Still, I shove my hands in my coat pockets and turn away from them, heading up the path to the street, to the house. I don’t need to be tempted, and in my experience, coming across drunk teenagers never ends well. Their growing brains are so much more open to the unknown, and often they’re actively seeking it out. When a vampire appears before them, they recognize the “otherness.” They feel fear. And when teenagers feel fear, especially drunk teenagers, they can lash out. And when they lash out, well…
Sometimes they die.
It’s best I head back into the house anyway. Though the night is where I feel most at home, the good citizens of San Francisco aren’t as desensitized to what Amethyst describes as “vibey” people as you’d think, and they’re quick to call the cops. I’m tall, good-looking, dress well, am generally amiable and polite, but though the teenagers may feel fear if they see me, adults tend to find me vaguely threatening. I’m not sure why, since they don’t always feel that way about all vampires, but it is what it is. Amethyst says that beneath my smile there’s a snake ready to strike. She was joking at the time, but perhaps there’s some truth to it.
Either way, eleven at night is too late to be standing in a foggy park by yourself without arousing suspicion, so I cross the street and go in through the back entrance of the house, the door beeping as I wave my key card at it.
“Feel better?” Solon asks from a lounge chair by the bar, Ezra sitting beside him.
The door locks behind me and the chill of the night turns to warmth as I walk across Dark Eyes.
“A bit,” I say, heading right behind the bar to fix myself a drink. Solon has opened up a rare bottle of wine in my absence, drinking it with Ezra, but I need something a little stronger. I go for a classic malt, on the rocks.
“What’s wrong with him?” Ezra asks Solon.
“Nothing,” I answer quickly, giving him a tight smile. I don’t need to get into this now, not in front of Ezra. He generally delights in other people’s misery.
Knowing this, Solon remains silent. He’s never one to spill someone’s secrets. Not that any of this is a secret.
“Ahhh,” Ezra says smugly, leaning back in his chair, the glass of wine casually dangling from his fingers. I didn’t know Ezra back when he first turned in Italy, centuries ago, but I could easily see him being the wanton King of Sicily (or at the very least, the spoiled asshole son of a king who took over after his father conveniently died, and whom his new subjects had to reluctantly put up with). “Human troubles. Women, to be specific.”
I sit down in the velvet chair, resting the glass on the antique table between us. “Just felt a bit off today, that’s all,” I explain, flashing him an easy smile. “Being in the dark always helps.”
I don’t even have to explain this to him. Living with Solon and Ezra for as long as I have means that we all know each other’s habits like the backs of our hands. If I’m dealing with something, I’ll disappear into the night. If Solon is, he’ll usually be in his room of skulls, staring at their empty eye sockets until he finds some kind of absolution. If it’s Ezra, well, he just gets drunk and hits things, which is a step up from when he used to get drunk and murder people. As I said before, we vampires evolve.
“A bit off because you acted like a jealous boyfriend last night,” Ezra scoffs and my hackles immediately rise, along with a touch of shame. Because I wasn’t at my finest. I don’t think I’ve ever yelled at a volunteer, at least not when it came to another human. Sure, I’m the guard dog, I oversee the Dark Room, I make sure both humans and vampires are playing by the rules when it comes to feeding time, and that no one gets hurt—unless they request it. I have no problem enforcing things, no problem with giving punishment. But it wasn’t like me to snap like that.
I honestly don’t know what came over me. Vampires are a possessive bunch and I have always felt possessive over Amethyst. Not in that I own her, but I want to own her. I want her to belong to me, and I’d honestly take whatever I can get.
But I’ve never acted upon it, nor acted it out. It was a side of me I’m not sure I liked and made me feel like I was on shakier ground with her, something I’ve been feeling more of lately. I’ve been friends with her for nearly a decade and yet, in the last year, hell, the last few months, whatever our foundation was, the basis of who we are to each other, has been crumbling. Not necessarily in a bad way, but it’s changing, the future of our relationship has been flipped like a coin, and I’m not sure which way we’re going to end up.