Iro held her close and looked around at the two windows she could see. They were old and standard. Yes, they had locks, but they were easy enough to get through, and if Cassia wanted to kill Arwen, she’d get in and do it.
“We should go. We have a reservation.”
“Can we be five minutes late? I haven’t seen you since lunch yesterday. I just want you to hold me for a while.”
“If we’re five minutes late, they’ll take off without us, I think.”
Arwen pulled back and looked up at her.
“What?”
“I asked you how you felt about heights… Ready?”
???
Iro stared at Arwen, not caring about how the city looked from the helicopter she’d booked for them. A private ride in the night sky, overlooking DC, was something she had been certain Arwen had never experienced, and as she watched Arwen’s surprised, shocked, and excited eyes take everything in, she knew for certain that she would never go back to Cassia. Cassia hadn’t ever made her feel like this, like Iro was seeing the world through new eyes. Cassia had been bored with everything, soshe had refused to doanything. She loved sex. She loved blood. She tolerated everything else. Staring at Arwen, though, Iro understood that most of her life as a vampire had been a lie.
For centuries, she had thought that she was in love with a woman because that woman seemed to be in love with her, and, in the beginning, there had been nothing Cassia wouldn’t give her, including time apart with the promise of Iro’s return. As their relationship had progressed throughout the decades, though, Iro would crave modernity and making her own way. Cassia had still only craved sex and blood. Iro hadn’t wanted to be a vampire, and she hardly remembered the night Cassia turned her, even right after it had happened. All shehadremembered back then was seeing the faces of Mary’s parents and finding out that she’d lost the only person she had ever loved.
Yes, she had enjoyed some of the advantages that came with immortal life, but there were drawbacks, too. In fact, one of them was staring her in the face right now. Well, Arwen was still staring out the side window, but Iro was still staring ather, and Arwen had no idea that Iro had been born at the end of 1666, that she had only lived thirty-one years, turning thirty-one a few weeks before Mary died, or thatshehad died as well. She had been reborn, as Cassia called it, and she had spent a hundred years with Cassia, not caring about anyone they fed from. People could have lived or died, and it hadn’t mattered to them. They’d spent all that time moving around Europe, having sex, making love, and feeding and enjoying their time together, but Arwen knew none of that.
Arwen didn’t know about her second refrigerator filled with animal blood or the secret rooms in her new house. She also didn’t know that Iro was exhausted from spending too much time in the sun recently and that even a night high in the sky, nearer to the Moon, wouldn’t be enough to sustain her. She’dneed time out of the light for at least the next full day to recover from this kind of exhaustion, but in this moment, staring at Arwen, she knew it was worth it.
“It’s amazing,” Arwen noted, and her words got to Iro muffled through a headset, of which Iro had on an identical one.
“Yes, it is,” she replied.
She then took Arwen’s hand in her own and brought it to her lips to kiss, needing to feel Arwen’s skin to believe it was even real to be this happy. Three hundred plus years ago, she’d been happy with Mary, but only in the privacy of Mary’s home whenever they could get time alone. She could never profess her love, show it in public, or enjoy any other aspect of being a woman in the sixteen-hundreds. Today, she could kiss Arwen’s hand while the pilot looked on if she wanted to. She could kiss her on the street outside of Arwen’s new favorite restaurant. She could own a business, earn money, own property, and not have to allow any man to dictate the terms of her life.
“Are you okay?” Arwen asked.
Iro realized that she had zoned out a bit and said, “Yes. I’m perfect. Areyouenjoying yourself?” she asked and leaned in to kiss her sweetly on the lips.
Arwen nodded, smiled, and kissed Iro once more before she returned her attention to the city below them. When they exited the helicopter, Iro took Arwen by the hand and walked her over toward the waiting SUV.
“You know you don’t have to impress me, right?”
“Pardon?” she asked as she ushered Arwen into the car.
“That was amazing and probably the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I really don’t need fancy helicopter rides or expensive dinners. I would be just as happy ordering Chinese food and watching a movie.”
“Well, I made no dinner plans, so would you like to compromise and end our night with Chinese food and a movie?”
“I could really go for some braised kao fu with mushrooms.”
“I have no idea what that is,” Iro replied, laughing before she told the driver to head toward Arwen’s place. “I assume they deliver?”
“There’s a vegan Chinese place on my way home. They do deliver, but through one of those apps, and they don’t pay their people fairly, in my opinion. On top of that, the restaurant pays more to be on the app, so I try to go there myself when I’m in the mood for it.”
Iro took her hand and wondered how she’d managed to find the nicest human on the planet. She certainly knew she didn’t deserve Arwen. The choices she had made while living with Cassia – feeding on humans and worse – meant that Arwen was quite out of her league, but Iro couldn’t stay away from her as much as she knew she should.
“I don’t like that they lose money,” Arwen added. “Is it okay if we stop by and pick something up? It’s vegan, but there’s a barbecue place a block away if you want something with meat in it.”
“I’m okay,” she lied.
She really wasn’t. She needed blood. She hadn’t eaten since before she had spotted Cassia on the street – or, rather, smelled her coming up behind her. She had meant to when she’d finally gotten home, but she had been so worried about Arwen that she’d just started looking at information her own security team had given her before she had hired them. She had wanted to know if she could hire someone to tail Arwen without Arwen knowing, but she knew they wouldn’t be able to do much against Cassia unless she told them to bring silver with them instead of a gun, which would be a little suspicious. Right now, though, she needed to focus on being more careful because a hungry – truly hungry – vampire wasnota good thing. It especially wasn’t goodbecause she needed more time to rest out of the sun, and Arwen smelled so sweet.
Arwen, of course, chose that moment to rest her head against Iro’s shoulder, and Iro breathed in the fresh scent of homemade soap and, yes, blood, still the sweetest she’d ever smelled. She swallowed hard and tried to ignore the pulse in Arwen’s wrist as they held hands, or the feel of Arwen’s heart as Arwen leaned in and pressed herself to Iro’s chest.
