Nightwolf

I guess that is the other thing. Lenore keeps telling me that Wolf is in love with me, and yes Wolf admitted it too, but he’s not professed his love for me in the way that I need to hear. What if I’m doing all this and it turns out he actually doesn’t love me the way I thought—or the way I need him to?

Lenore continues. “Yeah, okay, it’s a bit much if you want to look at it from human standards, and maybe flowers are a nice place to start. But he’s a vampire. You’re dealing with a whole other species here. I think he’d appreciate the commitment.”

I snort. “Would he? So, if I said to Wolf, hey I think I’m going to get Lenore to turn me into a vampire, he’d be okay with it?”

Her eyes flash wide. “Oh no. No, no he wouldn’t let you do it. He wouldn’t let me do it either. Neither would Solon, even though he knows firsthand what I can do. No, I know both of them, they wouldn’t let this happen.”

“Which is why we wouldn’t tell them.”

She shakes her head and sighs, runs her hand over her face. “I don’t know, Amethyst. I just…I would do it for you, if you really wanted me to. But I couldn’t live with myself if something went wrong, I mean…” she swallows hard and winces as she looks at me. “You do realize the process, don’t you?”

“Sure. You bite me, I bite you…hey I’ve been with my share of girls back in the day, I won’t think it’s weird.”

“No, I mean…I’m going to have to kill you.”

Ah. Right.

“But I won’t…really die, will I?” I ask, my body tensing up, like it can already sense the bloodlust in Lenore, even if she doesn’t know it yet. “Isn’t it more like you drain me of blood, bring me to the brink of death, so I’m all weak and shit, and then you get me to drink your blood and then…voila. Amethyst the Vampiress.”

Her lips come together in a hard line. “No. You have to die. I will literally have to kill you. Your heart will stop. You will be dead. And…and I don’t know where you’re going to go, what if you don’t come back?”

“Why wouldn’t I come back?”

But she doesn’t have to answer that, because I know. What if I die…and I see my mother there. Could I leave her? Would I want to?

I swallow hard, my nose feeling hot with tears. “I guess, if I don’t come back, then there’s a good reason for it.”

“Or I fuck things up,” she says. “Or it’s the million other reasons why it worked on Solon and it won’t work on you.” She exhales loudly, looking up at the ceiling for a moment. “Look. I’m sorry I brought it up. I should have thought it through. I mean, even if you still want to, there’s no reason to do it now. We could do it later, maybe. There’s plenty of time.”

“There is no later,” I tell her adamantly. “That’s all I know. There isn’t. There’s no time that’s guaranteed to us, at least for us humans. There’s only the now, the present, it’s literally all we can count on.”

She stares at me for a moment and then nods. “Okay. But I still want you to think about this. And I’m going to think about this too.” Then she growls to herself, frowning. “Fuck. I can’t even go home now, because if I do Solon’s going to see the hamster wheels in my head turning and he can’t help himself, he’s going to go poking around in my head and he’s going to figure it all out and stop us.”

“So, let’s do it soon,” I tell her, like I’m suggesting we make a date to get our nails done.

She thinks that over, tapping her finger against her lips. “How about I stay over here? I’ll sleep in the guest bedroom upstairs. I’ll tell Solon you need me, he won’t question it. Then tomorrow, when they’re having their party at Dark Eyes, we do it then.”

I’m momentarily distracted by an ache in my heart. “They’re having a party?”

It hits me that I haven’t done my job in a long time. It also hits me that it feels rather soon to throw a party.

“It’s a gathering,” Lenore says quickly, reading my forlorn expression. “It wasn’t on the schedule, Ezra thought maybe it would bring some light into the house, distract them from their grief. I told them it was a good idea. Besides, vampires have to eat. We can’t close down Dark Eyes forever, or else the vamps in the city are going to start getting hungry.”

I guess that’s true. I’ve been feeling that a lot anyway, how odd it is that life goes on when it feels like it should stop for everyone, not just me.