Chapter Seven
Becoming Star-Crossed
B
ack at home, Jules laid frustratingly awake in her bed. She’d tried reading a book that she’d been interested in before now but was having trouble reading past the first line. She’d flipped on the television but turned it back off almost immediately. No matter what she tried, she couldn’t stop seeing the night’s events play in her mind. She didn’t know when she’d see Luca again, or if she would. She hoped she would. Jules had seen the shocked look on his face when she’d stood on her toes, planting a kiss that brushed the corner of his mouth. She’d lingered in that moment as long as she could and then went through her front door and closed him behind it.
They should leave it there. Being together was bound to rip both of their worlds apart. Despite that inevitability, Jules couldn’t shake the desire to try. She found it easy to trust Luca. Because of her past, she thought trust and romantic attachment would never again be possible for her. However, Stephen Cain and his Beta best friend were two of the kindest and gentlest men she’d known in her life. Luca, it seemed, was no different.
“This is hopeless,” Jules said aloud. She pushed the covers aside and stood. Jules walked out the back door of her house and through the grass. She gingerly padded down the path across the rocks; worn from years of use that came before her life here. When her bare feet hit the sand, she started to jog.
She didn’t have a destination in mind. She just kept moving, but slowly enough that if some night owl was watching the water they wouldn’t see anything other than a young girl running on the beach. Jules didn’t slow for miles, five maybe ten. She didn’t slow until she reached a cove of rocks that she hadn’t seen before. The series of large rocks and caves jutted into the sky above her. Sitting alone on the highest cliff was a lone figure. The moonlight silhouetted his tall and lean frame. She knew him instantly.
Before he could spot her, she was on the cliff behind him. “Did I just discover your thinking spot?”
Luca twisted at her question. Concern, surprise, and then happiness flashed through his eyes as she walked up and sat on the rock next to him.
“Not my only one,” he said once he’d finally found his voice. “But it’s the closest one to you.” He nudged her with his elbow.
She giggled quietly.
“Couldn’t sleep either, I take it?” he asked, shifting on the rock to face her.
“You know, I really tried…” Her voice trailed off as his hand came up to the side of her face, fingers just barely brushing against her skin.
Her hand cupped his.
“What have you done to me?” he asked, leaning across the small space between them.
Instead of speaking, she shifted closer yet. With her hands on his neck, her lips met his. Soft and warm, this kiss, this moment, was the most human experience she’d allowed herself since her death. His hands dropped to her waist, pulling her closer by the hips. She backed out of the kiss before it had a chance to deepen. Her forehead rested on his. “This is a bad idea,” she admitted.
“I don’t care.” His voice was just above a whisper.
She didn’t either. She didn’t want to think of the consequences this stolen kiss with Luca could have. She didn’t want to think about past troubles, the complication of the present, or the uncertainty of the future. All she wanted was right here. Right now. With this wolf she’d just met, and yet, felt like she’d known all the years of her long existence.
LUCA
The night hours passed while Jules and Luca kissed, swam in the sea, talked, and kissed some more. In his eighty years, Luca had had girlfriends and flings but what he felt for Jules was different. This moment with Jules felt more real than any had before. Ironic, considering Carson’s apparent vendetta against the object of his affection. Luca kissed Jules on the forehead and then followed her into sleep on the sand.
The next morning as the sun began to rise, Luca woke. Jules was wrapped gently in his arms, still deep inside her dreams. Luca’s arm was tingling from the pressure of her head. As slowly as he could, he shifted out from underneath her. Jules stirred but did not wake, instead, she rolled over in her sleep.
Luca smiled down at her and then walked to the sea. Waves hit higher and higher as he continued into the surf. Once deep enough, he dived into the frigid water with a splash. The chill washed away the remnants of sleep. Where a human might have found the chill of the water debilitating, his werewolf skin soaked in every frosty degree.
Refreshed and fully awake, Luca headed back to the beach. When he returned, Jules was awake and sitting just inside one of the larger caves. “Good morning,” he said, drying his hair with his previously discarded shirt.
“A sunny one,” she replied.
“It’s nice isn’t it,” Luca said, enjoying the soft rays.
“Vampire.” Jules pointed out, shrinking into the shade a few more inches.
Luca looked up at the fully risen sun, and then back to Jules. “Oh, right. Whoops.”
“To say the least,” she replied and turned her back to the sun. He dropped down beside her.
“What do we do now?” The thought that he might want to wake her and take her home last night had never occurred to him. To him, she was just Jules, the vampire aspect would take some getting used to.
“Well, I will retreat as far into this cave as I can, and wait here until nightfall,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Is that dark enough?” he asked, pointing at the far wall of the cave.
“It should be,” she nodded, moving to stand.
“Then I’ll wait with you,” he said just as his stomach growled, protesting.
“Will you?” she asked sort of suspended between sitting and standing.
He made a facial expression that conveyed his worry and apologies.
She laughed, seeming light-hearted about having to be left on her own in this cave.
“I’ll be quick,” he promised as he began to pull on the appropriate amount of still dry clothing.
Jules dropped back down, her knees in the sand. “Take your time.” She reached up and pushed wet hair out of his face. “I’ll be right here.”
He leaned forward and kissed her quickly.
She giggled and reciprocated. “Go,” she ordered.
With this, Luca stood, helped her to her feet, kissed her once more, then ran up the rocks and out onto the road. He jumped into his Jeep and drove to the nearest gas station, grabbed a water and several packages of jerky, paid, and walked back out to the gas pumps.
“Luca?”
Luca spun at Hayley’s call. She was seated on the back of Kyle’s motorcycle while he pumped gas into it.
“Hey,” he called back, trotting over to join them at their gas pump.
“What are you doing out here?” Hayley asked.
Luca opened his mouth to answer honestly and then closed it again. He had always trusted the couple before, but he wasn’t sure if he could trust either of them with Jules’s life.
“Hiding from Carson. That’s what you’re up to, right?” Kyle asked, the first indication that he even knew Luca was standing there talking to his wife.
“It’s necessary from time to time,” Luca replied, letting the assumption stand.
“Especially when you’re his most hated golden boy,” Kyle continued.
“Hated?” Hayley asked skeptically.
“Well not by anybody but Carson,” Luca responded for Kyle. “At least, I don’t think I am.”
“It’s a safe bet that you’re well-liked,” Hayley said. “You are a Cain, after all.”
“And no one will let me forget it either.” Kyle’s whiney impression was a little over-dramatized, but not that off from the way Luca had said this to him many times before. Somehow, he felt different about living in that legacy now. Maybe it was that Jules had said the famous ancestor whom he was known for was, in fact, deserving of his reputation. Or the fact that being a Cain connected him to Jules in ways he’d never have imagined, he didn’t know.
“Where are you two headed?” Luca asked, noting that they were on a side of town that they didn’t usually frequent.
“Beach day with my babe,” Kyle said, winking at his wife.
“Little chilly for a day at the beach,” Luca commented. The sun was out, yes, but the spring air still had a bite to it.
“That’s what I told him,” Hayley said.
“Oh, pipe down both of you! It’ll be fun.”
“Do you want to join us?” Hayley asked.
“No, that’s okay.” But they had given him an idea. Luca waved to them and he watched as they drove in the direction of the public beach.
Where he’d left Jules wasn’t strictly a private beach, but the locals tended to leave it to the people that lived there.
Luca drove a little farther into town and pulled into a middle parking spot at the local mall. He plopped his phone on the passenger seat for good measure, locked the door, and started the trek back to the cove of rocks. If a pack member saw his Jeep in the lot and his phone locked in the empty vehicle, they’d have to spend hours inside the mall looking for him. The perfect alibi. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
JULIANA
Jules retreated as far into the cave as she could, taking care to face the back wall, instead of the sunlit sand and water. She didn’t have any way of calculating how long he’d been gone. Her phone was back at her house. It was then that she realized what a terribly vulnerable position she’d put herself in. Sitting here in a satin sleep shirt and shorts, all it would take was a couple of strong werewolves to drag her into the sun and end her existence forever. She should have been more cautious. Gabriel always said she was too relaxed about the dangers of the sun.
Jules heard footsteps on the rocks above. She began to feel panicked. It was most likely Luca but, just in case, Jules stood and faced the entrance to the cave, her eyes squinting against the pain. She waited several seconds, listening for the footsteps to stop.
“Jules?”
“Here,” Jules answered Luca’s call with a sigh of relief.
“I forgot which cave I left you in,” he commented as he trotted up to her. He was drenched in sweat and carrying a plastic bag full of something called jerky. “I didn’t mean to take so long. I ran into some friends.”
Jules sat back down cross-legged, facing the cave wall.
“What are you doing?” he asked. His voice full of genuine interest.
“The sunlight hurts my eyes,” she said simply.
Luca didn’t respond, but instead, sat down right behind her, his tall frame casting a shadow that covered her petite one. After a few moments, she leaned back against his chest. He held them both up with one arm stretched out behind him and used the other to play with a strand of her sand-sprinkled hair.
“Did you tell your friends about… this.” She used her hand to indicate the pair of them.
“I didn’t. I do trust them. I just didn’t want to take a risk I didn’t need too.”
“That’s probably for the best.” Jules snuggled a little closer to him. “Luca, if we do this it’s going to be very dangerous for both of us.”
He listened silently as she spoke.
“We should just part ways and move on with our lives…” She let her statement fade away.
“Do you want that?” he asked after a few more silent seconds. He looked down and met her gaze.
She bit her lips, thinking through multiple scenarios. “No, I don’t. I mean, I don’t want to disrupt your life… or mine. But I don’t want to end this… us either.”
“Please, blow mine up and let little pieces rain down around me.” He sat up a little straighter and wrapped both arms around her. “I feel more, right here with you, than I have in a long time.”
His words mirrored how she felt perfectly. She didn’t know how it happened, but in the matter of one night, her reluctance to let someone in romantically had faded away. For the first time in centuries, she had hope for the future of her heart.
“I’ve lived too long to turn away something, or someone, who can make me feel like you do.”
“How’s that?” he asked
“Alive,” she said quietly.
He leaned down to kiss her again, but she put a finger to his lips instead. He smiled, and she dropped her hand. She smiled despite herself but then she put on a serious expression and said, “if we are going to do this, Luca, no one can know. Not now. Not until the tension between your pack and my coven has settled.”
“Then we’ll keep it a secret,” he said, and then kissed her deeply.
GABRIEL
Gabriel scowled and set his phone down on the coffee table in front of him. His living room was bright with artificial light. The thick curtains were drawn to protect him and Eileen from the bright Sunday sunlight.
“She’s still not answering?” Eileen asked, moseying from their bedroom and slipping onto the couch next to him.
Gabriel shook his head.
“She is capable of taking care of herself you know.”
“Of course, she is,” Gabriel agreed. “However, she was my best friend for a hundred years before you came along.”
“I know.” Eileen snuggled closer to him while they talked. “It just feels like you worry too much sometimes,” she admitted.
“Sometimes, I do,” he admitted. “But Jules has had it rough over the years. She has a lot of baggage, a lot of demons,” he explained. “And she takes too many risks.”
Eileen said nothing, so he continued. “You,” he turned to face the love of his life, “are the most amazing women I’ve ever met. I love that I don’t have to worry about you taking unnecessary risks.”
“Only that I might accidentally drink someone dry and therefore know the thrill of the kill,” Eileen said softly, leaning toward him.
“Yes, only that,” he teased back. He traced the long scar on the left side of her face, it trailed down onto her neck. “Someday Jules will meet someone who can be there for her. Someday I will be replaced, but until that happens, until she finds love again, I can’t just abandon her.” Gabriel said this because he knew that, at times, Eileen struggled with the depths of his friendship with Jules.
In reality, he didn’t believe Jules would ever let anyone in again beyond friendship. She was too damaged from her previous relationship to embrace that level of trust romantically again.
“I just don’t…” Eileen’s voice trailed off.
“What?” Gabriel asked. The look on Eileen’s face gave him slight cause for concern. “What is it?”
She sighed. “Okay, I was watching a show the other day and it brought up a question that I just don’t know the answer too and…”
Eileen watched too much television. Gabriel knew she had nothing to do all day while he was at work, but he still felt that she spent too many hours watching that modern form of entertainment. “What’s the question?” he prompted.
“If we were both going to die, and you could only save one of us…. if you had to choose between me and Jules… who would you choose?”
“That will never happen,” Gabriel said, confused as to why such a concept had arisen.
“But if it did,” Eileen prodded.
“My love,” Gabriel said, putting one hand in her hair. “You. Of courses, it would be you. Jules is my friend, but you will always be so much more.”
“You’re sure?” She asked skeptically.
“Eileen, I could live in a world without Jules in it. But I wouldn’t want to exist at all in a world without you,” Gabriel said, knowing in his heart that it was true. The woman before him was his perfect companion, his light, his joy, his everything. “Satisfied?”
“Kiss me,” Eileen said, smiling. Without speaking, Gabriel complied, closing the gap between them.
KYLE
Kyle lay sprawled on the sand, music in his ears. The chilled sun was beating down on his skin as he dozed. Hayley tapped Kyle on the shoulder with her foot. Kyle stirred, pulled one earbud out, and looked over to where she sat. She looked so beautiful, looking down at him, the watery horizon framing her outline. The perfect view. She’d stolen his jacket long ago and had her long dress tucked down around her feet, but she looked happy. Or she had the last time he’d looked at her. Now, she looked confused.
“What’s up,” he asked.
“Did Luca seem off to you?”
“Off how?”
“Like he was hiding something,” she explained.
“Not really,” Kyle said. “Same old Luca to me.” He hadn’t really thought about it, if he was being honest.
“I wonder how his date went last night,” she said conversationally while scrolling through something on her phone.
“What date?” Kyle asked. Wondering how or why Hayley would retain such information.
“You told me about it!” she almost scolded, her phone forgotten beside her.
“I mentioned it,” Kyle clarified, “in passing. Haven’t thought of it since.”
“You’re such a great friend,” she said sarcastically.
“I am actually. Luca doesn’t like when people pry.”
“I wouldn’t call this prying. I’d call it interested.”
“Oh, you’re interested in Luca are you.”
“Inescapably,” she said, teasing him now. Her smile was irresistible. Without warning, Kyle pulled her toward him.
She laughed and let her body drop onto his carelessly. The wind was knocked out of him when her elbow struck him in the stomach. He groaned.
“Serves you right, now my feet are cold,” she said. She then tucked them between his legs and the sand.
“All better?” he asked, playing with a strand of her hair as she looked down at him, her face expressing the same amount of love he felt.
“Everything’s perfect now,” she said, then kissed him softly.
JULIANA
Just after dusk, Jules walked with Luca back toward her little house. The left side of her body was pressed against Luca’s side, his arm stretched down to reach her waist. Her arm rested comfortably above his hips.
They were taking a risk, even now, walking down the secluded beach together. But, when he’d asked if she wanted company on her walk back, Jules couldn’t bring herself to say no. The day behind her felt out of time and place in Jules’s life. Today she wasn’t just living, she was alive.
“So how does this whole secret romance thing work?” he asked as they approached her back door.
“I’ve no clue.” She made a face. “I’ve never had one before.”
“That’s so weird,” Luca said, coming to stand in front of her. “Neither have I.”
“I guess we make it up as we go,” Jules said, leaning against him.
His hands cupped her neck and he bent his face toward her. She stood on her toes and met him in a kiss.
“Goodbye then,” he said, panting a little.
“Good night,” she said.
Luca looked up toward the darkened sky. “Goodnight for me. Good morning for you.”
It was true, she had slept much of the brightest hours away, due to sunlight exposure causing lack of strength. She was feeling rejuvenated now, in the early evening darkness.
They laughed lightly together. He kissed her once more on the forehead and then pulled himself back a few steps and began to walk back to the path across the stones.
“What now?” she called.
He looked back at her over his shoulder. “Now, I go get my Jeep.”
“Where is it?” She leaned against a pillar on her back porch.
“In the mall parking lot.” He sighed.
That’s miles away, Jules thought. “Come on.\ I’ll give you a ride,” she said.
He looked back out toward the sand and then back at her. “What about keeping this a secret?”
“I have very tinted windows.” She winked.
THE FORT MILES PHANTOM
His lack of self-control was his greatest weakness. The Phantom Killer is what they were calling him now, this alone proved it was true. He should move on from this city and become a new city’s nightmare. And yet, something told him to stay.
He didn’t set out to murder people, he never did. There were hundreds of humans around him nightly that lived to see another day. The unfortunate few that didn’t, were the sacrifice that he would inevitably make to satisfy his thirst for blood.
He was a vampire and he lived in a way that being a vampire suggested. He’d heard of vampires through the years who didn’t give in to the hunt. Who refused themselves the ecstasy that only comes from draining warm, fresh, pulsing human blood but he couldn’t comprehend the reasoning behind this choice. Not to kill humans he supposed. Many he knew drank from the source without killing the host. Once in a while, he wished he had that kind of self-control. But that thought was always a fleeting one. He was only vampire, after all.
As he walked the city streets, on his way to the home of a lover he’d taken to fill the night hours, a couple of drunken college kids fell from a bar and stumbled down the sidewalk in front of him. He moved passed them without contemplating it farther. A mother and her young child waited on a bus. He left them there. And gentleman late into his allotted years bumped into him. He righted the man and walked on.
He was almost to his destination when he smelled it. The unmistakable smell of fresh, human blood. Like a shark in an ocean of people, he followed it. His throat began to dry. His nose began to burn. He was getting close to the source. He heard it dripping. It wasn’t far now. Unable to continue at this slow pace, he closed the distance between him and the dripping blood in moments.
In a blur, he was in the alley and there, just past a big angry-looking man, was his pray. The large man that had obviously let the blood out of its human container fell at his feet, his neck broken, bloody knife clattering to the pavement. He didn’t register the face of his pray, all he saw was the trail of blood running down her neck and into her cleavage. She whimpered only once more before his fangs were in her throat. He drank. Her last scream faded across the open alley as she fell into her killer’s arms. With each passing second, the thirst inside him was satiated. The intoxicating smell of fresh blood diminished as he consumed it.
“Let go of the girl!” a low voice said from behind him.
When the body was empty of every last ounce of blood, he pulled his fangs out of the cold, dead neck and licked the last drop off his bottom lip.
“Get your hands in the air, vampire,” the voice growled.
He released the now empty vessel, the body falling to the alley floor with another thud. Raising his arms, he turned toward the interrupting voice. It only took him a moment more to grasp the reality of his situation. “Really?” he said. “A gun, wolfficer? What is a gun going to do to me exactly?” he asked the werewolf officer of the law.
The brawny man flinched, realizing his mistake.
“Too slow.” He rushed forward with vampire speed. In less than a second, he’d overpowered the dog-man, his hand buried deep in the werewolf’s chest. He watched as the officer strained to look back at his cop mobile.
“Run!” the werewolf shouted at the same time that his heart was ripped from his chest. The body fell just as the passenger door of the car opened, and a teenage boy ran for his life.