31. FOR FUCK’S SAKE, JANET.

FOR FUCK'S SAKE, JANET.

M y eyes flew open as my leg brushed against a strong calf patterned with soft, dark hair. Oh no . Staring up at the ceiling, I noted every place where our naked flesh touched, his firm, muscled body draped partially over mine. The aroma of coffee wafting in from the kitchen mingled with our scent—rose, jasmine, cedar, and sex. Blood rushed to my cheeks and plenty of other places just thinking about it. A cell phone buzzed to life on the nightstand, vibrating across the oak stand until it thudded into the rug. Andras's head jerked up from the pillow, his eyes wild, lips pulled back to reveal two razor-sharp fangs fully descended. He scanned the room and then glanced down at me, his eyes raking over our intertwined bodies. Calm fell over his face, and a delighted grin replaced the violent sneer.

"Good morning," he drawled, his lip kicking up on one side. "You look beautiful."

I smiled tightly up at him. My mind whirled from the previous night. Fear filled my core, remembering the reason we were posted up in this cabin together; just above that, wonder sparked and flitted around my ribcage, thinking of our long, long night together, tumbling in the sheets.

His eyes slid down our joined bodies again; then, surprise flashed across his face.

"Oh, pardon," he said, hurriedly, flipping onto his back and off of me. I stifled a laugh and turned to him with raised eyebrows. Andras shrugged, then winked. Stretching my arms slowly above my head, I arched into a stretch, extended my legs, and pointed my toes. Soreness shot through me; muscles ached that I didn't even know existed. My lips felt raw, and the space between my legs, too. How many times did we...? Gods, I didn't even know. Everywhere our bodies touched tingled with a persistent need.

The phone buzzed on the floor again. Leaning off the bed, my fingers fumbled to grab at the buzzing menace without slipping out of the sheets into the cold room. I didn't recognize the number, but still answered, just in case it was important— in case it somehow involved my girls. I inhaled sharply, suddenly hit by a pang of nerves.

"Hello?"

"Are you okay?" a female voice asked, an acidic tang in her tone.

It took a moment for me to place it. Janet. Janet from the PTA, who I'd seen yesterday in front of my house and barked at to fuck off before speeding for the hills.

"Hi, Janet," I said, rolling my eyes. "I can't get the socks to you right now. I'm very sick and dealing with some personal…family things. I can–"

"–Look. I don't appreciate you signing up to help and then being yelled at. What is going on with you? Bethany said she saw your husband go in the front gates of your mother's estate yesterday when she was visiting her parents and—"

I swallowed. "Janet, I will get you the donation or whatever. I will get you all the things in the entire world. I'm sorry I yelled at you, but it's none of your goddamn business what's going on in my personal life, and please…" I paused– do I ask her to stop getting her information from Bethany? "I beg you, Janet, tell Bethany to jump off a fucking cliff. Okay?"

Janet gasped, no doubt clutching her pearls.

"Have a good day," I added, before hanging up.

With a flick of my wrist, the phone flew across the bed and disappeared into the comforter. Andras said nothing, only looked at me sidelong, as if he were too nervous to speak. Groaning, I sat up, flinging the blankets off as a low growl escaped my throat, then marched to my overnight bag stark nude. I huffed the thing over my shoulder and headed to the ensuite bathroom, my backside fully exposed, in what was easily the least sexy thing I'd ever done in my life. Anger built as my skin erupted in goosebumps from the ice-cold floor beneath my bare feet. I gently closed the door behind me and felt panic. The shadows of night no longer cocooned us. Andras was no longer buried inside of me, no longer a source of escape, of distraction. Janet's phone call abruptly brought me back to reality, where I was being hunted for vengeance, jealousy, and socks.

After showering, I quickly picked through the outfits I'd haphazardly thrown together in my panic-stricken rush to get here after Callum stopped by my house three days ago. What does one wear to fight (or be murdered by) an ancient immortal? What the fuck is happening in my life right now? Recalling the action scenes of my favorite films and books, I plucked black leggings, a black knit sweater, and white sneakers from the pile—so I could, what, run fast and bend easily? All of it was totally useless; Callum was a thousand times faster and had been a general in one of the largest and arguably cruelest empires in history. Shuddering, I gathered my waves into a low ponytail. While watching myself dab on some tinted moisturizer and gloss in the mirror, I suddenly remembered that Andras had bitten me. My fingers searched my neck for proof, but all I could feel was smooth skin. Pulling at the neck of my sweater and leaning into the mirror for a closer look still revealed nothing—no puncture marks, no scabs, only a faint purplish bruise that could have easily come from all the kissing.

Had I imagined it? No. It had been real, and my blood warmed at the memory of being flooded with blinding euphoria when he'd sunk his teeth in, followed by the incredible relief after a few seconds of searing pain. But how did that work? I made a mental note to ask Andras or Nadia about it.

The bed was empty but made when I came out of the bathroom, my pajamas folded at the foot of the bed with my phone gently resting on top. Did we have maid service? I snatched up my phone to text Steven a short message:

"How is everything?"

"Fine," he said flatly "The girls have spent most of the day in the main house with your mom, and I've been holed up in the guest house avoiding her. When will you be better?"

I shook my head, and could not have been more happy to be divorced from him.

"I don't know. I'm still very sick. But I hope soon."

Pacing the length of the bed, I waited for a response for a few minutes before giving up and moving toward the bedroom door. I paused at the handle. Back straight, chin up, deep inhale—I pulled the door open and wandered toward the kitchen, toward the murmuring that stopped the second my feet hit the hallway.

Nadia and Andras were still in sweatpants and sweaters, cozied up at the small high-top café table nestled against a snow-specked window, pretending to concentrate on their coffee mugs when I entered the room. I knew that Nadia had heard us last night. Anyone would have, but with vampire-level hearing, she might as well have been in the room. Still, I refused to blush, refused to feel embarrassed. I was tired of wasting time feeling any kind of way but self-assured, and if I survived this weekend, I'd be heading home to purge my life of all kinds of bullshit.

"Is there any more coffee?" I asked, pausing at the doorway. Nadia and Andras snapped their attention to me.

A crooked grin lit up Andras's face. "Let me get it," he offered. Like the wind, he moved from his chair to the other side of the kitchen, where the coffee maker was, so fast my eyes couldn't fully register the movement. One moment, he was sitting; the next, he was across the room, pouring steaming black coffee into a large red mug. Andras was tall, but in that cozy kitchen, he was towering. And in those black sweatpants that fit him perfectly? Devastating. I dragged my eyes from his backside to Nadia, who had been watching me watch him with wicked delight.

"Good morning," she sang.

"Good morning," I replied, as I sauntered over to the table where she sat. "Did you sleep well?" I asked.

"A couple of hours."

"Same."

Nadia's eyebrows lifted ever so slightly as if she wanted to tease, or inquire further, but she stopped herself. Andras appeared at my side a heartbeat later, sliding the mug in front of me on the table. Looking up at him, my lips kicked up at the corners.

"Thank you," I said.

"Cream and sugar?"

"No, thank you."

I took the mug into my hands and brought it slowly to my mouth to sip, both of them watching me carefully.

"Is everything okay?" I asked.

"Nadia and I were talking about what to do if Callum doesn't come. There's a chance that he knows it's a trap, that we're expecting him. If that's the case, he'll bide his time until we're each alone," Andras said.

Fear shot through me.

"No," I said. "My daughters and everyone I come into contact with would be in danger. My sister. Everyone. That's not an option. If he doesn't come for us, we have to go and find him." My hands shook as I set the mug back on the table.

"I won't let anything happen to you or the girls," Andras assured, eyes darkening, as he reached out to put a large, warm hand over mine. "I will shadow you until the end of time to make sure that doesn't happen."

"I agree with Danny," Nadia said, shaking her hair away from her face. She leaned back, resting an elbow on the back of her chair. "If he doesn't show today, I'll hunt him down. None of us can live a particularly peaceful life knowing he's out there."

"So what do we do?" I wondered out loud, wringing my hands in my lap, trying to will the twisted knots in my gut to loosen.

"Well, for today, we wait," Andras intoned gently. "We spend the day and tonight here, hoping he comes. If not, we'll figure it out tomorrow morning."

"Okay," I said. "In the meantime, is there somewhere to get food?" I hadn't eaten since breakfast the day before, too sick with worry to even think about it.

"Oh, shit," Andras swore, looking at Nadia wide-eyed. "I forgot to get food." He turned to me, "I cannot believe I did that. I'm so sorry. Let's go right now. There's a small mountain store not far down the road. I'll get dressed. Is that alright?"

"You don't have to apologize. You guys don't have to eat, right?"

"We can eat food, and we like to eat food. But we don't have to," Nadia said, raising up her cup of coffee.

Andras rose to his feet in one smooth motion. In a few long, graceful steps, he disappeared around the corner and down the hall. Nadia turned to me, a sly jester's smile on her lips.

"So," she crooned.

I shot her a look that conveyed, "No, we are definitely not talking about that ." She shrugged as if to say, "Fine by me ."

"Come sit by the fire while we wait," she offered, yawning. "It's much better than by this freezing window."

She slid out of her chair, a pretty blue mug in hand, and sauntered toward the living room. I followed.

I sank back into the armchair near the crackling fire, as Nadia lowered herself onto the sofa with the grace of a ballerina and the regal confidence of a queen. She stared at me as if there was something she wanted to say but was holding back for some reason. I waited for her to start.

"I like you," she said after a few heartbeats. "You're brave. Kind. All of this is, well, a lot, and you haven't hesitated or balked. When you suggested we go after Callum, you meant that. You'd kill him to protect your family."

"Yeah," I agreed, "I would. I'd do anything for them."

"I can feel your fear. That's the reason a mother's love is so fierce, not because she's never afraid, but because she moves forward despite it."

Nadia searched my face for a moment, her lips a tight line like she was reading something there. I smiled tightly.

"What did you mean? You can feel my fear…because you're a vampire?"

She hummed in agreement. "Kind of," she said. "It's like how Andras can mindweave. I can feel how other people are feeling, like I'm experiencing it myself. And I can affect their emotions a bit, too."

"Well, that's rough," I blew out a breath. "That sounds like empathy on steroids. Isn't it hard to manage all the time?"

"Oh, after all these years, you figure it out. It has its uses, too. Like knowing that you're a brave, honest, and kind person. And I know that Andras, well, he's happy around you, in a way I've never seen. He's at ease, and content."

Hearing her words sparked something like giddy pride inside of me, even if I wasn't entirely sure her praise was deserved. Andras always seemed at ease and content, prowling the neighborhood at night with random dates, casually draped over the bar at Blotto, striding around with his hands in his coat pockets. If I were to describe him, I'd say he was "at ease" most of the time. Still, the idea that I might affect him made me smile.

"I like you, too," I admitted, finally.

We drank our coffee in silence, and both of us focused on the flames licking the edges of a log in the fireplace. I didn't know much about Nadia, outside of how she'd met Andras and how they'd been forced to deal with Callum.

"Do you still live mostly in England?" I asked.

"I do. Well, I bounce around between England, Northern France, and random warmer climates when I tire of the cold. I was born in Anatolia."

I frowned, trying to picture it on a map. Had I truly been out of school for so long I'd entirely forgotten geography?

"Turkey is what it's called now," she added.

"Oh, okay. Thank you."

I wondered what it must have been like for them to have witnessed countries rise and fall and change. Nadia stretched her legs out on the sofa and lay back to rest her head on a throw pillow. She looked like royalty in her silk pink pajamas, her sleek hair fanning around her head like a crown.

"You want to ask me questions. Yes? There is nothing much to know, honestly. My family were merchants. We fled when the Roman Empire weakened and the Ottomans invaded. There was an opportunity for me to get separated from my very Christian family, and I took it. I was made not long after by a woman I met along the way, but I didn't find myself in the same predicament as Andras, thankfully . She and I had our fun, we parted ways amicably, and that's that. I've lived a dozen lives since. In one of those lives, I met Andras, we buried Callum, and then I lived a few more lives after that. Now here we are."

She rotated her wrist and fanned her fingers, gesturing to the ceiling, as if to reveal a magic trick of some kind. As if to say, ta-da!

"The person who made you—"

"Such a long story, and I can barely remember her face anymore. She was beautiful, strong, and terribly old. Maybe one of the oldest of us."

"The oldest? You mean…you know where vampires come from?"

"The same place everything else comes from, I suppose. We're not human, but we're of this world. There are many things in this world that exist outside of human reality but we'll get to all of that another time."

Her eyes flicked up to something behind me.

"Are you ready to go?" Andras asked.

He'd entered the room and leaned against the doorframe, hands in the pockets of his long coat, without me hearing a thing. Silent as the night, and just as deadly , I thought.

I set my empty coffee mug on the table and untangled my legs to get to my feet. My chin dipped once. Andras pushed off the frame to step toward us.

"Coming?" He raised a brow at Nadia.

"No, no. Go on without me." She got to her feet and began stretching her legs. "I'm going hunting."

I glanced at Andras for an explanation, and Nadia caught me.

"For deer blood," she said. "Human blood is too...complicated." She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Andras shot her an incredulous look.

"I have one human source," Nadia breathed mid-stretch, "she's magnificent, otherwise I don't touch the stuff."

Andras looked amused. "Have fun," he sang, then paused, waiting for me to walk ahead of him and we headed for his car.

In Andras's black sedan, we sped past blurry trees with mostly bald branches. A few stubborn patches of fire-colored leaves clung to branches here and there. We went faster than I'd ever gone in a car. His heightened senses allowed him to race through the hills without a care in the world. Every so often, our eyes would meet, and Andras would grin at me, as if this were something he'd always wanted to do and was overjoyed to be doing—just taking a drive together.

The country store smelled of beef jerky and apple spice potpourri plug-ins. A display of stuffed grizzly bears in overalls took up space next to the cash register. Corn dogs, potato logs, and donuts were for sale at the counter. Fresh cheese curds could be found in the refrigerator section near the back, next to the soda, chocolate milk, and glass bottles of fresh cow's milk. A small fridge hummed near another wall, selling "night crawlers for two dollars" in small styrofoam containers.

I grabbed a few cans of soup, a loaf of crusty bread, some green apples, and three peach pastries. Just enough food to get us through the day, because after tomorrow, if Callum doesn't come for us, we'd start hunting him. I swallowed hard at the thought. I'd take chasing him to the ends of the earth any day over letting him roam free, lurking in every shadow, ready to pounce. Andras casually wandered the store with his hands in his pockets, taking in the local small-town fare, pausing before a small display of travel keychains. I tilted my head in question, ready to open my mouth to ask what he was searching for, when a tall man stalked past us, bumping into me with his shoulder, hard enough to send me sprawling into the keychain stand–if Andras hadn't been there to catch me. The man smelled like he'd taken a bath in lager. Andras held me gently around the waist to steady me on my feet, his eyes searching for the slightest injury.

"I'm okay," I said quietly. I glanced over his shoulder at the stumbling man, who turned to sneer at us.

"Watch where you're going," he slurred, clumsily backing up into the candy bars and sending tiny boxes crashing to the floor.

Andras went wholly still, his dancing sapphire eyes now dark and violent, locked on the drunk man.

"What are you lookin' at?" the man barked, his ruddy face twisted into a rabid glower.

"You should apologize to her," Andras instructed, calmly–too calm–his hands sliding into his pockets.

"Fuck you," the man barked, "and fuck your bitch."

Andras tilted his head casually to the side, grinning wickedly. He tsked. "I'm not having a great week, friend," he began, "and that was the wrong thing to say." He rolled his shoulders. "When you hurt someone, you apologize." He nodded towards me, "see this woman here? If you so much as glance at her again," the grin melted into something far more menacing and his voice became low, the sound of shadows and wrath, "I will rip your still-beating heart out of your fucking chest."

He stepped toward the man, and his eyes darkened, all the blue eaten up by inky black. The man jerked back, his face white as snow, then froze. His breathing sped up, faster and faster; his chest heaved, but his eyes were vacant. I knew, right then, what Andras was doing. He'd pulled that man into his mind, conjuring up a place of terror, of nightmares. Then the man's shoulders slumped forward and his breathing slowed, as Andras said flatly, "Off you go, then. Go sober up, get some therapy, turn your life around."

The man looked like he'd woken up from a bad dream, blinking frantically and looking lost. The black receded from Andras's eyes. Then the man launched into movement, fell backward onto his ass, scrambled to his feet, and ran from Andras in utter panic, tripping through the front door and looking over his shoulder as he scattered across the parking lot. Still holding my soup cans and groceries, I glanced at Andras, eyebrows raised.

"Seriously?"

"What?" he asked innocently.

He gathered most of what I had in my hands before heading toward the cashier, who had found something really interesting on a beef jerky package, with me by his side.

In the car, I waited for him to speak, but a hundred heartbeats went by, and we sat in silence.

"Andras?"

"Yes?"

"You okay?"

"Yes. And no. I'm furious that man touched you. I didn't see it coming, and just…the thought of someone hurting you…"

"I can stick up for myself," I reproached.

The last thing I wanted was for Andras to go crazy on everyone who insulted me from now until the end of time. The end of time? Why was I thinking about him in the long term? He had until the end of time, but I would age, and die. I had children to raise, and they certainly wouldn't grow up in the world Andras and Nadia lived in. One with ancient enemies, and…fuck. If someone like Callum exists and is just roaming free, I realized, there must be others, some undoubtedly worse than him. I felt sick.

"I know you can," Andras agreed. "I didn't do that because I think of you as helpless, or because I think you're my property, or even because you're a woman, or because I lo... care about you."

My breathing hitched on his stumbled words. Was he going to say something else, something far more damning?

"Standing up for people," he continued, "just feels like the right thing to do. Hell, Nadia could have killed him with a wink, with half a thought, and I would still have defended her. And she would have done the same for me. She has done the same for me. Because we're friends."

I smiled warmly up at him in understanding. Friends. We were friends. He cared about me, and I cared about him, complicated though it may be. A deer alongside near the road, and I remembered that Nadia was out hunting. My nose scrunched up at the thought of her, in her long-limbed elegance, pouncing on a doe somewhere in the powdery snow, and ripping its throat out. Ack.

"You gonna tell me what you did to the guy at least?" I asked.

"Oh, definitely not," Andras laughed, with notes of wicked delight in the sound, and on his face.

I shook my head at him in mock reprimand, then turned my attention to the valleys and peaks dusted with snow, to Nadia, and then beyond to Jess, and my girls. A few months ago, I'd wanted a little excitement: to feel seen, to be heard. I wanted to be a good mother, to learn everything I could about how to raise them "the best way," and for my husband to love me again, to smile warmly at me. For us to laugh together about our days and our children's antics while rocking on our porch swing. Now…well, I could barely believe it. I was tearing through the mountains with a powerful vampire who looked like a lord of the night on our way back to a cabin where we were waiting for some ancient sadistic prick to come for us. I had filed for divorce, and my little girls were holed up at my mother's manor, playing among the old maples and oaks, on grounds haunted by the memory of my father.

Music, full of vibrating bass sounds, repeating soft and then hard notes, greeted us as we neared the cabin.

Inside, we toed off our boots, and I put the groceries away while Andras went into the living room to say hello to Nadia.

I popped my head into the living room.

"Do either of you want soup?" I asked. "Or are you too full of Bambi?"

Nadia glared at me but I could see the corner of her mouth tugging up. She swayed to the music, her cheeks flushed with the fresh animal blood that coursed through her veins. She wore loose black slacks and a pretty floral blouse with heeled boots.

"Soup would be great," they answered in unison. Andras had casually draped himself over the sofa, a book in hand. Nadia continued to twirl and sway to the music, her lips turned up slightly at the corners.

"Please," Andras added, looking up from his book with a grin.

Minestrone plopped from the can into the saucepan. Stirring it with a wooden spoon, I watched the snow coming down again outside in fat flakes. I was so tired, and it was getting late. I wanted to go to bed, yet the thought of laying next to him, touching him, and feeling him inside of me made my cheeks hot and my stomach curl.

He was so many things. Beautiful, tender, and absolutely deadly. I wanted to stay in this world with him forever, spend eternity getting to know him and studying layer upon complicated layer. But I wanted to get back to my girls, and I wanted that even more. I ached for them like a part of my soul had gone missing. And I knew, I knew I couldn't have him and them.

A pit formed in my stomach. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass, and the raw despair on my face startled me. There was something else, too, something beyond my reflection, near the woods. A shadowed blur.