Actually…
My brain started sparking, an idea shimmering to the surface with all the fairy dust and simplicity of a brainstorm. It was so intense that I threw on my blinker and turned into the closest parking lot.
“Everything okay?” Rowan asked.
“Yeah,” I said, somewhat breathlessly. “Just thinking about the situation. And about that time you got trapped by a loose tile. It really just takes one little thing and it can completely endanger our existence.”
“It is a bit scary, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “But the thing is, I was there to help both of you. And I know if I was ever in a pinch, that the both of you would be there for me.”
“Within a heartbeat. Not my own, obviously. But a quick one.”
“Right. You, me, and Carolina—and hopefully Iko—have formed our own little community since our own are never going to support us. We basically saidfuck your exile,and forged our own way.
“We did,” he said, leaning over to kiss my cheek. “But where exactly is this leading? I can practically see the steam coming from your ears.”
He was right, because I could practically feel myself grinning like a dork as I spoke. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever held a mixer, have you?”
NINETEEN
ROWAN
No More Mr. Nice Vamp
I whistled to myself as I strode into the coven’s meeting place, where I hadn’t been in about two-and-half months. Once, it had been a place of comfort for me, a place I desired to fit in at, but now it was like the obsidian-colored glasses had been stripped off, and I saw it for what it truly was: a goth nightclub for snobs with schlocky taste. I’d made excuses for them before, tolerated their myopic views and shrugged them off as eccentricities to be indulged. But now?
Not so much.
The only reason I was back was because Naomi pointed out there could be other people just like me in the coven, whether vampire or thrall. After all, it wasn’t like every member of the place was there every night. I had heard the names of several members floated by that I’d never seen, one of whom apparently only stopped in every other year.
“Wait, Rowan?”
I wasn’t exactly surprised to hear Orthallow’s voice, but I didn’t particularly care either. I gave him a tilt of my head and continued my path to the community board to hang up the posters Naomi had asked me to disperse in various magical places around town.
“I haven’t seen you in an age. I thought you cleared out.”
“Did you?” I responded without really turning. While I appreciated that he’d opened my eyes and stopped me from making a complete fool of myself, I also hadn’t really forgiven him for tolerating all the shit the rest of the coven were talking behind my back. If I hadn’t been about to ask Celestia out, would heeverhave told me? Would he have waited another five years?
That didn’t exactly instill trust in him.
“What’s this?” he asked, looking over my shoulder as I stapled the piece of paper to the community announcements spot. Of course, it couldn’t be just regular pegboard like plebeian humans. No, it was covered in rich, burgundy velvet that I knew was replaced every two weeks due to the number of holes that got punched into it. A ridiculous expense, but anything for the aesthetic, I supposed. “Magical Misfits Mixer?” His tone was exactly what I expected. A touch confused at first but ending in a scoff.
“If it doesn’t apply to you, don’t worry about it,” I said, giving him a wan smile. “Not that difficult.”
Although the same couldn’t be said for the event that Naomi and I were trying to put together. Valentine’s Day was quite a long way off, but it turned out there was a lot of logistics to trying to get a place that could accommodate a group of magical people from many different species who may or may not need special accommodations.
But itwasworking out, thanks to Naomi’s tenacity. Somehow, she’d found a community center deep within the city owned by a shapeshifter who straddled both the human andmagical worlds financially. It took a bit of convincing and some funds on my end to get them to agree, but they did in the end. I was pretty sure the several months of warning helped.
“I didn’t say anything like that.”
“No, but your face did.”
To my surprise, he actually looked contrite. “Shit, really? I didn’t even mean to…” He sighed, and I got the sense that he was grappling with his own stuff. Who knew, maybe Naomi was bang on the head about people at the coven needing something like the mixer. And in my opinion, if we could help a single person like Carolina, everything would be worth it.
I could still see her haunted expression when she’d opened the door. She looked soweary,so ashamed, and it made my unbeating heart ache something fierce.
At the same time, it also made me fiercely proud of Naomi. My girlfriend was something else, all right. I’d traveled the world enough to know that not many people would be willing to go to bat for others the way she did. I watched her beat down a giant wolf with her purse without so much as batting an eye. She’d broken into my home and saved me from sunlight, all the while looking like a resplendent, angelic being. And somehow, through just a few missed messages, she knew her friend was in trouble and showed up to help.
