Chapter Thirty-Five #2
“Of course you can, mon chou.” I hate how even his voice is, his smile sharp and mischievous as he makes a mess of me again.
“But maybe this isn’t enough for you?” He slides a third finger over my slickness.
But instead of pushing it inside of me to join the others, he glides it back, teasing at the tight rim of my ass before pushing inside.
I cry out at the new sensation, my body shaking as he begins to pump his fingers again.
“Come for me,” he whispers.
And I do. Again as he fucks me against the shower wall, again as he carries me to bed, again and again until I’m delirious with pleasure.
I must have passed out at some point. When I stir again and reach for Claude, the bed beside me is empty.
I rub my eyes and lift myself up on my elbows with a pang of concern, but it doesn’t take much searching to find him.
He’s still in the room, situated beside the window with his easel and his paints.
He is concentrating so fully, he doesn’t even notice me stir, and his face is open and relaxed in a way I haven’t ever seen before as his brush glides across the canvas.
I lie quietly in bed, watching him for a while, the delicate way he holds the brush, the slow and decisive strokes of paint. I doze off with my heart full.
* * *
Not all nights are as perfect as that one.
As the weeks pass, there are times when Claude is up all day painting in a manic frenzy, and evenings when he can’t drag himself out of bed.
Sometimes I catch him pressing his palm to his chest without seeming to realize he’s doing it, as though his heart is in physical pain.
Maybe it is. I can’t pretend to understand the bond between a sire and a fledgling, but it’s obvious that it is painful to lose, no matter what a monster Ambrose once was.
“It didn’t have to be like this,” he mumbles one day, burrowing beneath the covers long past the time we usually get out of bed. “If I could have just painted something, then…”
“It’s not your fault,” I tell him. “I know you’re not a violent man, Claude. He drove you to this. He would have killed you if you hadn’t killed him. He would’ve killed me if you hadn’t stopped him.”
I run my fingers through his hair, trying to soothe him, but when he gets in these moods, he feels impossible to reach.
Henry and other vampires from the Vulpe Court come to visit the house a few times over the following weeks, and Claude spends long, tense hours with them and then emerges from the room looking exhausted and strained.
“Will you stay with the Vulpe Court?” I ask him one night after they’ve left, when I’m massaging the tension out of his long fingers in bed. “With Ambrose gone, I doubt you have to fear retaliation for leaving, right?”
“I could leave if I wanted to,” he says. “But…” He sighs, rolls over to lay his head on my lap. “Lady Elizabeth and some of the younger vampires have asked me to stay. To help change things from within, now that Ambrose is no longer here to force his ideals upon the rest of the court.”
“And is that what you want?”
He considers it for a few moments. “I’m afraid I’m not up to the task,” he says, “but I think I’d like to try.”
I lean down to kiss his brow. “Then try.”
I take care of him as well as I can: rubbing his back, urging him to feed from me, coaxing him down to the beach when he retreats into the bedroom for too long. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but I know that killing Ambrose left a wound in him that I fear may never heal.
Plus, the end of our contract is coming up, a subject I don’t know how to broach.
I love Claude. The thought of leaving him makes me physically ill. And yet… I still have my future to think about. As lovely as this year with him has been, I never intended to be a valentine forever.
Claude and I have overcome so much, but now I’m stuck in precisely the situation I was afraid about from the start: so deeply in love that I’m considering giving up on the future I’ve always wanted for myself.
Part of me thinks I could be happy here, passing slow nights in this house by the sea, watching Claude paint and spending an absurd amount of time in bed enjoying one another.
But another part knows that eventually I will grow restless and crave more than this. I want—I need—to do something with myself, to be more than a valentine prized for my looks and my blood. And I know I can achieve more than that, if only I can bring myself to reach for it.
* * *
I finally muster the courage to bring it up at breakfast one evening, when Claude is in a decent mood and has made me another decadent spread of fluffy ricotta pancakes with lemon curd.
I insisted on eating in the dining room today, because although he loves to serve me breakfast in bed, we always end up thoroughly distracted.
“We need to talk about the contract,” I say, looking across the table at him.
His face dims. “Yes. I suppose we do.”
Now that I’ve broached the subject, I find myself tongue-tied. There’s so much I want to say, so much I’m afraid to say. I’m scared of losing him; I need to start school; I don’t know what any of this will mean for us.
“We’re going to have to move,” Claude says, before I can figure out what I want to say.
I blink. “What?”
“Yes… that is to say…” He fidgets, looking rather sheepish. “The house, I believe I once mentioned, actually belongs to Ambrose. And in a turn of events I rather should have anticipated, he did not leave it to me.”
“Oh.” I sit for a moment, processing that. “Well, you hate this house anyway.”
He smiles. “I really do.”
I take a breath. “I… would’ve needed to move, anyway. Because I want to go to college. At UCLA.”
“Right. Studying engineering.”
“Well…” I smile. “I was thinking of majoring in education, actually.”
He beams at me. “Good. Wonderful.” But then his expression creases in thought. “Los Angeles, then? I’ll have to look at what’s on the market there, but I’m sure we can find something.”
I stare at him for a moment, and then break into a small, incredulous smile. “That easy?”
He looks at me like I’ve gone mad. “Well, yes? Of course I’ll be coming with you.”
“I… don’t think I can fulfill the duties of a valentine while I’m in school,” I say, brow furrowed. “All the events, the parties…”
He shrugs, unbothered. “I’ll take as much as you can give, and be happy with it.”
“I’ll be gone a lot, with school and studying,” I say, though I can’t stop smiling. “And my classes will be during the day. Our schedules will be opposite.”
“Ah, however will I fill the hours?” he teases. “It’s a good thing I’ve picked up painting recently, no?” His smile broadens. “And I will cook for you every night.”
There’s a nervous drum in my chest, a buzz of fragile hope beneath my skin.
He makes it sound so simple, but can it really be?
Is it possible I can have both things I want at once?
It’s hard to imagine Claude in some apartment in grimy LA, waiting for me to come home from class.
Far from the fairy-tale life we’ve lived together here and all the glitter and decadence of the vampire balls.
He thinks he can handle it, but what if he starts to hate it?
“I know it’s not a normal arrangement for a valentine… ”
Claude only laughs. “Mon chou, when have we ever been normal?”