THINGS FELT DIFFERENT with us again.

We didn’t talk about the wings, about the glowing eyes, about what he’d done to me with his light. We didn’t talk much at all that night.

The next morning, I felt almost shy with him.

We went surfing again, that time under the cliffs of the beach house he’d rented.

I was puzzled at first, when Black woke me up. It’s not like we could fit surf gear in the MacLaren. I wondered if the house came equipped with boards and wetsuits we could use, or if Black planned on going out there naked and just body-surfing in the freezing cold waves of the winter Pacific.

The day before, a guy had been waiting for us in a parking lot by the lighthouse cliffs, having been sent there ahead by Black’s people with a small truck filled with wetsuits and surfboards. When we got out of the water, we’d returned everything to him, since none of it except maybe the wetsuits would fit easily in the MacLaren, especially with the top down.

When I gave Black a bewildered look the next morning, he explained that he’d had the same guy clean up and drop everything off at the beach house while we were at dinner. He’d also been the one to pick up and hide the keys for us to use.

Black, as usual, had a way of taking care of things before I’d thought to ask the question.

That time, we went out early, before sunrise.

Only a few other surfers shared that part of the ocean with us. They gave us space, but all seemed friendly enough, despite the reputation of territorial Santa Cruz surfers.

Going out on the ocean that early was eerie.

Then, when the sun came up behind the cliffs, it was gorgeous, the water sparkling with pink and gold sunlight as we bobbed on the rolling waves. For the first time, I saw the bluff and the beach house in daylight, and I was a little blown away at how perfect it all was, with the big bay windows over those massive rock walls, the scoop of a small beach, smooth with golden sand and decently sized even during high tide.

Seals swam over to look at us in curiosity. Pelicans and seagulls winged overhead as sand pipers scuttled up and down the shore.

Apart from the sound of the surf and the gulls, it was strangely quiet.

Maybe it was the quietness, or the night before, or just exhaustion from being wrung out the previous twenty-four hours, but I felt myself relaxing into the ocean and Black for real. For the first time since Thailand, I felt almost at peace.

That morning, the waves were better than they had been the day before.

We stayed out there for hours, catching wave after wave, racing each other into shore, laughing when one of us wiped out––usually me.

It was nearly noon before Black asked if I wanted to go back in.

Climbing up the stone stairs to the house, we left our suits and boards in the garage, rinsed off in the outdoor shower, and walked around to the deck. There, someone had already left us brunch: Eggs Benedict with salmon, bowls of blueberries and strawberries, French-press coffee, sourdough toast, buckwheat pancakes with butter and real maple syrup––the latter probably being brought especially for Black, since he dug into those first.

I never even saw him make the call.

Knowing him, he’d arranged it all the night before, or maybe at four o’clock in the morning, before he woke me up to surf with him.

Either way, we ate leisurely on the balcony overlooking the water… then spent another hour or so on an even more leisurely fuck in the jacuzzi… and then another one in the giant shower of the master bedroom before we finally put on real-person clothes.

By the time we were getting ready to leave, around five o’clock that afternoon, I was genuinely sorry to go.

I asked Black if we could rent the house again, maybe the following weekend even, if only to detox from having to deal with Brick and his henchmen for three days.

He laughed, then handed me a key. He informed me he’d already bought it, that we could come down here whenever the hell we wanted––that I could come down here whenever the hell I wanted, too, with or without him.

We talked a lot more on the drive back up the coast on Highway 1 than we had on the way down.

I barely remembered the drive down now. It was like I was underwater for all of it, maybe even in shock… like real shock, like some part of me just checked out.

But the whole drive back, we talked.

We didn’t talk about Nick, though, or Charles, or riots.

We didn’t talk about fucking vampires.

I curled up against Black in the convertible MacLaren, and we talked about possible venues for the wedding… and food… and how big and crazy we wanted to make it… and whether we’d invite a few members of the press or just let them show up… and how many of his friends we’d invite… and whether we’d incorporate any seer traditions.

Black entertained me, telling me about a few of those traditions, including one that would essentially require our entire wedding party to drop acid.

The only time Charles or Nick came up was when I mused aloud about whether or not I should invite Nick’s family… and when Black asked me how likely I thought Uncle Charles would be to crash the wedding and/or reception.

The sun set to our left as we wound up the coast.

When we finally got back to the building on California Street, it was dark.

I climbed out of the MacLaren and wrapped my arms around my torso, shivering. Black noticed and went into the trunk, pulling out my coat. He held it up so I could slide my arms one by one into the sleeves. He was still talking, telling me little things about changes he’d made to our security detail and the organization of the team.

I was listening, noting with some relief that there were no people and no press waiting for us this time, as we exited the car.

We were about to walk into the building, when Black nudged me.

“Hey, what about North Beach tonight? For dinner.” He nudged me again playfully, coiling his light into mine, pulling on me. “We could take Cal up on his offer for a kick-ass meal. Eat until we feel sick, get some wildly decadent plate of Italian desserts and eat all of it, then come back home and fuck like rabbits to burn it off.”

When I rolled my eyes at him, laughing, he nudged me again, coiling an arm around my waist and hugging me close to him.

“Don’t worry.” He smirked. “I’ll wake you up nice and early so we can go running tomorrow morning, too.”

Snorting humorously, I turned towards him with a narrow smile.

“Over my dead body.”

“No Cal’s, then?” He exuded disappointment. “What about the wharf? I don’t feel like eating here tonight. And I’m starving.”

“I’ll go to Cal’s,” I said, my voice humorous, if faintly warning. “But only if you promise not to threaten his life this time. Or act like a lunatic if I give him a hug. Or start ranting about how we’re married if I’m in any way polite to him…”

Black chucked, even as my voice trailed.

I didn’t hear what he said in response.

I didn’t hear anything for a few seconds.

I stared at a figure standing on the sidewalk across the street.

Whoever he was, he was maybe thirty yards from where we stood. It was far enough from the car that I don’t know why I noticed him at all. He stood under a broken streetlight, in front of a storefront that was already dark for the night.

He was watching us.

I stared back at him.

As I did, I felt my breath hitch in my chest. Not a single conscious thought rose in my mind, not a single linear understanding. Instead, my reaction was animal, visceral. A pain rose in the center of my solar plexus as I froze, taking in the shape of him, trying to make out his face in the darkness where he stood.

My night vision was different now. It was closer to Black’s. It was close enough to Black’s that I could make out the man’s face, even in the dark.

It was Nick.

It was fucking Nick.

Nick stood there, his face and outline in shadow.

I stared at him, my breath stopping in my chest, my head swimming.

Even so, I never stopped taking him in, trying to confirm or refute what I knew. My eyes scanned over every inch of him, going over every detail of his appearance.

His hair was longer than I remembered. It hung in an expensive shag cut that fell down one side of his forehead, making his face look narrower, his cheekbones higher.

Even in the dark, he somehow looked… younger.

Instead of the early-forties Nick I remembered, he looked like he was in his late twenties. Early thirties at most.

Even apart from the age difference, he looked… different.

He’d always been a good-looking man, and not only because he kept himself in peak physical condition the entire time I’d known him. He’d always had women after him, too, and not all of that was about him being such a nice guy. I’d personally witnessed women approach him just for sex, without knowing him at all.

More than just good-looking, he’d always been attractive, I guess.

Like Black, he just gave off a vibe a lot of women liked.

But not like this.

He looked ethereal now, like he was too beautiful to be quite real.

He looked like something out of an artistic rendering, or a movie poster.

He didn’t smile.

He stared at me, his body and face utterly still, his mouth and eyes unmoving. He wore an expensive leather jacket, black pants, dress shoes. He dressed almost like Black, I realized as I stared at him. He dressed like he had money.

I’d never seen Nick in clothes like that before. I’d never seen him in clothes that expensive, or that fit him so well, like they’d been made for him.

I don’t know how long I stood there, staring at him.

I don’t know how long I went without breathing.

Eventually, I heard my heart and blood throbbing behind my eyes, turning my vision dark red. The rational part of my mind informed me there was a good chance I might pass out.

Then strong hands gripped me, yanking back my mind.

Panic flickered around me in darting pulses, swimming through my light, pulling me inexorably back to my body. I took a breath, a choked gasp, and my vision flooded back, even as I fell into and against a larger, harder body than mine.

Black wrapped his arms around me, hugging me tightly to his chest.

When I could hear past the loud ringing in my ears, he sounded panicked, borderline scared.

“Miri! MIRI! Answer me, goddamn it! What is it? What’s wrong?”

I blinked, fighting to see.

I leaned deeper into Black, gripping his arms in my hands, holding onto him for balance, maybe just to be there at all, to be fully inside my own body.

My eyes looked for the figure that had been standing across the street.

He was gone.

I scanned up and down the sidewalk frantically, trying to see where he went, looking for his face in the other people I saw walking there, looking for the clothes I remembered, the black hair, those high cheekbones, the muscular build.

I looked for him in every face that crossed my vision. I looked with my eyes, and I looked with my living light, desperate to glimpse him in the streetlights that ran up and down the street so I could dismiss what my mind had told me.

I was too late.

Whoever he was, whatever he was, he was gone.