38. Silas

Juliet sits opposite me,her knees drawn up under her chin, the dancing light of the fire reflected in her eyes. The old house we find ourselves in is hardly a house, more of a shell, but it's the best I could find before night fell. There are bandits out here, as she bloody well found out. I don't know how many, but I know they're probably scouting out the colony, hoping to attack an incoming supply run. We're tens of miles away, but I still don't trust our surroundings.

"You done being mad at me yet?"

I look over the fire, meeting her bright eyes. I can't tell her the truth. Instead I grit my teeth and shake my head. Because it's not a lie. I am still angry with her. I'm fucking furious.

But I'm also so relieved I could weep.

She sticks her chin out, her knees dropping so she's sitting criss-crossed, and crosses her arms over chest. "Well I'm mad at you, too, so that's fine with me."

"You're mad at me?" I scoff. "What the fuck for?"

"Leaving me." Her lip wobbles. "For fucking leaving me there, with people I didn't even know."

I run a hand through my hair. "God, you're impossible."

She throws something at me, a stick or a pebble, I don't know. It strikes me in the chest, and her eyes are wild now.

"Fuck you!" She hisses through clenched teeth, her finger darting through the air at me.

I rise to my knees, pointing a finger right back at her. "I wanted you to be safe. I broke you out of that compound so you could be safe, not bloody out here and exposed to the fucking elements and getting yourself raped and beaten by a bunch of hillbillies!"

"Fuck you!" She's on her feet now, her hands balled into quivering fists by her sides. "You don't get to decide for me like I'm a child!"

I get to my feet too, rounding the fire to grab her shoulders. "Now listen to me-"

Her hand strikes me across the cheek. "No! I'm done listening to you vamps, to you fucking men who think you know better and don't ask me what I want."

I want to fucking shake some sense into her. "I have never done anything you didn't want, ever."

"Except dump me with some strangers without even talking to me!" A tear races down her cheek, and she pounds a fist into my chest. "You swore to me, you promised me that you'd never leave me! You said you'd die without me!"

"I wanted you to be safe! Christ, Juliet, what do you think I did after I left you there?"

"I don't fucking care!" She pushes out of my arms, dislodging my grip enough for her to get a few feet before I reclaim her and push her back against the rickety wall. "Let me go!"

"Do you think I left you?"

"You did leave me!" She starts to cry, turning her face away from me. "You left me and I didn't even… I couldn't even…" A choked sob steals her words, and she squeezes her eyes shut. "You left me, and I thought I'd never see you again."

"I didn't leave you." I hold the side of her face, forcing her to turn her head, but her eyes stay firmly closed. "Fucking hell, angel, I was lost. I was a fucking wreck. I circled that colony all night, I didn't fucking know where to go. You were all I could think about."

Her eyes open slowly, more tears sliding down her face. She raises a tentative hand to my face. "You did?"

"Fuck," I breathe, clutching her hand to my mouth for a second. "Yes. My god, you're everything, angel. And then when I heard those men, when I smelled you on the breeze and knew you were in trouble. I was so scared I wouldn't make it to you in time."

She sniffs, her mouth turning down into a frown. "I was doing fine." She pushes against my chest. "I can look after myself."

I slam a fist into the wall beside her. "God fucking dammit, you're a nightmare."

"You left me!" Furious tears race down her cheeks. "You didn't ask me, you didn't talk to me, I didn't even get to say goodbye to you, and you just left me there with people I didn't even know! That you didn't even know!"

"You would have been safe there!"

She shoves against my chest with open hands. "How the fuck do you know?"

"Because you were away from me!"

Her eyes widen, and she sucks in a breath. My shoulders are heaving, and a scalding hot tear runs down my own cheek. I swallow hard under her gaze, and wipe the tear away with my thumb.

"Why - why would you say that?" She hiccups a little, her residual sobs dissolving as she eyes me with confusion. "Why would you say something like that?"

"I'm not safe, I never have been." The words taste bitter in my mouth. "I've never been able t-to keep anyone safe. I knew that when I got you out of Georgia. I hoped… I hoped I'd be able to stay with you, but-"

"Is this about Margot?" Juliet raises her hands to cup my face. "Silas, I'm not her."

I push her hands away, suddenly unable to bear her touch, misery and sorrow crashing down on me. "It's not just that."

"Then what?"

"I don't fucking know!" I rake my hands through my hair. "I'm - I told you, I'm not good. And sooner or later, I'd have done something, I'd have fucked this up, I'd have stumbled and not watched you, and not kept you safe, and I would have ruined you."

Juliet blinks at me, shaking her head. "Where is this coming from? Who told you this?"

My shoulders sag. "It doesn't matter."

She moves against me, fingers cradling my jaw. "I told that woman at the colony, and I'm going to tell you now - I don't care if I die."

"Juliet, you don't understand."

"No, listen to me. I don't care. Because I don't want to live an entire lifetime away from you. I didn't care about anything until you. I stopped, years ago."

I laugh bitterly. "Not even Matt?"

She frowns, shaking her head. "That was desperation. That was loneliness. This-" She puts her hand on my chest. "You and me, this is real. And whoever told you that you ruin everything, they didn't see you. Not really. But I do. I see you."

I wrap my arms around her, clutching her to me. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, angel."

She inhales deeply. "I'm not Margot. You need to stop seeing her when you look at me."

"I don't. Not once, it's not like that."

"Then what is it?" She tilts her head to gaze up at me. "I want to understand."

I gesture to the fire, and we sit down side by side, her hands firmly curled around one of my own. Her eyes are wide and searching, open and not judging me, just waiting for me to explain.

"Six months after I was turned, I went home." I stroke the backs of my fingers along her wrist. "I was clean, I'd… I'd managed to get myself together, after doing some… terrible things. Margot, she saved me in so many ways. And then I was ready to go home. To show my family that I was a different person. Yes, I was a vampire, but that was a good thing. I wanted to show them that."

Juliet stays silent, the firelight reflected in her grey eyes.

I breathe down the lump forming in my throat. "My little sister opened the door. She… She didn't recognise me at first. I'd been a scrawny heroin addict stealing the family VCR last time she'd seen me. And now I was… well. This."

"She must have been so happy."

"She was. Shrieked with happiness, threw herself at me. ‘Si's home!' She just kept saying it over and over. I hadn't seen her in almost a year. She was so beautiful, so happy." Pain leeches into my bones, and I squeeze my eyes shut against the prickling threatening to throw more hot tears down my face. "My dad appeared in the kitchen doorway, my brother was right behind him. Mum came out of the lounge room. They all just stood there, staring at me. Dad saw the fangs first."

"They thought you were a danger to them?"

"My dad, he lost it. Tore my sister away from me, told her and my brother to get upstairs. Mum burst into tears, started crying, asking what they'd done to me." I shrug. "Vamps were becoming public knowledge, but there was so much fear, they didn't understand. They thought I was a monster."

"You're not, though."

I meet her eyes, and sigh. "I killed people, Jules. And not just by accident. I killed them because I was obsessed, because of what I wanted. I'm broken. I'm an addict."

"No." She clasps my face in her hands. "You're not broken. You're not just an addict. Stop saying that."

I scoff out a cynical laugh. "Maybe this is my affliction, hmm?" I stroke the hair from her forehead. "Love. Margot used to joke about it, my obsessive nature. It's a part of me, and it's ruined me, over and over again. I don't want it to ruin you too."

"Too late." Juliet brushes a soft kiss against my lips. "If this is ruin, then I'll take it. I'll take you and your ruin and your obsession, and everything that comes with it. Because I want you, Silas. All of you."

I pull her into my lap, wrapping my arms around her waist and nuzzling into the soft crook of her neck. "I don't deserve you."

"Yes you do. We deserve each other."

I inhale deeply, and can't help but chuckle. "You smell like green apples."

"It's the shampoo from the colony." She strokes my hair gently. "When I finally stopped screaming for you, I washed my hair."

I pull back with a sharp breath, ready to apologize for leaving her there, for my weakness and self-loathing, for causing her yet more pain. But she silences me with a kiss, her fingers spearing through my hair.

"No more," she murmurs against my mouth. "Now, you must be starving. You should drink."

* * *

Juliet'sback lies against my chest, my arms firmly wrapped around her. Her breathing is deep and even, sleep claiming her a few hours ago. I hold her and thank my lucky stars that she's here with me. I place a kiss behind her ear, and she shifts gently in my arms.

"Is it still night?" She asks sleepily.

"Yes, angel. Go back to sleep."

She murmurs and wraps her hands around my arms. "Mmm, this is nice."

I chuckle. "Sleeping on the ground in an abandoned farmhouse? Very nice."

"At least it's warm." She turns over in my arms, her eyes still closed. "You're always so warm."

I run my hands up and down her back, and she sighs.

"So what do we do now?"

"I don't know." I kiss her forehead. "Keep heading north, find somewhere to shelter, and maybe one day we'll find a colony where we can live safely."

"OK." She shifts against me, pushing a hand under my shirt. "Maybe we can find another little dream house, huh?"

"Mmm, maybe." I huff out a breath as her hand runs over my stomach, carving over my hip so she can pull me closer.

"You called me your wife." She smiles, her eyes still closed. "When those bandits attacked me, you said I was your wife."

"You called me your husband." I'm suddenly very aware of the fact that she's only dressed in a t-shirt and panties, curled up around me under the blanket. I run a hand down her bare thigh. "I heard you say it, and fuck, angel, you have no idea what that did to me."

"Guess I'm not the only one who likes the names, huh?" She giggles as I trace kisses up her throat, grinding herself against my cock. "It's not official til we say vows though, right?" She wriggles her hips as I hook a hand into her panties, helping me pull them down her legs.

"I guess not." I unzip myself, freeing my cock. I spit into my hand, rubbing it over the sensitive tip which is already leaking pre-cum because her scent is driving me fucking crazy. Juliet's eyes are still closed as I hitch her leg over my hip and push inside her with a growl.

"Oh fuck." She gasps. "This isn't the ceremony everyone tells you to dream up when you're a kid."

"But so much more fun." I slide in and out of her slowly, watching her lips as they part, her brow as it furrows. "The priest would be on the floor in shame by now."

Juliet laughs over a moan. "Just a private ceremony for two then." Her fingers dig into my shoulder, and her eyes slide open slowly. "How do they go?" She gasps as I thrust harder. "For… For-"

"For better or worse."

She smiles. "For richer, for- Oh - for poorer."

"In sickness and in health." I cage a hand against the back of her head, the other digging into her hip.

"Til death us do part."

"No, not even then." I roll her onto her back, pinning her hands against the ground.

She arches her back, moaning loudly. "No?"

"I'd break down the gates of heaven or trawl the depths of hell to find you." I fuck her harder as her legs wrap around my hips, her body writhing under mine. "Because nothing - not God-" She cries out as my cock rolls in and out of her, the scent of her love overwhelming. "Not death, or this fucked up world, nothing can keep me from you."

She whimpers, pressing her legs around my hips. "I'm yours, Silas."

"Yes you are angel." I kiss her hungrily, her moans and sighs meeting my lips. "My wife. My everything. I love you. Fuck, I love you."

She shudders, her hands fighting against mine. "I love you too. Let me hold you, oh god, please."

I release her, and she wraps herself around me completely, her breath mingling with mine. I lose myself completely in the moment, in her body, in the sounds she's making and the knowledge that she's mine, mine. It doesn't matter that we're not in a church, that she"s not wearing a white dress. No, we said these vows on a blanket on the floor of an abandoned farmhouse, covered in sweat and moaning each other's names. Instead of exchanging rings and saying I Do, I come inside her as she screams, her body hot and tight as her orgasm rolls through her.

It means more than if a priest had declared we were now husband and wife, telling me I could now kiss what was mine already. When Juliet leans up to kiss me, sweat lining her lips, I can taste everything that I never knew I wanted.

My wife.

We remain tangled like that for a long time, kissing and murmuring to each other, the firelight dancing along the broken walls around us. When we curl up together, naked and blissful, Juliet's back against my chest, she sighs happily.

"I heard you that night," she whispers. "That night in the farmhouse, when you said you loved me."

"I thought you were asleep." I stroke my fingers down the curve of her shoulder.

"I thought I dreamed it." She nuzzles into my arms. "But I didn't."

"No, you didn't, angel. I love you." I kiss her neck. "I love you more than life."

"I love you too." She murmurs sleepily, and within a few minutes, she's breathing deeply.

I hold her as dawn begins to color the sky. I don't know what this day will bring, or where we'll end up. But I know that I'll keep her safe.

No matter what happens, I'll keep her safe.