How did I get stuck with a cheeky little minx like you
14
The blinds in the condo were drawn, leaving the room as dark as I would imagine the interior of a casket was while six feet underground. That didn’t stop me from throwing my shoes off and hopping through the dark, cheer radiating from my every exaggerated movement.
“How was it?” Riftan’s deep voice carried from the couch, though it was rough and groggy, like I’d woken him.
Not having seen him and too distracted in my joyous celebration to locate his heartbeat, I jumped. “You scared me. I thought you went to bed.”
“I didn’t want to until you got back, but I fell asleep.”
“You didn’t have to wait up.”
“It’s okay, I wanted to hear how it went.” He patted a spot on the couch and beckoned me over.
Already chipper and thrilled to get cozy with Riftan, I leapt up and settled in next to him. Laying my legs over his lap, I pressed into his warmth, letting it melt away the outside world until we were all that existed. In the short time I’d been out with Jameson, reality felt heavier; I’d missed the dreamy weightlessness Riftan added to my existence.
Gentle fingers caressed the bare skin on my legs as he traced the line of my veins that traveled under my knee and up my thigh. I knew he’d indulge me with his touch if I presented him with my bare skin, and it was undeniably the response I’d desired.
“Well, how’d it go?” he asked, his breath close enough to brush against the tip of my shallow nose.
“It went great! I can do the thing now, and I got to practice it quite a bit. Jameson said I’d picked up on it well. And before you complain—he told me to promise you I wouldn’t learn or ask to learn any more magic. And I promise, okay?”
“I wasn’t going to complain. I’m glad you had fun.” One fang slipped past his lips in the slightest little grin he gave me.
“I did have fun! I really like Jameson, and the shadow fade is pretty cool, too. Bare minimum, it’s a great parlor trick. I could certainly entertain parties or impress my grandchildren with it someday.” I spoke figuratively as though I’d plan on having children—though I didn’t and never had.
Riftan’s smile fell, and his hand halted its traverse over my leg, pausing on the outside of my thigh.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, unphased and unaware of what I could have said to bother him.
“You’re not going to have grandchildren, Leanne.”
“What do you mean? Like, I can’t?”
“No, immortals can’t have children. I should have told you that before. I simply didn’t think about it.”
I knew that. Even if it hadn’t been brought up in conversation, I knew that if I no longer menstruated that I would no longer be capable of having children. Though I didn’t care much, I still mused, “Hmph, I suppose that could definitely be a hang-up for some people.”
“I’m really sorry,” he continued, his tone softening and brows furrowing. “I should have told you before letting you decide to be turned. I wish I would have had the forethought to remember—”
“Riftan, really, it’s fine,” I assured him, nodding distinctly to convey how certain of that I was. “I’m not one of those people. I honestly never wanted to have children, anyway. It wouldn’t have changed my decision; I was dying, after all. It’s totally not a big deal.”
“Right.” His gaze lingered on my legs in his lap. “I’m still sorry, though. I should have at least told you.” His voice was low and drawn out, almost… remorseful?
“Does it… bother you?” I questioned his sudden change in emotion with a raised brow. “That you can’t have children, I mean.”
He looked up without a trace of the remorse I’d suspected I’d heard. “No, not at all. I’ve been this way for so long and I’ve never been in the kind of relationship that would warrant that kind of desire. So, I never have cared. But you’re still young and I can’t assume it’ll be the same way for you.”
“I can assure you, you don’t need to worry about that. But…” I drew out the word, veering the conversation back down a path I wasn’t going to let pass me by. “What do you mean you’ve never been in that kind of relationship? You mean like the kind that’d make you wish you could have kids?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“Even in eight hundred years? You never met someone who made you wish—even for a moment—that you could have a family with them?”
“No. I’ve never been in a relationship that serious.” He was forthcoming but avoided looking me directly in the eyes.
“Not in eight hundred years?” My high pitch did very little to veil my disbelief. I’d always been open with him about my relationships, and Riftan knew every little detail about Johnny and me. But Riftan had never talked about past relationships of the romantic variety with me.
“Nothing serious. Maybe one, if you could count it. That’s never been something my lifestyle catered to.” He looked me over before letting his dark eyes plead with me. “I can see that you want to start, but can you please not make such a fuss about it?”
With a deep breath, I calmed my enthusiasm. “Well, you never talk about past relationships, and you know everything about mine. So, will you tell me about them? The serious and the not-so-serious alike? I want to understand what you mean when you say that you’ve never—in eight hundred years—been in a serious relationship.”
“Fine, but it’s not exciting. The first woman I ever turned was a mistake, and we’d been in a relationship of sorts before that. I was still really young; I’d only been a vampire for a few years—less than a decade—and I still thought like a human. As you know, when I turned her, I panicked and left her to fend for herself, which in turn was what caused her end. For the most part, after that, I wasn’t interested in anything but mortal wars for the first couple hundred years of my life. I never had time or interest in relationships. Women—obviously—but kinship, not so much. After I was sick of the battlefield, and after I’d killed Meridith, I was extremely desensitized and what I could best describe as murderous and more than a little messed up.” He paused and touched a finger to his brow. “During that time, I met an immortal named Rosaline. She made me feel justified and sane, even when I absolutely wasn’t. She took care of me during a very fragile part of my life, and in return, I sincerely thought I was in love with her. In a way, loving her was quite helpful to my healing, so I suppose I can’t regret everything about being with her. But as my emotions started to re-evolve and I started coming back to my senses, I realized Rosaline was a leech feeding from my misery. She didn’t want me to get better, but instead found ways to drag me down into what I’d suffered from before. She genuinely got off on my agony and it destroyed her to think that I may recover—that she’d lose her little miserable toy. It took me twenty-four years, but eventually, I had the presence of mind to get the hell away from her.”
“Woah, woah, woah. You were with her for twenty-four years? And this is the first time I’m hearing of it?” I didn’t think I needed to point out to him that the time he’d spent with that woman was the entirety of my living lifetime—and thus seemed excessive to me.
“Yes.” His chest rose and fell in monotonous succession, his delivery lacking in emotional emphasis. “It was a vast amount of time for me to spend with another person, but I don’t find that I need to reminisce about it much anymore. It was conclusively inconsequential to any bit of my life outside of those twenty-four years.”
“So, it was a long time for you as well, then? I’m not the only one who considers that to be inordinate? I mean, did you never consider in that amount of time getting married or anything?” I asked, knowing it was not a groundless question. That night, I’d met two married immortal couples and heard of others—it certainly wasn’t culturally unheard of.
Riftan maintained his impartial fa?ade, never breaking the posture he held around my legs. “Inordinate, maybe, but neither of us had any concern for marriage of any sort. It may seem less profound to you, being that you were born in a time in which marriage is something that is acceptably and commonly reversed in a divorce. But I was born, and turned, and lived a majority of my long life, in a time that took marriage vows a little more seriously. And unfortunately, ‘until death do you part’ holds a bit more value when you do not die. So, I suppose that as enchanted as I was with Rosaline for a greater part of that time, there was still a part of me that knew I wouldn’t survive an eternity with her. Which is not to say she would have agreed if I’d asked her to marry me; Rosaline always needed to have the upper hand, and I think that marriage would have made her feel belittled to stand on the same ground as me. She also always favored keeping her options open.” Finally, a glimmer of anguish crossed his lips in a remorseful grimace that instantly abated when he added, “I suppose she wasn’t as inconsequential as I like to think. Ultimately, she made it a little harder for me to trust other immortals—or more like, she made me more cognizant of the way they can be. Many of them are as cunning and deceptive as her. Eternity will simply do that to some people, I guess.” He shrugged as though that was it—the story was over.
“Is she the reason you don’t open up to others?” I’d have trust issues too if someone did that to me for twenty-plus years.
“No. That was over two hundred years ago. The strife I may have had from her is long gone by now.”
“Then why do you insist on always being alone? Jameson told me you’ve always preferred isolation. How come?”
Riftan wrapped his arms around my legs and pulled my knees into his chest. With a simple shrug of his shoulders, he responded, “I suppose that’s more the result of getting old. I got tired of dealing with everyone else. People—immortals alike—are draining. I no longer feel obliged to be around them simply because I feel as though I have to put on a friendly front. I care about very few people, and they’re the only ones I see myself needing to be concerned with. Everyone else is just a hassle.”
I teased, “Wow. You do sound like an old man.”
“I know. I’m not going to deny that, either.” He winked at me, eyes glimmering in the darkness of our living room. “It’s okay. You’ve always had a thing for older guys.” That was most certainly a jab at Johnny, since Johnny was the only older man I’d ever been with. But Johnny was much too easy of a target.
“If you’re referring to Johnny, he wasn’t that old,” I argued. “He seemed older than he was because he had premature grey from being a dick all the time.”
Riftan scoffed. “Obviously your judgment of age is off since you’ve been hanging around me, but Johnny was old enough to be your grandfather, love.”
Usually, I’d suggest he not call me that, but this time I’d let it slide since we were having an intimate conversation. “Riftan, I think you’re probably old enough to be my great, great, great, great, grandfather… to like the tenth power. So, what does it matter?” I pushed into him, butting my nose against his with a playful giggle.
“It matters that I—much like he was—am too old for you, dear.” He grabbed ahold of my chin and pushed me away.
Disdain weighed heavy on my features, eyes narrowing and lips dropping into a sour scowl. “You’re seriously still sticking with that?” Even after he’d been all over me hours earlier in front of Jameson’s friends? He’s so confusing. Does he even know what he wants?
In a rational tone, he responded, “Of course I’m sticking with that. Because it’s true.”
“So, you’re going to tell me honestly that you’ve never once thought about what it would be like for the two of us to be intimate?”
He eyed me before answering. “Obviously I’ve thought about it. How could I not when we are so close? But that doesn’t mean I’ve ever actually thought to act on it.”
“If that’s the case, then why are you constantly touching me the way you do?” I gave an unambiguous look toward where he held my legs firmly against his chest. “If I were to ever do the same, you’d consider it perverse, you know?”
“Yes, I would. It’s okay when I do it. Because I, in fact, can control myself. While you, my dear, cannot.” As he contested with me, his voice was still so sympathetic. “If I let you do whatever you please, you’ll push things too far and get hurt in the process. I don’t need to be the first immortal to break your heart. Regardless, I would never want to risk the possibility of tainting your exquisite, pure virtue.”
I scoffed at his statement, reeling only a moment before retorting, “Did you say that you are concerned you’d taint me? You know I was sleeping with Johnny for his money, right? That’s not exactly virtuous.”
“Yes,” Riftan agreed. “But that’s the first time I’ve ever gotten you to admit it outright.”
My cheeks burned, flustered by how precisely that made me sound like a hooker—though I’d never been! And I’d take that fact to my grave—or in this case, my eternity. Smug bastard. Continuing my argument, I acted as though I’d ignored his comment. “I don’t know why you’d think I was any sort of pure, regardless, we share the same blood. How could you expect to taint me any further?”
The glint of his teeth signaled a mischievous smirk. “Oh, love, there are plenty of ways I could think of.”
That made me weak. Butterflies rumbled in my core, and I knew Riftan could hear my heartbeat grow louder. What I wouldn’t give to have him follow through with that threat. “All I’m hearing is empty promises, Riftan.”
He pushed his forehead against mine with sudden force, speaking low and hot over my lips. “How exactly did I get stuck with such a cheeky little minx like you?”
“Well, I don’t know what a minx is, but I think you mean: how did you get blessed with one?”
“Hah.” His breath lingered in the tiny void between us. Both perfect sapphires of his eyes flickered between mine, filling the space with palpable adoration.
I’d be content if eternity consisted of an endless moment of this. Sharing his breath, watching the glimmering blue that shielded the windows to his soul as it remained uninterpretable, even for me. Still, I could have stared for hours. The only thing that could pull me away—the only thing more powerful than his gaze—was the potent tingle of his fingers over my skin. As the tingle forced its way up my arm and his fingers settled under my jaw, I couldn’t help but give into the feeling, my eyes rolling back from something so meager as his touch. An eternity would not be long enough to revel in the ecstasy I felt when he put his hands on me. Heaven, transcension, divinity; none of it was equal to the feeling of his skin on mine.
I wasn’t so na?ve to believe anything would come of this or that Riftan would follow through on whatever was going on between us. So, it was in no way a surprise when he pulled away from me, leaving the place where his skin had been on mine a cold and lonely shadow of what could have been.
Before I’d opened my eyes, a flick stung my nose and Riftan simply added, “Don’t tease me like that. It drives me nuts.”
Me, tease him? Why that little—
He pushed my legs off his lap in a rough motion that was contradicted by how carefully he set them down on the couch. “You should go to bed,” he said. “You could use some rest after learning to use magic.”
I made to argue, pausing with my mouth agape. My contention was that I didn’t want to go to bed. I wanted to stay with him. I wanted to tell him how I felt. I wanted to live some na?ve happily ever after where we could be together… but he wouldn’t want to hear that. When my dispute got lodged in my throat, unable to make itself heard, Riftan rose, leaving the spot beside me empty.
He started to retreat, and my chest ached more with each distancing step. The place he’d occupied next to me was suddenly too cold to bear. Just for the night, I didn’t want him to leave me. I wanted the warmth of his presence to swaddle me until the sun came up—until I was no longer tired and lonely. It didn’t have to be intimate. We would never have to be intimate or romantic if that’s what it took to stay with him. Friends. Lovers. It didn’t matter. All I wanted was to never leave his side.
“Riftan,” I called, my voice shallow, “wait.”
He stopped only feet away. “What is it?”
“Are you going to make me leave soon?” The thought surfaced again for the first time since Jameson had put it at the forefront of my mind.
“No. Whatever would make you think that?”
“You don’t ever keep anyone around this long. Even Jameson, you trained him for less than a year before setting him out on his own.”
“Well, he was done with his training then. You are not and won’t be anytime foreseeably soon.”
“Am I… a slow learner? Is it because I don’t catch onto things—”
“No,” he interrupted. “You pick up on everything very well, I assure you. I’ve simply been soft on you because I like keeping you around. That’s all.”
Even if it meant staying platonic, my aching heart was soothed by his words.
“Will you keep it that way?” I asked, trying my damndest not to make it sound like I was begging.
“Yes. Don’t worry about that. I have no intention of letting you go anytime soon.”
With that, he left for his bedroom, and I was alone in the darkness of our living room.
If I could stay with him in our little world pretending like our time together would last an eternity, then I would do so for as long as I could.
I’d stay na?ve for as long as Riftan would let me.