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I swallow thickly, the afterburn of the scotch still present. “I don’t…” But there’s no use in denying that I want her. And I want her to want me. “It can never be, and you know it.”
He studies for a moment and then sits back in his chair. “Once upon a time I would have agreed with you,” he says. “But then I met Lenore.”
“Who is a vampire,” I point out.
“Half-vampire,” he corrects. “Who might be as immortal as us, or as mortal as her human side.”
“Solon, she defeated her own powerful warlock father. She has powers unlike anyone we know. There’s barely anything human about her. I have no doubt she’ll be by your side for as long as you’re alive. She’ll be alive too.”
“Be that as it may, and I pray that you’re right, Lenore gave me purpose. What do you think we’re supposed to do with our lives, Wolf? What do you want with yours? Are you living, or are you just existing? Just spending your many days trying to run down that elusive clock?”
I shake my head again, looking down at the scotch, the ice swirling in the glass. “Absolon Stavig, the incurable romantic.” I sigh and take another sip, licking my lips. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about her. What I do know is that as much as I feel like she’s mine, as I want her to be mine, she’s not supposed to be.”
“Then who does she belong to?”
I shrug. “I don’t fucking know. Not that douchebag she was with last night, that’s for fucking sure.”
“I know you are what you are. But it doesn’t have to end in horror and doom.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Says the one with the monster inside him.”
“You know that monster is gone now. Lenore destroyed it when I was reborn. It’s not coming back.”
“Solon, Amethyst is a human. I’m not. She’s going to age, and while I don’t have a problem with that, she will. I’ve seen it over and over again. The insecurities that come out, let alone the fact that you have to keep moving around the world in order to not draw suspicion.”
“Then you use magic, like we do with the house. It’s how we’ve been able to stay here for so long and no one’s ever grown suspicious.”
“Okay, fine. Then, say she doesn’t care that she’ll be seventy and look like it and I’ll still look like this. She’s going to die, Solon.” My throat suddenly feels hot. “She’s going to die one day and I can’t…I can’t go through that again. You know that’s why I don’t make friends with humans.”
“But you have. With her, with her mother. You care about them both deeply, as do I, but can’t you see the damage is already done? You already care. You can’t outrun the death of other people, Wolf. You can’t outrun grief.”
“One day Amethyst and Yvonne will move out and move on to other things. You know they will,” I tell him.
“They don’t have to, not if you don’t fuck things up.”
“Well, then I hate to break it to you, but I’m going to fuck things up. I want her but I can’t have her and at some point I’m going to do something really stupid like sleep with someone else and hurt her on purpose. Or, I’ll do something worse and sleep with her. Lead her on. You think that’s going to bring peace to this house? You think me suddenly professing my feelings to her, or fucking her, is going to make a change for the better? It’s only going to make things more complicated.”
And if I already felt like the foundation was weakening between us, this would crack it in two.
Solon stares at me for a long moment, his eyes unreadable. Probably probing my fucking brain. I just need my heart rate to slow down a little. It’s rare that it gets this worked up.
Eventually, Solon finishes the glass of wine and pops the cork back in the empty bottle. “I know I’ve always given you a hard time,” he says, getting to his feet. “But you deserve to be happy. You deserve to have someone in your life. I didn’t know that until I met Lenore, but I do now. And even if it turns out Lenore will age and gray and die in eighty years, it’s worth it, you know. It’s worth it. That’s all.”
He walks to the bar and puts the wine in the recycling bin, dusting off his hands. “I’m going off to bed. I apologize for the saccharine late-night lecture but you were overdue for one.”
And, at that, he gives me a nod and disappears through the swinging doors that lead into the house.
Alone, I exhale heavily and swallow down the rest of the scotch. Despite what Solon just told me, I’m already feeling Amethyst’s absence. Normally she’d be down here with me, drinking or playing a round of pool. The fact that she’s not, that she’s probably in bed already, says that maybe I need to apologize for last night. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, but perhaps it was out of character enough to make her pause. Maybe she thinks I had no right.
