Trembling With the Strings

My ring twisted back and forth on my finger as I turned it absentmindedly. Darius said he needed to go feed and since I didn’t want to be a bleeder he had to head out. He had promised me that he was feeling like his normal self, but that had been well over an hour ago.

Up until today I had thought of Darius as unbreakable, but he had been so vulnerable only hours earlier. He wasn’t as immortal as I had thought, but that also made me realize just how far we’d come from when we met.

He had only cared about me because I was his property, and I couldn’t stand him. I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the way I had simply fallen for him. Had it been when I had seen him holding Marty with such softness in his eyes? I didn’t know, but that didn’t really matter. I mean, sure, he had his outbreaks of mood swings, but who didn’t?

Still, I was worried. Where could he be? I had been sitting in my bedroom ever since we’d gotten home two hours ago. I missed having him with me, resting his head in my lap and just talking to me about random bits of information that didn’t even matter. I just loved hearing his voice, knowing that I could still hear it after that close call.

I stood up and paced for a bit, looking out my window every five seconds to see if he was coming. It was getting a little dark, not that it would matter to a vampire. But I was just a human teenager, and it certainly mattered to me. What was I supposed to do if he didn’t come back to me? I wrapped my arms around myself, collapsing on the bed and throwing my face into my hands. There was no way a hormal prego could deal with something this!

I heard the door creak open and I was suddenly pulled into a pair of strong arms. The silence in his chest was comforting as I buried my face in his shirt, mumbling incoherent slop as I tried not to tear up.

“I thought you wouldn’t come back!” I finally managed to murmur, refusing to let him out of my embrace. He smiled against the top of my head.

“Did you honestly think I would stay away?”

My blood went cold: that wasn’t Darius.

I shoved Lyndell away, choking on my heart as it surely rose in my throat. “You bastard! Where’s my Dray?” I had thought he had finally come back to me only to find out that it was just a school boy’s stupid prank!

“Calm down. God, I just wanted some time to talk to you. We really need to talk, Gracie. I mean, our discussion is way past due.”

“I don’t owe you any time at all,” I told him coldly, turning my back to him and crossing my arms. “I want you out of my life. You’ve tried to ruin everything!”

“You’re such a fickle little slut,” he hissed as his hand crashed down on my shoulder, jerking me around to face him.

“Don’t touch me!” I snapped, wrenching out of his reach. “Get out of here.”

“I thought you loved me, Grace. We almost had sex the first day we met! God, if I had known that all it took to make you love me was to knock you up I would’ve done it just as fast as Dray did!” His lips twisted into a cruel grin as my composure shattered.

All people had done for the past few days was call me a whore! What had I done? I was getting married to Darius, so did that make me prey or something? I cried out, grabbing Lyndell’s shoulder as the baby added to my discomfort. He grimaced as I squeezed his skin, but helped me sit down anyway.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t come here to yell at you,” he murmured softly, taking in a deep breath as he sat down beside me on the bed. “Dray asked me to be the best man at the wedding.” I opened my mouth to throw slander at him, but his gaze made me shut it. “Darius has been my best friend since, well, as long as I can remember. I think I need to come clean. When I saw you in the hall I did just want an easy fuck. I planned on fucking your brains out and then maybe seeing if you tasted as good as you smelled. If Darius hadn’t stepped in on us... I hate to think what Dray would be like now. I could have stolen the one thing that would make him happy. That guilt would have eaten me alive.”

“Where are you going with this?” I whispered, cringing as I tried to focus on the conversation rather than the demon playing hacky sack with my organs.

“I just want to clear the air with you. You’re with Darius, and I’m glad about that. I wouldn’t want to ruin that. I know I was being a total jackass earlier, and I feel awful. I just thought I deserved to have you, not him. Then I started hating both of you.... I don’t want to lose a friend over this.”

“Well, I forgive you. Just, please, leave. You’ll have to bring it up with Darius, as I cannot give you his blessing.” I let go of his shoulder as the fit came to a halt.

“I know,” he mumbled, standing up slowly and carefully. “Don’t tell him I stopped by: we both know he’d jump to conclusions.”

I nodded, bidding him a good night before watching him leave. I was a little skeptic of Lynn’s motives, but I was more focused on seeing Darius alive. I knew that he was capable of being vulnerable, and that made me even more nervous. It wasn’t long before I decided I needed some fresh air. I opened the front door and stepped outside.

And I tripped over the body…