Chapter 18 Simon
SIMON
ONE MONTH LATER
When I woke, the light was soft and gold.
It filtered through the half-open curtains, catching dust motes in lazy spirals, painting the room in that hazy color between day and night.
The air smelled faintly of rain and something warm. Coffee, maybe. For a moment, I didn’t move. Just listened.
The faint scrape of a chair, the soft rustle of paper. Kit’s heartbeat, steady as ever, somewhere across the room.
A month had passed since we left the Ashford house. I could safely say that we’d made it. The thought still hit me like a miracle every time I woke to it.
Each night that ended without blood or fear felt like something borrowed from a better life.
As for my sire’s experiments, one of them did manage to track us a few days ago. Kit and I handled it quickly, the fight brief but brutal.
In the present, I sat up slowly, the sheets whispering against my skin. The room was small. It was just a one-bedroom cabin tucked away behind a sleepy lakeside town, but it was ours.
Kit had fixed the broken lamp, cleaned the windows, and filled the shelves with random paperbacks from a thrift store. He’d even found curtains. Blue ones.
I still wasn’t sure how he’d convinced the old lady at the rental shop to let us stay here long-term, but I didn’t ask. Kit had always been good at pretending to be something else when he needed to.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and ran a hand through my hair.
The floor was cool under my feet. Outside, the cicadas were just starting up, their song blending with the distant splash of water from the lake.
“Morning,” Kit said from the kitchen corner, though technically it was evening.
I smiled at the sound of his voice.
“Evening,” I corrected, still half-sleepy.
He turned, holding a mug in one hand. His hair was tousled, his t-shirt soft and wore.
Kit had that look that he always wore when he was pretending he hadn’t been watching over me again.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“Since when do you drink coffee at sunset?” I asked, amused.
“Since I started living with a nocturnal bloodsucker,” he said in a teasing voice.
“Touché.”
He handed me the mug as I joined him at the counter. I didn’t really need to eat or drink human food, but I still loved the taste of coffee.
The first sip was lukewarm but perfect. He must’ve made it an hour ago.
“You didn’t sleep,” I said.
“Not much,” he admitted. “Had some paperwork to deal with.”
I frowned. “Paperwork?”
“Just making things official. New names, rental agreement, that sort of thing,” Kit said quickly.
“You mean fake identities.”
He shrugged, lips quirking. “You say fake, I say functional.”
I laughed softly and leaned against the counter. He looked different lately. Not in a bad way. Just lighter.
The lines that used to live between his brows were fading, replaced by a softness that came out when he forgot to guard himself.
“How’s the blood?” he asked after a beat. “I was going to head into town later if you need more.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Still have enough from last week.”
Kit gave me a look that said he didn’t quite believe me, but he let it go.
“You were twitching again,” he said after a moment, his voice gentler now. “When you were asleep.”
“Dreams.” I sipped my coffee. “But they’re just that. Dreams.”
Kit leaned against the opposite counter, arms crossed, studying me. The fading light from the window caught the edge of his sharp, beautiful profile.
His hair was a little messy, his shirt rumpled, and somehow he looked more real like that. More mine.
I set the mug down, the faint clink echoing in the quiet room. Then I crossed the space between us. He didn’t move, just watched me with that unreadable look that made my chest ache.
When he finally reached for me, his fingers brushed my wrist, tentative at first, as if asking permission.
I went willingly.
When he pulled me closer, I could feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath my palm, warm and human. It grounded me, anchored me in a way nothing else ever had.
I pressed my forehead against his, enjoying his scent of leather, soap, and the faint salt of his skin. The kind of scent that felt like home.
We stood there for a long moment, the world outside fading into nothing but the faint hum of cicadas and the soft clink of cooling mugs behind us.
His thumb traced slow, idle circles against my neck, the motion hypnotic. My chest tightened. I tilted my head slightly, closing the distance.
The kiss wasn’t urgent this time. His lips were warm, his breath slow and steady against mine. I could’ve stayed like that forever, suspended in the stillness, in the impossible safety of his arms.
When we finally broke apart, Kit’s hand slid up to my jaw, his thumb brushing the corner of my mouth as if memorizing the feel of me.
“What now?” he asked quietly.
“Now?” I echoed, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Yeah.” His gaze flicked to the window, to the faint orange glow spilling across the counter. “We can’t keep hiding forever.”
“Why not?” I said, smiling faintly. “It’s peaceful here.”
He huffed out a soft laugh, shaking his head. “You’re serious?”
I nodded. “For the first time in a long time, I am.”
Kit looked at me for a long moment, eyes soft, searching. I could see the tension easing from his shoulders, the faint disbelief melting into something more tender. “You’d stay here?”
“With you?” I asked. “Yes.”
He exhaled slowly, the sound almost like a laugh but too fragile to be one. The corners of his mouth lifted. “You really are terrible at pretending you don’t care.”
“I learned from the best.”
That earned a quiet laugh from him, the sound warm and low in his throat. He leaned in again, brushing another kiss against my lips. It was lighter this time, but no less meaningful.
“Fine,” he murmured against my mouth. “We’ll stay. For now.”
I smiled, resting my hand over his heart again. “For now’s enough.”
He pulled back just enough to look at me. His fingers threaded through mine, thumb brushing the back of my hand in slow, thoughtful strokes.
Kit’s hand slipped to my waist, drawing me closer again until I could feel his heartbeat against my ribs. This, right here, was everything I never thought I’d get to have.
Peace. Warmth. Him.
He tilted his head, lips ghosting against my temple.
“You sure you can live like this?” he murmured.
“Absolutely,” I answered.
Later, after the sun had slipped fully below the horizon, we sat outside on the porch.
The air had cooled, and the stars were beginning to appear one by one. They looked like faint pinpricks of light scattered across the sky.
Kit sat beside me, legs stretched out, a blanket draped loosely around his shoulders. The faint light from inside spilled across the porch, turning the edges of his hair gold.
He’d brought out an old portable radio we’d found in the cabin, and static hummed faintly between stations until it landed on something soft.
An old song, low and crackling, full of longing.
He nudged my shoulder. “Dance with me.”
I blinked. “Here?”
“Why not?”
I laughed quietly. “You know I don’t dance.”
“Then I’ll lead.”
I stared at him for a long moment before taking his hand. “Alright,” I told him.
He pulled me to my feet, and I followed his slow steps across the small porch. The music swelled softly, mingling with the sound of the lake lapping at the shore.
We moved clumsily at first, feet brushing against each other, but it didn’t matter. He was warm beneath my hands, solid, alive.
He looked up at me, eyes shining faintly in the starlight. “Do you think they’ll ever stop looking?”
“The Guild?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe they’ll just lose interest when they realize we’ve stopped running.”
He smiled faintly at that. “Stopped running, huh?”
“Yeah.” I pulled him a little closer. “We deserve that much.”
He rested his head against my shoulder, and for a long time we just swayed there, the world small and quiet around us.
When the song faded, the radio went back to static. I reached over and turned it off, leaving only the sound of the night.
Kit looked up at me, eyes soft and unreadable. “You really think we can make this work?”
I brushed a thumb over his cheek. “We already are.”
He didn’t argue. Just leaned in, pressing one last kiss to my jaw before sinking back into the porch chair, tugging me down beside him again.
We sat there until the stars burned bright overhead, until the night wrapped around us like a promise.
Kit turned his head, catching me watching him. “What?” he asked, smiling.
“Nothing,” I said softly. “Just glad.”
He reached for my hand again, lacing our fingers together.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “Me too.”
THE END