“I do. I never had anyone growing up; no one who was good to me, anyway. I thought that would continue for the rest of my life… because of what I am.”
I reached for his face, now, and ran my thumb across his lip before cupping his cheek. “What you are doesn’t mean anything. You’re you, and you’re here with me, and that’s all that matters.”
Jared took my hand and kissed it, then he brushed my hair out of my face and kissed my forehead. “I got you a cup of coffee, too,” he said, “Do you want it?”
“Oh, yes please, I could really do with the pick-me-up.”
He smiled and stood up, then went to fetch me my coffee from the living room. For a short while after that, we just ate beignets and talked about random, mundane things. He told me about work, I told him about my next book and how I hadn’t been very good at keeping up with the writing. I told him I had thought about what he said last night, and thought that maybe we could go somewhere after all—somewhere with a beach and a hammock, where I could write and he could finally read my books. I hadn’t had a vacation in years. Jared hadn’t had a vacation his entire life.
When six thirty rolled around, Jared came back into the bedroom wearing his leather jacket. I had gotten out of bed once or twice, but had always run right back to it—and not just because I couldn’t find my underwear. His bed was more comfortable than mine and… I guess it smelled like us, and I didn’t want that to stop. The moment that stopped, real life would happen again, and real life sucked right now.
“You’re leaving?” I asked.
“I have to,” he said, “I wouldn’t have had to work tonight, but I cut out of my shift early yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah… sorry.”
“It’s alright. I don’t mind the place. What are you going to do?”
“Me? I’m not sure. I guess I should go home, too, right?”
“I want you to stay here. I want you here when I get back home tonight, preferably naked and in my bed.”
“Okay,” I laughed, “But I think I want to go home to grab a change of clothes, and maybe my laptop, too.”
Jared dug into his pants pocket and pulled out a key ring. He fidgeted with it for a second, then pulled a key loose and handed it to me. “Let yourself in and out.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. But if you’re going to leave, come right back, okay? It’s not safe out there for you.”
I stared at the key in my hand. “Thank you.”
Jared leaned over, tipped my chin up to his lips, and kissed me gently. My hands snaked around his neck, fingers gripping his hair, and pulled him closer to me. His mouth opened to receive my tongue, and what had started as a simple kiss turned into a deep exchange that stole my breath.
“Be here when I get back,” he whispered, the intent in his words as clear as day.
“I’ll be here,” I said, keeping my forehead pressed against his. “Hurry back.”
He kissed me again, this time gently, and this time I let him go and watched him leave the room, and then the apartment. When he was gone, I exhaled deeply and threw my head back into the pillow, smiling to myself like a teenager madly in lust. But the thought of having to wait hours for his return didn’t let me sit still for long.
I wanted to have a shower, but without a change of clothes, was it even worth having one at Jared’s place? And without my laptop or a book to read, what was I supposed to do until he came back? I hadn’t had the heart to tell him I didn’t watch a lot of TV, and that I’d be bored out of my mind waiting for him to come home, so the decision was easy to make after a time.
I had to go home.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was getting dark when I arrived at Lumiere. The Uber dropped me off outside of my house about fifteen minutes after picking me up, but I didn’t stay in Lumière for long; all I needed to do was pack some clothes and my laptop into my backpack and take a shower. The longer I stayed, I knew, the more chance I had of running into Nicole. When I looked out of my bedroom window across the street, I saw the lights in Maison d’Azur—Azure House, were on.
The instant I thought it would be safe for me to leave the house, I took to my front gate and made a brisk break for the end of the block where I turned onto Dauphine street. I decided to get something to eat before going back to Jared’s, seeing as beignets were all I’d eaten since yesterday, and found myself stopping at a burger place close to Jean Luc’s house.
It occurred to me that we hadn’t talked since the evening of the attack. I needed to warn him about Tamara’s intentions before anyone did anything stupid, so I chose to visit before grabbing something to eat.
The house stood near one of the old cemeteries in the city, Saint Louis Number One, and it was the house Jean Luc had arranged for him and his family to live in after they had awoken. For months, he had refused to tell me where it was, not because he didn’t trust me, but because he didn’t trust his family around me. But a couple of weeks ago, while making preparations for the night that ended in tragedy, he had offered me his address as a symbol of goodwill toward me, and as a show of how much trust he had in his family.
I never thought I would have to visit the place, though. It was one thing to know there was a house full of vampires at the heart of Crescent City, it was quite another to just show up at the door unannounced—especially if you were the kind of person who possessed a pulse and several pints of warm blood in your veins.
I stopped just short of the vampire house on Saint Louis Street and couldn’t help but stare. It had a brick red fa?ade with black bannisters running all along the gallery, and unlike my own, the house itself was only a portion of a much larger building which went almost all the way around the block. From the next floor up, I thought, you could probably look out and see all the way to the cemetery on the other side of North Rampart Street.
Some of the lights were on, so I approached the front door and knocked three times. When Jean Luc opened the door, he seemed almost surprised to see me.
“Madison,” he said, hurrying me inside, “What are you doing here?”
“It’s good to see you too,” I said as I made my way through the door and into the narrow corridor beyond it.
He shut the door. “You mistake my meaning, I simply hadn’t expected to see you again for at least a couple of days still. The streets aren’t safe.”
“I know, but I guess I was in the neighborhood…”
I trailed off. The last time I saw him, he had been covered in blood. Whose, I didn’t know. Maybe his, maybe it belonged to witches, maybe it belonged to other vampires. He had that same monstrous look about him then as he did the night in the airport, moments after killing Bernarde. At the time, it had frightened me somewhat. Now, he looked more like the gentle man I knew. Even though I was in a house full of vampires, I didn’t feel threatened in the slightest.
“How are you, Jean Luc?” I asked, after a pause.
“I am well,” he said.
“And the rest of your family?” I asked.