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I stare at him, finding it odd to hear him speak so many words when he’s been silent all this time. “You’ll adapt. Twenty-five years is a long stretch. It’s going to take more than a few weeks for you to become the person you were.”
He soaks in my words, thinking them over. “I don’t speak because it’s my one last comfort to be without a voice, to be like I was as a dog.”
“Oh.” I reply, pausing. “Well, that makes a lot of sense. I’m sorry for being pushy. It’s just that I heard you praying and I really wanted you to talk to me. It’s strange living with a person who never speaks.”
That gets a small smile out of him. It transforms his tanned face into something warm and attractive, rather than the usual calm and detached expression he wears.
“You were praying, weren’t you?” I ask.
“Yes. I follow the Buddhist religion. It’s been so long since I could pray.”
“Are all the people on your island Buddhist?” I don’t think I know a single thing about Samoa, other than the fact it’s an island in Polynesia.
“No actually, most are Christian. My family was one of the few who were Buddhist.”
“How did you end up in Tribane?”
I’m asking a lot of questions, but I can’t help it. There’s so much I want to know about him.
Ira frowns. “My father lived here when he was a young man. He developed a gambling addiction and found himself in serious debt. Being a shapeshifter like me, he also moved in supernatural circles. One day a very rich warlock offered to loan him the money to pay off his debts in return for him spending the rest of his days as a bodyguard for the warlock’s family. My father agreed to the loan, but instead of staying and paying off his debt through labour, he left the city and returned home to Samoa.
“There he met my mother, who introduced him to Buddhism. They got married and started a family. Years later the warlock showed up at our home, demanding the money to be repaid. I was a young man of eighteen at this time and we were not a family of means. The warlock said that he would write off my father’s debt if he gave him his only son. I felt I needed to go with the warlock so that my parents and sisters could live out their lives in peace. So, that’s how I found myself in your city.”
“So you came here to work as a bodyguard for the warlock, what happened then?”
“I worked. The home of the warlock was where I first met Noel, the man who originally owned this house.”
I nod, remembering the picture I’ve seen of him on Finn’s mantelpiece time and time again.
“We became fast friends. Noel was a slayer for the DOH, but he moonlighted as a bodyguard. The warlock’s family were practically royalty among the magical people of this city. They had many vampire enemies and that’s why they needed round the clock security. I was quite happy in my job for about two years. That was before the lady of the house, Emilia, began to take an interest in me.
“Her husband was unaware of the fact that she was having numerous affairs behind his back. They had only one child, a daughter, and the warlock spent most of his time obsessing over keeping her protected from their vampire enemies. I had no intention of becoming involved in Emilia’s adultery and I told her so. For months she made various attempts to lure me into her bed. I continued to decline her advances until finally she’d had enough of my rejection.
“Being a witch, she could weave many spells, and she decided that I needed to be punished for my rejection of her. She cursed me to live out my life in my animal form, never again knowing the pleasures of the human body. And that is how I remained, up until the recent magic released me from my imprisonment.”
I stare at him, gob-smacked both by his story and also by the amount he’s just spoken after not breathing a word for so long. I can’t believe he spent all this time cursed, and for doing the right thing! “I hope that she got her comeuppance in the end,” I say, because I just can’t accept her having gotten away scot free after what she did to poor Ira.
“I don’t know. Perhaps her husband discovered her deceit. He was a powerful warlock, and not a forgiving one. She might very well be suffering under her own curse right now.”
“She better be,” I say fervently. “There’s definitely something wrong with the world if she isn’t.” I stop and look at him. “If this all happened twenty-five years ago, that means you’re now forty-five. You barely look thirty.”
“Shapeshifters age slowly. Our life expectancy is about 150 years.”
“That’s a nice length of time. It’s not too long like a vampire’s life, or too short like a human’s.”
“It is. Especially so since I have already lost a substantial portion of mine.”
“So,” I go on, “are you going to speak to the others now? I’m sure Finn would be delighted to hear you talk.”
“Finn is a good man. He is very enamoured of you.”
Okay, that was a little random. I tense up. “What do you mean?”
“He loves you as only a man can love a woman. I can see it in his eyes. He will take good care of you.”
Letting out a nervous snort, I say, “He doesn’t love me.”
“Maybe not yet, but I can it growing. Do you believe the vampire loves you?”
