Our wards are made to keep those intending harm out, but the feel of the being sets my nerves on edge. There’s a familiarity to it. Luz. My chest aches and my stomach sours. Though I knew this moment would arrive, there’s no amount of preparation that could soften the blow.
The door opens, and it’s like no time has passed. Her unblemished olive skin glows with health and vitality, and her midnight hair is pulled back in a ponytail. The thick stands tumble down to her shoulder blades in medium-sized curls. Black jeans encase her long, lean legs, and the black tank top with a white skull shows off the chiseled muscles of her arms.
Her deep-set onyx eyes are surrounded by a sooty set of long lashes. Her broad forehead is softened by the glossy thick perfectly arched eyebrows. She’s stunning. The fury rolling off her in suffocating waves doesn’t detract from her beauty. “I’d heard, but I needed to see it for myself to believe the rumors.” Her lips form a straight line.
“I’ll be in the back working on a pickup order,” Mémé states, giving us the privacy we need.
I force my vocal chords to work. “And now that you have?” I say quietly.
“I ask myself for how long.” Even after all this time, the accent of her origins lightly tints her speech, lending a lilting quality to her alto.
“For good, chaton.” The endearment rolls easily off my tongue before I can stop myself. Relationships are different when age has no baring. Despite the vast years between us, she will always be my kitten.
She scowls. A lesser person would be quaking in their boots. She’s Cristobal’s right hand for a reason. “You expect me to believe this?”
“It’s the truth, regardless.” It sounds lame to my own ears, and I cringe mentally. Her jaw clenches. She rushes forward faster than I can track and slams her fists onto the table in front of me. The wood groans in protest. Her eyes are a fathomless black, full of malice and—for those who know how to look—hurt. What does one say to the person whose heart you’ve broken? I flinch but refuse to look away. I owe her that much, to witness her response to my actions. I want to reach out and touch her, tell her I would take away her pain and bear it as my own if I could.
Vampires don’t experience things the way humans do. Their longevity, predatory nature, and life experiences make it impossible. Each year, they forget what it meant to be human a little more, and it shows. When they commit to caring, it borders on obsession with its intensity.
This is why they tend to avoid entanglements with those they view as fragile. It’s self-preservation at its most basic level. A human’s life is but a blink of an eye in comparison to their own, and not worth the emotional investment.
Once they do decide to care, the relationship is unlike anything I could put to words.
“I left this place, not you.” I tried to contact her once I left. Each time the phone call went unanswered. After months of no response, I accepted the reality. By severing my ties with this place, with the man who made me fall so deeply in love I lost sight of everything else, I’d lost her.
“You expected me to choose? To continue to associate with you after what you did to him? My father?” I hear the lost little girl in her voice. My heart weeps for the damage done. I did this to us, and it’s up to me to fix it if she’ll allow me. She stands, straightening to her full five-feet-nine inches.
Just like that, an impenetrable wall is erected between us. Her face is wiped of emotion as she reaches into the leather satchel across her body. She pulls out a scroll, sealed with the Cortez wax stamp. My heart leaps into my throat.
“An invitation to the celebration of the autumnal equinox.”
The celebration of summer to fall, when the days shortened has always been revered by our kind. The others who depend on the changes in weather to gain power. Whether they admit it or not. Vampires feel the pull of the moon. Even if the rumor that they can’t walk in the sunlight was a self-perpetuated myth to throw humans off their trail.
The ones afflicted by the sun sensitivity are rare and weak, or descended from a line few talk about. The way we would dismiss a caveman whose DNA is so far from our own, or a mass murder not quite put together properly.
“You say invitation the way most say summons.”
Her thin lips form a wicked smirk. “Semantics.”
“I am no longer one of his court to command.”
Her bark of laughter is harsh, echoing in the silent space. “Did you think you could return and not play the role you agreed to? That you could disregard my father’s rules? You were allowed to remain wher
e you are in peace only because of his patience and benevolence. You will not insult him here.” She holds the scroll out until I take it. The scent of tobacco smoke and old paper drifts up to me. People who use the phrase old school , don’t’ know the real meaning. Vampires can be downright medieval with the way they adhere to ancient practices.
Always with the damn politics. She has me. An insult from me would be perceived as being from all of the Esçhete family, and place a strain on our treaty.
“I have my own celebration to head.” I remind her gently. She’s on edge now, a dangerous woman walking on a thin ledge.
“How fortunate for you, our celebrations will not start until after midnight.”
My hands shake as the walls close in around me. I’m caught in a snare. Our first reunion should not be in front of so many eyes. I’m stubborn, not foolish.
I peer up at the ceiling and massage the bridge of my nose. “When and where does he wish to meet?”
“Aaah, so you haven’t forgotten everything?”
“I’ve forgotten nothing. That wasn’t what leaving was about.” I spin the silver charm bracelet on my rest slowly to relieve the tension coursing through me.