, I was forced to spend the night in a monastery’s catacombs. It was completely undignified, having to share a tomb with a freshly interred priest, but in his robes I found a torn parchment.”
We’d analyzed the prophecy to death the past couple weeks, but Constantine hadn’t mentioned his turning again, so I wasn’t surprised he said nothing about it now.
“You searched a dead priest’s robes?” Alex asked.
“I was trying to fashion some sort of headrest. I’d elaborate, but Cherry is in a hurry for me to finish the story.”
“Yeah, go ahead.” I crossed my legs and fiddled with my sneaker’s shoelaces.
“Yes, please get to the part that says you and Cherry must have sex, for her to become human again,” Alex said.
“I told you that wasn’t the right way to preface it,” Constantine said to me. “Anyway, at the time it made little sense but provided an opportunity for me to exercise my Greek. Now we have the complete text, the part that applies to us loosely translates to:
If two immortals who have shorn their own roots are consumed to the brink of death while taking each other, they can walk under the sun and count finite remaining sunsets once again, requiring breath and sustenance, and growing as nature and God meant Man to.”
“Either the prototype or the translation could be utter bull-crap,” Alex said. “Cherry, he may not even speak Greek, for all we know.”
“He kind of does,” I said. He tried to teach me, years ago, but it didn’t take.
“Fluently,” Constantine supplied.
“Of course you do,” Alex mumbled. “And according to your fluent translation, you two are supposed to fuck”—an edge flashed through his voice, before he reined it back in—“while draining each other.”
“You can check with Ruby,” I said with a sneer.
“We’re two vampires who’ve killed their own makers. Shorn our own roots, in a way,” Constantine said. “But there’s no mention of draining each other. Only of being drained.”
“And then you’ll be human again?” Alex asked.
“Cherry will.” Constantine shrugged. “I’ll be dust. There’s a short line about how we’ll each revert to what we’d be in human years.”
Alex raked the fingers of both hands through his hair. “Cee, if you’re lying, you’re better at it than I thought. Offering your unlife for a night with Cherry is kind of risky.”
His half-assed attempt at a joke didn’t make me laugh. “This is serious,” I said. “But there may be a way out.”
“Of course there is.” Alex slapped his thigh. His video shook for a second, before his face came back into focus. “The man is my hero. Now he’ll tell us about his brilliant plan that involves the two of you naked and him surviving the prophecy. And when you’re still a vampire afterward, you’ll have to forgive him, because—hey—he tried.”
When Alex and I were together, he’d expressed his distrust of Constantine repeatedly and aggressively. Now he grinned and seemed to admire Constantine for the elaborate scheme he’d supposedly concocted.
Men are weird, but mine are extra wonky.
“Actually, my plan involves all three of us,” Constantine said, and I went to my happy place before I could stop myself. “If I take and consume Cherry but she doesn’t drain me, she may be the only one turned back.”
“Or she dies from exsanguination.” Alex’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“That’s where you come in,” Constantine said. “The moment before I drain her completely, you force your blood down her throat.”
“So I’ll be in the room, while the two of you get it on.”
“See the big picture,” I said. “Assuming legend and Hollywood”—and Constantine—“have it right, if I turn human, so does my progeny. You get your life back. The council never found out about you, so you don’t have to hide.”
“You may even pick up a couple of tricks, if you watch closely.” Constantine winked at the screen. “Should you feel so inclined, Cherry may finally get the ménage—”
I used my vampire speed to flip down the lid of the laptop. Not the way to end a Skype call, as I always yelled at the TV when actors did it, but it was all I could think of, to keep Alex from hearing the end of that sentence.
“—à trois she and Sheena have been talking about.”
I wagged my finger at Constantine. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.
It was a private conversation.”
My phone rang, and I groaned. Alex.
“Did he say you want a threesome?” he asked when I picked up.
Could a girl have no secrets?
“He’s being a jerk,” I said.
“But you believe him?”
“Yes.”
“And you want to go through with this?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. I want to be human again. I think. It’s a big decision.”
“There’s a flight from Bucharest to L.A. at ten in the morning, local time. If I make it, I’ll be there early afternoon. We’ll figure it out then.”
I was more than a little relieved that Alex didn’t press for more information on the threesome thing, but it didn’t stop me from glaring at Constantine when I got off the phone.
“What? I was trying to get you your wish.” He sounded happy with himself.
“I don’t know if I wanna do this. And we were supposed to get Alex to consider it, not scare him away,” I said.
“The prospect of sharing you with me may be daunting for your boyfriend, but I doubt he found it scary. He’s trying to get back into your good graces. Why would he turn down an opportunity to join us in bed?”
“Because he might want me to himself? Because if he’s my boyfriend—like you said—he won’t share me, which you seem more than eager to.”
“Cherry, I don’t want your pussy to myself. I want you. I meant what I said about monogamy. After hundreds of years on this world, I don’t consider it a prerequisite for a successful relationship.”
“Still with that excuse?”
He held up a hand. “Regardless, I should have respected how much it means to you, and I wish I could make that right. But we’re no longer together, Alex is a striking man, and the three of us can have an incredible time together before you and he ride off into the sunset.”
If he put it this way... I rolled my shoulders and allowed myself two-point-five seconds of daydreaming. It would feel amazing, being pressed between two hard male bodies that defined beauty, but it’d be for a single night. Would having a taste make me crave more?