Eternal Ever After (4 page)

The woman continued to walk past me to the tree. She closed her eyes, placing her palm on the white bark. I sat watching the woman like I had been placed under an enchantment. The vibrating hum intensified before tapering off as the woman opened her eyes. She walked to me and traced her finger down my forehead. Turning back to the tree reverently, the woman in white chanted:

“Goddess of moon, love, and desire,

Bring me your passion’s fire.

Enrich her life with health and love,

Protect this child from below and above.

In your name she walks the earth,

Instead of death give her rebirth.”

She turned her clear blue gaze to me, unconcerned by my nakedness. I wrapped my arms around my exposed body, shivering despite the sunlight streaming through the trees. In all my life I had never seen a more ethereal being or felt more in awe of her willowy stature.

“Do not feel ashamed, my child.”

“Who are you? Where am I?”

“I am the Lady of the Woods, and you are descended from the Sacred Grove. This is the inner world and it is safe here.”

“But I don’t understand.”

The Lady of the Woods smiled kindly.

“No, but you will. There is little time before I must go. You are here for a purpose.”

“What purpose?”

“You are one of the last Children of the Woods. I have come to awaken you—to warn you of a great danger.”

“Danger? What danger, and how do I stop it?”

“You must take care when you go to where pain and blood are games for pleasure.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“The only way to stop the threat is to let light wrap around you and surround yourself in its love. The way to the light is found through darkness.”

The woman turned slowly back toward the forest from whence she came.

“
Wait! You have to help me!
”

She turned and smiled at me.

“I must go, but all will be revealed at the ball.”

“What ball?”

With that the ethereal figure vanished into the forest, leaving me alone in the glade. The birds that had stopped chirping and the movement of animals that had ceased slowly began to stir again. Everything felt fuzzy. Birdsong turned into a loud purr and I awoke to green eyes looking down at me, with Mystic curled next to my head. His presence felt comforting after such an odd dream.

Note to self. No more late-night pizza before bed.

Raindrops pattered on the fire escape outside my window. I didn’t want to get out of bed. Stroking Mystic down his back, I rolled to curl on my side with an inward smile from my dinner with Arie. It felt like nothing exciting ever happened to me, and now I was eating pizza with a gorgeous vampire. I rubbed my temples. A headache throbbed behind my eyes as I tried to remember the details from the night before.

Last night Arie had leaned against a wall eating a slice of pizza while I ate mine in front of the coffee table, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Remembering the smell of his leather jacket and his breath on my ear as he leaned in to whisper from behind drew heat to my stomach. I could feel a flush rise to my cheeks just thinking about it. I had this inexplicable urge to turn, wrap my arms around his neck, and run my fingers through the short dark waves of his hair. Except I froze. I could curse myself for being too damn chicken-shit to do anything about it. He was a vampire, and even though I wanted him, I didn’t know if we could be together. It was a lot to consider.
Relationships within the same species are hard enough, for fuck’s sake.

And asking him a ton of questions didn’t get me as many answers as I had hoped. He’d been evasive, but promised that he would tell me eventually. Just finding out was enough for one night and he didn’t want to overwhelm me. At least that’s what he said; I supposed he was right, but that didn’t curb my curiosity.

I’d had plenty of relationships, but it had always been difficult to really be with anyone—to let them in. The barrier of the Sight created an impenetrable wall that ruined every relationship I’d ever had
.
How could anyone accept something so unnatural? Perhaps that was why Arie being a vampire didn’t make me want him any less. We were both unnatural—different, but the same. There were so many things I wanted to find out. Maybe I could put my gift to good use with Arie. I’d never intentionally tried to use my gift on someone, but if he continued being evasive, it was something I’d consider.

Sometimes I loved the visions, but most of the time by date three, I was so damned disgusted it never got to date four. One time this guy hit on me in a laundromat and his arm brushed against mine while we folded our clothes. I could see his vulgar intentions. An image of being fucked from behind, tied to a sense of how quick he could put his clothes back on, passed through my mind. Imagine his surprise when his usual charm didn’t work on me. He never knew I could read his intentions with vivid clarity. There would be no point in screwing him. He’d be just another man whose desires got in the way of my own orgasm. The skin-to-skin contact during sex intensified my visions, it was too damned distracting, and I’d never been able to have an orgasm unless I gave it to myself. I imagined someone would have to be a damned good lay to distract me enough or keep the visions at bay. And I’d found my indulgence in battery-operated toys to be sufficient at satisfying the needs that sex couldn’t.

The only thing I’ve ever wanted is to know that someone wanted me back and to not feel like such a freak. Having to move from foster home to foster home and adapt to new people, new kids, and new schools while not having a say in any of it had made me flexible. But if I admitted it to myself, my relationships were a mess. Every time I had started to get comfortable, the family wouldn’t want me around. I knew things I shouldn’t know—things that other people didn’t know. Finally, I learned not to share the pictures I saw inside my head. Sometimes it felt like I didn’t have any choices or any future.

When I was sixteen I was placed with the Ellis family. Luckily, they adopted me. They didn’t turn me away like the rest, but they’d moved to Florida two years ago when they retired. Once or twice a year they sent me plane tickets, around Christmas and my birthday, to come visit.

But Arie stirred an ache for something that I knew better than to want. Common sense told me a relationship with a vampire would be utterly impossible and most likely lethal. After last night, I had so many other questions I wanted to ask him. I’d watched plenty of vampire movies, but I wondered how much of it was true. Would he turn to ash if we walked along a beach at sunset? Could I serve garlic bread with spaghetti if I cooked him dinner? And what about the sauce? I’d never really been a religious person so I didn’t have to worry about wearing a cross. It all sounded absurd and a little crazy to have to think about these things when considering someone I was attracted to. I thought about firing up my laptop and doing a search on vampires, but wondered if it would return anything other than the pop culture stuff that I already knew. I didn’t have time for it anyway. I had to get ready for my shift and I had to take what I could get since Marshall cut my hours.

With a quick sniff test I grabbed a pair of slacks and threw on a gray sweater along with some boots that I’d found in a thrift store. They had red laces and a few scuff marks. I threw on my brown suede flap coat, which I’d found in the same store. It had a cigarette burn in one arm, but I barely noticed it. Other than that there was nothing wrong with it, and I loved it.

I ran a brush through my hair, throwing it up in a messy bun, and brushed my teeth. Reaching for my locket, I clasped it around my neck. I grabbed my army satchel and ventured out into the cold. When I reached the Coffee Grind, I found it darkened and locked. I used my key and found a note on the counter.

Holly,

I went home sick. You know what to do.

-Marshall

At least I would get a reprieve from his gruff and overbearing presence. I flipped the sign on the door to ‘Open’, started brewing the coffee, and then restocked the Styrofoam cups. Connie had been the heart and soul of the Coffee Grind. Instead of closing it, Marshall more or less ran things, but his heart just wasn’t in it. As it became more and more dilapidated, fewer and fewer customers came in.

Pouring myself a cup of bitter varnish remover braced me from the dampness. I pulled a book out of my satchel and read a steamy romance to drive away the sinking feeling of boredom. I always wished that I could be as free as the women I read about. I envied their boldness and how they felt so secure in their own skin. I sipped coffee as I read about women that were far more confident than me. The bitter warmth comforted my ridiculous jealousy at fictional characters.

The hours dragged by and only a handful of customers came in. An elderly woman wearing a hat bought a muffin, then stayed and pulled out a historical romance—or at least that’s what it looked like from the corseted cover. She’d been good conversation. A few other people came in for coffee, including a few regulars who left decent tips. I took inventory and cleaned out the cooler in the back, but quickly ran out of things to do.

Reading my shameless smut, I felt restless. And I couldn’t stop thinking about Arie, even though it wasn’t in my nature to obsess over guys. Not that I didn’t have desires, but I wanted to fulfill them with someone that I was completely into. Someone like Arie. He seemed different than anyone I had met, almost gentlemanly at times. Now that I knew he was a vampire, it made sense that his mannerisms would be more formal. Although he only slipped into formality occasionally, as if it were a habit he tried to break but forgot sometimes. Still, his odd mannerisms felt refreshing after the Sight had given me so many insights that I often didn’t want to know about.

It occurred to me that I didn’t know how old he was. When I tried to ask, he’d been evasive. We talked about some of the perks of being a vampire but he didn’t want to talk about weaknesses when I’d asked. He admitted that he could influence people, but he’d called it dazzling. I had pretty much given up on meeting a nice, normal guy. It would be my luck that the first one I’d been curious about was off-limits. To me, ‘vampire’ was the very definition of off-limits. Still I wanted to see him again.

The icy rain outside had switched to snow during the long, dull hours of my shift. I closed up the Coffee Grind an hour early. It didn’t matter much since I’d only had a few customers all day. I felt disappointed when Arie didn’t come in like he usually did, and locked the door to the café, sighing in resignation. I left footprints along the snow-covered sidewalk as I walked to my light blue Beetle.

I grabbed the keys from my satchel and tried to start the engine. It sputtered as it tried to turn over.
Damn!
Staring out the windshield, I swore under my breath and gave up. Slamming the car door, I stepped out of the Beetle to trudge home through the snow. My mouth dropped open as Arie landed in the snow ten feet from where I stood. The short dark waves of his hair were disheveled, evidence of his cat-like leap. But I couldn’t tell where he’d leapt from. He threw me a lopsided grin. I closed my mouth and tried to compose a look of nonchalant disinterest. I looked down the street to see if anyone had witnessed Arie jump from god knows where, but all I could see was a man clearing snow from his windshield. He wasn’t even paying attention or looking in our direction.

“Damn you. You enjoy making me jump don’t you?”

His grin only spread wider. “Having car trouble?”

“You’ve been spying on me.”

“That’s stating the obvious,” he said sheepishly.

Arie crossed the snow to stand only two feet in front of me. Snow fell around us in fine flakes that stood out in his hair. I couldn’t help but admire him. But I still didn’t know what to think or how I felt about it.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

It must have shown in my expression. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just really cold out here.” I lied through my clattering teeth—well, half-lied, it really was freaking cold. But I was still trying to adapt to the knowledge of Arie being a vampire.

“I meant are you okay about last night. It’s a lot for you to process.”

“It’s a lot for anyone to process.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Look, I’m working on it but we have to work on some ground rules.”

“Like what?”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to resist the urge to smack him. It was irritating how he took pleasure out of making me jump. He looked gorgeous standing in the snow with that boyish grin. It turned his serious expression into a teasing one.
Stop standing there blushing like an idiot.
My stomach kept doing flip-flops as he grinned down at me.

“For starters you can stop sneaking up on me.”

“Anything else?”

“You can tell me why you’re watching me,” I demanded. I’d asked before and he said I reminded him of someone.

“It’s probably an electrical problem. A dragging starter motor, especially if this hasn’t been upgraded to a twelve-volt system.” He gestured to my car.

I knew little to nothing about cars except the bare minimum needed to maintain them in order to keep them running. As long as it got me from point A to point B and I didn’t have to think about it. I inwardly cringed at Arie’s assessment and could almost see the dollar signs involved.

“Well it’s Greek to me, but you ignored my question. Is it fixable? And how do you know all that anyway? Is mechanical know-how some sort of strange vampire power I don’t know about?” I asked sarcastically.

“Holly, when you’ve been around as long as I have, learning new things is about the only thing to keep you from getting bored. And in your case… No. It isn’t fixable.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, perplexed. “I expect the parts to be expensive but nothing that can’t be fixed.”

“I mean this car is older than you. It’s built to 1950s safety standards at best. You can’t drive it anymore.”

“You can’t tell me not to drive
my
car.”

“The injuries you could sustain in an accident might leave permanent damage. There’s no real frame to speak of,” he said, waving his hand toward my car. “And right now it doesn’t look like you’ll be driving it anywhere.”