Chapter 22

CHAPTER22

I’m actually pretty excited to be on the hunt for a douchebag to eat. It’s been a while since I stalked some prey. Even Jessie Fucking Bates didn’t really count, seeing as how he was already subdued when I finally got to kill him. And handless. I haven’t used my song to snare my prey since that Civic driver with the stupid muffler that I found that first night at the Reaper’s estate. My throat burns with the thought, and it’s more sore than usual with the hunger creeping around in my gut.

I sit for a while at a cafe and watch the people of Ravello until I find a worthy candidate. Truthfully, it doesn’t usually take long to find a douchebag. They abound on this earth like a fucking plague. Tonight is no exception. This one is apparently named Alberto, as his friends chime when he regales them with some bullshit story about a girl that sucked him off before he ghosted her. He goes on and on about women that were ‘too fat,’ ‘too loud,’ ‘too crazy,’ or ‘too shit in bed’. In other words, all lies and he probably has a tiny, smelly, crooked dick. Maybe I’ll check once I’ve torn his throat out. Fucking wanker.

Eventually, he separates off from his friends to head home, and I follow in the shadows. We pass through the Piazza Duomo, heading east on the stone square. There aren’t many people out tonight, and by the time we reach Via Giovanni Boccaccio, the street is empty and dark.

I’m feeling a bit dramatic, a bit excited. Even a little afraid, to be honest. I haven’t sung at all since before Semyon. So, I think it’s fitting to pick something bold. We need to bring out the big guns for such a momentous occasion. And there’s no singer with bigger guns than Céline Dion.

I start humming the melody for Ashes. A few soft notes. C minor. The lower tones in the song before the crescendo. The sound of my humming startles Alberto and he glances back at me as he walks, giving a flash of a smile when he seems to find me unthreatening. He turns to the road ahead and starts into the tunnel.

That… that’s not right… he should already be falling under my spell. Even a little hum should ignite the magic that will pull him into my grasp.

I try to shake it off as I enter the tunnel after him. I clear my throat. I swallow the uneasy feeling that’s stirring the bile in my stomach. I let him get a few steps ahead and start again. The tunnel will make my voice sound that much richer and more beautiful. After all, everyone loves a bit of cathedral-like reverb.

I start again, quietly, from the beginning, singing the lyrics this time.

What’s left to say?

These prayers ain’t working anymore

Every word shot down in flames

Alberto’s steps slow a little. Yes.

What’s left to do with these broken pieces on the floor?

I’m losing my voice calling on you

A little bit slower...

’Cause I’ve been shaking

I’ve been bending backwards ‘till I’m broke

Watching all these dreams go up in smoke

Alberto’s steps hitch and his head tilts...

I take a deep breath. I put everything into my voice. It’s clear and warm and haunting. All that emotion pours into the darkness around us.

Let beauty come out of ashes

Let beauty come out of ashes

And when I pray to God all I ask is

Can beauty come out of ashes?

Alberto stops and slowly turns in my direction. I feel a sudden swell of relief. My voice might not be the same as it once was, but the magic is still there. Thank the gods, wherever they are. It’s still there.

“Questo è il primo…” he says, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

No…

No no no…

It’s impossible…

Alberto’s eyes rake across my body with a predatory gleam. “Non ho mai avuto una ragazza che mi facesse una serenata prima.”

No…

…It didn’t work.

Alberto takes a step in my direction. He’s all swagger and confidence. “What’s your name?” he asks in heavily accented English.

I feel like my bones have fused into stone. Alberto should be under my control. He should be trapped in a dream. Instead it’s me, trapped in a nightmare.

My throat burns with anger and hunger and fear and sorrow. It burns in the effort it took to sing. My eyes fill with unshed tears that sting, begging to fall.

Alberto takes another step in my direction before stopping abruptly, his gaze caught on something behind me in the night. Even in the darkness I can see him turn pale. He pivots on his heel and walks away as quickly as his legs can carry him, then disappears down the tunnel.

My shoulders shake as I watch him go. The tears cool in the night air as they slide down my cheeks. I try so hard to swallow all this shock and grief back down into a heart that seems saturated with loss. I drop my face into my hands and wish for this to be nothing more than a terrifying illusion. But it’s not. I know it’s not.

I hear footsteps approach. A set of strong arms fold around me from behind and Ashen pulls me into his embrace.

“Shh, my vampire,” he whispers in my ear. It only makes me weep that much more. Ashen tightens his hold and presses a lingering kiss to my temple. “Don’t cry, my Lu.”

“It didn’t work...” My entire being feels like it’s been shredded into a thin strip. I don’t think I recognize myself on the inside anymore. Ashen’s steadying grasp only makes me question what little I think I know.

“It did. You just ensnared the wrong man.”

Ashen lets go just enough to turn me to face him, pulling me against his chest. He holds me there for a long while, wrapped in his warmth. I cry into that pristine shirt, into the smell of unsmoked tobacco, into a heartbeat that soothes me, even when I don’t want it to. After a time that seems so long that the minutes feel eternal, Ashen’s fingers thread into my hair and he pulls away, looking into my eyes.

“Stop,” I whisper. Fat tears are still rolling across my skin. He brushes one of them away.

“Stop what?”

“Just stop,” I say. I don’t know whether I’m talking to Ashen or myself. It felt like a game only this morning. But I can’t play and win like this. My gaze falls away from him but I don’t move from his touch. “Stop making me want to feel for you what I shouldn’t.”

Ashen sweeps stray locks of hair from my cheek and holds my face in his palms. I meet his gaze for only an instant and regret it as soon as I do. I’m not the only one hurting. It’s all laid bare in his eyes. “Feel what, vampire?”

“Don’t.” I pull from his grasp and keep my eyes down on the stone beneath my feet. I don’t want to be so vulnerable out here in the open. I feel like a tiger without claws. A snake without fangs. My legs feel leaden when I back away and skirt around him to slip into the solitude of night.

“I will tell you one more thing I did not do, vampire,” Ashen calls after me. There’s a note of anguish so pained in his voice that I stop moving. The silence between us stretches long enough that I turn to look at Ashen where he stands shrouded in the shadows of the tunnel. But I can still see him clearly. I see the tension in his jaw, the way his brows knit together. I see how hard it is for him to gather a breath. “One more thing I did not do, it was the worst thing.”

My heart plummets. Fingers of ice trace my spine. I don’t think I can handle some deadly admission right now. But I guess that makes it the perfect time to strike. I steel myself for something awful but my voice comes out weary rather than strong. “What?”

Ashen comes forward from the shadows. Every step is careful, like I might run, or combust, or simply disappear. “I never told you how I felt. You asked me, in your ways, and I never answered.”

He stops in front of me. The light of a nearby streetlamp casts his face in a haunting glow.

Ashen’s eyes search mine, probably finding all the evidence of fear and distrust and confusion that lurk within them. Centuries of loneliness seem to surface in Ashen when he finds it, and he takes a steadying breath. “I never told you how the lifetimes I have spent taking souls have eroded my own. I did not tell you about everything I have lost over decades of time. I should have told you then, how every moment spent with you brought me out of the shadows. How being with you was like landing on a paradise shore after swimming through a sea of grief. How being apart from you is like being cast into a cold and merciless darkness.” Ashen’s fingers trace my cheek and I close my eyes. I want to lean into his touch. I want to fall into his words. I fight myself with every heartbeat. “I tried to stay away and could not. I tried to push you away and failed. I tried to protect you and failed at that too.”

Ashen steps closer. His palms warm my cheeks. His breath heats my skin. He places a gentle, careful kiss to one closed eye, then the other.

“Look at me, Lu. Please,” he whispers. And I do. He looks back at me with such determination and longing that I know without any doubt that what I see is true. “The worst thing was that I never told you I love you, Lu. I should have told you when you trusted me with your voice for the first time. Or when we sat in the desert at Saqqara. Or when we stood beneath your name in the library. Even when I held you as we passed into the Shadow Realm. I should have said it over and over until I was sure you would never doubt it. You would have known I was coming for you. That no matter what happened, I would find a way to get you out. That I would give up anything for you.”

I can’t move, or think, or even breathe. There’s so much longing in Ashen’s face. The time we’ve had together has been so little and not enough. It’s been tarnished like copper left to weather the elements, unprotected and uncared for. And that’s the trouble with love. As strong as it is, love is dangerous, corruptible. Love can be a poison just as lethal as anger or sorrow.

And I’m afraid.

“I can’t,” I whisper. “I’m losing who I am. I can’t feel this.”

“But I can,” Ashen says. His determination is unblemished by my honesty. If anything, it’s all the brighter for it. “I will help you find yourself again, Lu. I have enough love for both of us, until you are ready to change your mind.”

“What if I don’t?”

Ashen leans closer. The smooth pads of his thumbs follow my cheekbones so carefully that I think I could count every loop and swirl in their prints. “I have immortal time. I know a thing or two about waiting.”

I look into Ashen’s eyes and it takes just a moment to think it could be this easy. If I just let myself go. I could let him look after me. For a moment. An hour. One night.

I hear the chambers of Ashen’s heart pump beneath his bones. He draws me closer until my chest touches his, until I am warmed by his molten longing as it melts my walls away. Sparks swirl in Ashen’s eyes as they follow mine. “I love you, my vampire. No matter how you change, or what you lose, or what you gain. You are my Lu, always.”

The cannons, the ramparts, the blocks of stone that keep my heart out of my mind... they crumble away.

When our lips finally meet, this kiss is different. Stripped to something pure. It’s not just a wave of desire that breaches a dam to sweep you away. This is what it feels like when you have nothing left and you still risk yourself. When someone shelters your dimming flame in their hands. This kiss is love. I might decide I don’t want it. I might let it linger in a dark corner of my heart and hope that it withers and dies. But it’s there, whether or not I give it permission to exist.

Our tongues caress one another’s in this drugging kiss. I taste mint and vanilla. I taste the venom of desire. I trace the lines of tattoos across Ashen’s neck and pull him closer. His arms snake across my back and one of his calloused palms finds my bare skin beneath my sweater. Ashen sighs into my mouth as though his hands have missed my flesh. He raises me up in his arms and I hold his face between my hands.

Ashen pulls away to press kisses along my neck. “Let’s go back to the villa, vampire,” he whispers into my skin.

I shake my head and he places a lingering kiss on my jaw as though he disagrees. My voice comes out forlorn, like I suddenly don’t know how to solve the simplest problem before me. “I’m hungry.”

Ashen sweeps my hair aside and traces my pulse. “I know. You can feed from me.”

A ghost of a dark laugh leaves my lips and Ashen grips me tighter in his embrace. It’s so tempting after the hunt I’ve had. Maybe it makes me weak, but I don’t think this is an offer I can refuse. “You do meet the douchebag criteria,” I say, letting out a breath through a brittle smile when Ashen nips at the skin of my throat. I try not to sigh when his lips soothe the bite. “If this is your plan to get me to fall in love with you, it won’t work.”

I feel Ashen’s smile in his kiss as it carves a slow path back to my mouth. “My only plan is to make you feel every truth in my words. To bury myself in you and watch you come with my blood on your tongue and my name on your lips.”

My smile fades into desire as Ashen sets me down and shifts the hair from my face. He looks into my eyes with bottomless hunger and burning heat.

“When you fall in love-“

“-if-“

“When you fall in love, vampire, it won’t be because of blood or magic. It will be a choice.”

“What if I don’t choose you?”

“Maybe you won’t. But I have to believe you will, vampire. Just as I have chosen you,” he says, breathing me in, warming my skin with his touch. I close my eyes and time slows, pulling the threads of pain from my heart and stitching it back together with brighter silk. “Sometimes, even demons have to have faith in love, my vampire. And I have faith in you.”