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“Wooden stake to the heart?”
“Is like shooting a rhino with a pistol. It just pisses us off.” I growl and playfully nip at her stomach. Laughter fills the air. She likes that one. I let my head stay there, enjoying the feel of her fingers against my scalp as she runs them through my hair. She seems to be far away. I don’t want to pry. The bond isn’t supposed to be used to spy. It is just meant to give us a better understanding of our partners. We lay in silence for a few minutes.
“Can we die?”
I stare at her features. They seem serene, uncaring, like this is just an average question, like I hadn’t found her on the brink of self-destruction a mere hour before. “Yes.” My voice is flat, volunteering no further information.
She looks down at me and takes in my expression. “It’s genuine curiosity, my love. I promise you, I don’t want to cut eternity short.” Sighing, she strokes the planes of my face, running her fingers along my brow and my cheekbones. When she runs her fingers across my lips, I kiss them.
“I was panicking and not thinking straight about the whole thing.” Her voice is soft, like a whisper on the breeze. But I can hear her perfectly. “I’ve always been a rather emotional person, and I tend to go to one extreme or the other,” she confesses, her fingers tracing my jaw now where she had struck me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you.”
I am surprised she feels it necessary to apologize. It wasn’t like it physically hurt me. “I know that you had a lot drop on you at once. Your memory, the accident, discovering the mate bond, and then learning I had led you on about the sun being destructive. You are a new vampire, which sometimes makes your feelings a little harder to control. I forgive you wholeheartedly, and do not punish yourself for it.”
“Please don’t excuse what I did.”
“But-”
“But, nothing.” The irritation in her voice is impossible to miss. “People don’t hit their partners.”
“I don’t mind a little slapping around as foreplay,” I smirk at her. She can knock me around if she wants.
“I’m serious, Oz,” I love how her eyes roll at me. I want to irritate her for the rest of time.
“I know you are,” I reach out a hand and caress her face, turning serious now. “I also know it will not happen again. I forgive you.”
She seems to accept my willingness to give her a pass on the whole slapping thing. I’ll have to remember to bring up the spicier foreplay options another time. Being vampires and having the ability to heal, attempting to inflict pain can be pretty enjoyable. For now, though, I resign myself to answering her question in its entirety.
“Beheading and setting fire is the only way I’ve known one of our kind to be eliminated.” I shudder at the thought of her finding a way to remove her head and fall into a pit of flames. I push the image from my mind. If the sun was deadly, I’d have lost her. When I turned her on the lakeside, I vowed then that I would never lose her.
“Seems a little over dramatic to me,” her voice is filled with sarcasm. I watch her as she studies the sky. “I’m also sorry for scaring you.”
I reach out to her, placing a soft kiss on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I couldn’t prevent what happened to Spencer.” A dark cloud crosses her face, but it leaves quickly.
“It’s not your fault. He broke through the compulsion and caught me off guard. He started kissing me and touching me.” My jealousy flares and I am glad that Spencer is dead. “He seemed so happy to see me. And then… then he said something similar to what he said at the store.” An eyebrow arches, and I wait for more information. “He called you a townie.” I couldn’t suppress the smile. He’d been so intimidated by my proximity to Wren that he could only insult me by making me seem less cultured. So childish, so insecure.
“My memory came back with such force I felt like I was in the car again. I had been so upset, and he had been so angry with me. I don’t think anything could’ve stopped me.” My mouth forms a thin line. Am I going to get the insight I so crave? “I was with him for two years and thought we would get married. The bastard couldn’t even be brave enough to break up with me like a decent human. Then again, he was never much of a decent human being.”
My face must’ve given away my confusion.
“We were supposed to come here together to reconnect, though I don’t know why I wanted to so badly. I rented a cabin for the weekend as a last-ditch effort to save us. We’d been struggling for quite some time, and he took the first opportunity to call it quits on us. To bully me into taking the blame, so I would beg him to stay. He knew he was scaring me too, and it didn’t matter. I didn’t matter to him, and I hadn’t for a while.” The shadowy cloud of emotion returns and darkens her expression.
“What he was doing in the car, he wasn’t stupid. He did it intentionally to terrify me. For so long, it felt like I was always crying. He had a temper, and more than once, it got physical.” She reaches out and touches my face where she’d struck me. “I’ve never been the one to hit first, and I don’t like how it feels.”
Her voice is small and far away. I’ve already forgiven it, but now I understand why it is such a big deal to her. I took the hand against my face and gently nuzzle it with my cheek, planting soft kisses on her skin.
“I’m sorry he did that to you,” I am supremely glad he is dead. If I had found all this out before, I probably would’ve killed him. “While I am glad it brought you to me, I hate what happened after you left the store. At least it gave us this opportunity to be together.” What would've become of us if she had stayed with me, stayed within our chance encounter filled with such electricity and passion? Would I have taken Spencer’s place at the cabin, saving her from her abandonment? Would I have made love to her there? Would I have been able to turn her at her will instead of in a fit of desperation? Would her mind still be separated and broken?
“I’m happy that however it happened, I’m here. I feel more connected to you than I’ve ever felt with anyone.” She kisses me before sitting up. Raising her arms to the sky, she stretches and yawns.
“So what, does the sun just make us sleepy?”
I smile, sitting up with her. “That, and the longer we are out in it, the sun leeches our abilities until we become about as weak as humans. Some of us live full lives pretending to be human for a time. Though, most of us prefer the night and the benefits that come with it.”
Accepting my answers, Wren doesn’t have any more questions for me. “I’m ready to get some rest,” she sounds more like herself. I’m sure her conscience still scolds her for Spencer, but it appears she isn’t going to blame herself for what had been instinct.
Satisfied that we’ve worked through the necessary bits, I help her to her feet. “Then let’s go home.” I will give her anything she ever wants. Everything she ever asks for. She is mine to care for, and I intend on doing a damn good job.
Aweekhaspassedsince our declarations in the woods, and things are going well. Wren is thriving with my family, working on her art and reading our history. She continues working with Chandra on some fighting techniques, which she told me she enjoys because it helps get out the aggression she still feels inside her. They have moved on to wooden weapons, and she is a magnificent sight to behold.
