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.”
Stephanie
HE WAS TOO CLOSE, but he would notice if I shifted away, and I didn’t want to appear weak, not when I’d already done so over and over again.
If he wanted to train me, fine.
I imagined it was a forced punishment, but my pride wouldn’t let m
e go there. Somehow imagining it was way better than him actually admitting it.
“You must have done something very, very bad,” I said under my breath, stealthily moving my chair away and standing, so much for not going there. “After all, when was the last time a Dark One was given mortality? Made human?”
“Never,” he said in a clipped tone. “I would know considering my age.”
“Yes let’s rehash your age, that always goes over well. You’re how much older than me?”
His blue eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “We’ll have to do something about that attitude of yours.”
“Oh, I’d love to see you try,” I challenged.
He grinned.
I didn’t like that grin.
It was beautiful.
It was also terrifying.
I backed away farther, even though I knew I had the upper hand, I still couldn’t forget, maybe my mind wouldn’t let me—he was a Dark One, or he had been. He could own my ass with a simple snap of his fingers.
Granted he was human now.
But for how long?
What if I pissed him off, and he was changed back tomorrow?
Right. I wasn’t taking any chances.
Regardless of my feelings for him—or the way he kissed me—he was a cold, heartless bastard.
Imagining anything else just made my heart sick.
Cassius stalked toward me, his steps purposeful, I walked backward until my body collided with the wall.
He tilted his head, his black hair falling across his strong angular jaw. “A Dark One never cowers.”
I arched my eyebrows and opened my mouth but he clamped his hand over it.
“And Dark Ones always respect their elders.”
I rolled my eyes, still unable to talk.
Slowly, he removed his hand.
“You know,” I whispered. “You could try to at least be nice to me while we’re training.”
He frowned. “Am I not being nice?”
“Are you insane?”
“Is that sarcasm?”
Cassius looked genuinely confused, like I’d just shouted that I wanted to ride a zebra in for dinner.
“You aren’t smiling at me, you haven’t even asked what I want in this whole scenario, and you touch me like I’m diseased!” I shouted. “Is that your definition of nice?”
His nostrils flared as he pounded a hand next to my head, a mirror crashed to the floor. “Smiling takes an effort I’m not willing to extend lest it become a habit, especially in your presence! I’m not asking your opinion because frankly I don’t give a shit what you think. And I don’t touch you because the very idea of your skin coming into contact with mine sends this ridiculously human body into flight. And I refuse to run away—from a woman.”
Forget about not wanting to kill him.
I slammed my hands against his chest, his body went flying across the room, landing on my bed, hammering the posts into the wall and creating giant holes I knew Mason was going to be pissed about fixing and hiding from Ethan.
The air in the room fell below zero as ice trickled along my veins. My skin turned a vivid white as my eyes took in every bit of moisture in the air, freezing it to my advantage so I could create an icy stake to plunge through Cassius’s cold, heartless chest.
My hands snapped forward, the ice joined together in front of my eyes. I gripped the makeshift weapon and launched myself into the air, arm raised.
When I landed on the bed, straddling Cassius.
It wasn’t terror, or fear, I found.
But elation.
His smile was huge, beautiful.
I dropped the ice stake and fell backward, my body turning warm again. “What the hell was that?”
“That—” His grin widened. “—is what happens when you piss off a Dark One. Good to know you aren’t defective.”
“I could have killed you.”
“I’m human. Therefore, every second I suck in air, I’m dying. It would have been worth it to see you what you’re capable of.”
“But!” I covered my face with my hands. “I’m dangerous, you said so yourself, in the car, you said to control my emotions, you said—”
“I said a lot of things,” he interrupted. “Listen to what I’m saying now. I’m truly here to help you. Not because I was punished.”
My heart sped up automatically as my head snapped to attention and I sought his gaze. “Really?”
He nodded, his eyes drinking me in. “I’m here out of an intense desire to help you—and to make sure you don’t kill the rest of your family in one of your adolescent mood swings.”
“I’m not a child.”
“Says the little girl who created a spike out of ice with the intent of stabbing me in the chest, all because her feelings were hurt.”
“You were mean.”
“It was necessary.”
“How do you figure?”
“How else am I supposed to help you?” Cassius leaned up on his elbows. “If I don’t allow you to see the darkest parts of yourself?”
“That’s what you want? To see my darkness?”
“No.” His eyes flashed. “I teach you how to fight the darkness—so you can recognize the light.”
My breath hitched.
Warmth trickled throughout my chest as I stared at his mouth. His eyes gave nothing away—and everything at the same time. He kept his expression indifferent, yet I could hear his heart race.
It sounded like mine felt.
I pressed a hand to his chest.
He covered the hand with his.
With a sigh I leaned down and pressed a kiss to his cheek, then brushed my lips against his mouth.
He didn’t kiss me back.
Rejection washed over me. Obviously I’d read the situation completely wrong. His heart was racing but not for me.
“Don’t.” His hoarse voice rattled my confidence even more. “Don’t kiss me—not unless you mean it.”
“What?”
“Kiss me when you’re calm… not when you’ve just come down from what any human would consider the ultimate adrenaline high. Then you’ll mean it. But don’t kiss me out of curiosity, out of thankfulness, or even out of attraction. It doesn’t work that way.”
Ashamed, I looked down, unable to keep eye contact because I hated that he was right. I loved the man.
But he was right.
“And anytime you’d like to get off of me that would be great,” he finished, grinning. “Because as much as I’d like to compliment you on your lithe body—you’re about two minutes away from crushing my liver.”
With a scowl I jumped off him, but when he tried to follow, I pushed him back onto the bed.
He grunted and tumbled over the other side.
I smiled to myself and started walking toward the door. “Hurry up, human. We don’t have all day.”
“You forget,” he said from the floor. “You may be a Dark One, but you gave up your immortality the day you saved my life.”
“I’d conveniently forgotten that part, since it was magically given back to me when you disappeared.”
“I haven’t… forgotten.” Cassius reached for my arm and led me out of the room. “Now, I think I need to eat before we begin.”
“How do you think you need to eat? You’re either hungry or you’re not.”
“I think this pain is hunger.” Cassius rubbed his stomach with one hand and frowned. “And that bird looked delicious.”
“Okay…” I patted him on the back, “Humans these days don’t have to shoot their own birds, let’s just ask Mason to cook something, he’s probably bored to tears anyway.”
We walked by the window.
The bird chose to land on the tree closest to us.
Cassius tensed.
“When was the last time you ate?” I asked.
“Ate?”
“Food.”
He licked his lips. “Dark Ones don’t need food we eat because food tastes delicious.”
&nbs
p; “As a human,” I clarified.
He shrugged. “I haven’t.”
“No wonder you want to go all Elmer Fudd on his ass.”
“Elmer Fudd?” Cassius shook his head in confusion. “Is that a figure of speech for eating birds?”
“No.” I patted his shoulder. “It’s Bugs Bunny.”
“Bugs or bunny? They can’t be one in the same.”
“Maybe you do need to watch some TV with everyone—”
I managed to lead him away from the window, though he turned around twice. I may be stronger, but it was still awkward trying to push him down the stairway when he kept trying to turn around and make creepy eye contact with the feathered creature.
“Someone say TV?” Alex was leaning against the bottom part of the stairway, his naturally bright smile even more amused than normal. “And Bugs Bunny is a rabbit.”
Cassius shrugged. “Of course the bunny is a rabbit. I was confused about the bugs part.”
“It’s his name.”
“But he’s a rabbit—bunny.” Cassius argued.
“Humans name pets.”
“Funny.” Cassius smirked. “They name pets, I keep them as pets…”
“Still talking a big game for being one of them.” Alex grinned. “And sister.” He peered up at me with loving eyes. “I think the best thing for you right now would be to get Cassius caught up on pop culture.”
Cassius groaned. “I’m not stupid. I know about the Backstreet Boys.”
Alex burst out laughing. “Oh this may be my favorite moment—of my entire existence. Right up there with the time I watched Ethan take his first bite of pizza thinking the sauce was blood.”
A giant scowl formed on Ethan’s face, and he gripped the edge of the table where he was seated. “Well, if you hadn’t lied about it…”
“Best. Day. Ever.” Alex winked.
Genesis finished setting the table by folding white napkins beneath the forks; it was cute that she did it, even though the only people who ate were her and sometimes Mason.
At least now Cassius could join the ranks.
“Sorry, Cassius.” Mason tossed a plate at Genesis, she caught it midair and placed it at the head of the table. “Backstreet Boys aren’t really the in thing anymore.”