“Shhh… don’t.” Aura carefully put the glass on the bedside table and her arm around me. “Don’t be. I’ve seen Steve drink before. I didn’t know about James being a vampire until we made the plan to get you back after Laurent and Volkov kidnapped you.” Her pretty face hardened. “Yeah, lots of surprises this week. They’re both assholes.”
My crimson gaze was fixed on the glass on the table, and I carefully reached for it again. “I shouldn’t have said anything about their deal about you,” I offered, holding the glass against my chest like a baby. “I just couldn’t seem to shut the hell up because they didn’t tell you from the start that they were both vampires. James told me Steve was an old friend. I’m sorry. Steve loves you. Even my bitter and-” I gave a broken little chuckle, “apparently dead heart can see that.”
Gently pushing the glass to my lips again, Aura shook her head. “I believe it. But it doesn’t change the fact that my agent who I didn’t know was one of the undead sent me up onto the mountain owned by Lumberjack Steve-”
“You called him that, too?” I interrupted, smiling weakly. “It’s like Central Casting sent him in for the agent’s call for ‘hot, blond lumberjack dude’.”
Aura laughed, “With the added bonus of long, sharp teeth. And those can be surprisingly fun.” I cringed before I could stop it and her giggle died off.
“Sorry.”
“Aura. I’m glad you’re happy. I’m glad he loves you.” My hand hovered over hers. Even though she’s put her arm around me, helped me into the shower, even changed the disgusting sheets after whatever the fuck James did to me, I feared touching her. That I was soiled. Infectious, maybe.
Shaking her head, she helped me lift the glass again. “Yeah. That’s real sweet. But the reality is that they conspired behind my back. And knowing now how James just … took you, all those people…. God!” Now Aura was crying. “He just gave me to Steve, didn’t he? Sure, to protect me from Murderous Stalker Pharmacist Asshole, but he did. I fell for Steve, which turned out just dandy, but he did. James despises humans that much. Even the ones who make him a shit ton of money.”
I sat next to her, shoulder to shoulder, and looked as the moonlight made a path on the lake, shining silver outside the window.
Steve…
I stood in the clearing in front of the charred ruins of my Aura’s cabin, watching James finish the ritual around the now ironically-named safe room, binding the monster within with an arcane ritual of iron and salt, blood and silver.
As long as I’d walked the earth in my undead state, I’d never seen the ritual, never even heard of it being performed. But my friend walked through it all with grim precision, finishing with slashing his palm to drip a trickle through the tiny opening before whispering, “You’ll exist only through my blood now, Volkov. In this cage.” He chuckled bitterly, “For as long as I live, at least.” Slamming the porthole shut and binding it, James turned to look at me.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
A frown passed over his cold features as James answered, “I thought … I would feel free. And I do. But it’s not … good. I’d waited centuries for this.”
“You bound her to you,” I said. “Just like Volkov. The thing you swore you’d never do, the thing you hated most.”
Growling, my friend was instantly in front of me, my shirt in his hands. “Really? You too, Steve? You saw her - she was going to die! They tortured her because she was mine."
Peeling James' grip from my shirt, I shook my head. “I’m getting soft, buddy. Loving Aura made me soft. They’re not pets. They’re not food.”
James was pacing, running his hand repeatedly through his hair. “So, you won’t turn her? Aura? You’ll let her age and die?”
“If that’s what she wants,” I said finally. “It’ll be her choice.”
“You-” he stabbed a finger at me. “You are weak. I never thought I’d see it. Losing someone with Aura’s gifts - her skill as a writer - to some pathetic finish? Dementia? Cancer?”
I shook my head. “It’ll be her choice.”
When we returned to the cabin, the sun was already rising over the pines and we both paused in front of the guest room door. I tapped on the door with a knuckle.
“Aura?” This time, the door opened and she allowed me in, but when James tried to step in to get a look at his doll, she slammed the door in his face. A warning growl from me made him hiss, but he stepped back and walked away.
James stared out the glass doors that led to the deck running along the length of the cabin’s front, watching the weak sunshine struggle through the clouds every now and then, flinching slightly as one daring ray spread over the wood floor near him. He looked up I walked down the stairs, my booted feet heavy.
“You’re going to have to leave, James.”
Huffing a disbelieving laugh, he snarled, “Are you fucking joking here?”
I folded my arms over my chest. “She won’t have anything to do with you. She said she’ll run away if you don’t leave.”
“How dare-” his lip curled, but James forced himself to be calm. “I’m taking her with me. I’ll lock her back in that bedroom until she comes to her senses and-”
“Listen to me,” I said precisely, coldly. “She says she’ll choose to meet the sun if you try to take her.”
“Wh- She didn’t say that,” he shook his head. “No.”
