by Opal Carew
“Eat?”
“Yeah.” Her blush deepened.
“Please don’t feel embarrassed. You have the right to ask these questions.” I ran my hand through my hair. “I assume you know the legends of what vampires eat?”
Her heart rate accelerated. “Yeah.”
“That’s true.” The scents of adrenaline and fear struck me. “Don’t be scared, Sam. I would never hurt you. Or Ollie. There are ways of getting blood that don’t cause harm. I’ve been buying blood from a blood bank. I can also ingest animal blood.”
She let out a shaky breath. Her fear diffused.
“But, in the spirit of complete honesty, I must tell you I have killed before. I know this doesn’t make it any better, but because I can read emotions, I can sense evil. I rationalized that I was helping good people by removing the bad ones. I realize that’s messianic…”
“Is…blood the only thing you can survive on?”
I sighed. “Yes.”
“So, then, maybe…”
“What?” I concentrated on her hands in the comforter, twisting and gripping, twisting and gripping.
Her voice was low, quiet. “Maybe it isn’t so much messianic as making the best of a situation.”
I snapped my head up and knew my mouth was hanging open, but my gratitude to her was overwhelming.
She leaned away from the force of my stare. “What?”
“Just, thank you, is all.” She nodded distractedly. I smelled her adrenaline again. Her eyes focused somewhere below my own. “What are you looking at?”
“Your…um”—a blush heated her face again— “mouth.”
“Ah.”
“So…how…”
“I just will it, and they change. Some situations cause it automatically.”
She licked her lips and her eyes flitted between my eyes and my mouth. “Show me,” she whispered.
“Sam—”
“Show me.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know you.”
I glared at her and hated the idea she might define me by the vampiric nature I didn’t choose or want. Her heart rate spiked. I cursed myself. I leaned my head into the cradle of my hands and tugged at my hair.
She stroked the back of my head. “Lucien, I didn’t mean to—”
“I know what you meant—”
“No, obviously, you don’t.” Her tone surprised me. I dropped my hands and looked up. “I know…this isn’t all you are. But it’s part of you. I want to know it, too.”
Good, Lucien. Keep being an asshole, why don’t ya?
“Please show me,” she said softly as she fingered the side of my foot. Her small gesture of outreach melted my resolve.
Resigned, I glanced down into my lap. And punched out my fangs. I flinched when Samantha lifted my chin, but I didn’t resist. Instead, I closed my eyes, not wanting to also see the fear I was about to feel. As if on cue, she gasped. But the scent of her fear never came.
“Please look at me.” Her expression was filled with wonder and curiosity. “Eyes too?”
I frowned. “You didn’t close your eyes at all, did you?” She shook her head. I rolled my eyes, blinked them closed, and then trained my crimson orbs on Samantha. Her heart worked harder in her chest but still the fear didn’t come.
“Does it affect your eyesight?”
“Improves it,” I replied in a low voice.
Out of nowhere, she reached a hand forward. “Can I touch—”
I flinched away. “No!”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she cried.
“You can’t…I can’t…”
“Okay. Okay. It’s okay. That was stupid of me.”
“Sam—”
“What situations?” she deflected.
“What?” I panted.
“You said some situations make it happen?”
I groaned. “When I’m feeding, threatened, or, um”—I sighed—”aroused.”
She gaped and licked her lips again. Finally she inhaled to speak.
I preempted her, not really wanting to hear her voice the question I just knew she’d ask. “Yes. And I hid it,” I said as I looked away, drained my eyes and retracted my fangs, and got off the bed to pace.
A rustle of fabric told me Samantha climbed out of bed, too. Warm arms wrapped around my stomach. Samantha leaned her head against my back. “You’re beautiful, Lucien, striking. I’ve always thought so. I still think so.” I smelled the salt of her tears and turned in her arms.
We stood in silence for a moment. The alarm clock shone over her shoulder: 11:32 a.m. Twenty hours twenty-one minutes.
“Sam, I know there are probably more things you’d like to ask, and I promise you’ll have the chance. But I need to leave in a few minutes to make some arrangements. There’s something I need to ask you before I go.”
“Okay.” She dropped her arms and locked them behind her back.
“You heard what Magena said to me.”
“You have to leave Detroit. Is that for real?”
“Yes. I have to be gone by dawn tomorrow. My question is—” Please, God, please, God. “—will you come with me? To New York?” She sucked in a breath. “I realize a lot is happening all at once, and I’m so sorry. But this is for real. I have to go. My family is helping pack up my belongings right now. They’re wondering if they should pack here, too. I’m wondering…”
She rubbed her forehead. “The room is spinning.”
I gently led her to sit on the bed and grabbed the glass of water off the nightstand. “Here, drink this. It might help.”
She grasped the glass and drank, squeezing her eyes shut. When she opened them, they overflowed tears. She brushed them away roughly. “I don’t know what to say, Lucien. I don’t know what to do. I can’t think.”
“Say you’ll come with me, dolcezza. Say you’ll be with me.”
“I can’t think.” She stared at her lap.
“There’s some time. I’m sorry, but I have to go for a while. I’ll be back in a few hours. I can take you to see my house then, if you like.” She nodded. “Oh, you should know Henrietta checked on Ollie earlier. She’s doing better.” Samantha’s face lifted and brightened.
I leaned over and kissed her forehead. When I spoke, my lips brushed her skin. “I love you, Samantha. Nothing could change that. I’ll be back soon. Griffin and Henrietta are downstairs if you need anything.”
She nodded again.
Reluctantly, I left. The pull to stay with her was intense. But I had things I had to do in person. On my way out, I told Henrietta and Griffin they’d need to wait to begin packing. I didn’t stop to hear their worried response.
Chapter Twenty-One
I returned to Samantha’s house at 2:45 p.m. Seventeen hours eight minutes.
She’d showered and dressed in jeans and a green sweater and sat curled in the recliner with a cup of coffee in her hands. Her face brightened when I walked through the door. The wave of relief that hit told me some part of her was afraid I wasn’t returning.
“Do you still want to see my other house?”
“Yes.” She stood and sank her feet into her boots.
I held her coat for her and met eyes with Griffin and Henrietta as I did. Their expressions told me Samantha hadn’t made a decision yet.
When we pulled up to the back of Edmund Place, she gasped. “I’ve been by this house before. I always thought it looked like a medieval castle or something.”
I brushed her cheek with my hand and helped her down from the truck. We went in through the back door. “I’ve never renovated this place, Sam. It’s not in the best condition, as you’ll see.”
Catherine and Rebecca were in the living room taping boxes shut. A huge pile sat at the front of the room, full of my books, CDs, and albums, no doubt. William and Jed loaded the truck out front. “We’re almost done,” Catherine said. “This is the last of it.”
“Thanks,” I said as I watched Samantha survey the room out of the corn
er of my eye.
“Why have you never fixed this place up, Lucien? Like the others?”
“It just felt more right this way.”
“You didn’t think you deserved something nice, did you?”
My head snapped to her, and my dead heart expanded at her understanding and insight. “How did you know that?”
“Because this morning you said you were in a bad place when you came to Detroit and didn’t think you deserved to be around people better than Laumet.”
“Yes.” I strode over to her and kissed her temple. “God, I love you.”
I walked her through the house, which was relatively empty now save for the old furniture I was leaving behind. She remarked on the architecture but otherwise was quiet, observing.
When we came back downstairs, Catherine and Rebecca had joined the men in carrying boxes out to the truck. Catherine poked her head back in. “We’re gonna head back over to Sam’s.”
“Okay. We’ll be right behind you.” She nodded and left. I locked up the doors and turned off the lights on the first floor, then set the alarm system as Samantha and I headed out the back. I peered through the glass of the now-empty garage. Then we were in the truck heading toward Sam’s house.
“Sam, I don’t mean to push, really. But have you given any thought to whether you’ll come with me?”
“Yes. I…I just don’t know what to do. I don’t want you to go. I don’t want to be away from you. I’m so confused. And I’m scared.”
I grasped her hand where it lay on the truck seat. “Of what?”
She stared out her window. “I can’t get the images from last night out of my head. It just keeps playing over and over. And especially what happened to Ollie. I couldn’t function if anything happened to her. I’m just still so scared for her.”
“I understand, Sam. She’s going to be okay. Nothing will happen to her now, I promise. Ollie is very important to me, too. You know that, right?”
She turned her head to me. “I do, Lucien.”
It was 5:16 p.m. when we returned to her house. I had fourteen hours and thirty-seven minutes. We were all together again, including Ollie, who Samantha was overjoyed to find awake downstairs and eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. When Samantha leaned down to her where she sat on Henrietta’s lap, Ollie threw her arms around her mother’s neck. Samantha held her until Ollie protested for her breath. I reached down and pecked a kiss on Ollie’s head. She smiled up at me.
We talked quietly for a while, just enjoying the good news of Ollie’s improving condition. After a while, Ollie slipped down from Henrietta’s lap and climbed into mine. Her words captured everyone’s attention. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
“Uh…” I looked to Samantha for help. But she was clearly grappling with the whole issue of leaving and trying to find a way to a decision of her own. “Yes, Ollie. I have to leave.”
“Can we come with you?” Her voice shook. It was clear it cost her to have to ask not to be left behind again.
“Sam?” I didn’t want to contradict whatever decision Samantha was making.
“I don’t know, Lucien.” Her confusion and stress were apparent even to those of us who weren’t empathic.
“Ollie, it’s your mom’s decision whether you come. And whatever she decides will be the right thing. But you are welcome to come. I hope you do.” The thought of being separated from Ollie crushed my chest and made it difficult to breathe.
Ollie looked at me funny for a moment and then shifted around. “Mommy? Can we, please?”
Samantha sucked in a breath, then she glanced around at all of us. “Um, I don’t mean to be…do you think Ollie and I can be alone for a while?”
“Oh. Of course,” I said as I placed Ollie on her feet and rose to my own. Everyone followed my lead.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, dolcezza. Just give me a call,” I said a little mechanically.
“I will,” she whispered.
“William and Jed will be outside if you need anything. Just a precaution.”
“Okay.” Samantha offered strained words of thanks and farewell to my family as they filed out.
Then I grasped Samantha’s face in my hands and pulled her into a kiss. She leaned into me as I poured my soul into her. I stroked her tongue with mine, needing to feel her, taste her. I approached everything as if it were the last time, because in my worst fear, it was. Finally, I pulled back, tried to smile, and left.
Each step away from them battered my body, like having bones broken one painful snap at a time.
William and Jed waved from their perch in my truck out front. I nodded, then the rest of us meandered across the darkening field to my house. It felt odd to return; I’d said my good-byes earlier in the day. But it made the most sense as a place to wait.
As time passed, everyone got edgy. “Lucien, we shouldn’t delay leaving until the very last minute,” Griffin cautioned apologetically.
“I agree. I am acutely aware of the passage of time. But I can’t push her into this decision. I don’t want to push her into saying ‘no.’ “
He nodded.
We waited. The dread in the pit of my stomach grew with each passing hour. I couldn’t imagine how Samantha would try to weigh this decision. What must be going through her mind? The suspense was killing me. I almost jumped when my cell phone beeped at me from my pocket. I pulled it out and flipped it open. She’d sent a text message at 9:06 p.m.
Can you come over?
A wave of nausea passed through me— everyone’s anxiety, and my own.
“She wants me to come over,” I said to them all. “Oh, Dio.” I slipped the phone back into my pocket and locked my hands in my hair on top of my head.
Catherine spoke for them all. “Go to her, Lucien. Make her listen. She loves you. You love her. So, fight for her.”
I stared up at the ceiling for a moment, then nodded and left. The blackness of the snow-covered field closed around me. I prayed with everything I had I wouldn’t get trapped by the darkness of loss again.
***
When I walked into Samantha’s living room, she was huddled on the couch with a blue quilt around her. Her eyes were dry now, but her face was red and puffy from crying. I sat down next to her sideways so I could face her. She avoided my eyes.
I let myself do something I’d blocked when I came in—I reached out and searched for her emotions. They were a full-body experience for me: fear, grief, love, longing, sadness, pain. The constellation of emotions wasn’t so different from what she’d been working through for the past day since we’d stood in my kitchen. But it filled me with foreboding nonetheless.
“I’m sorry, Sam. The suspense is unbearable. Please tell me you’ve decided to come with me.” I stared at her still-diverted eyes. In a century, I’d never felt more powerless than I did at that moment.
Sensing she was wavering, I pushed on. “If you choose me, I promise I’ll take care of you and Ollie. We’ll make a normal life for her. I promise I’ll love you forever, and I’ll spend my days showing you how much over and over again.”
I took her hand in mine. She let me. I shifted my body closer to her on the couch. When I kissed her forehead, she leaned into it just enough to offer me a spark of hope.
Eight minutes, thirty-six seconds—the amount of time that elapsed between the moment I walked in the door and when she finally spoke. I only heard it because of my heightened aural abilities.
“I can’t.” She finally met my eyes and bit down hard on her quivering lip.
I shuddered in panicked disbelief. “Sam, please. Let me make this right. I promise you this can work out. You said it yourself—you never would’ve known what I am. What I am doesn’t have to change what we have.”
She shook her head in a detached sort of way. Her torment constricted my chest and made it hard to breathe. I gasped as if I’d been punched in the gut.
“I’m sorry, Lucien, I can’t.” She fisted a stray tear
away, adding to the redness of her face.
“Why?”
She heaved a deep breath. “I love you, I do. I love you so much it hurts. Even with what I now know, as scary as that is to me, I…just…love you.”
“Sam—”
“No. Please. Let me finish. This is so hard,” she choked.
Please, Dio, no.
“I love you, but it’s not enough. And it’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is Ollie. That she’s safe. That she’s protected. That she gets to be a child, innocent of all that’s complicated and dangerous and scary in the world. I have to be a mother first. I have to do what’s in her best interest, which means I can’t go with you.”
“Sam, I would give my life to protect Ollie, to ensure her happiness—”
“I don’t doubt that. But I don’t want her to live in a world where someone might actually need to give their life for hers. One near-death experience with immortal beings is probably enough for one child’s lifetime.”
“Sam—”
“If I chose what I want over what I think she needs, I would not be able to live with myself. I would hate myself for that. And if anything ever happened to her, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself. I wouldn’t be able to go on living.”
“If you stay here, I won’t ever be able to see you again.”
“I know.” Her sadness and suffering tasted like a bitter cocktail.
“Oh, mio Dio,” I moaned as I got up and paced a circuit around the room.
“I can’t do this halfway, Lucien,” she rasped. “I couldn’t take it. I’m already dying here a little tonight. There’s no way I could see you now and again and not go crazy with wanting you. But more importantly, I can’t do it to Ollie. She’s crushed…” She took a deep breath. “I can’t raise her hopes by letting her see you again. As it is, she may never speak to me after tonight…”
Think, Lucien! Cazzo! I swallowed down my frustration. At an impasse, I stared down at her while she pulled at a loose string on the quilt around her legs.
I involuntarily tranced out. But being inside my mind wasn’t any better than being outside of it. The future I’d hoped for was gone, and the memories of another time I’d lost everything resurfaced and tormented me.