Up until that night, the single bed had been a true source of annoyance for me. I'd tossed and turned and landed on the the floor more than once already. But tonight, it was a blessing.
I lay on top of her, as naked as she was, and equally as exhausted, yet feeling more alive than ever before. This was the only way we could lie together in the cramped space. Or rather, this was the only way I wanted us to lie: in her tight embrace, cradled and protected, my head resting on her chest. It was hard to imagine that I was running away from this.
Her fingers swam through my hair, which she'd pulled from its bun.
"I don't want you to leave," she said.
"I know. But I have to do this." So I claimed. But being held like that, caressed and loved, I wasn't so sure anymore. "I have to grow up, Jean. For me, and for you. I can't keep making the same mistakes."
"I love you the way you are."
She wanted me to reconsider. Even if it harmed us in the long run. It was so important for me to stay that she couldn't see this was better for both of us.
I lifted my head from its comfortable spot between her bare breasts, and looked at her. "What are you afraid of?"
"That you'll prefer your life without me in it, and never come back."
Once upon a time I'd had a similar fear. In fact, most days I still did. That she would wake up and realize her love for me was merely a manifestation of her guilt, and that she would grow tired of me. People fell out of love with each other all the time – it wasn't outside the realm of possibility. And I couldn't promise her that it would never happen to us. But staying there was destroying us. Sure, we'd reconnected tonight, but how long would it be before I flipped out again?
"If we're meant to be together, we'll find our way back to each other," was all I could give her. I knew it wasn't what she wanted to hear, because it gave no assurances. "Don't be sad."
She smiled sadly, pulled me into a kiss, and said nothing. Not being sad was a promise she couldn't make.
I returned my head to her chest, resolved to remain this way for as long as she would let me, and make up for lost time. My body still tingled from the orgasm. I put that down to the bite. It had come as such a surprise when she sank her teeth in, something I thought she would never do again, since the first time had been a disaster. I wondered why she'd decided to go against her convictions, when doing so conjured up the worst memory from her past. When every sip of my blood tasted like my mother's. But I never asked. I simply appreciated being bitten again. The feeling: like a thousand orgasms all occurring at once.
Instead I asked, "Why did you lose it like that at the restaurant?" Her reaction still sent a shiver down my spine now, even as she held me, far from being the monster I'd seen at the restaurant. Both terrifying and fascinating – I would never stop feeling that way about her.
"It's a natural reaction when my kind come into contact with Weres. It's genetic. It doesn't affect them as much as it does us, but we're natural enemies. Like cats and dogs. Our most base instinct is to attack each other. Controlling that is the hard part." She lifted my head so I could look at her. "I didn't mean to frighten you, baby. I'm sorry."
"I'm fine. But I don't think your business partner will get over that any time soon. She looked pretty spooked."
Jean sighed. "Oh God, Nadine. I didn't even think about her in all of this. I'll have to sort it tomorrow evening. Hopefully we still have a business left."
"Maybe you should call her now."
"It can wait. This is the only thing I need to do tonight." And she kissed me. I was certain that this was her way of trying to convince me to stay.
She came dangerously close to succeeding that night.
No matter how many times I'd been through it, how used to it I was, I still held the illogical hope that I would wake up in the morning and see her fast asleep beside me. She would have been even more beautiful in the light of a new day. I'd dreamed of it before, though I'd never told her this.
It wasn't Jean or Sandra who woke me the following morning, but the loud, enraged voice of my arch nemesis. She'd barged into my bedroom, unannounced, like a year's worth of periods had come all at once for her.
She yanked the duvet off me and tossed it to the floor.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I yelled, sitting up, wiping the grit from my eyes. "Why did you do that?" Robyn during the daytime was insufferable, a big bully playing the tough guy because the boss wasn't around to chastise her for it. She was like one of those kids who turned into a complete shit when their parents weren't around.
"You wanna tell me what you were doing at the restaurant last night?"
Ahh, of course. Nadine had filled her in on that debacle. Nothing got past Robyn; and if I was involved somehow, there was no way she would let it go.
"Eating dinner. What else?"
"Listen, you little..." She stopped herself, took a deep breath. I could almost hear her inner voice placating her. Boy did this woman have the shortest fuse. Just a tall, well-dressed, statuesque figure filled with hatred, most of it for me. We'd only ever seen eye to eye once, when Jean was in trouble. But it was as though that had never happened.
She spoke again, only slightly calmer than before. "Did you bring one of those changelings to the restaurant?"
"I didn't know what she was at the time."
"Bullshit!" she exploded all over again. "This is so typical of you. You probably put out an ad in search of one of those things, just to piss Jean off."
I rolled my eyes at her. "Think whatever you like."
She glowered at me with a hatred so strong I was sure I could feel my skin smoldering.
"You know everyone is talking about it, don't you? The whole fucking town, talking about the vampire losing it while they were having dinner. And now I'm left to do damage control, all because my boss's bitch wanted to play silly little games."
I sprung from the bed, squared up to her as best I could to someone who had at least four inches on me.
"You can't talk to me like that."
"You've caused her nothing but trouble. She never should have intervened when those boys attacked you."
"Well, she did, when are you going to accept that?"
She towered over me ominously. I felt so small standing in front of her.
"Even now, you have no idea what you've done. Your antics could have cost her her business. Could have destroyed a restaurant that's been in a family for three generations. But none of that matters to you."
Her insults were always cutting, though I'd learned to live with them. But these words were especially painful to hear. Because she wasn't insulting me; she was speaking the truth. Although my intention had never been to cause such a commotion, that was the outcome of my actions. It was all my fault.
"That's not true. Of course I care about Jean's business interests."
She let out a derisive laugh, unconvinced. "Yeah right, that's why you brought a wolf to her restaurant. What, is this your new obsession now? Werewolves are the new black, huh?"
"I didn't know she was one of them!" I shouted. How many times would I need to say it? "I'm not some freak looking for her latest thrill."
"Save it. I don't care what you have to say. I wish you would just go away." She turned to leave, mumbling something under her breath.
"Well, you're in luck. I've found somewhere else to live. I'm moving out."
She stopped, looked at me to assess if I was telling the truth. Then she said, "We're not lucky enough for it to be to a different state or country, are we?"
My glare could have pierced her skin. "Sorry to disappoint you."
"It's better than nothing. Maybe when you're finally gone she'll get a chance to move on."
I didn't have the energy to go after her, to tell her that moving on was the last thing Jean wanted. That she'd begged me to stay, that even though my new place was half an hour away, it still seemed like a thousand miles to her. Because what good was any of that when everything Robyn had said was true? I'd caused nothing but trouble. The ink had barely dried on her contract for the restaurant, and I'd already destroyed her new partnership.
My move couldn't have come soon enough.
I went back to bed after Robyn's departure, but drifted in and out of sleep, before finally giving up. I got dressed, grabbed a croissant from the kitchen, and locked myself away in my studio.
With all the Jean stuff and our memorable night of love-making, I hadn't had five seconds to really think about Dallas.
Holy shit! A werewolf. How much of a cliche had I become by getting involved with her? First a vampire, now a werewolf. The coincidence was too absurd. Except, what if Jean was right? What if it wasn't a coincidence that Dallas had entered my life? Could she have targeted me because of my relationship with Jean?
I didn't want to consider the possibility. I wanted to believe that a sexy, sassy girl could be interested in me for me, not because she saw me as a vampire's pet.
I didn't realize I'd started painting until I was staring at the outline of what looked like a wolf. And just like that the muse had returned. She never announced her return, just showed up and took control of my hand.
I'd never painted a wolf before, but I went with it. That was how some of my best work came about, by letting the muse guide me.
As my hand shifted all across the canvas, like a puppet's, I found myself wondering. I knew nothing about werewolves – less about them than I had about vampires before I'd met Jean. And my ignorance only made me want to learn more. About everything. Dallas had intrigued me just by being the rebellious girl who rode a motorcycle. But this revelation, that she was a Were, was a real game-changer.
Curiosity, see, had always been my weakness. And as I fleshed out the painting of the wolf, I battled with the two conflicting voices inside me. One told me to steer clear, not get involved with someone from a race my girlfriend called her mortal enemies. The other told me to explore, to learn more about the world I was locked out of, that most were locked out of.
It wasn't, I'm ashamed to say, a difficult decision to make.