DAE #3
I watched as she straightened her spine and pulled her shoulders back, watched her build a wall around herself brick by brick, mortaring herself in behind that same armor I'd worn for decades while the years blurred tone into another.
My Alice… she was sealing herself away right in front of me, and panic rose inside of me.
I wanted to tear it down, claw at every brick until the woman behind it couldn't deny what we were together.
But I couldn't. Not without tearing down my own walls first. And that was something I couldn't do.
Not yet. Not tonight.
Maybe not ever.
I kissed her forehead. Lingered there desperately, my lips against her skin, breathing her in. Memorizing the feel of her.
"Go inside," I murmured against her hair. "Before Judy really does come out here with a stake and a Bible."
"Judy's a pagan. She doesn't own a Bible."
"Then whatever the witch equivalent is. A very aggressive bundle of sage."
A wet laugh escaped her, but it was short-lived as she unwrapped her legs from around me and slid off the railing.
I stepped back to let her down, and the loss of her body against mine was immediate and brutal.
The cool February air rushed in to fill the space where she'd been, and my skin ached everywhere she'd touched.
The bag was still on the railing where I'd abandoned it. Cold now. I picked it up and held it out to her, anyway.
She blinked at it. "What's this?"
"Beignets. Café au lait." I cleared my throat. "You forget to eat sometimes."
Her expression was hard to read. She took the bag, her fingers brushing mine, and I locked my muscles to keep from grabbing her hand and pulling her back into my arms, where she belonged.
"You brought me breakfast," she said. "At one in the morning."
"Yes." I didn't try to explain further. There was nothing left to say.
She took a step back. Then another. Her eyes held mine, and in the porch light I could see the gold flecks shimmering, and the unfinished bond between us pulled taut like a wire about to snap.
"This isn't over, is it?" she asked.
"No," I told her honestly. "I don't think so."
She nodded once. Then she turned and walked back up the porch steps, and I watched her cross the threshold back into Judy's house, back through the wards. The air shimmered around her as she passed through, then sealed shut behind her like a lock clicking.
She paused with her hand on the screen door and looked back at me.
"Goodnight, Dae-Jung."
"Goodnight, yeobo. Eat when you get inside."
Her eyes traveled over my face for a long moment. Then, with a sad smile, she pulled the door open and disappeared inside.
I waited to make sure she remembered to lock the door.
The crickets sang. The oak tree sighed. Somewhere in the house, I heard Judy's voice, low and clipped, asking questions I didn't know how Alice was going to answer.
Then I pressed my hand flat against my chest where hers had been, trying to recapture the warmth of her, but it was already fading from my skin, and I wanted to rip the door off its hinges and carry her into the night and never bring her back.
But she'd called me good.
And I knew better.
The walk back to the Quarter was long and cold, and the streets were beginning to empty.
A few drunk tourists stumbled past me, and a woman leaning against a lamppost gave me an inviting look that I might've taken her up on before Alice.
But instinctively, I knew the thirst that burned my throat wouldn't be satiated by another woman.
I walked past her without stopping.
My fangs were still half-descended, and I let them stay that way. No point fighting it. My body knew what my head was still arguing with me about — that the woman I'd just walked away from was mine, and I was hers, and the thing building between us was older and stronger than either of us.
My tattoo burned against my skin like a fresh brand, the skull underneath the flowers making itself known the way it always did when I let myself want something I didn't deserve. The weight of every person I'd put to death weighing on my soul.
I wasn't good.
And Alice, with her silver, white aura and her fierce eyes and her stubborn, heartbreaking belief that she was the dangerous one…Alice deserved someone whose past didn't contain so many graves.
When I hit Bourbon Street, the neon washed over me and the noise swallowed me and for one blessed second the sensory overload drowned out the ache.
But it came back. It always came back.
I pulled out my phone.
Goodnight, Alice.
Waited.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Goodnight, Dae. Thank you again for coming.
I stared at the message until the screen went dark, waiting for more, and when nothing else came, I started walking.
My phone buzzed again.
I looked down, my heart leaping into my throat, hoping for the sun emoji, or another message, or something that would at least make the walk home bearable.
But it was Killian.
Get home. Now. Something's wrong with Elias.
The flowers on my skin ached as I turned and ran.
They always did.
But tonight, for the first time in two hundred years, they ached for someone alive.