by Olsen, Lisa
“An assassination attempt seems pretty major to me.”
“Don’t go getting all grumpycakes with me. You weren’t exactly the most accepting guy back in the day. I was lucky to get you to believe any of it without compelling you.”
“But you didn’t though, right? Compel me?” I saw that old familiar panic sink in, and I cut it off before it took hold of him and we ended up in trouble again.
“No, I didn’t. I remember how it broke us apart the first time, even if you don’t.”
“I do remember that part of the story,” he allowed. “It’s just so strange to wrap my head around, accepting things about the future that might never happen now.”
“That’s the point exactly – none of that has happened yet. We don’t have to make the same mistakes. I’m free to... to do anything. I can finish school, I can chuck it all and open a music school if I want to. Jakob will give me the money for it if I ask, he owes me that much at least.”
“I don’t want you beholden to him.”
“He’s my Sire, there’s no getting around that,” I shrugged, looking down at my bare finger. “But I know how to handle him, don’t worry.”
“No, why would there be anything to worry about,” he muttered, his expression grim. “All this time I’ve been waiting for you, you never told me you belonged to an Ellri. How long will I have to wait to be with you now?”
“Bishop.” I reached up to touch his face. What the last two hundred years must’ve been like for him? “I don’t belong to him, I belong to you. Whether you’re ready to accept that or not.”
“Whether I’m ready? Anja, I spent years building a wall around my heart when Carys died, and the moment I let someone in, you stole a piece of my heart away. I’ve been ready since you left me in that field.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to go, you know that.”
“It was rough at first, but after the first few years...”
First few years? Oh, my poor Bishop!
“I learned to put the job first again and it wasn’t so bad. Until the last twenty years or so, it got harder and harder to wait. I tried looking for you. I know I promised not to contact you until after you’d been turned, but I just wanted to see you so badly. I guessed at your age, but couldn’t find an Anja Gudrun in the system. And when the call came in tonight with an Anja Evans...”
“That’s me, Anja Evans. Pleased to meet you,” I said, offering my hand with a lopsided smile. Bishop took my hand and kissed the back of it with all the courtly grace I would’ve expected two hundred years ago. “You never would’ve done that the first time we met in this apartment. You were convinced I was lying to protect my Sire from not getting a license to turn me.”
“And yet I didn’t turn you in.”
“I guess you always were a softie.”
“Or maybe part of me knew you already held a piece of my heart and I couldn’t bear to lose it?” He brushed his lips across the backs of my fingers again.
“You’ve changed.” Where was my hard bitten vampire cop who was all about the job?
“You changed me,” he shrugged. “I’ve had a long time to reflect. On the things you told me, on the path I’ve chosen.”
“And?” I waited, holding my breath. God, what else was different since my trip to the past?
“And now that you’re here, I’d like to find our footing together.”
“I think I like the sound of that.” I smiled as Bishop pulled me closer, his fingers tracing over the contours of my face.
“Over the years I’d almost started to think I’d made you up, that you were a figment of my imagination. That nobody could be as beautiful as I’d built you up to be in my memory. But here you are, just as lovely.”
“I’m a mess, and I know it.” Why hadn’t I put on something sexier than my comfy pajamas? “And I’m human,” I realized aloud. He’d never seen me as a human before. I knew there were dark circles under my eyes and my hair wasn’t as silky.
“Just for one more day, and then we’ll be together forever.”
And that’s when it hit me. We didn’t have forever. We didn’t even have a single lifetime together. All we had was until the next sundown. Then I’d die and it’ll all be over. Why did I have to get sent back on the day I was supposed to die?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I had to tell him, but another knock sounded at the door. Bishop’s hand automatically went to his shoulder holster. “It’s probably Detective Lucas. I almost forgot he was coming tonight too.” I let out a long breath. “What should I say to him?”
“I’ll take care of him,” Bishop offered, and I caught hold of his arm as he brushed past me.
“What do you mean take care of?” I demanded, and he let out a soft chuckle.
“Relax, Anja. I meant with compulsion?”
“Well, I’m sorry. Sometimes you can be a little... intense in your solutions to problems.”
“Only when the occasion calls for it.” He pulled open the door and the two men faced off against each other. Detective Lucas looked like I remembered him, in his jeans and 49er’s jacket.
“Hello there...” he began with a polite smile, but Bishop didn’t waste any time.
Grabbing hold of his will, he pushed his compulsion at him at the same time he grabbed my purse out from under the detective’s arm. “Forget all about Anja Evans. It was a paperwork error, she wasn’t dead at all. Move on to your next case. Have a good evening.”
“Have a good evening,” Detective Lucas parroted back with a dazed smile, and then turned around and left.
I had to admit, it was an impressive effort, but I couldn’t help but worry it wasn’t enough to take care of it. “What about the investigation? There were shots fired where I was found. Won’t someone else look into it even if Lucas forgets to?”
“It’s already being taken care of. Whether you had the license to be turned or not, we still scrub all records of the incident when it’s confirmed that vampires are involved in a human’s death. Mason’s down at the hospital compelling the morgue attendant as we speak.”
“Mason. It’ll be good to see him again.” Of course I couldn’t think about him without thinking of Hanna. She was alive again! And my parents would know me. Heck, they weren’t even disappointed with me blowing off school yet. Would I be blowing off school again?
And that’s when I remembered – I didn’t have to worry about that future anymore. Why couldn’t I have made it back to 2017? Had someone else found a way to curse me now that Jakob’s original curse didn’t apply anymore? But could I get back to my original time? Was there a way to find another gypsy and try again before it was too late? No, it was ridiculous to think about spending my last day alive chasing after a pipe dream.
Bishop looked so pleased with himself as he handed over my purse. “So, what do you want to do on your last day as a human?” he asked, eager to help me fulfill any fantasy from the look of it.
I had to tell him.
“I don’t know, I haven’t really given much thought to it. I guess I’d like to spend the day with you, unless you have other plans.”
“Nothing I can’t move to later,” he smiled. “I’m thinking you’ll be passed out for at least part of the day, and I can get some shuteye then. But if there’s anything special you want to do, I can take some stims.”
“Maybe we could go to our beach one last time. I’d like to see the sunset over the water.”
“Ooh, sunset’s probably not going to work, you know. You’ll have to complete the transition before then, and we don’t want you out in the open when that happens. But we can see the sunset over the beach some other time. You’ll have to wear protection is all. I can hook you up with that, no problem.”
“Right. Some other time,” I repeated, my stomach flopping over like a pancake on a griddle. How was I supposed to tell him after all the time he’d spent waiting for me?
“What is it?” he asked, startling me with his perception.
I sat on the couch, gesturing for him to join me. His lighter mood was gone, wariness creeping into his gaze. Sucking in a deep breath, I just said it. “I think this is the end for me. When I die, I’m not going to come back as a vampire, whether I drink human blood or not.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I think it’s part of the price I paid to go back for you.”
“What price was this?”
He still sounded reasonable, but I knew it couldn’t last. “Promise me you won’t get mad.”
“I’ll do no such thing.”
“Fine, then I won’t tell you about it.”
“Anja...” His voice took on that tone that let me know he was counting to ten in another language in his head, and I just shrugged. I wasn’t about to tell him if he was going to go off half cocked and yell at me for it. What was done was done, I couldn’t change it now. “Fine, then I won’t get mad,” he bit out.
“I don’t believe you.”
His eyes squeezed shut, and this time I saw his lips move as he counted. But when he opened them again, I saw restraint there. “What do you want me to say? I’ll say it. Just tell me, Anja. You’re scaring me.”
“I sort of gave up my immortality to work the spell to go back in time.” I said it fast, like ripping off a Band-aid.
“What?” He demanded, his face thunderous.
“You said you wouldn’t get mad!”
“I didn’t expect you to be dumb enough to make a bargain like that!”
“It seemed like a fair price at the time.”
“Damned foolish...” He broke off into cursing in a mixture of languages I only caught the gist of.
“Hey, I did it to save your neck.”
“At what cost?”
“Look, I still have today...”
He cut me off, his eyes blazing with intensity as he skewered me with his gaze. “I’ve been alone, waiting for you for the past two hundred years and you’re saying I only get one day with you? No.”
“What do you mean no?” It wasn’t like we had a choice.
“I mean no, there’s got to be a way to fix it.”
“Bishop, I think we just have to make our peace with it.”
“There isn’t any peace to be had, not for something like this. I won’t accept it!” His fist lashed out, splitting my coffee table in two to make his point.
I picked up his hand, pressing a kiss to the bruise that formed and disappeared within a few seconds’ time. “Whether you do or not, I’m not spending my last day alive running around trying to find a solution that doesn’t exist.”
“I can’t lose you. I can’t,” he choked out, grabbing me into a desperate embrace.
“I love you too,” I said softly, but he pulled away, his face twisted with emotion.
“No, you don’t get to say that to me and then leave. That’s not love, that’s...”
“Bishop... shh.” I pulled him close again, and he didn’t fight me, collapsing against me as grief spilled from his every pore.
We held each other for a long time, the anger and frustration eventually giving way to acceptance. “All there is for us to do is to spend the day together, and at sunset, I’ll just slip away. At least I won’t go through the pain of transition again, that was a nightmare the first time.”
Bishop pulled back to look at me, his eyes red rimmed but dry. “You should at least try to live, you might survive the transition, you don’t know.”
“No, there’s no point. I gave up my immortality, I’m pretty sure that means I don’t get to come back.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“I don’t want to risk hurting anyone, not even to save my own life. I remember how hard it was not to devour Bridget the first time.”
“I don’t care if you drink her dry if that’s what it takes for you to stay with me.”
“But I care,” I insisted. “I’m not willing to make that sacrifice.”
“Look at it this way,” Bishop suggested, ever pragmatic. “You didn’t kill her the first time, and I’d be here to make sure you didn’t take too much now. She won’t even remember it.”
He had a point there. “It just seems unnecessary. If I’m going to die anyway.”
“Will you do it for me? If there was a chance and we didn’t take it...” He swallowed, looking down at our joined hands. “I don’t think I could live with that.”
“Fine, we’ll do it,” I agreed, giving him the only comfort I could.
* * *
I didn’t go to school that day. I didn’t do anything but sit in the darkened apartment and spend time with Bishop. It did end up being less scary this time, knowing what was coming. When my senses went wonky, or the smell of food made me want to vom, or my heart rate dropped crazily low, at least I understood why and that took the panic out of it.
He told me a few stories about his time in the Order over the past two centuries, and how Mason, Corazon, and the guys were doing. Aubrey was living in Australia with a human woman, happy by all accounts from the last time he’d spoken to him.
He must’ve taken some stims at some point, because the one time I passed out for a few hours, he was still awake, holding me when I came to again. I wasn’t sure if we were going to get more... intimate. It’d been two hundred years since we’d last seen each other from his point of view, and I wasn’t sure if it would be awkward for him to rush that sort of thing.
Bishop seemed content to just hold me, until I brushed my hand along the top of his thigh and his entire body went rigid. I stilled and he eventually relaxed, but his cool hands strayed, at first brushing over the exposed strip of skin where my shirt gapped over my pajama pants, and then dipping under the shirt, tracing ever widening circles over my back. I made a sound, sort of a cross between a sigh and a moan, and his control broke, his mouth seeking mine in a desperate kiss. All at once, it was like we couldn’t bear to have anything between us, and I wrestled off his leather jacket and t-shirt, barely breaking the kiss to pull it up and over his head. His hands slid under my shirt to palm my breasts, urging it higher as he pressed me back against the sofa.
“S’up, guys.” Bridget’s voice cut through the haze of passion, and I yanked my shirt back down even as Bishop gave a low growl of disappointment, sitting back on the couch.
“No need to cover up the D, I’ll be out of here in two shakes. I got a hot date tonight. Though obviously not as hot as yours,” she added, getting a better look at Bishop once her eyes adjusted to the darkened room.
Swallowing my embarrassment, and hoping she hadn’t gotten too much of an eyeful, I pushed the hair away from my flaming face. “Hey, Bridget, this is Bishop. Bishop, this is Bridget, my roommate.”
“Nice job, he’s totally bangable.”
“Bridget!” I hissed, but she was unashamed.
“Well, he is.” She turned to him. “You are.”
“Thanks, I think,” he added with a faint frown, grabbing for his t-shirt and tugging it over his head with short movements.
“We’re not...”
“We were going to,” he muttered under his breath, and I shot him an apologetic look.
“Why don’t we go into my bedroom for a little privacy?”
“Don’t relocate on my account. Like I said, I’m outta here in a few and you’ll have the place to yourselves. Unless you can’t wait that long,” Bridget called out over her shoulder on the way to the bathroom.
Bishop ran a hand over his scalp, taking a long, slow breath. “It’s fine. We’re running out of time anyway,” he said, glancing at the clock on the wall. “You should drink before she leaves.”
“But don’t you want to go into the bedroom first? What if this is our only chance to...”
“It’s not going to be,” he said, pulling me into his embrace. “You’ll make it through this. You have to.”
“Motherfucker!” Bridget’s voice rang through the apartment, loud enough to make me startle away from his touch. “Shit, Anja, can y
ou come here a sec?”
This was it. Any second now and the scent of her blood would come to me. “I don’t want to do this,” I whispered, terrified of what was to come.
“It’ll be fine. I’ll be here with you every step of the way.”
I pulled back to find him looking at me with such love and support, all I could do was nod. “I got this.”
Pausing at the doorway, I caught sight of Bridget perched on the side of the bathtub, a bloody washcloth pressed to her hand. My hand clutched at the doorframe as the call of the blood overwhelmed me, so much stronger than I remembered.
Bridget looked up impatiently. “Finally, I thought I was gonna bleed to death here. I dropped that stupid glass and cut the shit out of my hand.” My head nodded slowly, but no words came as I clung to the doorway, fighting the urge to pounce. The blood was like a beacon, my eyes drawn to it, everything else blurring indistinctly.
“Hello, Earth to Anja… Could you give me a hand with this?” Bridget pulled away the washcloth to reveal a nasty looking gash on the web between her thumb and forefinger, the blood instantly welling to the surface without the cloth to keep pressure on it.
“Of course.” I nodded, my voice sounding hoarse as I drifted closer, not even looking at the bandages on the counter. There was a sharp pain as my fangs descended for the first time.
“Anja? An… Holy shit!” Bridget gasped, and I knew what she saw. All at once I rushed her, lunging for the open wound and bringing it to my mouth, my sharp teeth tearing the tender skin, enlarging the blood flow.
Bridget screamed, and I didn’t care. All I could think about was the life force pulsing from her body into mine, giving me strength and fueling my lust for more. Bishop let me drink and drink this time, and I couldn’t have cared less, any concern I felt for Bridget’s wellbeing gone the instant her blood hit my tongue.
“Stop yelling. Take care of your wound and get out. All you remember is cutting your hand.” Bishop’s voice barely penetrated the fog, and in a blur I was dragged away from my feeding frenzy, barely conscious of being wrapped in strong arms and lowered gently to my bed. I lashed out, trying to hit and bite him blindly, my training forgotten, but he deftly avoided it, his soothing words infuriating in my lust for blood. I thrashed and strained, wanting nothing more than to return to my feast, but he pinned me to the bed with his own body, forcing me to still.