"I wish. See you guys later." She heard Otto's footsteps receding down the hallway. Bride lay back in bed, amazed to realize she wasn't the least bit body-conscious around Vane. She should be, given how ripped he was. But she wasn't.
It was so strange to be with a man who was so accepting of her, faults and all. He didn't try to alter anything about her. It was a great change of pace.
She laid her hand against his whiskered cheek and drank in the sight of his lean, languid handsomeness.
But in the back of her mind was that awful voice that kept whispering "All good things must come to an end."
"Do you believe in eternal love, Vane?"
He nodded. "When you live for hundreds of years, you see all kinds of things."
"How does someone know the difference between that and infatuation?"
He sat up between her legs, then pulled her into his lap to cuddle. "I don't think there is a difference. I think infatuation is like a garden. If tended and cared for, it grows into love. If neglected or abused it dies. The only way to have eternal love is to never let your heart forget what it's like to live without it."
His wisdom stunned her. Bride pulled back to stare incredulously at him.
"That is profound, especially coming from a man."
"It was what Anya always said." The sadness in his eyes made her heart clench.
"I wish I could have met her. She sounds like she was a wonderful woman."
"She was."
Bride frowned as an idea struck her. "Can't you go into the past and visit her? Or better yet, save her?"
He placed her head under his chin and stroked her arm. "In theory, yes. But we're not supposed to. Time is a very delicate object and it's not something that should be tampered with lightly. As for saving her, no. The Fates have a nasty way of dealing with anyone who trespasses on their territory. Once a life is ended, they tend to get really upset at anyone who thwarts them."
"You sound like you've made that mistake."
"I haven't. But I know someone who did."
"Fang?"
"No, and I won't betray this person by naming them. Destiny is destiny and no mortal should fight it."
"But how do we know what our destiny is? Am I to be with you or not?"
"I don't know, Bride. The only one I know who could answer that is Ash and he won't."
She found that hard to believe. "Ash is what, all of twenty-one?"
"No. He's eleven thousand years old and is wiser than anyone I've ever known. There's nothing, past, present, or future, he doesn't know. The only problem is he won't share that knowledge. It seriously pisses me off most of the time.
He has this tendency to say that we make our future by our decisions, but he knows what we're going to decide before we decide it so why he won't tell us is beyond me."
"Because you learn from your mistakes," she said as she realized the reason.
"And if you choose wrongly and it turns out badly, you can't blame him for it because he told you what to do. Likewise, if it turns out well, you can take credit for making the right decision on your own. Good or bad, it's our life to do with as we see fit. Jeez, that little booger is smart."
Vane laughed at her words. "He's not little, but the rest is true enough."
She waited for him to ask her what her decision would be regarding them, but he didn't.
Instead, he held her in his arms, as if purely content with this moment. Part of Bride was content as well, but another part of her was scared. What would be the right thing to do?
She wanted to stay with him, but where? She wasn't a wolf to live out in the wild and he wasn't the kind of man to be content owning a store in the French Quarter.