A Call of Vampires (A Shade of Vampire #51)

My senses were enhanced from the spiced rosewater, and, combined with Galen’s incubus nature, I was dealing with heatwaves coursing through my body. I left the banquet hall and checked my hair in one of the hallway mirrors. Other guests passed by me, some heading back inside and others going back up to the platform. I’d enlisted Shayla’s help with a designer-style outfit, and she’d more than delivered.

The dress was superb, made of three pieces and mimicking the 1950s style, with a waspy waist and a skirt that revealed the lower half of my calves and my baby-doll pumps. Shayla had used a thin and soft type of pale, grayish pink chiffon for the outfit, molded on a tight corset that really brought out my round chest and hourglass figure before it vanished into the skirt. She’d completed the look with a slim bolero that covered my arms and only half of both shoulders, accentuating the length of my neck and somehow bringing out my hazel eyes.

My blond-highlighted hair was pinned back with pearl pins and faux flowers, and I loved the way it all fit me; it gave me a mild confidence boost and a spring in my step.

I looked around, then moved down the hallway, searching for one of the secluded balconies farther away from the banquet hall’s main entrance. The incubus’s effect was still making my blood sizzle. Sure, Galen was as hot as a Los Angeles sidewalk on a July day, but I wasn’t really attracted to him per se.

A sniff to my left as I passed one of the balconies made me turn my head, and I stilled, noticing Hansa looking up at the now-purplish night sky. She was on a chair, slumped against the white marble railing, her silver sandal pumps on the floor next to her bare feet, as she cried and sipped from a pitcher of spiced rosewater.

I couldn’t stop myself from moving closer to her, and I sat in the spare chair in front of her. I didn’t say anything for a while, and neither did Hansa. Even with tears streaming down her cheeks, she looked ravishing, her thick, silky black hair undulating over one shoulder.

“Are you okay, Hansa?” I finally asked.

I’d never seen her like this before. She was a warrior, her voice booming across the Plateau on Mount Zur during our training sessions, her sword blows hard and unforgiving. It had already been a surprise to see her as a bridesmaid in a silk dress. Watching her sit like this, crying by herself, bordered on shocking.

“Not really, no,” she managed to say between hiccups.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.” She looked at me, her emerald-gold eyes glazed with tears and her lower lip trembling. She took another sip of her drink, holding the pitcher with both hands. I had a feeling her state might have been amplified by the spiced rosewater, but I’d never seen anyone get so sad from drinking it; hence, there was no precedent for me to use for comparison.

“Anything I can do to help?”

“I… I don’t know.” She sighed. “I’ve been so stressed about the wedding and making it all perfect for Anjani that I’ve bottled everything up and felt like I was about to explode. I also haven’t seen Izora in a month, since I last checked in on her on Persea. I likely won’t be able to see her for another month, as per her request, and I miss her and that has taken its toll on me, too. I needed something to relax me, so I asked Ori to help me out with a potion or something to take the edge off, which he did. I emptied the flask by the time I walked down the aisle, and as soon as the ceremony was over, I knew I could breathe and unwind again. And yet, here I am, weeping on a balcony like a little girl, with my shoes off and my second pitcher of spiced rosewater, and I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me! Or why I’m crying! I don’t know why I’m crying!”

It hit me then what had really happened. Whatever potion the Druid had made her, it had clearly interacted poorly with the spiced rosewater, turning Hansa, the great warrior succubus, into a weeping, emotional mess. On one hand, this was awkward as hell, but, at the same time, priceless to behold. I mentally chastised myself for enjoying the sight of her so vulnerable, and proceeded to gently pry the pitcher from her hands.

“Maybe I should hold onto this for a while,” I said, placing the pitcher on the floor beneath my chair. “I get the feeling it might have had something to do with what you’re experiencing now.”

“You think?” She sniffed, wiping more tears away.

A moment passed in absolute silence. She looked out into the night and let a long, tortured sigh roll out of her chest.

“Whatever was in that potion Ori gave me, it definitely relieved the stress. But it also brought out way too many feelings at once,” she said. “It’s overwhelming, and I don’t know how to cope with it all. I’m feeling joy and happiness at the sight of my sister’s blissful moment. At the same time, I can’t help but wonder whether I will ever experience that for myself. I’ve never thought about it before. I have never even considered it. Today, however, I did. And I didn’t like my lack of an answer. It left me with a painful emptiness in my stomach, which I’ve tried to fill with spiced rosewater…”

I listened quietly as she spoke. I felt sympathy for her. She’d been through so much already—years of wars and violence, then losing an entire tribe of sisters and daughters to Azazel’s Destroyers and the filthy Sluaghs. Hansa deserved better.

“I’m just… I don’t know if I will ever get to wear a wedding dress.” She shuddered, another wave of tears coming up.

“Do you… Do you think you need one?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. She continued to sob, her head resting on the balustrade’s edge. She lifted it to look at me with questions in her eyes. I had trouble wrapping my head around this raw, genuine, and confusing image of her.

“You think I—”

“What’s going on here?” Jax’s voice shot through, interrupting Hansa mid-question and making her freeze in her seat.

I glanced to my left and found him standing there, with Heron by his side, looking at us with a frown pulling his dark brows together. His jade gaze settled on Hansa, concern casting shadows over his face. Heron and I quickly exchanged surprised glances. Hansa burst into tears again. I was genuinely baffled, wondering what had triggered her this time. I’d just managed to bring her back to a calmer state when the two Maras had shown up and probably ruined everything.

“It’s kind of weird to explain.” I sighed, watching Jax as he crouched next to Hansa. He was tall enough for his face to be on the same level as hers in that position. He put a hand on her shoulder, and Hansa unraveled further, unable to control herself. “Ori made her a calming potion for today, but I think it backfired when she combined it with spiced rosewater, and here we are, basically…”