Page 57 of A Heart Of Bitter Poison
No…
No nono…
It’s impossible…
Alberto’s eyes rake across my body with a predatory gleam.“Non ho mai avuto una ragazza che mi facesse una serenata prima.”
No…
…It didn’t work.
Alberto takes a step in my direction. He’s all swagger and confidence. “What’s your name?” he asks in heavily accented English.
I feel like my bones have fused into stone. Alberto should be under my control. He should be trapped in a dream. Instead it’s me, trapped in a nightmare.
My throat burns with anger and hunger and fear and sorrow. It burns in the effort it took to sing. My eyes fill with unshed tears that sting, begging to fall.
Alberto takes another step in my direction before stopping abruptly, his gaze caught on something behind me in the night. Even in the darkness I can see him turn pale. He pivots on his heel and walks away as quickly as his legs can carry him, then disappears down the tunnel.
My shoulders shake as I watch him go. The tears cool in the night air as they slide down my cheeks. I try so hard to swallow all this shock and grief back down into a heart that seems saturated with loss. I drop my face into my hands and wish for this to be nothing more than a terrifying illusion. But it’s not. I know it’s not.
I hear footsteps approach. A set of strong arms fold around me from behind and Ashen pulls me into his embrace.
“Shh, my vampire,” he whispers in my ear. It only makes me weep that much more. Ashen tightens his hold and presses a lingering kiss to my temple. “Don’t cry, my Lu.”
“It didn’t work...” My entire being feels like it’s been shredded into a thin strip. I don’t think I recognize myself on the inside anymore. Ashen’s steadying grasp only makes me question what little I think I know.
“It did. You just ensnared the wrong man.”
Ashen lets go just enough to turn me to face him, pulling me against his chest. He holds me there for a long while, wrapped in his warmth. I cry into that pristine shirt, into the smell of unsmoked tobacco, into a heartbeat that soothes me, even when I don’t want it to. After a time that seems so long that the minutes feel eternal, Ashen’s fingers thread into my hair and he pulls away, looking into my eyes.
“Stop,” I whisper. Fat tears are still rolling across my skin. He brushes one of them away.
“Stop what?”
“Just stop,” I say. I don’t know whether I’m talking to Ashen or myself. It felt like a game only this morning. But I can’t play and win like this. My gaze falls away from him but I don’t move from his touch. “Stop making me want to feel for you what I shouldn’t.”
Ashen sweeps stray locks of hair from my cheek and holds my face in his palms. I meet his gaze for only an instant and regret it as soon as I do. I’m not the only one hurting. It’s all laid bare in his eyes. “Feel what, vampire?”
“Don’t.” I pull from his grasp and keep my eyes down on the stone beneath my feet. I don’t want to be so vulnerable out here in the open. I feel like a tiger without claws. A snake without fangs. My legs feel leaden when I back away and skirt around him to slip into the solitude of night.
“I will tell you one more thing I didnotdo, vampire,” Ashen calls after me. There’s a note of anguish so pained in his voice that I stop moving. The silence between us stretches long enough that I turn to look at Ashen where he stands shrouded in the shadows of the tunnel. But I can still see him clearly. I see the tension in his jaw, the way his brows knit together. I see how hard it is for him to gather a breath. “One more thing I did not do, it was the worst thing.”
My heart plummets. Fingers of ice trace my spine. I don’t think I can handle some deadly admission right now. But I guess that makes it the perfect time to strike. I steel myself for something awful but my voice comes out weary rather than strong. “What?”
Ashen comes forward from the shadows. Every step is careful, like I might run, or combust, or simply disappear. “I never told you how I felt. You asked me, in your ways, and I never answered.”
He stops in front of me. The light of a nearby streetlamp casts his face in a haunting glow.
Ashen’s eyes search mine, probably finding all the evidence of fear and distrust and confusion that lurk within them. Centuries of loneliness seem to surface in Ashen when he finds it, and he takes a steadying breath. “I never told you how the lifetimes I have spent taking souls have eroded my own. I did not tell you about everything I have lost over decades of time. I should have told you then, how every moment spent with you brought me out of the shadows. How being with you was like landing on a paradise shore after swimming through a sea of grief. How being apart from you is like being cast into a cold and merciless darkness.” Ashen’s fingers trace my cheek and I close my eyes. I want to lean into his touch. I want to fall into his words. I fight myself with every heartbeat. “I tried to stay away and could not. I tried to push you away and failed. I tried to protect you and failed at that too.”
Ashen steps closer. His palms warm my cheeks. His breath heats my skin. He places a gentle, careful kiss to one closed eye, then the other.
“Look at me, Lu. Please,” he whispers. And I do. He looks back at me with such determination and longing that I know without any doubt that what I see is true. “The worst thing was that I never told you I love you, Lu. I should have told you when you trusted me with your voice for the first time. Or when we sat in the desert at Saqqara. Or when we stood beneath your name in the library. Even when I held you as we passed into the Shadow Realm. I should have said it over and over until I was sure you would never doubt it. You would have known I was coming for you. That no matter what happened, I would find a way to get you out. That I would give up anything for you.”
I can’t move, or think, or even breathe. There’s so much longing in Ashen’s face. The time we’ve had together has been so little and not enough. It’s been tarnished like copper left to weather the elements, unprotected and uncared for. And that’s the trouble with love. As strong as it is, love is dangerous, corruptible. Love can be a poison just as lethal as anger or sorrow.
And I’m afraid.
