Chapter 31 #3
Selena’s claws dug into my neck and cheeks, and I winced against the sharp pain, no matter how deserved it was. Was she going to force this? Would that even work?
“Open your eyes!”
I did, and she knocked my head back, angling my face to the light. An interrogation? She just looked into them like they were deep wells. Her nails dug deeper, and her expression changed. All her affection was doused like cold water to a fire.
“Who is she?”
An uninvited face appeared in my mind. For a moment, I thought my heart had actually started to beat again. How foolish. It had been nearly two centuries since I’d even known that sensation. I’d already given away too much, though.
“It’s you, Selena. It’s always you. It’s only ever been you.” When had I become so pathetically desperate?
She scratched across my cheek, and the lines burned.
“What’s her name?” Her laugh was shrill. Crazed, even.
She flew off me and screeched on the way to her chirping phone.
I finally found the strength to stand. I mentally planned my escape to the door.
Selena buried her fingers into her short hair and snapped a greeting into the phone.
My hand reached the doorknob, but Selena’s gaze pinned me in place.
She pressed her phone screen against her chest, and her fury could have burned the entire house.
“Santos has disowned you.”
I licked my lips and tried to peel my eyes from hers. I needed out.
“Did you know about this?” She gasped before I could answer. “You knew. And he’s already told everyone!”
I couldn’t move. Under her spell. My muscles shook from the effort. It was nearly as bad as being staked.
Selena’s tarot cards hissed against one another as she shuffled them, channeling her anger into the act. A card flew out of the deck, but she snatched it, and I could move again. She flipped down two other cards onto the bed and cackled.
“I should have known!”
I fled through the door before she could halt me again. I threw myself into my car and drove away like a coward. I had nowhere to go, and I couldn’t be sure anyone was left on my side. There was only one thing that could salvage even a percentage of this tragic night.
* * *
Peter Fenton
Dawn was only a couple hours away. I would have crept into Lazaro and Selena’s room and angled to spend the day in bed with them, but I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing her dead.
Her mystical window of rebirth had come and gone, and the noises from their room had stopped.
I’d likely upset her by not joining in on her celebration, but I’d make it up to her when I wasn’t feeling so shitty.
I got out of bed for the first time since I’d arrived hours earlier.
Now upright, my hand went to my chest to rub at the rotting hole somewhere inside.
It was like heartache. Maybe Laz had been right about Selena.
Maybe I was in love with her and somehow hadn’t realized.
What would I know about it, anyway? I’d never been in love before.
I moved like an old man out of the guest room.
With my bike gone, I had a long walk back to my apartment before the sun was up.
Sweet little breaths in the living room gave away that I wasn’t alone, and I wondered what other forlorn guest had stuck behind as late as my sorry ass. The woman’s arms were hugged around herself where she stood listless in the middle of the room.
I had to do a double-take. It was Selena, only with inches of her silky hair gone. The cute bob was enough to make my shriveled heart almost beat. Your hair. It’s gorgeous. She turned to me, slow and mournful, and I leaped over the couch to be with her.
“Selena, what is it?” I took her face in my hands and tried to soothe her. “Please don’t cry.” The sight of tears in those beautiful eyes was enough to make me start choking up.
“Peter…” The anguish she stuffed into my name pushed me over the edge. I cradled her to my chest and cried with her. She was still warm.
“What happened?” I asked when she looked up at me again. My thumbs rubbed circles into her shoulders.
Her laugh was cute and weak, dragged down by her sadness. “What are you crying for, Petey? You’re so sweet.” She tucked her face into my shirt again. I wished she could just live there.
“What did he do?” I had to force my arms not to clutch her soft little body too hard.
I was ready to rip Laz’s head off. I tilted my hips back so my hardness didn’t detract from the moment, but Selena was glued to me.
Fuck, she was sensual even when she cried, and I wanted to spend the day making her cum so hard she wouldn’t be able to think about any of the sad shit. What an evil bastard I was.
“He didn’t do it. He didn’t turn me. He humiliated me in front of my whole family and his. The whole world knows about it.”
“I didn’t know about it,” I said. My hands moved over her like I was trying to keep her from falling into pieces, up her arms, shoulders, pressing into her cheeks.
“I’m going to kill him.”
I rubbed Selena’s back and kissed the top of her head. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t do to make her feel better. “Then let’s kill him.”