Cassius
MY EYES WEREN’T USED to the dull colors around me. Gray used to be my favorite color—it masqueraded as something trivial and boring when really it consisted of a million different speckles of blues, greens, blacks, and even some white, constantly changing, shifting in its color—evolving.
Now, I glanced around at the gray countertop, the gray or what some would call silver appliances.
And I was bored to tears.
And irritated that something as simple as enjoying the visions in front of me, was suddenly gone—taken from me. Humans really had no understanding of the depth of color, and now I was realizing that first hand.
Particles of dust used to float in front of my face, pieces of moisture collected into the air, ready for me to use had I needed it.
Now, I sucked in air through lungs that by my calculations would stop working around the age of seventy-eight, possibly seventy-nine; it would be something simple that would take this body.
Morose thoughts clouded my vision—making it impossible for me to really see anything but my own demise, and the very simple fact that last week I had been different, I had been better.
This week… I was facing the greatest challenge of my existence, getting Stephanie to see me as someone other than her protector, her King, a monster.
I wasn’t sure what was typical. Did I wait an hour to go fetch her? Two? Maybe three? So I sat, my ass pressed against an extremely uncomfortable chair, and imagined a simpler time when I was able to simply force my will on anyone and be done with it.
The coffee Mason had given me was cold.
The ceramic cup cheap, breakable.
I think he meant it as a joke when he gave it to me. After all, it had some silly Vampire looking character on the front of it, blood dripping from his fangs. I scowled and turned the cup to face the other direction.
“She’s upstairs,” Alex grumbled from the corner. “You know, just in case you haven’t turned into a statue. Then again with a heart that cold…”
I rolled my eyes and stood. “I’ll see to her.”
Alex moved in front of me, his cat like eyes narrowing in suspicion, his fingertips pressed against my chest, it hurt like hell, not that I was going to actually admit to the Siren that he was stronger.
Because the very thought—the idea that he could end my life, when I’d spent the better part of mine protecting his kind—it didn’t rub well. It felt all too humbling.
Damn, I hated that word.
“She’s… fragile.” He retracted his hand. “Remember.”
“She could break my finger with a flick of her wrist.” I shoved past him, ignoring the already bruising skin on my chest. “Think of it this way, if I make her angry you’ll simply have to burn my body to finish me off.”
“Ah, fire.” Alex snapped his fingers. “I always forget about the fire.”
I didn’t. I hated fire. Fire represented my future—if I couldn’t get her to fall for me, to love me, just as I was—I wouldn’t just die.
I’d be burned alive.
While Sariel most likely watched.
With a bowl of damn popcorn. Buttered.
“Just—” Alex’s sigh grated my nerves. “Be careful.”
“I’ll do that.” I had no idea how I was going to manage being careful, that word hadn’t ever really been in my vocabulary. Being careful meant I actually cared.
In all my existence I’d only cared about one person.
Her.
And now the game was twisted, altered, some of my chess pieces missing, the board falling sideways off the table.
“You’re stalling,” Alex called from behind me.
I grunted and made my way slowly up the stairs. I couldn’t smell her—there had once been a time when I’d been able to pick out her scent from across the room in a crowd. It had been all I could do to keep myself from pulling her close, from breathing deep, from kissing her deeper.
My footsteps were loud, awkward, as I made my way down the hallway to her room. I knocked.
She didn’t answer.
I didn’t expect her to.
I nudged the door open. Stephanie was sitting in front of the window, her hands placed demurely in her lap, her head cocked to the side as if she was watching something very carefully.
The beauty of Stephanie wasn’t in just her form, but the way she made you feel by simply glancing in your direction. Weakness made me crave it; my humanity demanded I stay in her presence forever, convincing me that walking away would only result in such physical and emotional pain that I wouldn’t survive it.
Her hair was like warm caramel chocolate, her eyes, an icy blue. She was tall—most immortal woman were—but she wasn’t thin, not by any stretch of the imagination. Calling her thin would be an insult.
She had curves.
The kind that made any man, mortal or not, stop and take notice. I imagined she was the epitome of the perfect woman.
I coughed behind my hand.
She ducked her head, but didn’t turn around. “So you’ve come to… train me? Is that it, Cassius?”
I moved toward her, slowly, carefully, because even though I knew she wouldn’t hurt me physically—my weak body was completely aware she could.
And that was enough.
“In a manner of speaking.” I pulled a chair next to hers and glanced out the window. “What are you looking at?”
“Birds.”
“Birds?” I repeated.
“Do you need me to speak slower? Ears aren’t what they used to be, huh Cassius?”
I scowled. “My ears are just fine.”
She smirked.
I wanted to kiss that smirk right off her face about as much as I wanted to snap my fingers and freeze her ass for defying me so blatantly.
“Birds have it easy. They build nests, find worms, eat, sing, reproduce, they get to fly…”
I held my sigh in. “Stephanie, if you want to be a bird I’m sure Sariel can arrange it.”
She laughed out loud. “Sariel can turn me into an animal? I’d believe that when I saw it.”
I chose not to comment. “This is why you need me.”
She turned her icy glare in my direction. “Because I’m bird watching?”
“Because you don’t realize…” I leaned in and tilted her chin toward me, my fingers nearly fell away from the electrical shock her skin gave me. “You don’t even know where you come from, where I come from, what our real purpose is, why they call us Dark Ones, why we’re feared, revered, why according to any human gifted with good sight—we’re considered gods. You know nothing of our secrets, of our lies, of our struggle against humanity, of our struggle to save it. You. Know. Nothing.”
Stephanie hung her head, a tear slid down her cheek, freezing as it met her lip and the cool breath ignited between the two of us. “Then teach me and be done with it.”
“I’ll teach you.”
She stiffened.
“But I won’t ever be done with you.” I placed my hands on either side of her chair and jerked it forward until we were nose to nose. “I will never be done with you. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not a year from now. Understood?”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“It’s not a promise. It’s simply truth in its finest form. You and I will never be separate, hate me all you want, but our lives are intertwined now.”
She broke eye contact, and her breathing became erratic.
“Do you regret saving me?” I whispered.
“I did.” She cleared her throat. “I regretted it every day you were gone.”
“And now?”
“Now…” The air turned icy. “I guess we’ll see.”