Page 5 of Chosen, Eternally
I sigh and get to my feet. Walk over to his office window to look out onto Salem College’s campus where Ian is a professor of Criminology Studies. He also serves as one of Salem’s pathologists in the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner—which comes in super handy when hiding vampire-related deaths.
“I understand that we’re in a pickle, here, but I think you’re losing sight of the fact that the humans aren’t the only ones with improved weaponry. May I remind you that vampires don’t just use their teeth or superhuman strength anymore? That on top of their powers of Subjugation, they, too, have decided to start using actual weapons?”
Ian gasps so loudly, I turn.
“What do you mean?”
“Itoldyou. The vamps last night had actual guns.”
“I thought you were joking.”
“Why the hell would I be joking about guns?”
“I don’t know,” he says with a shrug. “Maybe because you tend to be a bit dramatic sometimes.”
“Dramatic? When have I ever been dramatic?” I seethe.
He chuckles. “Well, to begin with, that whole thing with that boy was a little bit much, don’t you think? You’re the Chosen Protector. You need to get used to the occasional casualty, but you were depressed for months. Even your aunt told me she was concerned you were taking it a bit too far.”
I narrow my eyes at him, clenching my fists at my side. “I don’t believe you. Cybil would never talk about my personal life with you.” For months after, she never left my side, offered me a comforting shoulder. My aunt Cybil, who raised me as her own after my mother’s suicide and my father’s abandonment, never faltered. “Don’t you dare try to involve her in this.”
He sighs and shakes his head. “That’s fine if you don’t want to believe me, but she was embarrassed by your moping. And why wouldn’t she be? You’re supposed to be powerful. Almighty. Butyou’re undeserving if you’re going to let acasualty of war bring you to pieces.”
Rage shoots through me at an alarming speed, heating the tips of my ears and hands, fingers twitching to dosomething, summonanything. To hurt.
I take a deep breath to steady myself before I cast a Fireball spell and burn this whole damn building down with him in it. I don’t care if he’s my instructor. If Ian is the one who’s supposed to guide me. All he’s done is lead me down a miserable path I never wanted but only assumed in order to get revenge.
When I feel a little more settled, I speak: “Thatboywas not just acasualty. He was the love of my life. Taken from me in the most cruel way imaginable.”
Ian rolls his eyes again, and if I hadn’t spent the last twelve months honing my self-control, I would’ve used my powers to rip them out of his sockets. “See what I mean? Dramatic.”
I turn for the door, but he stops me with a hand around my bicep.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going? We aren’t done here.”
I use the fire building in my heart and visualize it, transfer it to my arms and literally burn his palm.
He gasps and shakes his hand as pain spreads through him.
“Don’t ever touch me again.”
Ian grits his teeth. “You’re out of control.”
I shrug, nonchalant. “Maybe. But you made me this way.” And without another word, I leave, using every ounce of strength inside to walk away with my head held high, holding back tears of grief.
Later that night, I take a bath before I go out hunting for vampires. As I do every time, I turn off the lights, drenching the bathroom in total darkness before turning the ceiling into a moonscape—the same sky from the night they took James:Pegasus and Cassiopeia shine brightest above, along with Perseus’s Demon Star—so appropriate for the events that lead to the shaping of the rest of my existence.
I lie back with my eyes closed, and use my mind to call on James, to imagine us back at that very same spot, that very same moment where we confessed our feelings, and imagine different outcomes than the one that actually happened.
Since then, I’ve dreamed a thousand lives with my love. Tonight will be no different.
Like a catalogue, I sort through different fantasies. Tonight, I decide to fast forward past our confessions last year, all the way to us walking the beaches of Bali under the moonlight (for some reason, I can never imagine us in the daylight)—where we would’ve ended up had the vampires never taken him from me.
I imagine the cold sand between our toes as he stops to wrap his arms around me and whisper in that deep, molasses-like voice: “You’re worth everything, dear Cate. I wouldn’t take back those ten minutes of pure bliss for anything in the world.”
Even if it’s all in my head, the pain in my heart is real. “What are you doing? This is afantasy—you’re not supposed to be talking about real things. In here, I imagine what our life should’ve been like.”
He smiles sweetly, fondly. “I think you need this tonight, though. I think you need to hear how happy those last ten minutes of my life made me.”
