29. Tavia
Chapter 29
Tavia
I woke up in the same place I fell asleep, nestled against Cyan’s chest. My surroundings however felt different, and I sat up to get my bearings.
The first thing I noticed was Amy’s cot, where she lay peacefully as if she were sleeping. I leaned in close, inspecting her for any signs of life, but saw none. She remained as pale as before, and her skin felt cold when I placed the back of my palm on her forehead.
Grief rose up like a tidal wave, threatening to drown me. With a hard swallow, I reminded myself that she still needed time. I wasn’t sure how close we were to the three-day limit, but there still had to be time left.
I turned to Cyan, who slept next to me on an air mattress. It was a comfortable set-up actually, with a fitted sheet over the mattress, plus blankets and pillows piled on top. He must have set it up with Robin while I was conked out, and then carried me down to the cellar to be with Amy as I requested, all while dawn had been fast approaching.
His care and thoughtfulness lifted the heaviness in my chest, at least for now. I leaned down to kiss his forehead before standing and stretching my arms over my head.
The physical exhaustion was gone, and my injured leg felt as good as new, if a little stiff. My grief and anxiety over Amy hung over me like the weight of an ocean, but there was a calmness alongside those feelings now. Whatever happened, at least I would have Cyan to lean on.
If Amy didn’t wake up in another day or two, it would take a long time to process that, but at least I wasn’t alone.
And if she did wake up, well, that would present its own set of challenges. But I’d have the love of my life and my best friend with me.
I walked around the cellar to both kill time and stretch my legs. Someone, probably Robin, had nailed some dark fabric over the light cracks between the boards in the cellar door. The tiny slivers of sunlight weren’t likely to harm Cyan badly but it was thoughtful of her anyway.
After making sure I blocked any light with my body, I moved one of the makeshift curtains to peek outside and get a sense of what time of day it was. People milled about, but the clean-up effort looked almost done. The shadows were long and the light looked golden, which meant it had to be late afternoon. I’d slept most of the day away.
If I still had my phone, I’d know exactly what time it was. Maybe even call the council room and get a status report if anyone was in there. But I’d lost it in the struggle last night. And even if there was a chance no one heard what Cyan and I were up to in the wee hours of the morning, no one was likely to talk to me.
I’d made my home with the vampires, and was eager to get back to friendly, fanged smiles over the dirty looks from fellow humans.
Over the next few hours, I passed the time by organizing and cleaning the shelves in the cellar. When dusk fell, I heard Cyan stirring as he woke up, and set down my rag and duster.
“Morning, sunshine,” I greeted.
His baffled, sleepy expression made me laugh as I lowered onto the mattress next to him.
“Evening, starlight,” he returned with a lazy smile. “How long have you been up?”
“A couple of hours. I’ve just been puttering around until sundown.”
“Have you eaten?” He nodded at a lunchbox-sized cooler against the wall. “Robin brought that down for you.”
I hadn’t and was honestly starving. Cyan chuckled as I pounced on the cooler and brought it with me to the mattress. “Did she help with this bed too?”
“With some convincing she did.” I felt him kiss the back of my head as I dug through Robin’s neatly packaged morsels. “She was going to give us two separate beds until I insisted we have one.”
I looked over my shoulder, shooting him a playful glare. “You better not have intimidated her.”
“Not at all. She intimidates me.” His eyes flashed with mirth. “But I wasn’t going to be separated from you for any reason.”
My inner swooning was buried under my hunger as I wolfed down the sandwich, grapes, almonds, and water in the lunch box.
“How is Amy?” Cyan asked when I finished inhaling my food.
“She looks the same to me,” I said.
He moved my hair aside and kissed my nape. “There’s still time.”
“I know. That’s what I told myself when I woke up and saw her.” I leaned back, knowing I would find his chest to rest on. “Do you need blood?”
“Not yet, love.” His fingers traced the column of my throat. “Have you given any thought to our blood mate ceremony?”
“I’d completely forgotten, actually. How is it supposed to go? It’s a big deal, right?”
“Yes, because a blood mate pairing is so rare. All of Sanguine will turn out to witness.” He gave a playful squeeze of my waist. “No pressure or anything.”
“I mean, it can’t possibly be worse than handing myself over as a sacrifice in front of everyone I’ve ever known.”
Cyan’s laugh ruffled my hair. “You handled that extremely well. I was so impressed by you that night. And look where we are now.”
“Yeah,” I said wistfully, looking at Amy’s face. Who knew if she’d be alive and well if I’d made a different choice back then, but I’d never change what I found with Cyan.
“The ceremony can be almost anything we want,” he said. “It’s a lot like a human wedding, from what little I’ve seen. Except that it’s a more public event. And since you’re human, there will be a blood-binding ritual.”
“What does that do?”
Cyan was silent for a beat, and his voice was quiet when he answered. “It’s a type of blood magic that will share my life force with you. So you and I will live for the same length of time and age at the same rate.”
I turned and looked at him, excitement sparking in my veins. “How old are you, anyway?”
“One-hundred and fifteen,” he said. “Which makes me one of the youngest clan members. We reach adulthood at one hundred. So I have about seven hundred good years left in me.”
My jaw dropped. “Holy shit. You know that’s more than seven human lifetimes?”
“Yes.” Cyan almost looked bashful, his eyes lowering and teeth gnawing on his lower lip. “Are you sure you want to spend all those lifetimes with me?”
I spun to face him and flung my arms around his neck. “That sounds like a great length of time to come up with new wine recipes.” Our laughter came together in smiles that kissed. “And I really can’t imagine who else I’d rather spend all those lifetimes with, than the one who picked me up and held me together at the hardest time of my life.”
Cyan held my face and kissed me deeply. “You make me wish for an immortal life. Because I’m certain seven human lifetimes with you will never feel like enough.”
His words and his lips were a balm on the ache that gnawed deep inside me. If my grief was a tidal wave, he was a sea-facing cliff, strong enough to withstand and protect me during the most furious storms.
When our kissing slowed, I rested my head on his shoulder, and his arms braced in a protective hold around my back.
“So, do you want to make the wine we serve at the ceremony?”
“Hm.” Musing on that thought, I kissed his neck with a smile. “I’m thinking hard cider actually. Apple and maybe cherry.”
“I like the sound of that. Can I help?”
“If we’re really sealing the deal in front of all of Sanguine, you better help.”
I almost missed the gentle sound under his laughter. It was barely anything at all, just the rustling of a blanket. Either one of us could have made that sound, but something made me look at Amy.
And I saw her moving.
“Cyan!” I gasped, clutching his arm. “Is that—is she…?”
“Yes.” His palm rested on my back. “Be calm, love. She’s going to be confused.”
My heart pounded so forcefully, I thought it might break through my chest. Amy’s arms were pushing her blanket down to her waist. She was still pale, her eyes still closed, but she moved as if waking from sleep.
I stared, unable to blink as she stretched and rubbed her eyes. Her mouth even stretched open in a yawn. After feeling her weak pulse fade to nothing, after seeing how utterly, eerily still she became after her breathing stopped, it felt like I was watching a miracle happen.
I wanted to smother her in a hug and cry out all my relief and happiness on her shoulders. Some instinct was throwing off alarms at how unnatural this was, and that was probably what held me back. The dead just didn’t come back to life. Not unless you gambled on fifty-fifty odds and had a vampire willing to help.
Amy rolled up to a seat, rubbing her eyes a final time before she looked at me. Her eyes shouldn’t have startled me, but they did. The whites of her eyes had gone completely black, although her irises were the same cornflower blue.
“Tavia?” Her eyes flicked to Cyan for a second, but quickly refocused on me. “Why are you looking at me like that? How long have I been out?”
I swallowed, quickly realizing that, despite how much I’d hoped for this moment, I hadn’t prepared for it at all. I had hoped she’d wake up because I was grieving, because I wasn’t ready to lose her. But I hadn’t actually considered that Amy coming back from the dead was a true possibility.
“Amy.” My throat went dry so I swallowed again. “Ames, honey. Do you remember anything?”
“Um, it’s coming back.” She rubbed her forehead, and when her lips parted on a breath, I saw the tips of small fangs. “We were attacked, right? I got hurt and brought down here to the cellar.” She looked around, eyes pausing on Cyan at my side before lowering to the air mattress and mess of blankets we sat on. “It sounded bad, but I guess I pulled through. Sorry if I worried you, Tav. Did Robin call you out here?”
“Uh, yeah. She did.” Amy sounded so normal, exactly like herself. How was I supposed to tell her that she was no longer human?
“Did anyone else get hurt?” Amy rubbed her throat. “Damn, I’m thirsty. Is there water anywhere?”
I handed her my water bottle while Cyan pinned me with a hard look. “She’ll need to feed soon,” he whispered into my ear. “And it can’t be from you.”
I stared back at him, puzzled by that and wondered if it had to do with the blood mate thing. Whatever the reason, the first order of business was to drop this bombshell on Amy.
“Ames,” I said, and steeled myself with a breath. “You were hurt very badly. You…almost didn’t make it.”
Black and blue eyes widened as she set the water bottle down slowly. “Oh.” She gave me a smile with no awareness of her sharp little fangs. “Well, I’m okay now, Tav. No need to look so glum.”
It was Cyan’s hand making soothing passes over the small of my back that gave me the strength to keep talking.
“You wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for Cyan,” I said. “You…you died, Amy. I felt your pulse stop. I begged him to bring you back, and…he did.”
Amy’s expression morphed into fear and disbelief as she looked at him. She clutched the edge of the blanket as she whispered, “What did you do to me?”
Cyan folded his hands together. “I gave you my blood, which your organs recognized as a life source. Biologically, you’re still human with some vampire adaptations. We call your kind brusang.”
Amy’s hand shook as it came to her face. “I’m…what?” She became aware of her teeth right then, and pressed her fingertips against her longer, sharper canines. Horror filled her eyes, and she went eerily still before darting out of bed.
“Amy, wait.”
I followed after her, but the vampire blood had heightened her speed. She reached the small, dusty mirror on the cellar wall before I could reach her. There was a shocked squeak, and then a moan of horror that became a deep, chest-wracking sob.
“I should probably go for a bit.” Cyan stood, looking concerned but made no move toward the door.
“Is it dark enough outside?”
He nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
I squeezed his forearm before he could leave. “She’ll adjust. It’s just a shock.”
“I know.” He planted a kiss on my forehead, then palmed the side of my neck. “She’s welcome to stay with us, of course. Bea will be happy to help too. In time, she’ll adjust to her new life.”
I reached for his face, finding his mouth for a kiss before releasing him. “Thank you again for bringing her back to me.”
His eyes were soft and warm as he ran his knuckles over my cheek. “Anything for you.”
We parted with another kiss, and he left the cellar while I cautiously approached a sobbing, curled up Amy.
I went to wrap my arms around her, but to my surprise, found myself shoved away.
“How could you?” she cried, her black eyes now lined in red from tears. “How could you let him do this to me? I’m a fucking monster!”
The words hit me like a punch to the gut and I tried to not take them personally. “You’re not a monster. You’re still you, Ames. And don’t put any of the blame on him. I begged him to do it because I couldn’t bear to lose you.”
“So you had him, what, Frankenstein me? I never asked for this, Tavia! I never wanted to have fangs and black eyes and— fuck.” A trembling hand came to her mouth. “I have to drink blood, don’t I? That’s why I’m still so thirsty. Oh my God…”
“Hey, it’s going to be okay. Really.” She allowed me to rub her arm and I took the chance to scoot closer to her. “The vampires live really well, you won’t want for anything again. There’s a brusang I’ve made friends with, Bea. She’s great, and we’ll both help you get through this.”
Amy let out a low growling noise I’d never heard from her before. “You don’t get it, do you? What makes you think I want to be around you or your new vampire family?”
“Amy, what?—”
She pulled away from me and stood, leaving me speechless on the ground. When she turned to face me, her expression seething, I had to admit she did look more monstrous than human.
“I told you I wanted to stay with humans, to preserve our culture and our way of life. You made your choice and I made mine. I thought we respected each others’ choices, Tavia. But now you’ve gone and turned me into this,” she gestured at herself, “and my choice is gone. Now I have to live in the vampire world, something I never wanted. You knew that and you forced this on me anyway!”
“I…” A sob choked off my response. Of course, I hadn’t thought of it that way. I was too out of my mind with grief to think of any real consequences. “Ames, you were dead .”
“You should have let me stay dead!”
“I couldn’t.” A harsh, shaky breath escaped me and tears blurred my vision. “I’m so sorry. I just couldn’t.”
Maybe it was selfish of me. Maybe I should have given more thought to what Amy would have wanted, but the simple truth was that I couldn’t let her go. Not when there was another option.
The grief might have slipped away, but now guilt overtook me. Had I doomed my best friend rather than saved her?
“I’m sorry,” I repeated, blinking to let the tears fall. “I’m so sorry.” The words were inadequate, but so was everything else I could have said. “I should’ve…fuck, I’m sorry.”
Eventually, Amy’s arms came around me. She was still so much smaller than me, and I rested my cheek on top of her head as I hugged her back.
Wrapped up like that, my best friend and I cried together.