CHAPTER 29
Arwen
Arwen’s eyes opened again, and she remembered being in a car, lying in the back seat.
Did she remember Iro driving her somewhere?
She never drank so much that she blacked out, and she knew she’d been at the café with Zara, drinking coffee.
Unless that coffee had been spiked with something else, there was no way caffeine alone would black her out like this.
Then, it hit her. It hit her all at once, and not like just a ton of bricks, but all the bricks in the world. She bolted upright.
“Hey, it’s okay. Arwen, it’s okay.”
Arwen turned and saw Iro sitting in the chair by the bed, but almost as quickly as Arwen had jumped, Iro was now at her side.
“It’s okay,” she said, cupping her cheek.
Arwen pulled away from her and asked, “Why am I in your bedroom? What happened?”
“What do you remember, love?”
“I was at the café with Zara, sitting outside, and I went to the bathroom. Someone grabbed me.”
“Gigi,” Iro said.
“Who’s Gigi?”
“She was a close friend, if you will, of my ex-girlfriend.”
Arwen swallowed and looked into Iro’s dark eyes.
“So, it’s all true; what Cassia told me?”
“Oh, I highly doubt that.”
“Wait. Where’s Zara? Did she get–”
“She’s fine. She’s safe.” Iro took her hand, but Arwen didn’t have the strength to pull away again. “Arwen, I have things I need to tell you, and I know Cassia told you things as well, but I need you to trust me.”
“You’re a…”
“Yes,” Iro confirmed.
“Are you going to hurt me?”
“Never,” Iro said confidently. “Never, Arwen.”
“She said you wanted me to be like you.” Arwen’s eyes went wide. “That you wanted her, not me, or something like that. It’s foggy. Everything is so very foggy right now.”
“Arwen, I need you to know something before I tell you anything else, okay?”
“What?”
“I love you,” Iro said.
Arwen hadn’t been expecting that. She felt her heart race inside her chest, but she said nothing.
This was not how she had wanted to hear those three words from Iro.
Things had progressed so quickly between them, and she knew she felt it, too, but she thought they would wait a while before saying the words out loud to one another.
“I can’t explain it,” Iro added. “We haven’t known one another long, but I’ve never felt so strongly for another woman in my very long life, and I once thought I’d lost the love of it.”
“Cassia?” she guessed.
“No, Cassia isn’t the love of my life.”
“She’s your wife. She said that, I think.”
“Arwen, I loved another once, and she died. Cassia found me heartbroken, and she turned me into this, into what I am now. I’ll tell you the whole story later, but sweetheart, Cassia isn’t the love of my very long, eternal life.
It has taken me far too long to realize that I’ve never really loved her, and she’s never really loved me.
She used me, and she uses others to get what she wants. ”
“But you were with her.”
“Yes, on and off for years.”
“How many years?”
Iro squeezed her hand and said, “I was born in 1666 in London, just after The Great Fire, and I was turned when I was thirty-one.”
“You’ve been the same age for… three hundred years?”
“Yes,” Iro said. “I lost the accent a long time ago, but some of it remains, and when I’m living in the UK, it comes back at times.
Cassia turned me, and I thought we loved each other.
We’ve been together on and off ever since.
When I met you, we were off, and she had just asked me to return to her.
I declined. She didn’t like that, and she followed me here to DC, where I met you.
” Iro smiled at her softly. “Arwen, I love you. When you walked into that bar, something clicked inside of me that had never clicked before. It told me to pay attention and that you mattered, and I told Cassia that she and I were finally done; that I didn’t want to get back together ever again. ”
“So, she kidnapped me?”
“Yes. And I will never forgive myself for not protecting you, Arwen. I thought if you were here with me, you’d be safe. I–”
“Is that why you wanted to put in an alarm at my apartment?”
“At first, it was just precautionary. I didn’t believe Cassia would harm you. But there was something else I didn’t know, and I have to tell you that next.”
“What? God, I’m not sure I can take much more than you’re a vampire, Iro.”
“Zara, Arwen.”
“You said she was safe.”
“She is, love. She’s safe at my office. She’s hidden there where no one will find her, but Zara met Cassia, too, Arwen.”
“Met her how?”
“Cassia found her, and she used her to spy on us. Zara reported back on–”
“Zara wouldn’t ever–”
“She turned Zara, sweetheart. Cassia made her a vampire. Zara can tell you the rest herself, but she had her reasons.”
“For spying on me and reporting back to your ex?”
“Yes. I am not one to defend her actions, but she does have a story to tell you herself when you’re ready.”
“I need to talk to her now. How can she defend–”
“Arwen, what do you remember after you were taken?”
“Being in a house and Cassia talking to me.”
“And?”
“And she–” Even though it had hit her all at once a few minutes ago, she hadn’t been able to process it right away like she was processing it now. “She made me drink blood.”
“Yes,” Iro said. “It’s how you turn a human into a vampire.”
“I went to sleep,” Arwen said. “She put me to sleep or something.”
“No, my love.” Iro cupped her cheek again. “She killed you.”
Arwen swallowed as she pulled out of Iro’s embrace and dropped her hand as well.
“I am so sorry. I tried to get to you, but I was too late.”
“She said you wanted this,” she remembered.
“This is the last thing I wanted, Arwen. I was going to tell you about me. Not tomorrow, but when we were ready. And, at some point, if you wanted to know what it was like, being a vampire, I would’ve told you, and you could’ve made that decision for yourself.
I would’ve been by your side always if you decided to remain human until you–”
“Died,” Arwen said.
Iro nodded.
“I did that already.”
“Yes. But now, you’re immortal.”
“I’ll always be this age?”
“Yes. You will never get sick. You’ll never get old.
You don’t usually get cold. Your eyesight, hearing, and sense of smell all improve.
When you touch things, you really feel them.
Good food tastes better, but bad food tastes worse.
You’re stronger than humans. Not like you see in the movies, but you are stronger. ”
“That’s the good. Well, except the bad food part.”
Iro smiled warmly at her and said, “You have to watch the people you love die over and over again. You have to leave every so often, or people will wonder why you aren’t aging.
Doing that was a lot easier even last century than it is today.
You’ll have to change your name and maybe your appearance now to help cover it up or disappear altogether for a while. Then, there’s the really bad part.”
“What?”
“Wanting to kill people.”
“I don’t–”
“It’s our nature, Arwen.”
“Do you kill people?”
“I did decades ago, yes.” Iro sighed. “I stopped a long time ago, and I’ve worked hard to train my body.
I don’t drink human blood, and I tend to stick to pig and cow blood, not even blood bags from the hospital, which is what some vampires do, but it took time.
I suspect, had I not been influenced by Cassia, I would have been able to do it faster, but with my help, you can. You don’t have to be how I was, Arwen.”
“Blood,” Arwen said.
“You feel it now, don’t you?”
“I feel hungry, but hungry in a way I’ve never felt before.”
“You’ll feel that most of the time now.”
“Most of the time?”
Iro nodded and said, “I’m sorry. A downside of being a vampire is that you never really feel sated. You’ll always crave blood. Even if you’re full, your body will want more. It will be on your mind in one way or another all the time now, but you can learn to push it to the back of it.”
“How do you handle this?”
“All in good time, love,” Iro replied and took Arwen’s hand back in her own.
“There’s something else, though,” Arwen added. “I get everything you just said. I do feel like I can hear better, and my vision seems sharper, but there’s something else. I can’t describe it.”
“It’s my touch,” Iro replied.
“What?”
“You want me to touch you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Arwen, there’s another way vampires are never sated.”
Arwen understood then.
“Sex.”
“Yes.”
“I want sex right now? I just found out I’m a vampire.”
“We always want it.”
“Then, why did you make me wait?”
Iro laughed, and it sounded louder, but also sweeter.
“I wanted it to happen because we loved each other, not because I wanted sex.”
“Was it not… good? Because I’m human?”
“Arwen, it was perfect.” Iro let out a breath.
“I never want to stop touching you. That was true when you were human, and it’s true now, but you should know that vampires also bond with the ones who made them very easily, and I didn’t turn you.
Cassia did. I am certain that she did that on purpose, and it’s one more thing I’ll never forgive her for. ”
“You think I’ll fall for Cassia?”
“Not likely, but you will be drawn to her the more time you spend together. It’s something that happens. You can’t stop it. It’s partly what happened with Zara and Gigi.”
“Gigi, the one who kidnapped me? Wait. Iro, how did I get here?”
“I went to the house and found you. They’ve probably figured that out by now, so we might be getting guests soon. I was about to pick you up when I noticed you were waking. I need you to hide, Arwen.”
“They’re coming here?”
“If they’re not yet, they will be soon. You can hide here, though. I have a couple of hidden rooms in this place.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can get you out of DC, if you want, Arwen; put you on a plane somewhere safe. It will just take time to arrange, and I’m not sure we have that.
I also think Cassia will be expecting that.
She might even have people waiting at the private airfield already.
I can send you on a commercial plane, but it’s hard to guard against the sun.
You can’t land somewhere without any energy.
It wouldn’t be safe. I don’t think that Cassia would expect me to hide you here. ”
“Where is here?”
“There’s a bedroom upstairs that’s full of boxes because I haven’t unpacked them yet, but I added a couple of hidden rooms when I moved in because while we can be in the sun for a while at a time, it’s draining for us. We recharge in the darkness, and quiet helps, along with sleep.”
“I hadn’t even thought about that.”
“We’ll go over all of this later, I promise, but right now, I need to hide you.”
“Hide us, you mean?”
“No. I’m going to find Cassia.”
“What? Iro, no.”
“Arwen, I need to end this. It’s been going on for far too long. And she’s turned you. She has to pay for that.”
“She’ll kill you.”
“She will try. I no longer bow down to her, so I won’t be of much use anymore, but I’ll be okay. Her people might come here. I don’t know for sure. She might have them there, waiting for me, but I am trusting you, Arwen. You have to stay hidden.”
“Just hide with me, Iro. We can talk more and come up with a plan together.”
“I can’t, sweetheart. She’ll just keep coming. And I need this to be over so that you and I can figure this out.”
“Iro, I–”
“What?” Iro asked when Arwen didn’t say anything else.
“I don’t know that I want to.”
“Want to what?”
“Figure this out.”
“You mean… You and me?”
“I don’t know how I feel right now.”
“That’s okay. You can take your time. We’ll talk.”
“Iro, when I woke up this morning, you were cooking us breakfast. We talked about how I like morning sex, and we made love. I had no idea vampires even existed. Now, I am one, and you’re telling me we’ll have to move all the time.
I have a job, a career that’s important to me.
I have an apartment, a family, friends. I can’t be a vampire. ”
“But you are a vampire, Arwen. I wish I could change that, but I can’t.
I was too late. I didn’t expect her to go after you because she wanted me back, and she knew that if she did anything to you, that would never happen.
I am so sorry for my part in this, but there’s nothing you or I can do about it now. ”
“Maybe not, but I don’t know that I want my life to be about being a vampire. I want to work. I want–”
“Please let’s talk about this later. I’m begging you. Just hide for me right now, and I will come back for you. We’ll go somewhere safe. I’ll find another place in the city and lease it under a different name if I can’t take care of this tonight. Just don’t go anywhere, and we’ll talk.”
“I’ll hide, Iro, but–”
“Good. I’ll show you.”
“What if you don’t come back?” Arwen asked.
“I will. Trust me, beautiful Arwen; I will come home to you.”
Arwen followed her up the stairs to a part of the house she hadn’t been in before. Iro showed her to a closet, and she assumed that was supposed to be the hidden room until Iro pressed a button on the back wall of it.
“It’s small, but it’s dark, and there are sound panels in it, too, so they won’t be able to hear you as well.
I’m going to make sure the button is hidden with a box so that they don’t see it, but you need to take these just in case.
” Iro handed her two knives. “Silver. It’s the only thing that kills us.
Silver to the heart, or beheading. That’s it, Arwen.
Stabbing us anywhere else will hurt enough to knock us back a bit, but we’ll heal, just slower.
So, it’s the heart you have to hit to kill us.
If someone gets in here, you stab first, ask questions later. ”
“I can’t stab someone.”
“If they’re trying to kill you, you’d be surprised what you can do. Just stay in here and be quiet. I know you’re hungry, and I promise I’ll get you blood when I come back, but I need you to hold on a little longer for me. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” Arwen replied.
“Okay,” Iro said and cupped both of her cheeks. “I love you. No matter what happens when I get back, I love you, my beautiful Arwen.”
Iro kissed her on the forehead and left the room.