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“What’s wrong?”
Chansey turned to me and said, “Curry, it’s Solomon. He isn’t doing well.”
19 A Different Kind Of Craving
I raced through the front door and called out for my best friend without a response. Chansey and Avery entered the door behind me and Chansey said, “He’s in the basement. He screamed at Gia and Lairah to go away and leave him alone. They said that they had never seen him like this before.” I looked at her dire expression and knew his retreat to the basement wasn’t a good sign because it meant he thought he was no better than the delinquents we reformed.
I followed the stairs leading to the basement we built for the disorderly and prepared myself for the worst as I recalled Avery’s warning. He would be prepared to kill me to get to her blood.
I found my best friend sitting in a chair facing a blank wall with his back turned to me. “Sol?” He didn’t answer so I just began talking. “I don’t want you to worry about this. You’ve been through much worse than this and I’ll help you through whatever happens.”
I waited in vain for a response. “Sol, I need you to tell me what’s happening so I can help you.”
He remained unmoved as he stared at the blank wall, clenching something tightly in his fist and then he asked, “She’s unharmed?”
“Yes, she is safe. I left her with Chansey because I thought she might feel safer and more comfortable with another human.”
From behind, I saw him slowly nod his head as he said, “You did a great job, Curry. I’m very proud of you.” He turned to peer back at me over this shoulder. “I think it’s wise for me to stay down here until we see what the effects are going to be. Especially since she is in the house.”
That didn’t fly well with me. “This is your home and you’re our leader. You don’t deserve to be locked up in your own home. What happened wasn’t your fault and she can go somewhere else. I’ll take her now, right this minute.”
“No, I don’t want you to take her away,” he said. “It’s too dangerous to move her right now and she deserves protection. She has had so much tragedy and terror in her short life. I felt it when I drank from her.”
My heart went out to my best friend as I asked, “Are you in a lot of pain?”
“No, I don’t feel physical pain, but her blood is doing wicked things to me. It’s messing with my mind. I think I can feel the onset of the craving coming because I want her. Just knowing she is in the same house has my heart beating out of my skin. I felt the precise moment you returned with her because I can sense her now. I feel her inside of me.”
“I am so sorry this has happened to you,” I apologized.
Solomon stared off and said, “I was initially sickened by Vincent when he told me to bite her. When I pushed her hair away from her neck, I fooled myself into thinking it wasn’t fear I saw in her eyes. I thought she wanted me to do it. Maybe it was her blood calling to me or maybe I imagined it, but regardless I wanted to do it and I can’t blame Vincent.”
“So, you’ll start over with your sobriety. Tomorrow will be day one without drinking from a human” I encouraged.
His eyes told me the depth of his shame as he pleaded, “Please, don’t tell Chansey. I know she will find out I drank from her, but she doesn’t have to know the details. She wouldn’t understand and I don’t want her to be frightened of me.”
I wanted to cross the room and give him a hug or pat on the back or something, but I knew he wouldn’t want that. “Come on, Chansey deserves more credit than that. She could never be frightened of you, Sol. She loves you and knows how honorable you are.”
“My thoughts at this moment are not honorable, I assure you. They’re just down right ...wrong,” he confessed.
I knew telling him she still retained the memories of what happened would not help matters, but it was his right to know. “I don’t know why, but she remembers everything. She recited the exact words you used to compel her.”
He jerked around to look at me and said, “Shit! She’s going to hate me.”
“How can I make this better? Tell me what I can do for you,” I offered.
“You can lock the door from the outside on your way out and tell Miss Ferrand that I am truly sorry for what occurred between us. Please, assure her it will not happen again.”
“Of course, I will,” I promised. “You know I will make certain she feels safe while she is here, but I think you should consider compelling her again, if only to give her and yourself peace while she is with us.”
He shook her head. “I don’t trust myself with her and I won’t be the reason her safety is at risk again.”
“You’ll miss the opportunity if you don’t act soon. There’s still time,” I advised.
“No,” he flatly refused. “I can’t face her.”
“You know I would do it for you if I could.”
He leaned forward in the seat, resting his elbows on his knees. “I know you would, but this isn’t your problem to fix. This is my mess.”
With his words, I knew I had been dismissed. I climbed the stairs, but turned for one last look at my best friend before locking him up and I saw the light reflect upon something shiny in his hand. He loosened his grip, but I remained unable to make out what it was he held so close to his heart. Whatever it was, I hoped it got him through what he was about to endure.
˜ ˜ ˜
I found Chansey pacing at the top of the stairs and the moment she saw me emerge, she asked, “How is he?”
I attempted to reassure her that he would be alright, but I suspected she saw the uncertainty in my eyes. “He’s going to be fine. He just needs a little time and he’ll bounce right back to the old Sol that we all love, but want to kill at times.”
My wife was anxious as she said, “I don’t know, Curry. He really did not look well before you and Avery arrived.”
Avery interrupted, “It hasn’t been long enough for the intense craving to start. Trust me; it’s going to be bad if he doesn’t drink from me.”
“The craving has already begun, but it’s mild and he is going to be fine,” I said, perhaps a little too sternly. “He is strong. Until you, he had gone almost 200 years without drinking directly from a human and don’t you forget that anytime soon.” I paused, but didn’t feel quite finished in my defense of my best friend. “200 years. Your mind cannot conceive what it has been like for him to go that long without doing the one innate thing that his body constantly craves, so you need to lay off. He risked his ass to go up in that crazy place to save you. We both did, so why don’t you show a little gratitude?”
“I haven’t laid eyes on my sister yet, so please excuse me if I am more than a little skeptical of a clan of vampires that stole me from a different coven.”
Chansey stepped into the heated conversation in an attempt to cool my temper by saying, “Curry, she has a point. We know we rescued her to save her, but she has no certainty of that. She can only expect the worst after what she has been through.”
Avery cooled her tone and added, “I don’t mean to appear unappreciative of your rescue efforts this morning, but I had accepted my fate with Vincent. I knew my death was inevitable and I was content to die, but I don’t know what my future holds here with you. My fate could be far worse than death and I have no way of knowing, so I will be grateful when I’m certain I have reason to be grateful.”
Still feeling the need to defend my friend, I added, “Solomon has asked me to tell you how sorry he is for drinking from you and to tell you it will not happen again. He has decided it is best if he temporarily stays in the basement while you’re here, just until the craving stops.”
“You call this a compound. What is this place?” she asked.
“We are The Coven of Landra,” I proudly announced.
“I heard Vincent and the others talking about you.” She laughed and said, “They say you turn vampires into farmers.”
I found amusement with Avery for the first time and laughed out loud as I sa
id, “Well, that’s one I haven’t heard.”
“No mockery intended, I assure you. It’s just what I overheard Vincent say about your coven. I don’t even know what a ‘farmer’ means.”
I continued to smile and said, “No offense taken because that is almost what we do, but we don’t encourage vampires to drink the blood of animals. Human blood is too easy to come by to resort to drinking the blood of unclean or diseased animals.”
Together, Chansey and I explained what The Coven of Landra represented and the services we provided. I told Avery how Sol helped me reclaim who I was intended to be and taught me how to save the unsavable. She had many questions about me and Chansey and we did our best to explain it in terms she could understand. Surprisingly, she didn’t find us strange and seemed very accepting of our Agápe relationship.
