Page 29 of Paying The Vampire
I had no idea how much time had passed since I had first arrived here. Time seemed to have this elastic, ethereal quality here where the days and nights blended in with each other and there was no telling them apart. A thousand years could have passed without me noticing, and it was a strange thing to think about. My mind turned to home, to the pack that had shunned me. I wondered what had happened to them. After I disappeared did they care? Did they try and figure out what had happened to me, or had they just gotten on with their lives? I wasn’t even sure if they would mourn me. It was pitiful I suppose to think about that. I would have hoped that a huge pyre would have been built to me and the old songs would have been sung, and they all would have lined up and howled to send me into the next life, presuming they believed I had died.
Except that kind of ceremony was reserved for the wolves, and I had never been one of them.
I had never been much of anything to anyone, except to Cassius. The way I had betrayed him burned in my heart. I wasn’t sure if I would ever get that taste of resentment out of my mouth. He had every right to banish me from his realm as he had banished the rest of his people. He saw himself as a monster, but I did not see that when I looked at him. I saw a brave man who was willing to put his own integrity and morality first even when his entire race were begging him otherwise. He could have turned a blind eye, or he could even have joined with them and conquered other worlds, but instead he chose to set himself aside from his people and he banished them.
Just like me he was an outsider, only he was one by choice.
How could I not see a lot of myself in him? How could I not feel attracted to him?
I had been fighting these feelings ever since I had come to this world. I had been afraid of him at first, forcing him to promise me that he would not seek anything physical with me. But then we had danced and sang and he had shown me glimpses of his true soul, and I had not been able to look away. I had feigned some feelings to trick him, but now that I thought about it I realized that I had not really feigned anything. They had been lurking underneath the surface, waiting for me to embrace them.
And yet I was still afraid of them. I cursed myself for being ruled by such fear. I was supposed to be a wolf; fearless, but instead I looked at everything that could have gone wrong. It was impossible to say how much older he was than me, even though he looked like a man in his prime. How could I possibly be worthy of his company? How could I offer any kind of stimulating conversation when I had not experienced anywhere near as much as he had? And there was no getting around the fact that he was a vampire as well. Even though he was different from the rest he was still one of them; undead and undying, and one day I would die before him. And the other thing was that I was still so young and untouched and inexperienced. Surely from a lover he would have wanted more from me… I wanted to give it to him, but I was so scared. What if I disappointed him? What if I wasn’t any good?
*
There were moments when I had been so confident in front of him, and perhaps that had been because there was nothing riding on it. However, now that we had gone to these lengths I suddenly felt nervous and self conscious. Every time we were around each other I felt a flutter in my heart and a hazy, swirling sensation within my mind. Cassius, for his part, did not try and push me. I had told him that I wanted him to keep his promise before anything else happened. I wanted him to find a way to bring out the wolf in me. He kept to his word. We went back to spending much of our time in the library, looking through so many ancient tomes. He was charming, and after having told me the truth he seemed to be more relaxed. I think before he had been holding onto something that burdened him, but telling me the truth had lightened that burden. If nothing else I felt glad that I had been able to do this for him.
In other ways we were getting close though. Instead of sitting on opposite sides of the table in the library we sat next to each other. Our arms brushed against each other as we read books, and I found his presence comforting. Sometimes his hand fell against mine and I did not move mine out of the way. I felt the heat rushing through me and wondered if he was this nervous as well. The thought was a silly one. He had lived so many lifetimes, had been married before, so I did not think that I was really special to him. Although the way he treated me seemed like I was special. He had told me that I was the only one he had looked for, the one who had been better than Clea, but I was not sure I saw it myself.
One day I looked up at him before we ended our research for the night. My eyes were strained and my head was weary. Poring through the tomes had allowed me to learn so much, but we had not yet found anything that could help bring out the wolf within. I arched my back to stretch it and yawned. Cassius smiled.
“Are you getting bored of these books?” he asked.
“It’s not that, it’s just that it takes its toll on me. I must confess that I did think we would have found what we were looking for by now.”
“Me too,” he frowned. He cocked his head to the side for a moment and seemed to be debating whether to say something or not. Eventually he decided that he would. “Willow, I know that you wanted to wait until we find something that can help you, but in truth I do not know if there is anything here that can. We could read every book in this library and never find anything. And although time has always been something that has been cheap to spend for me, suddenly the days are filled with more urgency. I am worried we may be missing out on something special. I just thought I would ask if you wanted to reconsider anything.”
I looked away, having been afraid of this exact question. My chest tightened. I knew what he wanted and a part of me wanted it as well, but I was so afraid. “Cassius I… I think perhaps we should leave this to talk about tomorrow.”
I rose sharply from the table, allowing my fear to get the better of me. A hand shot out and he held mine, keeping me frozen in place.
“We promised we would be honest with each other Willow. Should I poison you and go and read your diary to find out the truth?” he asked with a smirk. I sank to the chair and my head dropped forward. My hair covered my face like a veil.
“I’m sorry, it’s just that this is all new to me.”
“I only ever want you to be honest with me Willow. Tell me how you are feeling. I have many skills and talents, but mind reading is not one of them.”
“It’s just… it’s just that I am afraid Cassius.”
“Afraid? Afraid of what?”
“That I am not as special as you think. You give me such compliments and you look at me in such a way as to make me feel special, but there are times when I do not know if I am deserving of them.”
“Of course you are,” Cassius scoffed. I looked up at him and he softened as he saw the worry in my eyes.
“I am so young compared to you Cassius. I have never… I have never done anything with a man and I do not know if I can be worthy of being your queen. You have experienced everything. You have been married before. I am just a child compared to you.”
“You are no child Willow,” he said, brushing strands of hair away from my face. His touch was gentle. “You can be more than you can ever realize. Everyone needs to start somewhere, and if my experience means anything then it just means that I can appreciate you more. But I do not want you to feel overwhelmed. If you want to be reassured then I can be honest with you as well; this is all new to be too.”
I looked at him with confusion in my eyes. “How can it be? How can it be when you have lived so many other lives?”
“Because they were never my true lives Willow. With you I am myself. I am honest. You know me better than anyone. You know my shame, my guilt, my regret. With others I have always tried to be the man I thought they should be, the man I used to want to be. I tried to make myself an identity out of patchwork qualities and it only ever ended the same way, with me feeling distant from them.” He paused to collect his thoughts, and then continued. “The first woman I ever loved was someone who never returned those feelings. I thought if I could be a certain type of man then it would have been different and she would have learned to appreciate me. Then I wanted revenge. I wanted the most beautiful, the most eligible woman in the city. I married her and thought that all my problems would have been solved, but they were not. I watched her age and die and up until the end she was confused as to why I hadn’t changed at all. It was like that as time continued. I would marry in the hope that it would change something inside me, but I could never tell them the truth because it would have caused them terror. I had to move on before they grew suspicious, spreading misery wherever I went, and in time I learned that I could never be with anyone because I was only ruining their lives. I could not give them children. I could not give them anything but a fleeting sense of love, and even then they would never be able to truly know me. You are the first woman I have been completely honest with, vulnerable with, and I want you to know that it is just as scary for me to open up to you as it is for you to do so with me. And I do not want to pressure you either. We can go at your pace Willow, I just… I wanted to make sure that I was not missing out on a sign you were giving.”
He was so considerate and thoughtful. No man had ever spoken to me in this way before. I thought back to Brandon, who had thought I would be honored at being his concubine, wanting to sleep with me without giving anything in return. Cassius was so kind and compassionate. I nodded softly, but I thought more about what he said. There must have been so many women he had been with, and each one of them had filled him with guilt and regret because he couldn’t be honest with them. I was glad to stand apart from them, but it did get me thinking about the future.
“Cassius… in all the time that you spent in these lives did you ever have… was it possible for you to have children?” I asked.
He looked away. I hadn’t realized the question would be such a personal one to him.