by Jaz Primo
“Still, it’s not what I want,” I said. “I want to be with you, not thinking longingly about you while you’re somewhere halfway across the world. Half the time I don’t even know if you’re alive or dead until the next text message appears.
“Hell, after everything I’ve recently experienced, I know for certain that all I really need is to have you in my life,” I continued. “And on a regular basis.”
She placed her index finger below my chin, the sharp tip of her fingernail pressing dangerously into my skin, and she pressed upward.
I tilted my head upward in compliance as she drew even closer to me until I felt her warm breath against my face.
“Don’t you toy with me,” she said. “If this is a ploy to defray blame over how you’ve behaved—”
“I’m not toying with you,” I said. “You’d know if I was lying.”
I saw the hard look of assessment in her eyes.
“Fine. You’ve acted out and made your dramatic, so-very-emotional point,” she said. “What’s next, then? I’m supposed to just ignore what you’ve done?”
“Maybe not ignore,” I said. “But you could try to forgive.”
“How can I forgive what I don’t even understand yet?”
“Because you say that you love me,” I said. “Because, even if you’re pissed at me—”
“Oh, I’m very pissed,” she said.
“Yeah, well, you hopefully still care.”
She paused, as if considering that for a moment.
“Because, deep inside where few can see, you’re kind,” I added.
Her features hardened. “Listen to me. I’m not at all a kind woman, Caleb,” she said. “Especially where either my heart, or my trust, is concerned.”
I swallowed hard, suddenly feeling as if I was playing with a coiled serpent that was ready to strike at any moment.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “Maybe not with other people, but you’ve always been kind to me.”
Her firm resolve appeared to momentarily waver.
“And as for your trust, I’ve never betrayed it,” I said. “Not once.”
Her facial muscles relaxed slightly. Slowly, she withdrew her index finger from beneath my chin.
Though relieved, I resisted the temptation to reach up and see if her fingernail had drawn blood.
“Still, what you did was wrong,” she said. “I’m not going to just overlook that. It was a serious lapse of judgment of your part. And it was recklessly dangerous.”
“How can I say I’m sorry so that you’ll believe me?” I asked.
The corners of her mouth upturned. “You could begin on your knees.”
I started to smile, but her gaze turned cold.
Apparently, she wasn’t kidding.
I dropped to my knees before her, staring into her abdomen, her clothes still damp from the rain.
I breathed in her scent and felt a familiar carnal desire rise within me. The mere prospect of holding her body in my arms again was irresistible.
It had been too long.
She snapped her fingers above my head and I looked up.
While her expression was almost menacing, her body was also painfully ravishing, which only heightened my attraction toward her at that moment.
Maybe we’re due some makeup sex?
“I know that look,” she said. “But you can forget it. You should be so lucky right now.”
Oh, I should, indeed.
“Don’t forget why you’re actually down there,” she added coolly.
I swallowed. “Kat, I’m so very sorry if my actions were reckless,” I said. “And I wasn’t trying to hurt you. But you need to understand, my perspective on life has matured quite a bit since I left.”
She folded her arms before her and stared down at me.
Something told me that she wasn’t convinced of my sincerity.
“We should talk about this,” I said. “I can help you to understand what I’ve been feeling.”
“Perhaps,” she said.
“Look, I feel really silly down here,” I said. “Maybe we could chat over on the couch instead of like this?”
“Why? Are your knees getting uncomfortable?” she asked.
“A bit,” I conceded.
“Good.”
If that was a sign of things to come, I was probably in big trouble.
“Kat, at this point, I don’t know what our future holds,” I said. “But I do know that this isn’t helping either of us.”
After silent moments passed while I stared up into her eyes, my neck felt strained at such an angle and my muscles started to ache.
“I suppose,” she conceded.
Well, that hardly seemed like a shining endorsement.
I stared back into her abdomen and reached out to encircle her waist in my arms.
Then I firmly pressed my lips to just above her belt line and kissed her.
“Don’t toy with me, Caleb,” she warned.
“I’m not,” I insisted. “Unless you’ve forgotten, you’re my mate, remember? I’m supposed to be allowed to kiss you, dammit!”
The muscles in her stomach went taught, almost like stone. “Of course, I remember you’re my mate,” she shot back. “Why the hell else would I even be here?”
The intensity in her eyes alone was intimidating.
“I wouldn’t know.”
She remained silent and her gaze reverted to staring ahead, as if looking at something far away in the distance.
“I wouldn’t have expected that from you. How can you even say that? What’s gotten into you?” asked Kat.
I paused to gather my thoughts.
“I feel like we’re drifting apart,” I said. “Like I’m losing you to something with greater pull than I can muster enough strength to counter.”
She looked down at me with surprise.
“Why?” she asked. “What’s changed between us for you to say that?”
Despite the many centuries of experience that I knew she had, veritable lifetimes more existence than that of my own, her expression reflected sheer confusion toward me.
“Our distance, both physical and emotional,” I replied. “It’s like a barrier that’s formed around you over time…first like a fog, subtle and amorphous. Now, it’s like a thick cloud that’s nearly impenetrable.”
I looked down at the wood floor and a tired sense of resignation flowed through my body. I felt both weary and helpless.
She squatted before me, placed her fingertip before my chin, and tilted my head upward until I gazed into her piercing eyes.
“Your reckless actions concerned me,” she said. “Now, your words worry me. What’s happening with you?”
“Me?” I asked. “It’s us! Don’t you see that?”
“What about us?”
“There isn’t any us anymore, that’s what!”
She appeared taken aback by my response.
“That’s ridiculous,” she retorted.
“Oh, really? I never even see you anymore.”
“Caleb, I can’t exactly fly back every weekend as if I’m working some nine to five office job,” she said. “You know what’s at stake, as well as how unpredictable what I’m doing is.”
“I can’t even call you anymore,” I continued. “Hell, our contact is a series of stupid text messages.”
“Now you sound like some spoiled teenager,” she said, standing up.
“Teenager? Maybe I just sound like that because you’re like – what? – almost twenty times older than me. Which means you should understand far better than me what I’m trying to tell you.”
“Oh, you’re really driving me crazy right now,” she said. “At times like this I can’t see how this relationship even works between us.”
“Well, it’s not, in case you hadn’t noticed. So maybe you need someone much older than me…maybe another vampire then?” I countered. “Somebody who’s so much wiser and capable at handling this insane life we’re having to live.”
> “It’s becoming apparent to me that you’re obsessing over everything. Perhaps you simply have too much free time on your hands,” she said.
Something inside my brain snapped as weeks of emotional strain, stress, and fatigue flooded back through my memory.
I jumped up to stand before her.
“Free time?” I demanded. “Look, my life has turned into an endless slog. I can’t handle this pace anymore! My life is nothing but an endless damned stream of combat training and physical workout sessions and classes and stupid papers and then perpetual research for a thesis topic that I didn’t even choose. Hell, Alton has me looking down some dark rabbit hole with no bottom. Now I don’t even have a life anymore! I hate this! In fact, I can’t stand it anymore…I want to be anywhere else, doing anything else.”
Her eyes widened.
“I hate this life! I don’t have you or freedom or downtime,” I raged. “I can’t keep this pace up anymore. Dammit, I’m not some friggin’ vampire; I’m only HUMAN!”
I suddenly realized that my fists were clenched at my sides as I glared into her eyes. I felt as if standing on the edge of a precipice and very nearly ready to fall over the edge.
She frowned, studying me at length as if divining her future from a cup of tea leaves.
“Well? Aren’t you even going to say anything?” I demanded.
“Your haunted-looking eyes,” she said softly, placing her warm palm against my cheek. “I haven’t seen that look in such a long time.
“It’s a visage that I prayed might have been banished forever, and now I’m staring back at it once again. It breaks my heart to see you this way,” she said.
I felt too stunned to utter a single word.
Chapter 15
Caleb
The saddest expression commanded Kat’s features.
How could I have realized that she hadn’t been divining our future in her expression, but rather reflecting on the past?
My past.
I felt spent all of the sudden. My entire body felt ragged and emptied of strength and energy.
I reached out to place my hand around hers, grateful even for that limited contact, yet realizing that it was much more than I’d had in weeks, with her away in Europe.
In an instant, I was wrapped in her arms, my face pressed against her shoulder. My own arms embraced her tightly.
It felt as if had been forever since I had held her.
“Come,” she said, guiding me toward the couch.
She sat alongside me, cradling one arm around my shoulders.
“Take a moment,” she said. “Then tell me everything.”
I took a deep breath, suddenly feeling unprepared to unload what was the culmination of months of building tension, self-doubt, and angst.
“My life,” I began. “It feels like its spiraling forward out of control, full-tilt and mixed with both routine and menace, but neither in a manner or direction that I care for it to go. And worst of all, I feel like you’re less and less a part of it…”
I told her about the conflicted emotions I had experienced; including my feelings of guilt for all that’s been done for me, and yet, having found myself wanting for more, or at least different circumstances.
She listened as I recounted my fears about what felt like our waning relationship and her obligations that I felt powerless to balance in our relationship.
Of course, I confessed my feelings of regret over holding Alton responsible for her obligations, given how he’d saved my life more than once. Not to mention how he’d generously offered himself as a quasi-avuncular figure in my life.
Of all my conflicted feelings and emotions, guilt appeared to figure prominently among them.
The thunderstorm outside raged for a time in a manner that seemed to mirror my own tumultuous inner feelings.
I don’t know how long I spoke, but it felt like an endless stream of thoughts, feelings, and even confessions, poured forth like a flood. I left nothing out, recounting events and inner feelings that spanned fear, shame, anger, and anxiousness.
Most of all, no matter the consequences of my revelations, I felt unbridled relief at getting everything out in the open.
By the time I finished talking, I felt nearly exhausted. That’s when I noticed that, while it was still dark outside, the thunderstorm had ceased, save for droplets of rain occasionally pelting against the glass window panes.
Kat pulled me close against her again, holding me in place and gently nuzzling the top of my head with her chin. I had almost fallen off asleep when she finally spoke.
“My dear, sweet, Caleb,” she said. “You maddening, precious, silly man. You drive me almost insane at times.
“Why did you wait this long to tell me these things? Why endure this on your own at such length?” she asked.
“I don’t know, really. At first, I just tried to brave my way through it, or ignore it completely,” I replied. “Then it felt too imposing to confront, wearing on me day after day.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I reveled in her embrace. “I sort of tried, in my own way. But I always ended up feeling as if I was imposing, or standing in the way of your duty to Alton. Eventually, it felt as if we didn’t even have time for a phone call. But—”
“But what?”
I took a deep breath. “It wasn’t easy trying to press my concerns with you. You can be a very insistent woman, but lately it’s as if you’ve grown evasive with me much of the time.”
I felt her body tense and she remained silent.
After a few moments, her body relaxed again.
“Yes,” she conceded. “Yes, I suppose that can be true sometimes, particularly lately.”
I let out the breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. It was a considerable concession on her part.
She kissed me on the cheek, which felt very reassuring.
“But I’m still really put out with you for just up and leaving so abruptly.”
Yeah, I sort of figured that might be the case.
She retracted her arm from around my shoulders and started to rise from the couch.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
She stared down at me, then walked over to the small dining room table and gathered her leather coat that was draped over the back of one chair.
“You stay here. I’m returning to the hotel to coordinate some details and retrieve my things,” she said. “In addition, the vampires outside will need to switch shifts with the humans soon.”
“What? There’s more people with you?”
“You thought otherwise?” she countered. “This was a twenty-four hour operation comprised of two teams; humans during the day and vampires at night.”
“Look, just send them home,” I said. “You can see I’m perfectly safe here, especially now that you’ve found me.”
“Caleb,” she warned.
“Okay, okay. Do whatever you feel’s best.”
“Much better. You have no idea what’s been going on lately,” she said.
I started to argue but she held up her hand. “Yes, I realize that I haven’t exactly been keeping you fully informed about matters, either.”
I settled back down, contented that she had at least conceded that.
“Don’t go anywhere until I get back.”
“It’s not as if I have any place else to be.”
She walked back over to me, her boot heels thumping against the wood floor. She stared down at me until I met her gaze. “No more running from things, either figuratively or literally.”
I nodded.
She bent down to give me an all-too-brief kiss.
“You’re going to be the death of me someday,” she said.
My eyes widened. “I hope not.”
The edges of her mouth upturned ever so slightly before she turned and exited the cabin, firmly pulling the door closed behind her.
I listened as a vehicle drove away from outside the cabin. The strange thing was I h
adn’t even heard one pull up out front since she arrived last night.
For the first time in forever, it had felt as if she and I were the only two people in the world.
I wanted to try more of that again very soon.
“Well, all in all, I suppose that went better than it could have,” I said aloud, standing up to stretch and then massage my neck.
I felt completely exhausted, both physically and emotionally.
Then, as if on cue, the sound of heavy rain pelting against the cabin’s roof generated a din of noise that drowned out the silence.
I plopped back down onto the couch, uncertain as to what to do next.
Multiple thoughts collided in my brain all at once.
Despite telling her everything, Kat was still put out with me. Not to mention Alton was annoyed and disappointed in me.
My recent cathartic days of contemplation seemed far less satisfying in retrospect.
Then my mind went numb and I just stared at nothing, the sound of the rain almost hypnotic and soothing.
Eventually, despite the combination of periodic thunder and steady rainfall, the growl of a motorcycle engine grew louder until it sounded like it was right outside the cabin.
I got up and opened the front door just in time to see Paige removing her helmet.
Her blue eyes looked cold and flat, and she stared at me as she walked up onto the porch to stand before me.
Her denim jeans and black leather jacket appeared soaked through from the rain.
“Paige?” I asked. “Long time, no see.”
She said nothing, staring back at me with a cold expression.
“Listen, I’m sorry about what’s happened. I mean, I’ve missed you really badly,” I said. “And frankly, I could use a friend right now. Maybe you could come in and dry off and then we could talk?”
The look in her eyes turned nearly feral.
“You’re a fuckin’ idiot!” she yelled.
Before I could say anything, her fist impacted the side of my face, knocking me off balance.
I stumbled backward against the door jamb.
As I rubbed at my jaw in shock, she turned and stalked away while replacing her helmet over her head.
I lurched forward to the edge of the porch as she mounted the cycle and revved the engine.