“Don’t lie to me. I’m going to treat you but I need you to be honest.”
“Fine, I feel like absolute shit and I really think I’m gonna pass out, fall off this massive desk and break my head wide open on the floor.”
“You won’t,” I promise. “Not with me here. I’ve got you.”
Maris gives me a weak nod. We fall silent while I work. The dull ping of the glass I toss into the bowl is deafening. Everysingle glass piece that falls into the bowl makes me angrier. I start counting them. I’m at thirty when I’m finally done.
Whatever it is that I do to Donna, it’s going to be thirty times over. There’s not going to be enough of her for them to identify.
“She’s Billy’s aunt.”
And fuck this, Billy’s dead too. They’re all dead.
“Julian?” Maris’ soft voice breaks me out of my murderous plotting. I look up from the bowl full of glass shards and to her.
“Yes?”
“What was that earlier? With Donna?”
I know what she means. I pretend that I don’t and go back to tending her leg. She’s bleeding again from the glass I removed. I start by irrigating and sanitizing her wounds. I’ll heal her with my blood but it’ll work faster if her leg is tended to first. Vampire blood can heal but there are limitations to its healing properties. If I was turning her then I wouldn’t have to bother. Her wounds would heal but that is a decision for Maris alone to make.
“It was a lapse in professionalism and medical care,” I say, still playing the idiot.
Maris scoffs and crosses her arms. “I mean it, Julian. You like, nearly turned her to ice. I felt it. You glamoured her, didn't you?” She kicks at me with her healthy leg.
I catch her leg with one hand. “I’m glad to see you’re feeling better.”
“Did you glamour her?”
I hesitate but then nod. “Yes.”
“Did you glamour me?”
I shake my head. “Not today.”
“I’m not talking about today, Julian.”
I bite my wrist and let the blood drip onto her wounds. The skin starts to heal, her wound knitting together. Fresh new pink skin starts to form a second later.
“Did you glamour me last night? Tell me.”
I smooth blood along the side of her calf. I turn her leg to the side and make sure to get enough of it where her muscle has been cut the worst. “Yes,” I tell her. Maris doesn’t say anything and I keep working. When her leg is healed, I start to wrap it in a bandage. She won’t be able to show it to anyone for a while. Her leg healing overnight would be a red flag. There would be no explaining it away, no matter how good of a doctor I am, no one isthatgood.
I keep my eyes on her leg, winding the gauze slowly around her leg while I answer her. “I did glamour you last night. I know you want to know exactly what it is that I did, don’t you?”
“I think I already know,” she says softly.
I hum and begin to tie off the bandage. “And what is it that you know?”
“I don’t want to die anymore.”
I finish with her bandage and look at her. She’s staring at me, dark eyes trained intently on my face like she might be able to figure out why I did what I did. I don’t know why she’s wondering. She should know exactly why I glamoured her.
“You never wanted to die. Not really,” I tell her. I take a step closer and then another, before I lean against the desk and stroke her face. “You were lost. That’s all. The only thing I did was bring you home again.”
Her eyes water but she doesn’t cry. Maris blinks away the tears and looks away from me. “How do you know that?”
“That’s exactly your problem, Maris. You have no faith.” I turn her face towards me and she looks at me when I say, “I know your soul. You’re my mate, Maris. Mine.My wife.And I’ve seen inside of you. I know what kind of person you are.” I smooth a thumb along her jaw and Maris’ eyes drift closed. “Every wrong thing you have ever done, I know. Every sin, every twisted and dark part of you, I’ve seen. Those things are not the whole of you, though. I know you believe that, that there’snothing worth saving in you, Maris but they’re only parts, and those parts somehow became the loudest ones to you. No one is evil, not entirely and you least of all.”
