Chapter 6: Heartache

NORI'S POV

I’m getting ready to go in for my shift at the bunker. I can sense the sunset outside, and I know that it will still be half an hour or so until I can comfortably head out. Our cottage is made of solid rock with no windows and the majority of the cauldron stays in the hidden but extensive underground mansion anyway, unless it’s time to feed.

I come up to the cottage whenever I need solitude. That’s been happening more and more lately. I’d say it has been ever since Milo Perez teetered into my arms and then gently forced me away by my shoulders, determined he could and would walk on his own. I could say that, but I absolutely won’t, not even in the solitude of my mind. It’s better not to open those doors.

I hear someone coming and know who it will be before I turn. Weston. He’s about a decade older than me, and I first met him when I was nothing more than a fledgling. Despite us being the male and female leaders of the cauldron, he seems to continue in his belief that I’m young and untried.

“Preparing to go serve the worms once more, I see,” he says by way of greeting.

I’ve told him a thousand times not to refer to humans as worms. Are they food? Yes. Are they something separate, slower and younger than us? Yes. Some vampires refer to them as “pets,” thinking that’s more apropos than Weston’s terminology. I think it’s quite easy to forget that we were once them, easy but wrong.

Weston, once Gentilhomme Sumner Valois, studies me with his red-tinged blue eyes. He’s the only being to have seen me at my worst. And, despite all my efforts, he believes it’s his calling to see me achieve my best. His version of my best.

“You’ve been distracted of late, mon bel ami,” he says, letting some of his original accent through. He steps closer to me as he talks.

When I don’t reply he goes on.

“Why? I haven’t seen you so doleful in 500 years,” he says, and the words are pointed. We both know what happened 500 years ago. Although it’s only a ghost of sensation, the pain from that period of my afterlife comes back.

Cristián. After all these years I can recall his face in perfect detail. He was a good man. He loved me, for a time. He was a Spanish captain, a lover of the high seas. In our better times, he would lay beside me, trailing his fingers over my naked skin, telling me he could feel the ocean in me, the waves, the swells. He called me his Amphitrite, his untamed goddess whose moods brought even the king of the deep to his knees. He spun pretty words like that the way a master weaver made a bespoke cloth. With ease. With artistry.

The night before the Spanish Armada sailed, I begged him not to go. I had a terrible feeling. Everyone else was so assured of Spain’s imminent victory, that we would solve the English problem on the high seas. He, too, had no doubts that his skill with a ship and his many other near misses would serve him well. Though he would’ve argued vehemently against it, I always thought him more pirate than Queen’s man. His recklessness, his self assurance, was that of a buccaneer.

“Don’t go. Stay with me,” I begged, sitting up with the sheet wrapped around my chest.

“I will come home, and we will celebrate my victory with wine and a wedding,” he said, leaning in to kiss me. In a brief kiss, the man made love to my mouth with his sly tongue.

I had told him I was a noble lady’s maid. That’s why he never saw me in the daylight hours. Our positions were deeply unequal, or they would have been if my cover story had been true. Proposing marriage would shake up his social circle. And what of babies? I was a hundred year old vampire. He would want heirs. Unless…unless I changed him. For some reason, in the heat of the moment, about to lose him, that seemed like the perfect solution.

I told him to stay with me, not to go. He wouldn’t have to go if he was what I was. He wouldn’t need to seek glory. He’d have centuries to navigate the waves, to find his triumph. We could find it together.

I told him what I was. I offered him the exchange.

He got up to pace, I thought, to think about it. When he turned and slashed me with his discarded saber, I watched in shock as the blood seeped out of my wounded chest, blooming over the sheet covering my nudity. I didn’t have much time to ponder. He was reeling back, aiming to take my head from my neck. I used my enhanced speed to escape the room and ended up flitting through the shadowy streets of Lisbon, among drunkards and thieves, until cool arms closed around my middle.

It was another vampire, and I was in no condition to fight. Instead of proving his dominance, however, this vampire made soothing sounds.

“What has happened here, mon bel ami?” he asked with a thick and elegant French inflection.

His nostrils flared, obviously taking in the scent of my blood. Here was Sumner, one day to be known as Weston.

“You are hurt, my lady. Who did this to you? Where is your cauldron to protect you?” he asked while taking off his jacket and draping me with it. He tried to guide my steps to a local inn, but I stood trembling and otherwise unmoving in the street. I did not trust him. I did not trust anyone anymore.

Despite my injury, I bared my extended fangs at him. I was no easy mark. Whatever he wanted, he wouldn’t get from me.

“Yes, you’re a terrifying creature of the night. I see that. I’m not going to hurt you. I can show you how to heal those wounds. And I can show you how to defend yourself so that this never happens again. You are not to be afraid of the dark, ma bel. You are the thing in the dark, the shadow prowler,” he said.

That sounded so good. I’d been on my own for over a hundred years, and anytime I’d run into other vampires, they’d been territorial and let me know I was not welcome. Rogue vampires were pariahs, and joining a cauldron required a member’s recommendation. I’d survived this long by feeding as little as possible and staying constantly on the move. What he offered, it sounded like a vampire paradise.

“I won’t hurt you. I swear it,” he promised in a soft hiss, running his fangs over his palm. Blood welled there. The hunger rose up in me, making my vision fade into black, white, and red. In my vision, his self inflicted injury shone like a crimson homing beacon.

I did the same, slicing through the lines of my palm. We shook, and I felt the zap of a blood promise. Now, he could not go back on his word. He was blood bound to it.

Then I followed him into the inn, where a large room was appointed to him. He let me hold the jacket around myself but instructed me to show him my wounds. He trailed them, much to my shock, with his tongue. He explained this is what cauldron mates did, healed one another when necessary. He rang a bell for service, then paid the maid who answered to buy me a gown. Only after that did we go together to eat, he watching my back as I fed and regained my strength.

Despite all Gentilhomme Valois’ protestations, I went the following day to see the armada off. On the deck was my Cristián, looking wan and sleep deprived. He saw me in the crowd, and suddenly his face became hard, unforgiving. I knew in that moment there would be no reconciliation.

That night I joined Gentilhomme Valois’ cauldron under his recommendation.

Within the month, Cristián went down with the majority of the armada. I wonder still if I was the monster that haunted his last moments.

And, it’s entirely a d*ck move for Weston to be reminding me of that time. I tell him so.