“I would say so,” I muse. But the mention of bat reminds me of something else. “Hey, not long ago you mentioned something about Dracula being Dramacula, which is a great pun by the way. But…Dracula isn’t real, is he?”
Solon’s smile turns secretive, his eyes gleaming. “I’m not sure I should tell you the truth. You’d probably go and fall in love with him.”
My eyes go wide. “You mean he’s real and he’s alive?”
Another sly smile. “Let’s just say that Bram Stoker got a lot of things wrong about Vlad. And, by chance, he got a lot of things right.”
I ponder that, thinking back to all the Dracula movies I’ve seen, wondering what parts were real and what weren’t.
Then I flip over on my side and look at Solon. “Okay. So on the subject of Dracula, who is your favorite vampire?”
His dark brows shoot up. “My favorite vampire?”
“Besides yourself,” I quickly add.
“Oh. Well, then I’d have to say The Count.”
“…Count Dracula?”
He grins at me. “No. Count Von Count,” he says. “From Sesame Street.” He twitches a finger at me. “One, ah-ha-ha,” he says in his best impression as he brings his hand to my neck, tickling me. “Two, ah-ha-ha.”
I yelp, trying to move, but the damn bean bag chair is sucking me in and then he’s kissing me.
We spend quite a bit of time up there in the tower room. Putting on music, getting naked, you know, the things you would do after a long drive back from the north coast.
Eventually, we come back down the ladder, to his bedroom, to my new room.
And that’s when it all hits me.
The changes my life has suddenly made in the last couple of months.
Being in Shelter Cove was sheltering. It made me forget what was really happening in my life, what had happened to me, my family, what had happened to Elle, to Matt, letting me push them to side in the incoming fog.
Now that I’m back in the city, it’s hitting me hard.
“What’s wrong?” Solon asks me, putting his hand on my arm, eyes peering at me inquisitively.
I swallow hard, trying to wrestle with the feelings.
“I still don’t know my place in this world,” I whisper to him.
“What do you mean?” he asks, coming closer.
I glance up at him. “I feel…like I don’t know what to expect from myself anymore. I saw what I did to Yanik back in that barn, I felt the fire, felt the power, but I don’t know what it means. I’m half a vampire. Half a witch. But I’m not a whole of anything.”
“But you are, Lenore,” he whispers fiercely. He grabs my hands, pressing my knuckles to his lips. “You are my whole heart.”
If he wasn’t holding onto me, I think I’d fall to my knees.
Dear lord.
I shake my head at him, willing myself to not cry for once. I can’t cry every time he says something so incredibly heartfelt and romantic, or I’d be a puddle of tears for eternity.
“Come on, let’s have dinner,” he says, holding onto my hand and leading me out of the bedroom.
I follow him, going down the stairs, passing by dead roses and making them bloom before my eyes.
We’re right on time, because the table in the dining room is all set and as we step inside, I realize this is the first time I’ve been around all five people in this house (and now a dog) at the same time, in the same room.
And at the table there are only two empty seats.
At both ends of the table.
Solon goes to one, and I go to the other, taking our place as the heads.
I look down at Solon and give him a shy smile. It feels so lofty to be sitting here across from him, but at the same it feels…right.
Meant to be.
“Well this looks wonderful, Yvonne,” Solon says to her.
I look over the food. There are nearly raw steaks, seared just so for us vampires, and then medium steaks for the normal folk. There’s salads of sliced fennel and oranges, there’s potato, cucumber, even a seafood salad. There’re also huge carafes of red wine, and it seems everyone has already poured themselves a large glass. Perhaps they’ve had several already, given the happy and glazed expressions on everyone’s faces. Even the snarly Ezra looks relaxed.
Solon and I quickly catch up, filling our glasses, and then Solon gets to his feet, raising his wine glass.
“Here’s to us, here’s to this house,” he says, looking everyone in the eye. “I never really get a chance to be with you all like this, and I have to say, it makes me realize that despite how different a lot of us are, I do consider you all my family. Vampires know all too well that family can be only blood and yet sometimes more than blood, and with you all, I feel…that we’re all in this together, as terribly maudlin as that might seem.”