Humming aimlessly, I looked out the window. Of course it looked mean, it was a prison. And it would stand as long as James lived. With a punch to my chest, I realized that meant I would live just as long, too. Or as short a time. Rubbing my chest, I felt foolish for this sudden realization. But James was just … he was a fucking, terrifying monolith of a monster who would be roaming the planet and scaring the puny little humans forever.
Right?
As I was stepping out of the car, Aura tackled me like a smallish, determined NFL linebacker but I barely stumbled, laughing uncontrollably as the two of us squeezed each other’s cheeks and made high-pitched girlish exclamations.
I could hear Steve pleasantly thank Kevin and ignore his repeated hints to “stick around and catch up.” I could hear the sad crunch of gravel under his tires as he drove down the driveway. I could smell the sharp tang of the pines, woodsmoke, the rank, furry musk of something nearby - a deer, likely - and on some lower harmonic, the voice of James.
There you are.
Aura’s laughter quieted and she looked at me with a frown. “Is he talking to you?” She and Steve had shared their bond from nearly the moment they’d met, so maybe her Spidey-sense was tingling or something.
Sending the most vicious mental shove I could, I felt a mean little pleasure in hearing him pull away. “No,” I answered. “So, tell me what this ceremony entails?”
It was, in fact, not until the next evening when roles were assigned and plans made for Aura’s dip in the undead pool that I saw James. To my amusement, the “Turning ceremony” was shaping up to look a bit like a wedding, with me apparently as the maid of honor - sort of - and James in a role loosely interpreted as the best man. I hated that it was the four of us, the enforced intimacy with a monster I’d sworn to never see again.
I was up at the iron, steel, and oak structure covering Aura’s old bunker, head tilted to the side and listening to the unintelligible rasps of the thing entombed within it. He’d been unimaginable. Unspeakable when his slimy fucking fingers were tearing through my neurons, but even a mere ten years later, Volkov’s roar was reduced to a whimper.
“Meghan.”
I took a deep breath I didn’t need and turned around. “You look like shit,” I blurted before slamming my lips shut.
But he really did. James was pasty white- sure, the usual vampire shade but he’d always had that ruddy, dusky skin that defied being undead, that just glowed. His impeccable hair was tousled like it saw more of his fingers running through it than a comb. He sported a scruff, not a beard, nor a fashionable stubble. Just the look of a man who paid no attention or care for himself. James wasn’t wearing a suit, something that made me blink because the man - vamp - I’d known had two speeds, naked or in full suit and tie. He was wearing jeans that still fit him well and a wrinkled henley over a blue t-shirt and a leather jacket.
"Thank you," he answered dryly. "You shouldn't be here. This ground is cursed with all kinds of wards to keep Volkov where he is. It's not good for you."
Before I could stop myself: "It's not doing much for your general glow of good health either. Or are you just draining yourself dry to keep up with me and all those baby vamps you’ve got out there?”
He’d already turned to head back toward Steve’s place, but James paused to look at me. His expression was unreadable, and he finally answered, “You are the only child I’ve made.”
“Wait- what? In 400 years?” I called after him, but he was already running, blurred in his speed through the pines.
When I helped Aura dress for the big night, I saw the ravages her illness had taken for the first time, her ribs protruding painfully from her mottled skin. Her poor stomach was bloated and I absently chewed the inside of my mouth, wincing slightly as my tooth sliced into my gums.
Ugh. Nothing grosser than drinking my own blood,I thought, forcing a smile and carefully zipping up the back of her pretty blue dress.
“How do you feel?” I asked, looking over her shoulder in the mirror, “Excited to be the Bride of Dracula?”
Aura bent over laughing, putting a hand on the mirror for support. “That’s so stupid. Seriously? How long have you been waiting to deliver that little gem?”
Shrugging, I answered, “Yeah, my wit hasn’t improved with being dead.”
“What about your uh … your sex life?” Aura asked.
I fought a smile, “My goodness, Miss Ellory, what has brought this on?”
She sat down to put on her silk-lined shoes, “Steve and I haven’t been able to have sex for a long time, this stupid cancer, it hurt whenever….” Aura sighed. “I miss it so much. He never says anything but before, Steve was constantly hard, I swear.”
“Yeah, thanks for that and never tell me again, okay?” I sat next to her, rubbing her bony back. “I haven’t. Not since he turned me. I was always so scared I could hurt someone without knowing it and the other vamps?” I shuddered. “But you are going to have endless energy, my darling. You two can do it ‘till you scare all the animals off the mountain.”
“You look lovely,” James said as I waited with him to begin the ceremony. I was a good ten feet away from him but I might as well have my nose buried in his neck. The smell of him; expensive cologne, the starched cotton of his shirt, a soothing chill on my suddenly warm face. Since my discussion with Aura about getting her mojo back, I’d been flooded with memories. Memories of James buried in me, his avid eyes watching as he put his mouth on my center, his teeth and tongue, his gigantic-
Clearing my throat awkwardly, I said, “Um, you look better. Like you had a shower.” The faintest smile drew up the corner of his mouth and my Sire turned his attention to Steve, who was wearing - holy fuck was that a suit? It was, and he looked amazing. And serious. And maybe a bit nervous.
He seated Aura gently on a pile of pillows I’d placed on a thick quilt in the meadow behind their cabin, the moonlight shimmering through the pines.
Taking her hands, Steve smiled. “I have never brought another into this life,” he said. “You will be my first. And my only. You will always be mine, and I will always be yours.”
I swallowed a nonexistent lump in my throat because don’t be ridiculous, I was a vampire and I didn’t have human reactions anymore. But my silent heart throbbed, maybe, just once for the love I saw so clearly between them. Like it was a tangible thing that added a fifth presence to the ceremony. I was facing James and for once, he wasn’t looking at me, he was gazing down at his two friends with an utterly alien look of kindness. Fondly, even.
