A Vial of Life by Bella Forrest
In the end, I just had the witches transport them to the shore of a deserted island situated on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. I was certain that now that they knew where The Shade was, it wouldn’t be too difficult to find their way back, especially if we had others still lurking within our boundaries who could call for them. But for now, this was the best we could do. In the meantime, we had to double down and try to figure out how to purge our water of any remaining merfolk. And until we did that, we were stuck with this hostile environment, feeling like prisoners on our own island.
Chapter 10: Rose
Caleb and I considered going to the meeting that my father had called in the Great Dome, but since they would only be discussing what we already knew, I didn’t see any real reason for us to be there. I was aching for my brother as it was, and hearing the whole story repeated all over again would only end up making me more depressed.
So I suggested to my husband that we skip the meeting. Since our honeymoon, we had moved into our own treehouse. It was near my parents’, and within the area of the Residences in general, but far enough away for us to feel like we were living alone.
I was still in the process of moving my stuff out of my old room in my parents’ penthouse. It was amazing how much I had accumulated over the years. I found objects under my bed that I’d forgotten I even possessed. The room was jammed with gifts from my eighteenth birthday combined with Caleb’s and my wedding. My bedroom was large, but we’d received so many generous gifts, they had barely fit in my room. We had moved much of that to our new place already, but there still remained at least two loads’ worth of stuff. I couldn’t wait to hang up the painting of The Shade’s Port that Anna and her family had created for me.
I could’ve asked one of the witches to help in moving the stuff, which would have been far quicker, but with everything that was going on in and around The Shade, I didn’t want to bother any of them with such a trivial matter.
Seeing that Caleb and I had some downtime now, Caleb came with me to help move the rest.
“Do you actually need all this?” Caleb asked, scrunching his nose as he eyed the remaining possessions I had, some packed up in bags, some still strewn around the room.
I threw him a grin. “Why do you ask? We’re not exactly lacking space in our new apartment. We’ve got to fill it up with something.”
“Uh, no,” he remarked. “There is a joy to space and simplicity. Not every room has to be cluttered like a trinket store.”
I couldn’t deny that I had already cluttered up our penthouse quite a lot, but I found it amusing that this was the first time Caleb was commenting on it.
He bent down and scooped up my hair straightener. He eyed it with a frown. “What’s this?”
I moved up to him, taking the straightener from his hands and snapping it shut. “Oops,” I murmured. “I didn’t mean for you to see this. It’s a kind of torture device wives keep for their husbands when they don’t behave themselves.”
He pulled me against him and pressed a kiss against the side of my neck. “You can torture me anytime,” he said, his voice turning husky.
“Stop distracting me,” I said, pushing him away even as I smiled from ear to ear. “I’ve been procrastinating on this job for weeks, I need to finally finish it off.”
He gave me the eye before turning and surveying the rest of the room. “Well, we’ve already transferred most of it. I figure, what… twenty more trips and we should be done?”
I rolled my eyes. “Leaving aside all the gifts, I haven’t got that much stuff, okay? At least not compared to other girls my age. You’d have a heart attack if you visited some of my girlfriends’ bedrooms. We should be able to manage the rest in only two trips.” I smirked as Caleb and I bent down to pick up armfuls of bags. “You know we sound like a legitimate married couple.”
He smiled. “Maybe that’s because we are one.”
Caleb was, of course, grossly exaggerating the number of things I had. I was right in my estimation that we could carry the rest of the stuff in two more loads. This was definitely one upside to being a vampire: my strength. I was able to carry an inhuman number of things. And of course, Caleb, being larger, could carry much more.
We picked up as many things as we could and brought them back to our penthouse. We dumped them in the entrance hall before returning to my parents’ apartment for the final load.
The final load.
Caleb began picking up bags and, strangely, I found myself stalling. Looking around my room, I realized that unless I went out of my way to come in here, this could easily be the last time that I set foot in this space.
It hit home for the first time that this was it—the final string that still attached me to my old, familiar life. In clearing out the last of my things, I truly would have moved on, into the next stage of my life. My life with Caleb.
Caleb eyed me, raising a brow. He set down the bags he’d picked up and approached me. He reached for my hair and tucked a strand behind my ear before sliding his hand down my jaw and tilting my chin up so I faced him. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing’s… wrong,” I said, my voice three tones deeper than usual. “It’s just that…” I broke off. I didn’t really know how to describe it. I wanted to move out, and I was over the moon to begin my new life with Caleb, but at the same time… it would be different. A permanent change to the only life I’d known. “What I’m feeling isn’t bad or good, it’s just… change.”
From the look in Caleb’s eyes, he understood. “I know what you’re feeling,” he said. “Change, however good, can be unsettling.”
“Did you feel it too, like when you proposed to me?”
He shook his said. “Not when I proposed to you, or when I married you. I felt it when you initially suggested that I come live in The Shade. I don’t need to remind you of how reluctant I was, even after realizing that the bond tying me to Annora’s island had broken.”
I nodded. At the time, he had given me a variety of excuses for his reluctance, like the bad terms that he and my father had left off on, and the general feeling that he just wouldn’t fit in. I guessed at the end of the day, it had been a fear of change.
Caleb still had an expression of mild concern as he looked me over. He dipped down and caught my lips between his, kissing them gently as his hands traced my waist. He raised his head and gazed down at me through his warm, chocolate-brown eyes. He didn’t say anything more, he just held my gaze, and my body close to him. And he couldn’t have done anything better in that moment. The strength of his arms around me felt like an anchor, and the confidence in his eyes warmed me inside, causing the uneasiness in my chest to lift. I might have felt homesick to be leaving my parents, but Caleb’s arms were the only home I needed.
I cleared my throat and returned his confident gaze. “I love you, Caleb,” I said, draping my arms around his neck. “And nothing thrills me more than the thought of starting a life together.”
I kissed him again. His arms tightened around me and he lifted me off the ground, kneading his lips passionately against mine. When he set me back down on my feet, he eyed the bags waiting for us and then my empty bed.
“What if you spent one last night here before we took the last of your stuff away?” he asked.
I bit down on my lower lip and looked over at my bed. It was slightly larger than a single bed, but it wasn’t large enough to be considered double. I couldn’t deny that the idea of sharing my last night in it with Caleb excited me. He hadn’t spent much time in my room because we had been staying in one of the mountain cabins. I didn’t know how long my parents would be gone. I took a guess that they’d sit in the Great Dome long into the night with the story they had to tell and the barrage of questions and discussion that would follow. I could just leave a “do not disturb” sign outside my bedroom door.
A coy smile curved my lips.
I looked deep into Caleb’s eyes and nodded. “I’d like that. A lot.”
I smiled to see that Caleb had shifted the position of my bed. Rather than have it tucked away in one corner, he’d shifted it to the center of the room and placed a dozen lit candles around it. He must’ve rummaged around in the bags and found them. Although I’d accumulated a large collection of candles, mostly by way of gifts, the truth was I hardly ever got around to lighting them. I was glad that Caleb had taken it upon himself to find a good use for them.
I smiled even more to see Caleb already sitting on the mattress, leaning against the headboard. His bathrobe was slightly parted as it draped over his shoulders, revealing half of his muscled torso.
I doubted he knew how hot he looked leaning there casually, eyeing me steadily from across the room. If I’d been a human, I would’ve blushed a lot more as I crawled into bed.
I moved to lie on my side next to him, but he caught my arms and instead pulled me onto his lap, my back against his chest. He drew up his legs, allowing my lower back to slide down in between his thighs. His hands closed around my shoulders and glided down my arms before resting over my stomach.
I gazed around my bedroom. It looked so different with the bed shifted to its center and the candlelight dancing on the bare walls.
“So,” Caleb began softly, his thumbs brushing against my lower abdomen through my silk nightie. “This is your last night in your room. What would you like to do?”
“Hmmm,” I wondered, even as Caleb’s touch made my skin tingle. “I suppose we could just… lie here and stare at the candlelight flickering against the walls all night,” I suggested, trying to keep a deadpan expression.
“Certainly, we could do that,” Caleb replied thoughtfully, his right hand moving slightly higher and resting over my ribcage, while his left continued to stroke my navel. “Or,” he continued slowly. “We could perhaps… read a book together. Or play a card game. I noticed you have a few in the black bag.”
“Hmm. I think playing a game is a good idea. But I don’t think my card games are very good.”
“Scrabble?” Caleb suggested innocently. “I spied that in the blue bag.”
I twisted over onto my stomach so that I could face him.
“We could play truth or dare,” I whispered, brushing my lips against his jawline. I drew away just before he could catch me and pull me in for a kiss. I eyed him teasingly as I pulled myself up higher over him. My legs on either side of his hips, I knelt on the mattress and rested my hands on his broad shoulders.
“Of course,” Caleb replied, maintaining his innocent face, even as his hands roamed my haunches. “Ladies first, then. Truth or dare?”
“Dare,” I replied.
“Very well,” he said. “I dare you to… dance with me.”
“Oh, come on,” I said, trailing my hands down to his chest and flattening my palms against his bare skin. “That’s not a good dare. I would dance with you anytime.”
“All right,” he said, his brows furrowing as though he were in deep concentration. “I dare you to…”
He was taking too long, and I was already growing impatient with this game. The way his hands roamed my body wasn’t helping. I suspected that was his intention.
“All right, slow poke,” I said, shifting on my knees against the mattress. “I will ask the question first. Truth or dare?”
“Truth,” he said.
My eyes narrowed on him. I’d been hoping that he would choose dare. Now I was stuck playing a longer game.
“Okay. What was your first impression of me that night we met at the beach party in Hawaii?”
A smile crept over his lips, memory clouding his eyes. “You were drunk,” he recalled, his smile broadening. “I could tell that you weren’t used to drinking. When you came stumbling toward me over the sand and asked me to dance… half of me just wanted to tell you to go home.” He broke out in a chuckle.
“That would have been mean!”
“You looked so out of place in that party. Barefoot, clumsy, disheveled hair glued against your sweaty face—”
“Excuse me!” I prodded his chest in mock admonition. “I didn’t ask you to start insulting me.”
“And yet,” he continued, “I couldn’t have found you more beautiful. Your innocence and unworldliness called to me, although I knew that I needed to stay away.” His voice trailed off and his eyes took on a dreamy quality as he gazed at me.
I could have sworn that I felt a touch of warmth rising in my cheeks, but being a vampire, I must have been imagining it. I swallowed. “Okay. Now I’m going to ask you ‘truth or dare’ again, and you’re going to choose dare, all right?”
He broke out in another laugh. “I don’t think that’s how this game is played, Rose.”
“Well, Mr. Achilles, this is my slumber party, and this is how I want to play it… Truth or dare?”
His face became solemn. “Your ladyship requires that I answer dare.”
Finally. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could take his hands caressing my thighs.
I leaned in closer to his ear and whispered, “Make love to me.”
I was glad that he didn’t bother with any more banter. His hands slipped beneath my nightgown and parted it, baring me to him, while I stripped him of his robe.
I soon forgot that we were even still in my old bedroom. We could have been anywhere, back in our new treehouse, in the cabin of a boat—heck, even on the edge of a cliff. Caleb had such a way of consuming me that my brain seemed incapable of being aware of anything but the burning desire I held for him.
“Look how you’re corrupting me, Rose,” he breathed against my hair, as his tense body pressed against mine. “I thought we were here for a slumber party.”
* * *
I wasn’t sure how many hours passed before we finally rolled over onto our sides and drifted off to sleep.
But when I woke up, during what must have been the early hours of the morning, I knew immediately that something wasn’t right.
The atmosphere felt thick and heavy, and as my eyes shot open, I realized that wisps of smoke were spilling into the room from beneath the crack in the doorway.
I clutched Caleb and shook him awake.
“We need to get out of here!” I urged.
His confusion turned to shock as he caught sight of the smoke filling the room. Leaping out of bed, he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. He gripped the handle, pulling it ajar. Black smoke billowed inside. He closed the door immediately, even as I descended into a coughing fit. He placed his hand around the back of my neck and pushed me down toward the floor, where he crouched with me. Then he opened the door again. This time, through squinting eyes, I was able to see that the entire corridor was choked with smoke. And some feet away, coming from the direction of the living room, was the crackling of flames.
Oh, God. Where are my parents?
“Stay close to the floor,” Caleb said. His grip around the back of my neck tightened and he pushed me closer against the floorboards. He crawled toward the bed and snatched up our nightclothes from the mattress. He draped my nightgown around me, slipping my arms through the sleeves, while he put on his own robe and fastened the pull string tightly around his waist.
“Try to breathe into the hem of your gown,” he said. “Or better still, try not to breathe at all.”
As a vampire, I could hold my breath for a long time. I couldn’t have been more grateful for this ability as Caleb pushed open my bedroom door and we crawled out into the corridor. The smoke was so thick that it stung my eyes and made them water.
To our right, at the far end of the hallway, was a tall window, its Vene
Caleb grabbed my arm and pulled me back into my bedroom. We moved to the window in here. When we drew aside the heavy curtains, this window too was being licked by flames.
“What happened?” I breathed.
I didn’t have the first clue as to what could have caused the fire. Fires were a very rare occurrence in The Shade. Even though we lived in trees, the witches had designed the penthouses to be fire-safe. I couldn’t even remember the last fire that we’d had—other than when the dragons had stormed the island, though that hardly counted.
Fire inside the apartment, I could more easily wrap my head around. Perhaps there had been a gas explosion or something. But coming from the outside as well? What on earth had caused this inferno?
A coat of sweat broke out on my cold skin, and Caleb’s forehead shimmered too.
“What do we do?” I gasped. “We’re trapped.”
If we took a left down the corridor and headed toward the exit of the apartment, we would meet with the fire within the penthouse, yet it seemed that we couldn’t escape through the windows either without meeting with the blaze. We moved from room to room until we’d checked every single one on our side of the apartment, still untouched by fire, though becoming more and more choked with smoke each moment that passed. Each of the windows in these rooms looked out at the same flames.
I had been holding my breath as much as I could, but the fright and panic made it hard to regulate my breathing.
“We’re going to have to brave the flames,” Caleb said, his jaw set in a grimace.
The fire was encroaching both inside and outside the building, and we had to be quick. We checked the windows that we had access to once again, trying to find the window with the least amount of fire outside, but all looked just as deadly as the other. If we delayed any longer, we’d only make things worse for ourselves.