Chapter 41: Life's biggest question
The fire had burned down to embers, mirroring the dull ache in my muscles. A good ache. The kind that comes from using your body for what it’s built for. Gena lay curled against my side, her damp hair cooling on my shoulder, her breathing slow and even. The silken sheets were a slick contrast to the rough mountain air that seeped through the window frames. Outside, the moonlit peaks were sharp teeth against a bruised sky.
My hand rested on the smooth skin of her back, feeling the faint ridge of her spine. I traced the lines of the silver ring on my finger, the one she’d given me. A proposal on Valentine’s Day. My daughter. My wife. The words should have felt wrong, twisted, but in this quiet, they were just true.
The thought came unbidden, slithering out of the dark part of my mind that had seen the ember-eyes in the mirror.
“Hey,” I said, my voice rough from sleep and recent use.
She stirred, nuzzling deeper into my neck. “Mmm?”
“What’s gonna happen?” I stared at the ceiling, at the shadows dancing from the dying fire. “When I turn old. When I’ve got a roadmap of wrinkles on my face and my skin goes all loose and ugly. When my hair’s gray and thin.” I paused, the next words sticking in my throat. “What happens to us when I die of old age?”
She went very still against me.
“You,” I continued, the truth of it a cold stone in my gut. “You have the blood of an incubus. You’ll be… this. Forever. Beautiful. Perfect. And I’ll just be… gone.”
Gena pushed herself up on one elbow. The firelight caught the concern in her violet eyes, making them look ancient for a second. “Mommy…”
“Don’t ‘mommy’ me. It’s a real question.” I kept my gaze fixed on the ceiling, unable to look at her ageless perfection while asking this. “I’m forty-four. I’ve got maybe thirty, forty good years left if I’m lucky. What then? You stay nineteen forever? You find some other… someone?”
“No.” The word was flat, absolute. She cupped my cheek, her touch cool, and forced my head to turn toward her. Her expression was fierce, a protective anger I usually saw directed at anyone who looked at me wrong. “Never. There is no one else. There could never be anyone else.”
“That’s a long time to be alone, Gena.”
“I won’t be alone.” Her thumb stroked my cheekbone. “I have you.”
“You’re not listening. I’ll be dead.”
“No, you won’t.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the room temperature traced down my spine. I searched her face. There was no joke there, no placating lie. Just a simple, terrifying certainty.
“What does that mean?” I asked slowly, propping myself up on my elbows. The sheet pooled around my waist.
She looked away, toward the window and the impassive mountains. Her long hair curtained her face. “I don’t know everything. I just… feel things. Know things I shouldn’t.” She glanced back at me, her eyes luminous. “Like I knew I had to give you that ring. I knew we were meant for more than… that.”
“What kind of more?”
“I don’t know!” she whispered, frustration etching her features. “It’s like a song I can almost hear, but the words are just out of reach. But I know it’s about you. About us. This isn’t… this isn’t all there is.”
My mind flashed to the thing in the mirror. The watching presence. The way her scent changed, deepening when she was aroused, something ancient and wild lurking beneath the jasmine. My practical, trail-worn brain wanted to reject it, to call it fantasy. But I’d seen it. I felt it every time we touched, a current of power that wasn’t entirely human.
“Your father…” I started, the name ‘Silas’ like ash in my mouth.
“I don’t care about him,” she said, her voice gaining a sharp, uncharacteristic edge. She leaned forward, her gaze intense, almost frightening. “I care about you. My blood… it’s for you. It’s always been for you. I won’t let time take you. I won’t.”
The conviction in her voice was absolute. It wasn’t the hopeful promise of a young lover. It was a statement of fact, as solid as the mountains outside our window. She believed it. Completely.
I reached out and took her hand, lacing my fingers with hers. Our silver rings clicked together. Her grip was strong, sure.
I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know what her blood could do, what kind of future she was envisioning. A cold knot of fear tightened in my stomach, mixed with a dark, thrilling thread of possibility. Forever. The word echoed in the silent room.
I pulled her down to me, and she came willingly, her body molding against mine. I held her tight, feeling the steady, powerful beat of her heart against my chest. A heart that might not ever slow. A life that might not ever end.
And mine, tangled irrevocably with it.