Bring On the Night (8 page)

I got out of the car and gaped at the A-frame log cabin, its windows lit with electric candles. Woods surrounded us,
and a chorus of spring peepers swelled from what must have been a nearby creek.

Shane collected our bag—which he had packed without my knowledge—and his guitar case from the trunk. I followed him up the wooden stairs to the front door. A pale blue porch swing rocked in the breeze.

The door opened to reveal a couple in their mid-thirties. Both short and lean, they beamed at us with no trace of sleepiness.

“You must be Shane!” the woman said.

“Brenda?” he replied as he shook her hand.

“No, I’m Brenda,” the man behind her said with a laugh. “She’s Mel. People make that mistake all the time.”

I was so disoriented by the late/early hour and these people’s chilling normalcy that for a moment I almost called him Brenda.

We walked through a short hallway into a kitchen with a center island. Beyond the kitchen, the house opened onto an enormous yet cozy living room. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all polished wood, with long thick crossbeams extending the length of the room. A woven tapestry showing wolves on a pine-strewn snowscape hung from the brick fireplace façade that extended to the high ceiling.

“Is this place for sale?” I asked Brenda.

She laughed. “I think it might be a little bright for your man’s tastes. You two will be staying downstairs, of course.” Brenda beckoned us to follow her.

Mel spoke up. “There’s a fruit and cheese plate to go with the champagne. Figured you might be hungry.”

“Champagne?” I looked at Shane, then at the proprietors.

Brenda held up her hands. “Don’t ask us what it’s for.”

Shane gestured for me to precede him. A muscle twitched in his jaw as I passed.

At the bottom of the stairs, Brenda opened a door, then handed me a skeleton key. “This is the only copy, for security reasons, so don’t lose it.”

I nodded as I pocketed the key and followed her through a short passageway to a second door. A single key meant that no one could come in during the day, letting in sunlight that would fry Shane and ruin our—

Wow.

The bedroom beyond the second door took up almost the entire level. The ceiling featured long wooden beams amid swirling white plaster. A small fireplace held a virtual fire, safe for vampires.

To the left, a set of double doors opened into a large bathroom, where I could see a Jacuzzi tub big enough for a baseball team. My skin tingled at the sight.

On the right lay a king-size four-poster covered in a plush red comforter. Soft light suffused the entire room.

It was perfect. I couldn’t wait for them to get the hell out.

“If this is suitable,” Mel said, “we’ll just leave you alone.”

“We don’t want to keep you up.” I hoped the ceiling was soundproof.

“You won’t,” Brenda said. “The ceiling is soundproof.”

With a final good night, Mel and Brenda made themselves scarce.

I went to the bed and grasped one of the posts. “Very sturdy. I hope you brought the handcuffs.”

Without responding, Shane pulled his classical guitar from its case, then sat in the corner armchair and began to tune it.

“This is so cool—a vampire-friendly B and B!” I bopped over and gave him a quick kiss. “Talk about a niche market.”

“Yeah. Let me focus for a second, okay?”

I pressed my lips together and piled a small plate with fruit, cheese, and slices of baguette, while behind me Shane tuned and fretted. Finally he took a pair of deep, slow breaths, muttering to himself in words I couldn’t decipher.

“Come sit down,” he said finally.

I moved to the brown-silk-upholstered ottoman in front of his chair, pulled it back a few feet to give him room, and sat with my plate upon my knees.

Fingers poised above the strings, he looked at me for a long moment. “I wrote this for you.”

My heart halted, then sped up. He’d never written a song for me—never written a song, period. One effect of a vampire’s temporal adhesion was difficulty learning new things, whether it was how to surf the Internet or how to love contemporary music. Shane’s relative youth and his involvement with me helped him overcome the natural vampire stickiness, and while he wasn’t exactly downloading the latest Kings of Leon tracks, he’d at least started playing music from the twenty-first century.

But concocting something new out of his own head and heart? Vampires didn’t do that. Creation was an act of the living.

My food forgotten, I watched him play. I never tired of seeing his hands travel over the fretboard and the strings, imagining and remembering how they felt on my skin. He used no pick, only his nails and fingertips, stroking and coaxing beauty into existence.

When he started to sing, I closed my eyes.

First he sang of the past—our disastrous first encounter
that almost ended in my death; our hands-off, one-hundred-percent-platonic first real date; and the first night we made love, after another vampire had almost taken my life. How Shane’s own life had changed.

Then he moved to the present, extolling our mismatched, underground existence and making Dexter the first vampire dog to be immortalized in song. Shane sang of how he tried so hard to be normal.

The last verse told of the future, of silver hair and sallow skin. Of my deathbed and grave, and how he would be there, at my side. Until the end.

Tears squeezed out between my lids and rolled in swollen streams down my cheeks. I held back a sniffle, wanting this room to hear no sound but his promise.

He offered me his life, eternal youth, and timeless strength, wrapped in a love that would transcend the ravages of human fragility and vampire eccentricity.

We could do this,
he was saying. He had faith in us. I’d never had faith in anything.

He stroked the last chord and let it echo against the wooden walls. Then he set down the guitar, leaning the headstock against the chair.

When he finally looked at me, his eyes held no fear.

“Do you know what comes next, Ciara?”

I opened my mouth, but could fit no words around my incoherent croak.

Shane sank to his knees before me, then reached into the pocket of his flannel shirt. When his hand opened, it revealed a velvet jewelry box. Small. Black. Square.

My throat closed up.

He took my hand, and I met his gaze as he spoke. I’d been dreading this moment for years, the moment we’d
move forward or fall apart. The beginning of the end.

“That song exhausted my supply of pretty words, so these are all I have left.” He opened the box. “Ciara, will you marry me?”

I kept my eyes on his face and didn’t even glance at the ring. It didn’t matter how big or beautiful it was. My answer would be the same.

“Yes.”

His eyes reflected my own shock. “Are you crazy? I mean, are you sure?”

“Yes. And yes.”

I was sure. Sure this was insane. Sure it was unheard-of, for a million damn good reasons.

Sure it was what I wanted.

He looked at me sideways. “But are you sure you’re sure?”

I hesitated, asking my gut if I was saying yes for fear of losing him or from the desire to make him happy or the rebellious urge to prove the world wrong.

My gut replied with a thousand celebratory butterflies.

“I want to be with you.” I held his face between my trembling hands. “As long as I live.”

The tension lines between his brows vanished. “Amazing,” he whispered, then kissed me hard, with a deep, human sigh. I reveled in the feel of his lips against mine, and didn’t care that they’d be the only lips I’d ever taste again. If I lived to be a hundred, my life with him would be too short.

He pulled away, face contorting into a half smile, half grimace. “I can’t believe you said yes right away. I had this whole long argument planned out.” His words tumbled over one another, his eyes gleaming with adrenaline. “I was going to keep you awake for days until you said yes out of sleep-
deprivation-induced insanity.”

I laughed, then finally looked down at the ring in his hand.

“Oh my God!” My plate flew off my lap, scattering fruit and cheese cubes across the rug. I snatched the jewelry box out of his hand. “Sapphires?” A pair of them, marquise cut, sat on either side of the round diamond. “They’re my favorite.”

“They are?”

“As of now.”

Shane brushed my hair off my cheek. “I got them because they reminded me of your eyes.” He winced. “Wow, that sounded cheesy. Can I take it back and say something macho like, ‘They were on sale’?”

“Whatever.” I reached for the ring, but he grabbed it first with supernatural speed.

“Uh-uh,” he said. “I’m supposed to put it on you.”

I stretched out the fingers of my left hand. “I didn’t know you were such a stickler for tradition.”

“I knelt, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but on both knees instead of one.”

“I knew something was off.” He shifted to set one foot down, then slid the ring onto the proper finger. “Anyway, happy engagement,” he said with mock brusqueness.

I held the ring up to the fake firelight. It was a little loose. “Did you guess my size?”

“I borrowed its counterpart.” He touched the silver band with the Celtic knot on the third finger of my right hand. “Your left hand must have skinnier fingers.”

“You stole my ring?” I smacked his chest. “You knew I was looking for it. My mom gave that to me.”

“And I found it for you in the garbage disposal,
remember?”

“Bad boy.” I curled my fingers into the fabric of his shirt. “You’re a bigger con artist than I am.”

He took my right hand and slipped off the Celtic knot band.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“I want to see you wearing nothing but my ring.” His fingers slid under my sweater, the thumb and pinky catching on the hem to lift it up. “Now.”

“Shouldn’t we open the champagne?”

“Champagne second. Naked first.” He pulled the sweater over my head, then undid my belt. “Now’s a really bad time to deliberate over sex like an old married couple.”

My dread of normality jump-started a desperate desire. “Then it’s a really good time to fuck me like a stranger.”

Shane scooped me up, one arm under my knees, then rushed me to the bed like it was a medical emergency. He stripped off my pants, then his own clothes, with rough, urgent motions, his hands shaking with something more than desire.

He stretched out above me. I ran my hands up his lean, muscular back and opened myself to him, ready to chase away our fears with a bout of seriously savage sex.

But instead of beginning, he stopped and stared down at my face. Something passed between us, a silent acknowledgment that things had changed.

Under his gaze I felt more naked than ever, but I didn’t look away. My fingertips brushed the underside of his jaw. “I love you.”

His breath caught, the way it always did when I said those words first. Then he leaned down and kissed me softly, almost chastely. “I love you, too.” He rolled onto his side
next to me, then brought my left hand to his mouth. “We should have that champagne first.”

“It is sort of a special occasion.” I slid my ring finger between his lips. “But you have to drink it out of my belly button.”

Morning twilight came at 6:16 a.m. I knew this not because I saw the approaching sun, since no shred of light crept past the shrouded window above our bed. I knew this because by necessity, the times were branded into our brains. Such was life with a vampire, and such would be my life forever.

After the poignant lovemaking, the celebratory Jacuzzi soak, then the dirty sex of jubilation, my muscles felt as liquid as the champagne, the last of which Shane was pouring into our glasses.

“I was sure you would say no.” He clinked his half-full glass against mine. “I thought about offering you a choice between the ring and a wooden stake but figured that was a little macabre, even for me.”

My hand tightened on the glass. “If you were convinced I’d say no, then why did you ask?” Maybe he didn’t want to marry me after all.

“What can I say? I’m a dreamer.” He trailed his fingertips, cold from the champagne bottle, along my arm. “Can we set a date?”

My chest constricted. An actual date would be a wall in the fourth dimension of time, beyond which lay the foggy valley of married life.

I took my first bold step toward that wall. “Whenever.”

“I was thinking this winter, when the nights are long.”

“But then I’ll be working for the Control and we won’t
be able to go on a honeymoon.”

“How about the next winter, after you’re done?”

“That’s almost two years from now.”

“You in a hurry? Want to get it over with before you change your mind?”

“No, but I know from Lori that the longer a couple has to plan, the more complicated and expensive it gets. I do not want a three-day wedding extravaganza.”

“No bridalpalooza, I promise.” He rested his head on my pillow, close enough I could feel the sweep of his lashes against my temple. It seemed as if he were holding his breath, so I knew he was about to get serious again. “Ciara, you didn’t say yes just to make me happy, did you?”

“I did it to make
me
happy. That’s the good part about being with a selfish person. You know I’m never doing anything out of nobility, because I have none.”

“Bullshit.” He stroked the side of my hip. “You do a million things for me.”

“Like what?”

“You keep your clothes organized in our closet so it doesn’t distract me.”

“Easier for me to find stuff. I’m half conscious when I get dressed for work.”

“You never complain when I rearrange the spice rack in mysterious ways.”

“Since all I ever use is salt and pepper, who cares?”

He went still again. “You risked your soul so I could have my family.”

“Don’t be dramatic.” I skimmed my palm over his arm, as if I could brush away his concern. “The Control is just a job, not an adventure.” I tried not to think of David’s warning about the Immanence Corps and the folder of secrets in
my overnight bag. “It’ll be over before you know it, and I promise I’ll bring my soul to our wedding.”