My amusement was contagious, and soon it took over the whole table. There were tears in my eyes, and I wouldn’t have traded this moment for anything in the whole wide world. Tristan’s arm slipped around my shoulders as the laughter finally died down. “Point is, yeah, you’re right, sis. Unending and I will definitely be enjoying ourselves while we’re here, but if you need us for anything—and I mean anything—please don’t hesitate to ask. Okay?”
“We want to help,” I said with conviction.
Esme smiled warmly. “Don’t worry. We’ll reach out.”
“In the meantime, however, excuse me while I dig into this peach,” I said, my mouth already watering. I’d been waiting and working my way through two courses already to get to the pulp of this matter. My eyes must’ve been glistening with the childlike delight I’d been feeling, because it made them laugh again.
And I loved the sound of it.
Unending
Toward midnight, Tristan and I left his parents’ treehouse and slowly walked over to ours, about two hundred yards north and snugly hidden between other enormous redwoods that had yet to be fitted with homes for more Shadians. Ours was the only residence in a hundred-yard radius, and I loved the thought of such extensive privacy.
Above, the night sky gleamed down at us through the occasional gap in the dark green canopy. Birds sang from their perches, their trills dancing on the air and echoing around us as if the forest itself was celebrating us in its own way. My hand fit perfectly in Tristan’s as we made our way down the path. It was barely a battered trace snaking through the woods, with tall grass and wildflowers rising on both sides.
“You know, if you think about it, nothing seems different about The Shade,” Tristan said. “I mean, look around…”
Indeed, we passed by people coming and going, either from or to the Vale or the Black Heights or Sun Beach, judging by the tans on some of the humans. They were friends and lovers, brothers and sisters, families with children and grandchildren. They belonged to different species, yet they got along perfectly. They went about their evening as though a bunch of clones had never trespassed through The Shade, stealing some of the residents and using never-before-seen weapons of war against the others.
“Like Esme said, there’s no point in losing yourself in fear and despair, right?” he added.
Looking at the couple that walked up a neighboring path, I caught a stolen glance. It was a little wary, reminiscent of the look I’d seen Ariana give Julian during dinner. It didn’t mean much, not considering how many behavioral details were jumping at me now that I was a living creature. I found it overwhelming and difficult to observe and record everything, and yet I couldn’t help it. This was my new nature. “They seem okay,” I replied, my voice low as we kept walking.
A deer broke a twig somewhere nearby. I caught its grassy scent and imagined its big brown eyes scanning us through the nocturnal semi-darkness. What a wonderful experience it was to be alive.
“I imagine they will all switch right back into battle mode if they have to, but for now, they’re staying calm and trying to go on with their lives,” Tristan said, and I nodded my agreement.
“There’s no point in giving yourself an ulcer. You used to say that.”
“I still do,” he chuckled. Our treehouse could be seen again, partially hidden by the other redwoods. “There it is. Home sweet home.”
“It’s beautiful,” I murmured, seeing it through mortal eyes for the first time.
“No, you’re beautiful,” he whispered against my lips before dropping a swift kiss. My cheeks flared hot for a moment.
“Thank you, my love. But I mean it. This place, it’s… it’s wonderful,” I insisted, taking a moment to absorb my surroundings.
The house had a different, greater value to me now. The siding was built from elegant pieces of dark oak wood brought over from Calliope and renowned for their architectural integrity and resistance. The roof had been covered with slate gray shingles made of habiri gum wood from Neraka—a peculiar specimen praised for its elasticity and texture, the latter protecting the interior of the house from virtually any form of nature’s wrath. It also made outer sealing an obsolete process. Our treehouse was comfortably warm in the winter without need for much firewood, and exquisitely cool in the summer.
Its windows were wide, the frames painted white against the charcoal wall boards, and Ariana had hung white and yellow daisy curtains in the kitchen. I liked them even more now. I could already imagine myself in the morning, standing up there with a coffee mug in my hand and wondering how my life would continue to unfold. Yes, mortality had a certain magic to it.
Wooden steps had been fitted to spiral the massive redwood trunk, connecting the bottom to the elevated treehouse. Stopping right before we went up, Tristan cupped my face in his hands and kissed me deeply. Time itself seemed to stop as I reveled in the taste of him. The softness of his lips, the slickness of his tongue, these were still new and exhilarating sensations. I’d thought I knew love as a Reaper. I’d thought it was the most intense way to love somebody. But I’d been wrong. Oh, so wrong…
My body responded in ways I had trouble keeping up with, but Tristan knew just what to do, his hands slipping slowly from my face to my hips. He pulled me closer, firmly holding me against his solid frame. My pulse was rolling high, like a tide about to crash into the stony shore in the middle of a summer storm. “The house will come and go—it’ll be dirt and dust someday—but you, my love, are beautiful. Living, Reaper… it doesn’t matter. I love you either way.”
“I love you, too,” I said, trembling in his arms. “This feels… incredible.”
“Mhm, wait till we get to the best part,” Tristan chuckled, whisking me off my feet. He rushed up the stairs, effortlessly bringing us both to the front door. He didn’t need to let go of me, instead pressing his elbow down on the door handle to open it. Inside, a faint scent of lavender hung in the air. I’d left planters in every window, and Ariana had promised to water them in my absence. Even as a Reaper, I’d taken a liking to gardening in times of peace.
“Is this the best part?” I asked, my cheeks ablaze and my heart thundering against his. He shook his head as he carried me into our bedroom and settled me on the bed. The feel of the soft linens against my sweaty palms made me smile, as Tristan stood before me, tall and breathing raggedly. “No, this is,” I said, answering my own question as I unbuttoned his shirt, revealing the ropes of taut muscle beneath.
My husband’s skin was smooth, and I wanted to kiss every inch of it. He was a scholar. A stellar anthropologist who rarely resorted to violence—yet he could absolutely hold his own as a vampire, fiercer even than Esme sometimes. He was a man and a soul with enough strength to move mountains. He had the drive to rearrange the stars themselves, if only someone would give him the magical powers to do so.
But tonight, he was simply my husband, his only task to claim me for the first time as a living creature. We made love between the soft, cool linen sheets. He said my name as we experienced one another, skin on skin, heart to heart, and soul to soul like never before. I cried out his as we climbed the steps to ecstasy, our beings singing and humming, our bodies intertwined and never to be torn apart.
Tonight, Tristan was mine, and I was his, like the bonds of marriage had intended. It felt like a wickedly good start to the life I had envisioned for us. I allowed myself to hope that only the good stuff would follow after this. That nothing the universe would throw at The Shade or at our marriage would damage the exquisite thing we’d just started.
My heart might not be able to bear the disappointment of losing all this, I thought to myself as we held each other beneath the featherdown blanket, our hearts full and our spirits utterly sated. Here, love smelled like lavender.
Dafne
Four days had slithered past since the Flip. Not much had changed other than the level of my patience. I was anxious and restless, virtually climbing the walls and finding it increasingly difficult t
o breathe at times. My parents were obviously thrilled to be reunited with me, but our location loomed over our heads like a rotten apple, chunks of it falling onto our foreheads to remind us of our imprisonment.
The Black Heights might look like the ones back home, only they weren’t real, and every single Shadian dragon knew it. I could see it on their sour faces whenever they came out of their caves or whenever they had to withdraw there for the night. It was a general feeling, however, applicable to every single Shadian who’d been confined to this place.
At least my parents weren’t worried sick about me anymore, and Isabelle had been reunited with her family. She had been gone two months, and they hadn’t even realized it.
“Where are you going, honey?” Mom asked as soon as she saw me get up and move away from the small fire we’d built to warm us in the morning. This was the one palpable difference between this island and the real one—these Black Heights were much colder, especially near dawn. I’d noticed the difference before, but seeing my fellow dragons observe it as well reminded me of how far away from home we truly were. It only served to feed my festering anxiety, plus I hadn’t seen Jericho in a few days, since just after the Flip. That stung the worst, and I couldn’t help but feel bad.
My father had insisted that we stick together, ice dragons with ice dragons, as if their petty feuds with the fire dragons even mattered anymore. They didn’t, and the great Lethe knew it, too, but abandoning their otherwise hilarious verbal skirmishes with the fire dragons would’ve meant admitting that our predicament was truly terrible. Renouncing the normalcy we’d lived with for so long solely because that bitch of a Valkyrie had decided to take over our home and toss us in here would’ve meant we were giving up. I understood why my father felt the way he did, but I didn’t appreciate the divide it created between me and Jericho. Not after all we’d been through together.
“I need some air,” I said, my tone flat. It wasn’t my mother’s fault, yet I couldn’t help it. I was being snappy with everybody, and I knew that part of the reason was because I missed a certain fire dragon. I had been working on ways to adjust to this new reality. Then again, ice dragons were naturally averse to change in any form, which should have made me resistant to our predicament, much like the rest of my ice-breathing family, who were constantly grunting and pacing their caves, unable to leave this place. It made me smile, knowing that even though I was technically only half-ice-dragon, I was still more ice dragon than the rest of them put together.
“Are you okay?” she replied, watching me intently as I checked my earpiece, then put it back on. Dad always had his on, and mine had become a source of frustration lately, since Jericho hadn’t even bothered to say hello. Sure, I’d been busy with my folks, and he’d been busy with his, but still… I would’ve appreciated a message, at least. We’d almost kissed, hadn’t we? I hadn’t imagined that?
I gave her a soft smile, trying to hide my emotions, if only to avoid another conversation about how I needed to be more open with my feelings. “I’m fine, Mom. Just a little stir crazy. I’m only going to stretch my legs since there’s no news from the Great Dome about a way of getting out of this fresh hell.”
“Your father will be back soon,” she reminded me. “Don’t stay out too long.”
Her attempts at parenting were endearing, especially since I was past the age where such lines were even needed, but I knew this was her way of coping with what had happened. She’d lost me for a while, and she’d only just gotten me back. I didn’t even want to imagine the kind of horrors she must have imagined in my absence I was her only child—she’d worked with the witches and the Faulty twins to conceive me. Basically, I’d been so much work, losing me would’ve broken her beyond repair.
Instead, I chose to go over and hug my mother, and she planted a kiss on my cheek. I felt the whole universe of her love in that kiss, and I welcomed it, knowing that someday I might have children of my own who ran off to visit crazy new places, leaving me to wonder about their safety. Karma did have a way of paying people back. “I won’t be long, I promise. Also, I’ve got my earpiece on if you need me,” I told her, then walked out of the cave and into the cold and empty darkness.
The sky was blank and black, that strange light glowing from above though none of us had managed to find the damned source yet. The wind blew through the tree crowns, making the leaves rustle and rattle oddly. It was as if even the made-up nature of this place was working overtime to remind us that we weren’t home. That we were prisoners.
“Hrista, you heinous, heinous nightmare,” I muttered, taking a deep breath.
To the south, I could see the lights of the Vale flickering. The clones’ Vale, currently occupied by real humans. To the west, the redwood residences sprawled beneath the lush and trembling canopies, extending for at least a mile or so before the witches’ sanctuary—which was nothing but a pretty clearing with Hrista’s two-story white villa. I knew Corrine and Ibrahim had begrudgingly kept their distance from that place, choosing to spend their time in constant and relentless analysis of every inch of the glass house extension instead, hoping to find something that might bring them closer to a solution for our infuriating predicament.
Yeah, we were all dying to get the hell out of here.
I could see Caia and Blaze’s cave from here, too. My irritation began to take on new and surprisingly big proportions. I was on edge, and knowing that Jericho was somewhere in there… it made my blood pump hotter and faster than ever. The walls I had surrounded my heart with were thawing away, perhaps a little too quickly for my comfort. I was feeling things I had never felt before, and my reactions to Jericho’s absence were equally frustrating and confusing.
If I went to him now, I would reveal myself as emotionally attached—or so I thought. It made sense to me. Maybe I was wrong, but my instincts screamed against it. Plus, fire and ice dragons didn’t mix. That was a cultural aspect I had repeatedly ignored since I’d met Jericho. Now that my father was back in the picture, I found it harder to set aside. Third, Jericho hadn’t said a word in days. If I made the first move, I worried I’d come across as needy. Or desperate. Or worse.
“What’s worse than needy?” I muttered, stretching my arms out.
It had been a while since I’d taken flight. I had my combo suit on, of which Soph and I had nabbed two from the armory before we’d blown it up, so all I had to do was pull the special black string on my hip and the fabric would roll away into a collar. I turned full dragon and the collar hung nicely around my neck, ready to be unwound and refitted into the combo suit on my humanoid frame. Until then, however, I had this peculiar sky to myself.
Flapping my wings several times, I reveled in the sensation of my scales shuddering and moving ever so slightly as I stretched and lifted my head. I huffed and puffed, as if I’d expelled an entire bag of dust from the bottom of my lungs. The weight of the entire world had just fallen off my shoulders. The clones were gone, as were the Berserkers and Hrista, the wretched fiend. It had vanished—the trouble, the rage, the impotence against this new and still mysterious enemy.
I was a dragon, and I was ready to fly.
Somewhere in the distance, I heard a familiar sound of wings flapping, but I didn’t pay any attention to it. I plunged from the edge of the cave and dropped until I could almost taste the morning dew on the redwood leaves before I soared again. I went higher and higher, past the smoky clouds that were nothing more than an illusion.
I reached for the heavens, though I knew there were no heavens here. I wondered, though… where did this pocket of lies end? Where did the sky end? What if I could just pierce through and find my way back to the real island?
Driven by an intense curiosity, I accelerated. The air grew colder, making my spine tingle. I loved the icy feel of the atmosphere against my scaly skin. Breathing out, I pushed myself higher and higher. The sky could not be my limit. I refused to let this place get the better of me.
And then something hard bumped into me.<
br />
It knocked me off my course. I found myself flailing and roaring, suddenly angered and embarrassed by my inability to keep it together. Jericho’s roar filled the fake sky, and I turned my head to find him shooting toward me like a massive black arrow with turquoise eyes and ridiculously sharp fangs. He was smiling.
How dare he smile! He just rammed into me! He threw me off my game!
Oh, he was having fun. Entire days of not saying a word, and suddenly he was the king of the skies? Nope. Not a chance. I wasn’t going to let this play out that way. I quickly hatched a plan, and I knew exactly where this encounter would end.
Snarling, I lunged at him. It made Jericho growl once more but with a smidge of delight as he flew away from me. We were chasing each other, and he was clearly having a good time. I didn’t cut him any slack, though I did enjoy letting him come after me, if only to keep those muscles working. We dashed above the fake island, forgetting about everything else around us.
This dance of dragons would end with a kiss. I knew it. I was determined to make it so, if only to teach him a lesson about playing with me this way. My walls of ice were thawing in his presence, yes, but that didn’t mean things would go how he wanted. No. This morning, our lips will meet, and then I’ll leave him hanging and yearning for more.
Determined to reach my desired conclusion, I dropped into a sudden spiraling motion. Less than a mile ahead, Sun Beach stretched lazily against the dark waters, its golden sands glistening against the fake skylight. That was our destination. That was where I’d win this particularly exciting game that Jericho likely didn’t even realize we were playing. Or maybe he did…
A Shade of Vampire 91: A Gate of Light Page 7