“The wine; it’s open. You have to put it in the trunk, or you’ll get in trouble if you get pulled over.”
“Are you a lawyer, too?” Arwen asked.
Iro shook her head and said, “No, but I try to know the laws wherever I live to be safe.”
Zara picked up the bottle she’d nearly left behind and said, “Thank you. I’ll put it in the trunk.”
“Text me, Zara, so that I know you got home okay.”
“I will. Good night,” she said.
“Night,” Arwen replied.
“Good night, Zara,” Iro added with a nod.
Then, Zara left the bar and the woman she loved with another woman, who could easily afford to spend over eleven thousand dollars on alcohol in one night on two women she didn’t even know.
CHAPTER 5
Iro
When she had watched the woman she now knew as Arwen walk into the bar, Iro had been instantly transfixed, and she hadn’t been instantly transfixed on anyone in over three hundred years. It was hard to remember much about her life as a human before being turned, but one part of her life would never fully leave her mind, of course. She had been in love, yes, but she had not been instantly transfixed by the woman who had later become the reason she’d turned into a vampire. She hadn’t been transfixed by Cassia, either. Enamored by? Maybe. Confused by? Absolutely. But not so transfixed that she hadn’t been able to take her eyes off the woman.
When Arwen had entered the bar with her long blonde hair framing her face and long neck, though, Iro had stared at her unabashedly. She hadn’t cared if the entire world had noticed that she was staring at a stranger. When Arwen’s eyes had met her own, she’d noticed their hazel shade. At first, Iro had thought them golden. Then, when the light had hit them differently, they’d appeared green, and lastly, brown, before Arwen had finally connected her gaze with hers, and Iro had known: they were hazel, and they were beautiful. She’d read many poets over the years describe eyes with their rich words, and she’d never met someone with eyes that felt like those descriptions applied. Arwen’s, on the other hand, made her feelas if every beautiful description did. It made Iro think of the poem by Sara Teasdale that she had read for the first time decades ago now.
Your eyes drink of me,
Love makes them shine,
Your eyes that lean
So close to mine.
We have long been lovers,
We know the range
Of each other's moods
And how they change;
But when we look
At each other so
Then we feel
How little we know;
The spirit eludes us,
Timid and free –
Can I ever know you
Or you know me?
She’d been sitting at the bar, staring at Arwen, thinking about that poem and wondering why it had sprung to mind when she didn’t even know this woman, only of her eyes and how remarkable it felt to have them connected to her own. Iro hadn’t been foolish. She’d understood that there had to be a reason she’d been so drawn to her. She had breathed in the room, and its scent had revealed to her a combination of sweet liqueurs and juices, body odor and sweat, urine from the bathroom several feet away, and yes, blood.
