“I can hear you,” a voice said, and it was a familiar one. “Where are you, Iro?”
“I’m not hiding. I’m right here,” Iro replied and moved into her living room. “Where areyou?”
“Oh, I’m here. And I know Cassia said you weren’t to be harmed, but I’ve been sitting here on your bed, smelling the sex you obviously had with someone who isn’t your wife, and I can smell something else, too.”
“What’s that?” Iro asked, heading toward her bedroom slowly.
“Love. It’s all in the pheromones, isn’t it? And it’s all over this house. Maybe not upstairs. I didn’t smell it there as I went through every room searching for you and Zara, who I couldn’t find, by the way. I can smell her, though, so I know she was here. She must have run, like the coward she is. How could Cassia put her above me? I don’t run.”
“Gigi, you don’t have to do what Cassia wants.”
“Yes, I do. I love her.”
Iro closed her eyes at that, opened them, and said, “That might be true, but that doesn’t mean that she owns you and that you have to follow her every command.”
“Following her every command would mean leaving you unharmed, but I’m not sure that servesmyinterest. I’m no puppet, Iro. I love her. I follow her, yes, but I also want her, and if you’re alive, I’ll always have to share her with you. I’m done sharing her with Zara, the coward who ran, and I am definitely done sharing her with you, the woman she can’t seem to be without, for some reason I’ll never understand.”
“You’ll still have to share her with all the women she wants.”
“She onlywantsyou,” Gigi argued as Iro slowed beyond the open door to her bedroom. “She wants sex and loyalty from the rest of us, but she only wantsyoufor everything else. She needs you like it’s some sickness. I don’t understand it myself. You don’t seem all that special to me. But if you’re gone, she’ll be mad, yes, but we live forever. She’ll get over you eventually, and I will rule at her side.”
“Rule? Rule her mansions and villas? What are you talking about?”
“You know I can hear that you’re right outside the door, right?”
“Yes,” Iro said.
“Then, stop being a coward like Zara and show yourself so that we can finish this, and I can take my punishment from Cassia before she forgives me and we move on fromyoutogether.”
Iro kept the knife in her hand but thought something else might help here instead. She’d only have one shot at it, and she slowly pulled it out of her vest.
“Oh, come on, Iro… Let’s just fight this out like good little vampires.”
“Do you know why she picked you?” Iro asked as she readied herself.
“What?”
“Years ago, when she turned you and Miranda, do you even know why?”
“She found us and wanted to fuck us.”
“That’s not why, Gigi. For Miranda, yes. Cassia writes me letters when we’re apart. I don’t write back. I don’t always read them, either. Most of the time, I don’t, but one night, I was contemplating things, so I read a letter she had sent me right after she turned you. She wrote that when she saw Miranda, shewas immediately attracted to her, and she turned her because she wanted to fuck her. She turned her first.”
“So what?”
“So, she didn’t want you,” Iro lied, hoping that it would work. “You were there, though, and she was bored. She told me you turned out to be a decent fuck, so she kept you, but the real reason Cassia turned you was that she was bored. She thought you might make a good playmate for Miranda when I came back, so that she would be occupied and wouldn’t do something stupid like getting discovered. That’s what Cassia told me: she’d still use you whenever she wanted, but it was really Miranda whom she wanted to pass the time with until I returned. She doesn’t love you. I keep all of her letters, if you want to see the proof. I’ll show you myself right now.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I wish I were. I don’t think Cassia is capable of love, Gigi. She never has been. She’s only interested in taking care of herself, serving her own self-interest, and she loves her possessions. You and I should be on the same side here. We’re both simply possessions to her.”
“Once you’re gone, things will change,” Gigi said.
“No, they won’t. And I’m sorry,” she replied.
“What are you–”
Quickly, Iro moved until she was standing in the open doorway, and she fired from the single-barreled pistol she’d picked up at an auction over a hundred years ago. It was old, yes, but she kept it clean, and when she pressed the trigger, a silver bullet entered Gigi’s body. It didn’t have to hit her heart to cause real damage, giving Iro a better chance in their fight, but it did. The bulletmusthave hit Gigi in the heart because she flopped backward, and soon after, her body turned a pale blue, the shade moving from the center of her body and out to her feetand hands. Iro still held the knife in her hand just in case as she approached and saw Gigi’s eyes go distant and pale.
