CHAPTER 28 #2
Since climbing down the ladder with Arwen slung over her hadn’t been an option, yet again, Iro regretted not using her vampire abilities more, causing her to be too out of practice to ensure that they would be okay.
She landed with a loud thump, and the wind was knocked out of her as she hit the ground hard.
Arwen landed on top of her. They couldn’t lie there for long without being noticed, but Iro couldn’t move just yet.
She felt it now and shifted Arwen off to the side to see that one of the silver knives, which she had brought and stowed in her weapon’s vest, had touched her skin and had cut her just enough to draw blood.
She couldn’t do anything about it, and she really had to go now, because if Cassia was anywhere in that house, she’d smell her soon.
Jumping with a vest full of weapons that could kill her hadn’t been her best move, but speed had been more important.
Iro managed to get herself up, but now she had to find an easier way of escape than climbing over tall fences.
There should be a back alley that she could use, but she needed a gate.
She looked, swiveling her head until she found a gate that led somewhere.
Anywhere away from Cassia would work at this point, so she picked Arwen up, feeling the pain just above her hip from where the knife had cut.
It wouldn’t kill her, but she needed to eat and get out of the sun.
It would be setting soon, which would help, but her energy was draining fast, so she was putting them both at risk.
Arwen was also in transition, and the sun would drain her even faster.
Iro moved to the wall she’d already climbed over once and got Arwen to the top of it probably on adrenaline alone.
She repeated the movement she’d made with the ladder, and once on the other side of it, she carried Arwen through the yard and to the gate that would lead to the front and not a back alley.
That was good. She’d parked her car a block away, and it was closer from this house.
She hadn’t thought about what it would look like to be carrying a dead woman over her shoulder to get back to her car, though, so she thought about waiting there, hidden until Arwen woke up, but their smell would get them discovered where they stood.
She really had no choice. She used everything she had in her to scoop and carry Arwen, figuring she could tell people that her girlfriend had had one too many at a bachelorette party and she was just taking her home.
At least, that looked better than carrying her like deadweight over her shoulder.
The sidewalk was empty, but she carried Arwen down a side street instead of the main one.
It took her longer, but it meant that fewer people would see them.
When a couple walked on the opposite sidewalk and seemed to pay attention to her, Iro looked down at Arwen, whose face was away from the couple, and laughed as if Arwen had just said something funny.
“Next time, you won’t insist on wearing cheap heels that only hurt your ankle,” she said and laughed again before she looked up at the couple and shook her head as if they were all in on the secret that the woman in her arms had hurt herself, which was why she was carrying her.
When the couple finally turned away, Iro found her car parked on the street and managed to get Arwen into the back seat.
She looked around and saw that no one seemed to be following her, and the couple had turned a corner and was no longer in view, so she got into the driver’s seat and turned on the car.
“Iro?”
Iro’s heart jumped. She looked up in the rearview mirror and saw Arwen with her eyes open, shifting in her seat. She was looking around the car, clearly confused.
“Hi,” she replied, breathing both a sigh of relief and one of anger because Cassia had done this to her. “Everything’s okay.”
But Arwen’s eyes closed, and she was probably asleep again.
Iro recalled her own experience of being reborn a vampire and how disorienting it was.
The last memory she’d had was of Cassia killing her, but when she’d woken at first, that had been a difficult thing to remember.
Her brain had struggled, and she’d passed back out a few times before she had woken for real and could remember it all.
Then, she’d been terrified. Her goal now was to get Arwen back to her house before that fear hit her, because if she screamed right now, while Cassia might not be able to hear it from this far away, if she had anyone patrolling the area, they would.
“It’s okay, my love,” she said more to herself than to Arwen. “We’ll be okay.”
She pulled out into traffic and turned away from Cassia’s house as soon as she could, headed toward her own.
◆◆◆
As she carried Arwen up the concrete stairs, she noticed that the thin, stained-glass window next to her front door was broken.
Iro knew what that meant, but she had been smart: wherever she moved, she always made sure to include silver in unexpected places, and that stained glass came with slivers of silver embedded in it, as did many of the ornamental windows in this house.
She had gotten used to taking precautions like that because of Cassia, who had made more than enough enemies over the centuries, and while none of them had ever made a move when Iro had been with her, she didn’t want to chance someone coming after her just to spite Cassia.
Her alarm app hadn’t notified her about any intruders, though, which meant that someone had been smart enough to disable the connections from the outside.
Iro hadn’t had the chance to have the cameras she wanted installed, having gotten so caught up with Arwen right after moving here, but there was no need to waste precious time kicking herself for that now.
Wherever they landed soon, she would just have to put up the cameras first and hire security to patrol around the clock until she could figure out what to do about Cassia.
First, she had to do something about Arwen while she went inside to check if whoever had broken in was still there, or they’d come and gone with Zara.
Her car had tinted windows, so she put Arwen back in the back seat and locked the car, hoping Arwen would stay asleep and protected from the sun until she returned.
Then, she withdrew a silver knife from the inside of her vest and slowly opened the front door of the house.
“I can hear you,” a voice said, and it was a familiar one. “Where are you, Iro?”
“I’m not hiding. I’m right here,” Iro replied and moved into her living room. “Where are you?”
“Oh, I’m here. And I know Cassia said you weren’t to be harmed, but I’ve been sitting here on your bed, smelling the sex you obviously had with someone who isn’t your wife, and I can smell something else, too.”
“What’s that?” Iro asked, heading toward her bedroom slowly.
“Love. It’s all in the pheromones, isn’t it?
And it’s all over this house. Maybe not upstairs.
I didn’t smell it there as I went through every room searching for you and Zara, who I couldn’t find, by the way.
I can smell her, though, so I know she was here.
She must have run, like the coward she is.
How could Cassia put her above me? I don’t run. ”
“Gigi, you don’t have to do what Cassia wants.”
“Yes, I do. I love her.”
Iro closed her eyes at that, opened them, and said, “That might be true, but that doesn’t mean that she owns you and that you have to follow her every command.”
“Following her every command would mean leaving you unharmed, but I’m not sure that serves my interest. I’m no puppet, Iro.
I love her. I follow her, yes, but I also want her, and if you’re alive, I’ll always have to share her with you.
I’m done sharing her with Zara, the coward who ran, and I am definitely done sharing her with you, the woman she can’t seem to be without, for some reason I’ll never understand. ”
“You’ll still have to share her with all the women she wants.”
“She only wants you,” Gigi argued as Iro slowed beyond the open door to her bedroom.
“She wants sex and loyalty from the rest of us, but she only wants you for everything else. She needs you like it’s some sickness.
I don’t understand it myself. You don’t seem all that special to me.
But if you’re gone, she’ll be mad, yes, but we live forever.
She’ll get over you eventually, and I will rule at her side. ”
“Rule? Rule her mansions and villas? What are you talking about?”
“You know I can hear that you’re right outside the door, right?”
“Yes,” Iro said.
“Then, stop being a coward like Zara and show yourself so that we can finish this, and I can take my punishment from Cassia before she forgives me and we move on from you together.”
Iro kept the knife in her hand but thought something else might help here instead. She’d only have one shot at it, and she slowly pulled it out of her vest.
“Oh, come on, Iro… Let’s just fight this out like good little vampires.”
“Do you know why she picked you?” Iro asked as she readied herself.
“What?”
“Years ago, when she turned you and Miranda, do you even know why?”
“She found us and wanted to fuck us.”
“That’s not why, Gigi. For Miranda, yes.
Cassia writes me letters when we’re apart.
I don’t write back. I don’t always read them, either.
Most of the time, I don’t, but one night, I was contemplating things, so I read a letter she had sent me right after she turned you.
She wrote that when she saw Miranda, she was immediately attracted to her, and she turned her because she wanted to fuck her. She turned her first.”
“So what?”