by Louisa Bacio
“Yes, please stay,” Trevor said. “We have plenty of room, and we'd love to have you.”
Chapter Three
Lily
A sense of warmth and belonging infused the kitchen nook. Maybe the soft lighting inspired an even keel of emotions, but Lily guessed it had more to do with the psychic natures of the werewolf and the vampire. Together, they gave off the pheromones of masculine strength. Beneath the exterior calm, a current of sexual tension flowed between them, and Lily could easily see herself riding the wild rapids along with them.
She may possess a raft, but as her heart beat quicker, something told her she'd left her safety vest in California. Along with her compass and map, she thought wryly.
“That's a generous offer,” Lily said, guarding her attraction to the two men. “Are you sure I won't be intruding upon your space, and alone time? I could always find a hostel …”
“And wind up dead, or worse?” Lawrence said.
Lily wondered what could be “or worse” than dead.
“We've got plenty of room, and plenty of time,” Lawrence said. “Now that's settled, let's move on to something less mundane.”
“You don't seem surprised at all by our nature,” Trevor commented.
“Nature?” Lily said. “Do you mean that you're a couple? Together?”
It was Trevor's turn to laugh, sending a rich warm feeling through the pit of her stomach and through her veins. “Well, that, too, but the fact that we're less than human …”
“Oh, that. Well, I always had this feeling that something else besides us ‘humans’ existed. It might be my fascination with the unknown, or belief that humans couldn't be the only sentient beings that existed on the planet … but I'd never come across an Other until the past year.”
“An ‘Other?’” Lawrence injected into the conversation. “What sort of other are you referring to?”
“Someone who is not simply human, but falls under that ‘Other’ category,” Lily explained. “And the more I look, the more forms of the Other seem to exist.”
“I guess that's one way of thinking about it,” Trevor added. “So tell us your first experience with the Other.”
* * * *
The incident had been so shocking and yet so real that Lily didn't need any help remembering it. It happened on the night of her twenty-ninth birthday. Funny enough, right past the time of day when she was supposedly born. Although she grew up in the foster care system, her birth parents—from the feminine writing on the note, Lily always assumed that it was her mother who had left the information—provided detailed information on her birth date and time. Rather than simply leaving her abandoned, that extra effort and care had always given Lily a sense of love from her mother.
She had cared, even if for whatever reason she couldn't keep Lily herself. Not that there wasn't a million things she'd like to ask her mother, both her parents for that matter.
At 10:13 p.m. on Friday, October 30, she'd seen her first vampire. The music within the nightclub had pumped Lady Gaga's “Paparazzi,” and Lily and her friends from the diner where she worked had thrown back a few mixed cocktails. Many within the club were dressed for the weekend's Halloween activities, but something about the man caught her attention. It was if suddenly she could see him, when previously she had not been able to. When she pointed him out to her friends, they had shaken their heads at her over-excited nature. It was almost as if he had some special force field around him that didn't allow them to see him. They could rattle off everyone within the semi-circle around him, but nothing specifically about him.
As she watched him, he looked at her across the swarming sea of bodies. They made eye contact, and she experienced a sort of recognition, and then he winked. A flash of desire pounded through her body. His look seared her very soul. Corny sounding, but at the time she really couldn't explain the feeling. She'd never experienced it before.
Frustrated, Lily left her friends and pushed her way through the crowd. She needed to get closer to him. The pull of his magnetism called out to her from across the packed dance floor.
Bodies pushed into her as she attempted to make her way through the club. She swayed with the tide of sweaty flesh, every so often looking up and confirming that he remained when she'd last seen him.
“Hey, baby, what's the rush?” a guy asked, stepping purposely into her path, and blocking her route.
She tried looking over his shoulder, and stepping around to the left of him. He moved with her. “Excuse me,” she said, placing a hand on his slimy yellow silk shirt, “I'm trying to get to a friend.”
“So the friend will wait,” he said. “Why don't you dance with me?”
He placed a hand on her waist, his thumb rubbing a patch of bare flesh. She shivered in revulsion.
“Please let me by,” she commanded, brushing his hand off her body and shoving a little harder. He jostled to the side, knocking into a pack of girls dancing.
“Hey buddy, what's the big idea?” One woman who was dressed as a cheetah pushed him in another direction.
Lily took in the commotion, and kept going, mesmerized. She reached the edge of the dance floor and looked up in the booth. He was gone. She glanced back over her shoulder, and saw creepy yellow-silk guy headed her way. More people pushed against her. Increasingly panicked and hot, she sought escape. She took advantage an opening in the masses, and headed outside for some fresh air. Not one prone to panic attacks or claustrophobia, Lily still didn't discount the rush of adrenaline that had hit her. After twenty-nine years of basically taking care of herself, she'd learned to listen to her instincts.
She pushed open the door to the smoking area of the club. After California had passed the “no smoking” laws inside of restaurants, clubs had to obey, too. But, the law only dictated what happened inside the building. Restaurants and bars still could allow smoking on outside patios. So now, the smokers were made to shiver in the cold night air in order to get their nicotine fix. Usually, it didn't dissuade many. The minute the door closed, the music became muffled.
Dark shadows hid the outskirts of the patio. A few scattered smokers sat at tables, and one couple kissed heavily against the wall, oblivious to their surroundings. Lily looked around for a place to crash. Now that she was outside, and away from the energy of the club, a sense of exhaustion crept over her. The night was still early, relatively, but all she could think about was going home and getting to sleep.
She wondered where the guy she'd seen had disappeared to? Funny, though, as she thought about him, she couldn't quite picture what he looked like, or even what he was wearing. It had been so clear moments before, but now his image dissipated like a dream minutes after waking up. Her friends from work—the diner in Seal Beach—had brought her out to celebrate, and she'd ditched them for a wild goose chase. No wonder she didn't have many friends.
“Did you lose someone?” a guy asked, way too close for comfort.
Her body jerked, her wrist knocking against the underside of the wrought iron table. “Shit. Where'd you come from?” she asked, turning to look at the guy. It was him, and up close he didn't look any more human than he had from across the room.
Something inside her gut told her to get up and run, but she stayed put, unable to take her eyes off him. He moved with a classic grace. Short, styled blond hair, eyes the color of a young tree sapling and ruby-red lips. His smile made her think of a predator eyeing its dinner, and the redness of his mouth conjured an image of Dorothy and Kansas and clicking her shiny red heels three times and wishing to be home. The world hadn't been the same when Dorothy had woken, and something told Lily that it'd would never be the same again for her either.
“You were staring at me,” he said matter-of-factly. “You saw me.”
“Yes, I did,” she replied. “Who are you? What are you?”
When he smiled again, a shiver traveled down the length of her spine, curled around her ass, and flowed out from her feet. He reached out, and brushed his hand lightly again
st her red curls.
“Such a pretty little girl. You don't really know, do you?”
“Know what?” she asked.
“What danger you're in. I'm a vampire.”
The admission jumbled her mind, and then she remembered the night, the costumes, and put it all into context. How could she really think that he wasn't human? What was the alternative? Dead? Or, was undead the politically correct term? Seriously?
Years had passed since she'd regularly watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but who did she think she was? Two Stoli cosmos, and she imagined she was seeing vampires.
“Nice costume,” she said, “but where's your fake teeth?”
“Don't tempt me,” he replied. “There's nothing I would like better than to take a little snack from you, but something tells me that you're too special to have for dinner. Have you ever seen a vampire before?” he asked.
“Never, not a one. At least never a real one, “ she replied, deciding to humor him. She was so sure that he was a non-human, and then as soon as she was faced with the truth, she wanted to ignore it. “You are my first.”
* * * *
“What did he mean, ‘you seem special?’” Trevor asked, interrupting her story. “What did he see in you?”
“Probably just the fact that she recognized him as being not human,” Lawrence explained. “Vampires have survived so long because the average human mind skips over what it doesn't understand. Vampires confuse humans. We're not natural. If we want to be seen, we're seen, but if we don't want a human to see us, or remember us, well, they won't.”
“How come I didn't know this?” Trevor asked, looking taken back.
“The dynamics of everyday paranormal life rarely come up in our conversations, no?” Lawrence said, trailing his fingers lightly over the top of his lover's hand.
The act was so unconsciously natural and endearing at the same time, that Lily's heart gave a little jump. She wanted a connection like that with someone—to be needed, and desired, and to know that the other person would be there, no matter what.
She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat and did her best to regain her composure. Surely, she was losing it.
Lawrence turned his attention back to Lily. “Please continue,” he said. “Did the vampire bite you that night?”
“No, not that night. In fact, I never saw him again. He acted as my first foray into the world of the Other,” she said. “Honestly, I didn't really believe him until my second encounter turned everything I knew upside down.”
She gave an involuntary shudder and pulled her lightweight sweater tighter around her body. Maybe dressing sexy for this first encounter hadn't been the best idea. She continued with her story.
In California, she'd lived in an apartment within walking distance of the diner where she worked. After years of living in group homes, and sharing a room with someone else out of necessity, she'd enjoyed living in her own place. The neighborhood in Seal Beach was still affordable for “beach living.” Sure, her studio apartment was pretty small, but it was all hers.
The diner on Main Street kept busy with its mixture of locals and tourist clientele. After a write-up the year before in the Orange County Register, business had boomed. Most mornings, a crowd waited outside for a table to open up in order to sample the house specialty of blueberry and banana pancakes. At night, with their late hours, the wait staff often saw a different sort: people who had been up way too late drinking and needed to get some solid food in their stomachs.
The problem was, working nights meant walking home in the dark, and most often alone. Usually, there was a safety issue. She knew how to hold her own against drunkards and other various scumbags. One night, the minute she'd left the lighted area of Main Street, she'd gotten a hinky feeling, as if she was being watched. Despite the flight instinct crawling in her belly, she'd looked back over her shoulder a few times but had seen nothing. She thought of the customers she had served that evening, but none seemed to be an obvious stalker to her. As a young, attractive waitress in a beach town, she knew that she had to walk a fine line between being friendly—and hoping for a good tip—and “encouraging” the customers. She'd been asked out way too many times to count. As if the average woman would say yes after serving a person for an hour? Please.
Anyway, it didn't seem like anyone from work had followed her. She listened intently to the sounds around her as she briskly walked home. After being on her feet all day, the last thing she wanted to do was outright run. That would be silly, right?
The waves crashed recklessly against the shore. The news had mentioned some “offshore system” that might bring in thundershowers over the next few days. The full moon appeared uncovered in the sky. Not a cloud in sight. One block left to travel until she reached the safety of her home, but the feeling of uneasiness persisted …
Lily covered her mouth with her hand, hiding a yawn. She wanted to finish the story for these two but her eyes drooped, and suddenly the importance of what she'd been saying lost its impact.
“You're tired,” Trevor said, stating the obvious. “Whey don't we show you to your room, and finish this up tomorrow?”
Lawrence murmured his agreement, and stood up.
“But something about this next being I'm going to tell you about means something,” Lily said. “I didn't fully see him. It's more like I sensed his presence.”
“Just another big, bad evil in the world,” Lawrence said. “I've met many in my lifetime, and I don't think anything can surprise me now.”
He place his hand at her elbow and guided her up. “Come on, time to tuck you into bed.”
Chapter Four
Lily
Sleep always crept slowly to Lily. When she'd lived in the group home, she'd lain awake at night, tossing and turning, praying, begging for release from reality. One by one, she'd hear the other kids in the room softly start to snore and even sometimes begin to dream, while she'd lain awake, sleepless. Barely sleeping at night had made it even harder to get up in the mornings, and harder still to stay awake during class time.
When she moved out on her own, finally receiving emancipation from the system, she easily began working night shifts. The problem was, though, that when she worked at night, she tended to sleep most of the day. She'd get up, eat, shower, get dressed and head back to work again. Not much time for errands, and even less time for a social life. That is, unless she wanted to date some of the customers that came to the club. Not a good scene, though. Although she'd never gotten up on stage and actually stripped, for a few years she had worked as a waitress at the bar adjacent to a club. The guys who tended to frequent the strip club looked at her as one of the erotic dancers, which would have been fine if they also didn't equate the job with hooking.
No, they couldn't leave her a whopping tip and then expect to cozy up with her afterward. That's when she decided to move over to the local “mom and pop” diner. Surprisingly, however, the clientele proved to be not that much better. All that customer service experience, though, should score her a job easily in New Orleans.
Although minutes earlier, she'd been falling asleep literally as she talked, it came as no surprise to her that now, when she desperately wanted to be asleep, she couldn't even close her eyes. Nope. After the events of the day, and meeting Law and Trev—such a cute, amazing couple, who she hoped would be able to help her find out the truth—she lay in bed thinking about what had brought her to this point, and what could be in store for her in the future. Too bad they were such an item. She could definitely see herself going for either one of them. They were both so different. Trevor was super-hunky, younger but with a solid head on his shoulders. And Lawrence, well, who wouldn't be attracted to the older, sophisticated man? He'd definitely seen a lot in his lifetime, lifetimes? How many average lifetimes did he live?
She snuggled down deeper into the flannel sheets. Not what she'd prefer at home in the hot heat, but here … on a chilly night, just perfect. She couldn't wait for a time wh
en she didn't sleep alone. For some reason, she thought that maybe she'd actually sleep better with another person in bed with her. She pulled one of the extra pillows over, and tucked it between her legs, and up against her chest, curling into it. She'd experienced the feeling of someone cuddling her a few times, but one thing always lead to another and then when that didn't actually happen, the guy usually left. Nothing like failed sex to ruin an evening.
She sighed and glanced at the alarm clock—4:33 a.m. For crying out loud, it wasn't like she had anything pressing and important to do in the morning, but sleep was sleep, and she'd probably feel even worse tomorrow. But, back home, it would only be 1:33, she told herself—plenty early still. That was dangerous thinking for someone trying to adjust to a new time zone.
She flipped over to the other side, taking the pillow with her. Now that she'd purposely looked at the clock once, she'd continue to do so until it drove her insane. Thank God it wasn't one of those that ticked, talk about a device developed just to keep insomniacs awake.
“Why can't I sleep?” she said, sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Maybe if she got up for a drink of water, and read a few chapters, she'd be able to go to sleep. Nothing like trying to do something else to make her tired.
After slipping her feet into her pair of pink fuzzy slippers—some habits died hard and they made her feel girly—she considered a robe. Odds were, the guys would be in bed themselves, and who cared if they saw her in her nightgown, right? They wouldn't be interested. Obviously, they were an item and she wasn't their type.
She cracked the door open slowly, listening to the stillness of the house and orientating herself to the darkness and layout. She should be able to navigate to the kitchen easily enough without any lights on. She trailed her hand lightly along the wall, guiding herself down the hallway. As she neared their bedroom, she heard someone cry out. Was someone dreaming or in pain? She wondered, hesitating before moving on.