Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
MARIS
Idon’t know what Julian did to Billy but I know it wasn’t good.
I clasp my hands on my lap and look out into the foyer where Julian vanished to get the food we ordered earlier.
My belly growls so I guess I’m hungry. Sometimes I forget, the days and hours blend together so easily that I don’t know when the last time I ate was.
Granny would be pissed about the way I’m not taking care of myself.
I know she would. She would love Julian immediately.
Not only is he a hot doctor she could marry me off to but he pays attention.
Billy never cared if I ate. He was more of a ‘I’m hungry so I guess you should eat too’ sort of guy.
I didn’t notice before because I took better care of myself before.
“You were alive then,” I remind myself. I lean back and look up at the ceiling.
The house is quiet and still like it always is around this time of night.
Whatever is up there on the second floor doesn’t always make itself known but it runs its course before it gets too late.
I wonder what’s up there. I stare at the ceiling and think it over.
I never thought too much about it because it’s always been this way.
Granny accepted it so I did too but Julian’s right.
Someone is up there.
It has to be someone. The noises are too heavy and sound like footsteps.
Someone moving around and dragging furniture?
I’m not sure. They’re moving something. I don’t go on the second floor much.
That’s where my parents stayed when they stayed here.
When they were alive, I correct myself. They aren’t away on a work trip.
They’re dead.
Granny’s room is on that floor too.
I think when I was a kid, I just thought it was them walking around at night.
It was easier to explain it that way but I’ve been on my own in this house for years now and I still hear the sounds.
Not as much as in the beginning when I was alone here.
It’s quieted over time and tonight’s the loudest and the most I’ve heard from whatever it is in months.
I stand up from the couch and stare harder at the ceiling. There’s nothing out of the ordinary, smooth plaster with crown molding. It’s a normal ceiling except for whatever is on the other side of it.
“What could it be?” I whisper.
I hear the soft sound of Julian’s footsteps in the hallway. He’s almost back. Maybe he’ll go upstairs with me to look.
“What are you looking at?” Julian asks when he enters the room. He looks up at the ceiling and around the room like he thinks something is about to drop down and attack us.
“I’m wondering what’s up there. I thought–well, it’s been that way since I was a kid. I just stopped paying attention to it until you brought it up. It’s always been there in the background.”
Julian frowns at my words. He’s carrying the tray that granny used for breakfast in bed when she wanted to lounge in the mornings and enjoy a slow start to her day. He must have found it in one of the cupboards. I forgot it was in the kitchen. I haven’t touched it since granny died.
“Whatever it is, I’ll find it.” Julian sets the tray down on the floor in front of the fireplace.
“And then what will you do?”
“I’ll kill it,” he says simply and motions for me to join him in front of the fire.
It takes me a second to wrap my brain around what he just said.
I’ve killed, yes, but I’ve never thought of it so casually.
Julian mentions death like it’s as normal as waking up which for him I guess it is, isn’t it?
I sink down on my knees beside him in front of the fire.
He’s brought the dumplings and noodles along with a carafe of water and a bottle of wine.
“I want wine,” I tell him as I reach for the tray of dumplings closest to me.
It’s warm to the touch. Steam and the scent of sesame wafts up at me when I open it.
Julian must have heated them back up before he brought them to me.
Julian pours me a glass of water. “Water first,” he says, putting the glass down in front of me. “Don’t think I don’t know you’re dehydrated. I’m a doctor.”
I giggle at the absurdity of his words. I have to put down the tray of dumplings when my giggle becomes a full on belly laugh and I double over laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
I swipe tears out of my eyes. I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time, of course it would take something as unbelievable as this to make me laugh.
“You’re a doctor? That’s how you know? Not you’re a vampire or you can hear my heart beating or something like that?”
He cracks a smile and looks away from me to the fire. “When you say it like that it does sound absurd.”
“All of this sounds absurd,” I tell him and pick my dumplings back up.
We don’t speak again as we eat. I watch him though.
In all the legends there’s no talk of a vampire needing to eat.
What happened to blood? He has fangs, I’ve seen them.
I felt them on my inner thigh earlier. He said he fed on me.
I thought he was going to bite me, drink me dry while I orgasmed which honestly didn’t seem like such a bad way to go in the moment. If he has fangs then why is he eating?
It’s when I’ve downed half a glass of water and polished off my dumplings that I speak.
“So you need food to live?” I ask, reaching for the bowl of noodles.
I’m so hungry. Ravenous. I don’t normally eat this much but when was the last time I really ate?
Dinner a few nights ago? I only ate half the burger Josie brought back from the diner today.
There was too much work to do. Every bite that I take feels like strength returning to my body.
Fuck. I’ve really been treating myself like shit, haven’t I?
Julian flicks a chopstick at the half empty glass of water beside me. “Finish your water and I’ll answer.”
I’m pouting, I know I am. I haven’t pouted since I was a teenager. What the fuck is wrong with me? I grab the glass of water and down it while I glare at Julian. A glare feels more natural. It should when I’ve been doing that for years.
“Good. That’ll handle the headaches you have.”
I hate that he’s right. I do have constant headaches.
“I drank. Now answer me.”
“Demanding, demanding,” he chides and picks up the bottle of wine. “I like it, wife.”
A shiver rolls down my spine. Wife. It feels so final. With Julian it would be final, he’s a vampire and they don’t die.
“How old are you?”
“I’m three hundred and twenty-five.”
Even if they do die, I’m not going to live even half as long as Julian has. I’m with him for the rest of my life.
But what if I don’t have to die?
The thought is one that’s been there at the back of mind, growing from the second he told me what he was.
Even when I didn’t believe him, fuck, I don’t know if I believe him now, even after what I saw him do to Billy, even after he took the knife for me and healed the way he did.
It’s only natural not to believe though—I’m only human.
There’s no magic in my world–only death, taxes and the knowledge that I’ll be gone and buried without a soul missing me.
Except now everything feels different. I don’t have to die.
Not with a vampire calling me wife and saying that I’m his mate.
I could live forever, couldn’t I? I could at least live for as long as Julian has if I become like him.
That brings up the other question that’s been growing right alongside the thought of immortality.
Julian puts a glass of wine down in front of me. “I don’t need food. It’s only for pleasure. When you’re a vampire there’s precious little that brings pleasure.”
Precious little. What would immortality really mean in the grand scheme of eternity?
I pick up the wine with a shaking hand and look down at it. The firelight plays through the glass and makes the crimson liquid glow. From this angle, you’d think it’s blood. I raise the glass to my lips and look up at Julian. He watches me with a careful gaze. He wants me.
If I asked for immortality, he’d give it to me. I know that.
If I was able to live forever, would I even want it?
I don’t know.