shoulder to add another sting.
She growls low and twists her head to the side, seeking my mouth.
I devour her with my tongue and lips as I plunder her below.
As one, we shatter against the glass. Souls, hearts, bodies and breaths united.
Time after time, I come inside her. Live inside her. Reborn and remade, beneath her scars.
Just as she lives inside of mine.
Chapter Twelve: This Could Get Rough
*EREBU*
Dear brother,
It’s time I blow this shindig.
It’s been fun, don’t get me wrong. Great food, soft bed, all the Pure blood I need, interesting company (if a little boring). Apart from the years we had together back in those bygone Persian days, this little bubble of fiction has been the best.
But all good things must come to an end.
You didn’t think I’d stick around, did you? I have work to do. Schemes to plot. Mayhem to spread. People to betray…
It’s what I do best, after all. (On second thought, if I had a do-over, I wouldn’t be a staid history professor. That would just be a cover. I’d sign up to be a secret agent, one of those double-triple-quadruple ones that you never know where his loyalty lies).
I usually don’t leave incriminating evidence, but I’ll stash these letters I wrote to you. (Yes, I actually wrote them down.) I’ll make sure you find them when you’re back in the bosom of your loved ones. Sophia’s bosom, in other words.
What? You don’t think you’ll be back? You think you’ll be stuck in Medusa’s experiment cage forever?
Oh ye of little faith. I said I had a plan, didn’t I? It’s time to execute it.
But back to me, since I am far more interesting and important than you.
I wrote my fairytales in a sketch book for Benjamin, with drawings, embroidered calligraphy and everything. Please make sure he gets it. From his “Uncle Ere.” Titled: The Adventures of the Clever, Capricious Cuckoo. It’s a masterpiece of wit and unparalleled storytelling, I tell you. You can’t miss it.
Now, I just have to find the perfect moment to get my plan rolling. Wish me luck.
Toodaloo!
E.
The thing is—I don’t want to leave.
And that’s when I realize—I have to leave.
I’m no use to anyone here, coddled and pampered in a nest of phoenixes. I can’t fly away like they can (figuratively, that is). I can’t fight, and I don’t have other useful Gifts. I’m just getting fattened up eating their food, taking up space like a great lump of lard in the corner.
I need to leave before I overstay my welcome.
But first, I want to soak in more of the addictive fiction so it can tide me over when reality crashes upon my head and suffocates me all over again.
Friendship. Comradery. Affection.
Love.
I recruit Benjamin as second-in-command as I execute Operation Picnic. Ishtar gave us permission to use the private terrace garden above her and Tal’s apartment. My boy and I are in the massive chef’s kitchen piling all kinds of finger foods into his handy red wagon.
“I think we need another wagon,” I say, looking at the veritable mountain of snacks and sandwiches teetering precariously in the plastic conveyance.
“You can take this one up first, and we’ll come back and get more,” he instructs matter-of-factly.
Bossy little thing.
“I can?”
“Well, you’re the Immortal, after all. I’m just a human boy. I don’t have the strength to carry all that up those spirally stairs.”
“Makes sense.”
“Of course I do.”
I give him the side eye as he goes to the pantry to sort through juice boxes and napkins.
“You know, dear Benjamin, there’s a thing called humility. Just because you’re the smartest boy in the world doesn’t mean you need to point to it with a neon sign.”
“I didn’t,” he says readily. “You made a reference to my logic, and I merely agreed. Besides, you’re never humble.”
“That’s because I’m not the smartest boy in the world. And because of that, I can afford to be sarcastic.”
“If you say so,” he shrugs. “Or, it could just be that you have a bad habit of putting yourself down because you don’t like yourself as much as the rest of us do.”
The devil!
This eight-going-on-eight-hundred-year-old is going to be the death of me.
Having lost that argument spectacularly, I obediently carry the wagon full of food up to the terrace garden, Benjamin following behind me with an armful of amenities.
When we return for round two, he unloads all of the cooked meats from the refrigerator.
“It’s for Mama Bear,” he says in explanation.
“But that’s a mountain of food,” I note, eyes round. “She’s just