Chapter 16

CHAPTER16

Sooner than I’d like, Ashen declares that it’s time to move on, and we leave the pools and walk down the trail to where the driver waits at the gates. This is when Ashen announces he’s taking me to ‘lunch’, which is at a small coven just beyond the village. When we arrive at the unassuming house, the witches greet us with predictable wariness toward the Reaper, but they’re welcoming enough, leading us to the dining room where a human man is bound to a chair. His mind is clearly addled by some spell, so I don’t need to try using my voice to subdue him. Honestly, after the failed attempt in Ravello, I’m still afraid to even try, so though this goes against my predatory nature to hunt and kill, I’m frankly relieved. The coven leader also assures me he’s a douchebag, as per strict criteria from the Reaper, who sits down at the table with a glass of wine and a newspaper as I sink my teeth into the human and bleed him dry.

We don’t linger with the coven, which Ashen and the witches seem mutually happy about. Our driver takes us back to the hotel where I’m deposited not at our room but in the spa. “Clothes will be on the bed, vampire. The driver will pick you up at four in front of the lobby,” Ashen says as he leaves me at the spa reception desk with a woman named Pinar, who will be my personal wellness director, apparently.

“But where are you—” I don’t have a chance to even finish my sentence before the glass door is sliding shut behind Ashen. He casts me a wicked smile over his shoulder and then disappears around the corner, taking any hint of his emotions with him, my mark eerily still after a fleeting wisp of his self-satisfied amusement. “What the hell…” I whisper.

“Something wrong?” Pinar asks in a warm Turkish accent as she hands me a fluffy white robe and slippers.

“Just…a strange date.”

“Have you been dating long?”

“Not really?.. It’s complicated. This is technically our first date.”

“Ahh. First dates are usually the strangest,” Pinar says, nodding her head as she slips an arm around my shoulders and guides me toward the spa rooms. “Is there anything in particular you’d like to do at the spa today? A massage, perhaps? Facial?”

“Wax,” I declare. “Definitely a wax. Full Brazilian. Please.”

Pinar lets out a gentle laugh. “So, not a bad first date. Just a strange one.”

Pinar pushes me into a change room and the pampering begins. When every pube has been ripped out, every muscle tenderized, every pore slicked with luxurious lotions, I make my way back to the suite.

As promised, there are clothes on the bed next to my makeup bag and a sparkling clutch. No bra, just a lacy cream-colored thong. Sneaky Reaper. Not that I could wear a bra with the dress I raise from the bed, with its neckline that cuts to the navel and the even lower, plunging back. It’s blush white with a spattering of tiny gold crystals that cascade down the bust to disappear among the flowing layers of the floor-length skirt. There’s a pair of simple but elegant sandals to go with it, and a note in a careful script honed over centuries of time. Four o’clock, vampire. I’ll be waiting. ~A.

I press the note to the mark on my chest. It warms beneath my palm as I reach to this invisible thread that somehow connects us. I feel Ashen’s presence, the whisper of his emotions. Anticipation is there. Longing. But he manages to keep his feelings calm so that they’re nothing more than a gentle breeze between us. Or maybe the storm of my confusion and excitement and anxiety just drowns them out.

I sit at the vanity and pull my hair from my face to fall down my back in chocolate waves. I put on my makeup and then my dress and shoes, placing my lipstick and the key to the Shadow Realm corridors in my bag. When I stand in front of the gilt-edged mirror, I almost don’t recognize the woman looking back at me. The difference isn’t in the green hues of my hazel eyes. It’s not in my olive skin, or the angles of my cheekbones, or the set of my lips. It’s in my essence. My expression. The minute details that are hard to define. It’s a peace. A confidence. Like some element had been missing, mined from me with every year of loneliness that had passed. It was something I’d let go of in exchange for survival. And now, the more choices I claim as mine, the more I allow myself to have and to feel, the more it comes back to me. I’m finding my way back to the woman I once was. Maybe even better than before.

I give myself one final glance and leave the suite, heading straight out the lobby where the car is waiting. When I slip inside, the driver passes me a note with a map of the path I’m supposed to take once we arrive back at the Thermal Pools, the only destination an ‘A’ and nothing more. When we stop at the entrance to the park, I follow the instructions, passing the hot springs along a wooden bridge and then taking the winding limestone path that leads to the ancient city of Hierapolis.

Partway down the road, there’s a barrier with two guards, the words İnşaat nedeniyle kapalı written across the scratched yellow plastic. Closed for construction. But as soon as the guards see me, they pull the barrier back and let me pass.

With every step I take along the road, my heart drums at my ribs. Excitement slithers around my bones. It’s been a damn long time since anyone’s gone to these lengths to make a mystery for me. Maybe ever. Somehow, Ashen just knows exactly what I like. It’s in every detail, whether it’s something tiny or a grand yet intimate choice. It’s in the color of a dress. It’s the way he understands the restorative power of water for a woman whose immortal life began in the sea. It’s how he knows that I can never forget a moment of my life, and now he’s helping me to make new memories in spaces that remind me of the ancient past.

I take a curve in the road and he’s there, standing on the path.

I stop and we look at one another for a long moment. Ashen seems perfectly at ease with his hands in the pockets of another beautiful black suit, the precise stitching tailored to his height and his broad shoulders and narrow waist. The wings of the tattooed bird on the side of his neck peek from his collar and I sense his pulse beneath them, just a touch faster than normal. His short dark hair falls over his brow, his eyes leaving mine to flow down to the scepter visible on my chest, then lower, all the way down to the hem that grazes the white limestone road, and back up again.

“All right, vampire?” he asks with a faint smile. The light in his eyes holds more gravity for me than the sun.

“Better now.” I didn’t expect to say that. Neither did Ashen, and he likes it, judging by the way his smile widens. I swallow, feeling a little thrown from myself. “You look cocky as sin,” I say, trying to slip my broken mask back on as he saunters over with just a little swagger in the sway of his steps.

“I might be a bit,” he replies as he stops in front of me and leans in to press a kiss to my cheek. His scent of mint and brandy and unlit cigars invades my senses. “I’ve managed to keep the Queen of the Shadow Realm both surprised and out of trouble for almost an entire day. That seems like an accomplishment worth being cocky about.”

I take Ashen’s offered arm and we start toward a fork in the road. “The day’s not over yet, Reaper.”

We walk in silence to a gap between two limestone barriers. The Roman amphitheater of Hierapolis stretches before us, rows of curving seats stepping down toward the stage, the rebuilt columns and statues of the scaenae frons providing a background to the band playing softly as they warm up their instruments. Tessa is there, adjusting a mic stand among glass orbs of different colors that throw flickering candlelight across the stone. The semi-circular orchestra section in front of the stage is bordered by lanterns. There’s a spot set up with blankets and colorful pillows in the middle of the ima cavea, the lowest portion of the seating area.

Ashen moves forward to start leading us down the steps but I can’t move. The air isn’t flowing in or out of my lungs, even though my mouth is open. My free hand is pressed to my sternum to keep my thrumming heart from melting through my bones. Tears sting my eyes as Ashen takes a step back to my side.

“Come on, vampire,” he whispers as his arm slides across my back. “The show is ready to begin.”

I press my lips together and try to let out that breath that’s been trapped in my chest. I can’t seem to take my hand away from my mark. I’m afraid my heart will burst apart if I don’t hold it together. I fight so hard to keep those tears from cresting my lashes, but one manages to slip out. Ashen says nothing as I wipe it away, even though I know he sees.

The band starts playing as we walk down the terraced seating to the spot set up with purple blankets and pillows in jewelled tones. There are glass lanterns surrounding the seating area, their flames sheltered from the gentle breeze. Tessa’s voice flows toward us as she sings. My eyes lock with hers and she smiles.

Ashen offers his hand for balance as I lower myself onto the blanket. My thoughts are scattering like a handful of stones tossed into the ocean. I’m trying to take it all in, everything from the purple shade of the blankets that I now recognize as original Tyrian, the dye made from murex and reserved for royalty, to the glass orbs on the stage that look hand blown, their flecks of gold and rich colors much like the ones in my broken statue. Ashen sits beside me and stays silent as I try to contain myself and this sea of everything I feel that could drown me, if I let it.

When the song ends, the band moves on to the next one without a break, and Ashen pours a glass of fangria from a pitcher for me and one of wine for himself. He barely drinks from it, which for some reason causes the flock of butterflies currently residing in my stomach to flee up my chest and flutter around in the backs of my arms too. I down my drink in the hopes they’ll all drown.

“How did you do all this?” I ask quietly as Ashen refills my glass. I promise myself I’ll nurse this one, even if the first sip is more like a gulp.

“I’m a demon. We are nothing if not efficient.”

“And sneaky.”

“Maybe a little.”

I look at Ashen for a long moment and he looks back at me, his hand drifting through my hair, his fingertips skimming my bare skin. I see a little worry in his eyes and I tilt my head, trying to work him out past the barriers he’s somehow put between us. I don’t feel as much from him as I normally do. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that those walls would be so easy to erect if he’s afraid I won’t like all of this. “It’s amazing, Ashen. Everything you’ve done,” I say, looking down at my hand as it passes over the blanket. “I see it all, and it’s wonderful. I love it so much. Thank you.”

Ashen’s only reply is to pull me closer, placing a lingering kiss to my temple before draping his arm across my shoulders, his hand tracing patterns onto my arm as we listen to the band and sip our drinks. The sun is sinking lower, dipping behind the scaenae frons to paint the clouds in color. The band starts a new song, Benediction by Luke Sital-Singh, the cover soaring in Tessa’s clear, resonant voice.

“Dance with me, vampire,” Ashen whispers into my skin. He sets his glass down, then pulls mine from my fingers that suddenly feel cold as gooseflesh pebbles my arms. He takes my hand and pulls me up, leading us to the orchestra space a few steps down.

Ashen must be able to hear my heart rioting in my chest as it presses to his when we take our place below the stage. He must be able to feel the way my skin tingles with his touch as he slides his palm across my hip to rest low on my back. I close my eyes for just a moment, taking in the scent of vanilla that warms the smell of ink and unlit cigars drifting around me. And then we start moving with the music, dancing through the space as though we’re part of the breeze that surrounds us.

Benedictionends and we don’t part as the guitar starts up for the next song. It’s the melody for Can’t Help Falling In Love, by Elvis. Ashen leads us through the slow, languorous pace of the opening, keeping me close, his breath fanning over my neck and shoulder. The lyrics begin pouring from Tessa as though coming right out of her heart, and when I look up at her she smiles with so much light and color in her eyes that she puts the sunset to shame.

Sunsets glow

Silver paints the moon

Their light can’t match

The shine of my love for you

I meet Ashen’s eyes with a grin as the revised lyrics reverberate through the air. We’re drifting through the space, turning slowly to the beat that laps at the amphitheater like gentle waves in a calm ocean. Ashen gives me only a fleeting, faint smile in return as his hand draws me in close and I rest my face against his shoulder, bathed in his warmth.

I might not be

Worthy to call you mine

But I’ll love you

Until the end of time

My back is to the stage. I don’t see them enter as Tessa starts the next lines of the song. And then, as she sings the lyrics, a choir weaves in lines of the Song of Seikilos.

Surely as your voice

(Time demands its toll)

I go still, turning to look at the stage. A choir of twenty singers stand behind the band.

Guides my ship to shore

(Have no grief at all)

I let go of Ashen’s hand to bring it to my mouth, my other resting over my pounding heart as the beauty of the choir steals every beat.

Vampire, so it goes

(Life exists)

Some love

(For only a short while)

Ashen’s hand leaves my back as I take a step toward the stage. Tears pool at the edges of my lashes.

Is meant to be

(While you live, shine)

There’s a long breath of a pause. A glassy sheen reflects the lantern light in Tessa’s eyes. The choir sings with her as she finishes the song.

So take my sword

Take my butter too

I’d give it all

Just to marry you

I’d give it all

Just to marry you

The guitar softens, continuing the gentle melody. I stare up at the stage as though the music has taken my soul. But it’s not the music that’s pulled my heart from me.

“Lu,” Ashen says.

I turn, so slowly, one hand still pressed to my lips, the other to the mark that hums with Ashen’s presence.

I catch just a glimpse of him down on one knee and my tears break the dam, coursing down my skin.

“Come here, Lu,” he says, reaching out a hand for me to take. “I have a question for you.”

“Is it about butter?”

“Maybe in part.”

I let out a laugh that’s as much as a cry and step closer, my legs already shaking. I place my trembling hand in his warm, steady one and grip it tight.

“My Lu,” Ashen says, his voice as warm and magical as a star-riddled summer night. I can just barely hear the steady thump of his heart past the thrumming of my own. “What I said was true, Lu. I have chosen you from the first moment I met you. I will choose you every day to come. I know I do not deserve to have you, not after the things I’ve done over this long immortal life. But I promise to try to be worthy of your love. I promise to take your hand when you wander in the night. To whisper to you so that you know you are not alone. I promise to stand with you in every moment, no matter if they are ones of vengeance or justice or mercy. I will make you fangria and let you have my butter to make bulletproof bloffee, even though I know you actually hate it and you only drink it to provoke me. I promise to try not to laugh at your jokes to see your face light up all the brighter when I do. I promise that I will love you until there is no sun or stars in the sky, until the end of time and beyond.” Ashen reaches into his jacket and pulls out a black box, letting go of my hand to open it. “Will you marry me, Lu?”

Tears carve hot trails down my skin as I nod.

“I didn’t quite catch that, vampire,” Ashen says, a wicked grin lighting his face. Crimson flame illuminates the shine that glasses the surface of his eyes.

I laugh, my throat painfully tight as I try not to sob when I finally manage to get the words out. “Yes, Ashen. I will marry you.”

He doesn’t even get a chance to pull the ring from the box when I’m crashing into him. He picks me up as he stands, my arms wrapped so tightly around his neck that I could choke him. My shoulders shake as I dissolve into everything I feel, and all the gratitude and happiness and joy that floods from Ashen, tingling as it ripples beneath my skin. When he sets me down, he slides the ring on my finger, a pear-shaped, salt-and-pepper diamond set in gold with the lightest touch of rose, white diamonds encircling the band. I look at it for just a moment before I kiss him with everything I’ve got, all the love I feel, all the relief of the loneliness that takes time to dissolve, its wounds still deep in my heart. I kiss him with the power of everything he heals in me and all I hope to heal in him, in time. He holds my face in his palms and the radiant joy in his touch warms my damp cheeks. But then I feel a sudden spike of nerves he can’t hide when he finally pulls away.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“There’s one more thing, vampire,” he says, and I feel my brows tighten with worry and confusion. “I don’t want to wait when we face so many unknowns among the realms. I want to hear you call me your husband tomorrow, not weeks or months from now. I want to fall asleep this evening with my wife in my arms. I want you to marry me tonight.”

“Tonight? Where…here?” I ask, and Ashen nods with another sly smile. “How?”

“Well, I thought he might be able to help,” Ashen says, nodding toward the stage. I turn to see Mr. Hassan standing next to Tessa with a broad smile and Cole in a suit off to his right, looking every inch the Best Man.

“But—”

“She’s over there,” Ashen says, anticipating my question. Ediye walks forward from next to the choir, her lower lip trembling in her smile, tears glistening on her skin, a beautiful azure gown flowing across her slim frame. Ashen’s hand flows down my back. “What do you say, vampire?”

I take one deep breath. I don’t want to wait either. I know it in every crack that’s mending in my heart. “Yes.”

Ashen’s arm slides around my waist from behind, his lips resting against my ear. “One more thing,” he whispers, and turns us to face the terraced steps behind us.

Eryx’s wings are folded tight across his back, his skin glowing in the light of the setting sun. His arm is held aloft as he escorts a woman down the stairs.

Straight hair, as glossy as a curtain of black silk.

Dark olive skin, radiant and alive.

Her onyx eyes, so filled with fear the last time I saw them, now filled with tears of elation.

My knees buckle, but Ashen is there to catch me.

“Aglaope.”