Her Vampire Obsession

by Richardson, Lesli

  But I’m also clinging to my memories, and I want my truncated childhood back.

  I want someone to take care of me, and cuddle me, and feed me candy and tell me everything’s going to be okay. Since I was eight years old, I felt like I had to grow up fast and live in fear. Always looking over my shoulder. Never able to trust, because I didn’t know who I could trust, especially after Mom died.

  I want Dexter.

  That pain lances through my heart again.

  Is that why I fell so hard for him? Because I feel safe with him and he has the ability to take care of me, to protect me? Because I’ve spent so many years living and working literally among the world’s most dangerous beings, and Dexter makes me feel…safe?

  Because I’m half…jotnun, or whatever the hell I’m half of, and Dexter is stronger than me?

  I sink below the water and get my hair wet. Dexter has a deeply nurturing streak, infinite compassion. If he was here right now, I know he’d be bathing me, tending to me.

  Trying to make things better for me.

  Look how long and hard Dexter searched for me after knowing me less than a week. He didn’t give up when any other guy likely would have said FTS, adios, chica.

  In some ways, Dexter reminds me of a mix of Zuzu and Dad both.

  I reach up to my neck, where he bit me in Alaska. Sometimes, it feels like it’s still throbbing, but in that good, sexy kind of way.

  Will I ever see him again? Did I just condemn myself to a life of loneliness, hiding, and darkness? Never setting foot outside in the sunlight for fear of it meaning my death should I be seen?

  Never again having a partner, or knowing romantic love?

  #irony

  Upstairs on the roof above me, I hear the workers doing their thing, and it reminds me I really need to finish my bath. I wrap my hair in a towel and put on the robe and let the water drain from the tub.

  Even the soaps and shampoo smell the same as I remember, something else I’ve subconsciously sought all my life and never matched. How many hours have I spent in stores, sniffing different concoctions and never quite replicating what I didn’t realize I needed and desperately missed?

  All of this brings a belated clarity to my life. A peace I always chased and never found.

  For the first time since losing my dad, I feel like I’m not emotionally treading water. Like I can actually reach out and accept what Dexter’s offering me, fully embrace it and the life he wants to give me.

  Again, the irony does not escape me.

  I have to find a way back to him.

  I grab the hairbrush and head downstairs, carrying my dirty clothes with me so I can put them in the small washer there in the kitchen. When I step into the kitchen, it hits me that I didn’t even hesitate while winding my way down the stairs and through the back hallway.

  I knew the way by heart.

  Zuzu’s pulled the curtains and shutters on the windows in the kitchen, casting it in shadows but giving us privacy. No one will be able to see inside. He’s standing at the huge copper and enamel stove, and already I smell the tasty scents of my youth.

  “There you are, angel.” He turns and smiles at me and…

  Yeah.

  The wounded child within me howls. I don’t want to leave. Not at all.

  “What’s wrong?” He moves the pan off the burner and hurries over to me, embracing me.

  “Why can’t I stay?”

  I feel like a kid again, hating it every time either he or Dad hustled me out of the house under the cover of darkness so we could return to Cardiff. Daytimes were full of love and light and laughter.

  Nighttime frequently meant—

  Oh.

  Leaving.

  Loss.

  Well, shit.

  Nail, meet hammer.

  “Sweetheart, you belong in your world, with your father, and your…guy.”

  “But what about you?”

  He sighs. “This was always the plan, angel. Even before your father met Sorcha. Your father wants to live in your world. He loves it there. He wanted a chance to escape from the ruling class, and all I wanted was true love and a child of my own.” He smiles. “Then you came along and everything changed. Our lives changed.”

  His smile fades. “Then Serxon.” He spits the words. “He ruined everything. He ruined everything he touched and always did. Selfish man. All he had to do was wait. He had every comfort, every need met. He would have ascended once Parxon faked his death and I found another mate. But he couldn’t wait, even though he would have been far better off. And now, he’s dead.”

  He bundles me over to the table. “Come, sit. I haven’t cooked for you in so long.”

  And…that’s what we do. He asks me about my life, and it feels so weirdly normal to sit here talking to Zuzu in the kitchen and telling him about vampires and werewolves and…

  Yeah. My crazy life.

  A life I’m desperately missing, even as I yearn to stay here.

  He sets out the food on the pretty cobalt blue plates I remember so well, and then I’m crying again as I eat the most delicious home-cooked meal in…

  Well, no offense to Chaldis, but he’s no Zuzu. Zuzu’s love language has always been cooking and caretaking. Nurturing his loved ones.

  After we finish eating, I help him with the dishes, and then we move to the living room. There, I perch on the same old hassock while he sits on the sofa and brushes through my damp hair as he sings to me.

  Maybe this would be creepy in any other context, but this is home.

  “Why does my hair change color?”

  He laughs. “Because you are a jotnun Alpha, little one. Well, half-Alpha. You are most definitely your father’s child, but you are as beautiful as your mother. When Alphas are upset, or happy, or in love, they can change their hair color.”

  “My hair used to change all the time.”

  “Especially before and after visits.” He chuckles. “You hated to leave here, or for me to leave you if I visited there. That was one thing that used to fluster your mother. She didn’t know how to explain that to people, so it’s a good thing we educated you ourselves.”

  “I still have Cat and Dog,” I admit.

  “You do? Oh, sweetheart. I remember that day. We had so much fun. That was the first day Parxon brought me into Cardiff.”

  “Remember that day in the woods when you saw an airplane for the first time?”

  He chuckles. “I do. He’d told me about them, but I didn’t believe him until I saw them for myself. Your father was always so adventurous.”

  “That day, we heard voices. Who was that?”

  “Serxon.” He gently brushes out a knot. “I think perhaps even then Serxon had the ring and was hoping to catch your father crossing, so he could learn the secrets. He’d followed us. Then he asked where I was, I guess, and your father told him that I’d returned home because of him. It was no secret that I did not like Serxon.”

  Zuzu tells me the story of how my father’s brother stole the ring from their sire’s uncle and then killed him and made it look like he’d taken his boat out and drowned, the body never recovered.

  “Once again, had Serxon waited, he would’ve eventually been passed that ring, in time. No patience.” As I sit there, I look around and see photos of Dad and Zuzu together, from very young, to even more recent ones.

  Except in the most recent ones, my father’s grief weighs heavy on him. Deep lines furrow his brow, and sadness darkens his eyes, even though he still looks very young, as young as the last time I saw him.

  “I need a picture of you, Zuzu. I can’t leave without pictures of you and Dad.”

  “Of course, love.” He finishes brushing my hair and I curl up on the couch with him, my head in his lap, the way I used to do.

  “Why don’t you take a nap?” he suggests.

  I close my eyes, a wave of exhaustion washing through me. “Why were you in the woods this morning?”

  He strokes my hair. “When your father is gone,
I always go out to the stones. He has his ways of coping, and I have mine.” He sniffles. “And here is our angel.”

  All those years I spent running. Had I known the truth, I would have gladly embraced and followed it.

  I just hope my running hasn’t permanently run me out of Dex’s arms.

  * * *

  I dream.

  I dream that I’m back behind the bar at Club Toxic, and hunky not-Ianto walks in. But instead of seeing me, he ignores me and dances with some pretty young twenty-one-year-old who’s out celebrating her birthday with her friends. He dances with her, sliding her already short dress up around her hips and his hand down the front of the strip of fabric masquerading as a thong.

  I try to call out to him, to beg him to look at me, not to be with her, and then he bites her. She undulates in his arms and he dances her off the floor and down into the dungeon while I stand there being ignored by every vampire in the place.

  My voice is silent. I can’t scream, I can’t—

  “Eilidh.”

  My eyes pop open, and I’m staring into the red-rimmed violet eyes of my father. He’s crying.

  “Shh!” he reminds me in time for me to clap a hand over my mouth to muffle my happy scream.

  “Daddy!”

  I throw myself at him, and we both tumble onto the floor with Zuzu laughing from where he still sits on the couch. “I’ll be right back,” he says. “I need to use the toilet. She slept for nearly six hours, and I couldn’t bear to disturb her.”

  Dad and I are both crying—god, I’ve literally cried more in the past day than I have in years—and if this is my new reality, then I’ll figure out a way to be okay with it.

  I would miss Dexter like hell, but maybe I’m proof he can love again and move on from Robert. Maybe that was my brief purpose in his life.

  It’ll take me a while to figure out what his was in mine when my heart hurts so bad from missing him.

  Living the rest of my life confined to this house would still be a blessing.

  “I love you, Daddy. I’ve missed you so much.”

  “I’ve missed you, too, Mazbushka.” He sits up with me, helping me onto the couch where I cuddle in his arms like I’m eight again.

  No, this isn’t a nightmare. This is a dream come true, and one I never thought possible.

  “Zeu said there’s a story.”

  I nod, and he hands me a tissue. “It’s a looong story.”

  “But…where is the ring?”

  “That’s part of the story.”

  I end up using the bathroom next and then, sitting on the couch between them, I tell him the story with Zuzu’s help.

  Dad looks pensive when we finish. “We will need to go out tonight then and try.” He reaches over and ruffles Zuzu’s hair. “You wish me to say it now?”

  He smiles. “I do.”

  “You were right, and I was wrong.”

  Zuzu throws back his head. “Yes!”

  “It isn’t full moon tonight, though,” Dad says. “We will keep trying, even if it doesn’t work tonight. First, I have a question.” He turns those violet eyes on me, and I nod.

  “Is this man good enough for you?”

  I snort. “Yeah, Dad. He’s good enough for me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He spent almost two months hunting for me after only knowing me a couple of days. And I’ve never met anyone like him before. He’s different, in a good way. I can see myself spending the rest of my life with him. And he makes me feel safe.”

  “How do you know it’s love and not obsession?”

  “The two are not mutually exclusive, Parxon,” Zuzu teases. “I remember a certain man obsessively in love with a human woman.”

  He grumbles at Zuzu but focuses on me. “Do you love him?”

  “I really do.”

  “Then we’ll see what we can do to get you back to him.”

  I reach up and rub my chest at the thought of never seeing Dexter again. “It physically hurts, missing him,” I admit.

  They both scowl. “Have you marked him, then?” Dad asks.

  “What?”

  “Bit him.”

  “I…” I stare at him. “Wait. I did bite him.” I tell them about it.

  He smiles and opens his mouth, indicating his canines and pointing to my mouth. I open so he and Zuzu can both look. “Yes, look here,” Dad says, pointing. “They’ve come in fully. That only happens when you have left a mating mark.”

  Zuzu nods. “Our little girl has a mate.”

  “Does that mean… Wait, what does that mean?”

  Dad’s stomach grumbles. “It means I need dinner, and we’ll talk while we eat, little one.”

  I don’t even mind him calling me that.

  Frankly, it’s the best sound in the world.

  * * *

  By the time we finish eating dinner, I’ve been dressed in some of Zuzu’s old clothes that fit me—sort of. They’re a little big. But Dad now knows about Dexter being a vampire.

  And…I marked him?

  “This is good, though,” he says. “Having him marked and being so powerful, it improves his chances to use the ring. And possibly to help neutralize the virus.”

  “Wait…what?”

  He looks at Zuzu. “Did you explain the rangnork to her?”

  He nods. “Briefly.”

  Dad focuses on me again. “So, before that, before the sorting, there were humans, and the hybrids. There were the ones susceptible to the virus, and they were also of the same lines as the ones who carried sifting genes. The rangnork was to send all of them away to Earth, to keep the jotnun lines ‘protected.’” He scoffs. “Narrow-minded foolishness. Before that, it’s reported in the old histories that when a jotnun Alpha mated and marked someone with the virus, the venom usually helped neutralize some of the impacts. I mean, these are very old reports, passed down in the secret records of the old families who still controlled the rings, but it is worth exploring.”

  “You mean it’ll cure him being a vampire?”

  “Probably not cure. Perhaps help some of the symptoms. Especially if you mark him more than once. For example, instead of burning to ash at dawn, he might merely be sensitive to sunlight. Or, it might remove his need for blood. But, it could also change some of his other powers—being able to move fast, his extraordinary strength. It is difficult to know. You will need to test that out.”

  I think about the hairs that day in my apartment. How they poofed into ash. “That would be…amazing.”

  It’d also mean one massive logistical hurdle…gone.

  “First of all, sweetheart, we’ll need to get you back. That might take some time. Probably more than one moon phase. Let us hope he is a patient and persistent man. Then again, you crossed without my assistance from just your memory. You may be stronger. I was…” He chokes up. “I was grieving your mother, and it might have impacted my ability to cross.”

  It feels good-weird to eat as a family again. To have a family again. I grab my phone and power it on, putting it in airplane mode, so it doesn’t use as much juice. I take a shit-load of pictures and some video of the three of us before turning it off again.

  At least I’ll have that when I go back.

  Proof that I have a family.

  I mean…if I go back.

  Once it’s dark, Zuzu packs us snacks and two water canteens, and we set out. Now that my brain has somewhat re-engaged, I recognize things here and there. Rocks, dips in the path, and my childhood feels like I can reach out and touch it.

  I could only go outside at night here, because then we were alone, with no one to see me.

  Those nights were magick and beauty and fun and full of laughter, except on the nights when I had to return to Cardiff and leave Zuzu’s.

  When we approach the stone circle, I pause, staring at it. I have to ask it. “There’s no way for me to stay here?”

  Dad hugs me. “One step at a time, angel.”

  “What do I do?”
r />   “We’ll stand inside the stones,” he says. “I’ll let Zeuzehn try to contact him first, since he knows how to do it already. Once you see how he tries it, then you try it, because you have the stronger connection to Dexter.”

  We’ve been at it for hours when I finally feel a slight tingle, like what I felt when I brought us through. Before us, I see a faint shimmer, and there’s Dex, faintly, standing in the middle of the stones.

  But before I can call out to him, everything fades, and that knifing pain in my soul returns.

  Zuzu lets out a cry. “That was it! You did it!”

  “But how do I know he saw anything?”

  “It’s full moon tomorrow night,” Dad says. “We will try again then. You need to rest.”

  I start to argue with him, but I suddenly feel really freaking dizzy. Next thing I know, I’m cradled in his arms and Zuzu’s dabbing at my face with a damp cloth.

  Oh, and I’m on their sofa.

  “How’d we get back here?”

  “You fainted, angel,” Dad says. “Meaning you need rest. It was bound to happen. It can be very draining, at first.”

  I don’t want to rest. I want to sit here and talk to them.

  This is like being given access to Heaven for a limited time, and I don’t want to waste a second.

  Except, I’m overruled. Dad carries me up to my old bedroom, where they crowd in on either side of me, and I quickly fall asleep, happier than I’ve felt in decades.

  The only thing that could make this better is if Dexter were here with me.

  Somehow, I’ve got to make that happen. Because like hell do I want to give up on him.

  38

  Dexter

  Bollocks.

  For a moment, standing there in the stone circle and chanting, it feels like I am connecting with…something. Then I see the gwyllgi and know I am on the right damned path.

  Followed by what I’m positive is a glimpse of Eilidh, Zuzu, and another man…

  And then nothing.

  A wave of fatigue slams into me, staggering me to the point I have to take a step back to maintain my balance.