Elizabeth Hunter - This Same Earth

She clenched her jaw. “It’s not that I don’t agree with what you’re saying. I do, but-”

“Or what kind of life would you have had if you were traveling all over the world with him? The work he was doing, B-tracking your father, shoring up alliances-it was important. And then he found Ben-”

“I get it!” she blurted. “He had more important things to do than hang around and entertain my crush. Fine. I get it. Can we change the subject please?”

“Oh, so it was a crush, was it?”

She clenched her hands and spurred on her horse. “I am so damn tired of know-it-all vampires telling me how much more they know about life than I do! Maybe what I felt for Giovanni back then was a kind of hero worship. I don’t think so, but maybe . Then he leaves, and I try my hardest to move on with my life, but I always feel kind of like I’m faking it.

“Then, when I finally feel like maybe I can have a life without him, he comes back!” She forced back the tears that gathered in her eyes. “And it’s like everything I felt for him gets taken out of the closet, dusted off, and is stronger than ever. And he acts like it’s no big deal.”

“B-”

“Do you think that’s fun? Do you have any idea how guilty I feel that I could never love Mano the way he deserved because I was so hung up on Gio?” She bit her lip and brushed at the angry tears that filled her eyes.

“B-”

“And I’m supposed to make this huge decision about being with him when it has so many implications. Because I won’t be with him and grow old while he stays the same. I won’t do it. It would be cruel to both of us. So, on top of deciding how I feel about him, I have to make the decision about whether I want to end my human life and drink blood for eternity.”

“Beatrice-”

“You wanted to know? Well, that’s how I feel, Carwyn!” She sniffed. “And I’m probably a giant shit for dumping all that on you right now, but you did ask.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured.

She sniffed again. “If I become a vampire, will I stop crying every time I get pissed off? Because that would be a definite mark in the plus column.”

Carwyn chuckled. “I’ve no idea, but your tears would be kind of pink. Very…cute.”

“Great,” she swiped at her cheeks that were dusted with salty frost. “So I’d look stupid and I’d stain my clothes.”

He snickered; then he laughed, and soon Beatrice was laughing along with him. After the tension of the past two weeks, laughing with Carwyn felt like coming up for air.

He reached over and squeezed her hand as they climbed the hill. “You’ll figure it out between the two of you. I have to confess, other than the odd, unexpected emotional outburst-thanks for that-it’s rather entertaining to watch. Don’t give in too easily, I’m having fun needling him about it.”

“Good to know we amuse you.”

“Oh, yes. Better than wrestling,” he snickered. “Well, maybe not quite.”

“We could always make Gio wear one of those lucha libre masks while we bicker at each other.”

“Excellent idea! I knew I liked you for a reason.”

“You’re ridiculous, you know that? Though he did confess to wearing a Zorro hat in a past life.”

Carwyn shook his head. “Oh, he loved that thing. Looked absolutely ridiculous on him. Wore it for years in South America.”

She snorted and looked across at him. “I missed you, Carwyn.”

He winked at her. “Missed you, too. Despite all this, there’s a light in your eyes I haven’t seen for a long while.”

She sniffed again and swallowed the lump in her throat. “If I do decide…I mean, if things work out with us and…I’m not even sure how to ask something like that.”

He smiled gently. “Well, if you’re not asking what I think you’re not asking, then the answer would be…I’d consider it an honor to call you my daughter, Beatrice De Novo. I already consider you a part of my family.” She looked across at him and realized his eyes looked a little red, too.

Beatrice reached over and squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry I never got to meet your son.”

“I’ll see him again, darling girl,” he said in a rough voice. “Of that, I have no doubt.”

The following night, she sat next to Giovanni on the bed, reading a manuscript she had found in Carwyn’s huge library. The priest had mentioned she was welcome to borrow anything she liked while they were in his home.

Though Carwyn’s house was built into the mountains like Isabel and Gustavo’s, she could still hear the wind blow bare branches against the thick stone walls that protected them, and she shivered at the crack of ice as it hit the rocks.

She looked down and saw Giovanni begin to stir from his daytime rest. They’d slept next to each other every night since Ioan had died. Beatrice slept more soundly next to him, and he seemed reassured to keep her close and secure in his chamber. He never pushed, though his obvious desire for more was becoming harder and harder to resist.

Giovanni stretched beside her, looking for all the world like a very large, sexy cat waking from a nap. His eyes were closed and she took a moment to admire his body. She insisted he wear pants to sleep, though she knew he considered bedclothes of any kind irritating.

He refused to wear a shirt, so she had a clear view of his perfect physique, at least from the waist up. Knowing he had been kidnapped and molded by a madman to look like the ideal of male perfection still didn’t lessen her appreciation for the end result.

She wondered if that was a moral failing of some sort.

“Mmm, tesoro …” he mumbled something in sleepy Italian as his eyes blinked open.

“Still don’t speak Italian, Gio.”

His hooded eyes raked over her breasts with sleepy languor as he whispered something else she couldn’t understand. She could feel her face heating up, and decided from the tone of his voice, it was probably a good thing she didn’t speak Italian.

Probably.

He began to reach for her, so she decided a drastic subject change was in order.

“How you do kill an immortal?”

Giovanni was obviously taken aback but looked surprised, not offended. He stretched again and sat up, crossing his arms on his chest as he leaned against the headboard of the sturdy bed in his room at Carwyn’s house.

“Good evening to you, too. And how to kill an immortal?” he mused. “Well, that’s obviously the wrong word, isn’t it? Immortal.”

Her heart faltered for a moment as she thought of Ioan. “You know what I mean.”

“We like to call ourselves immortals.” He reached over and played with a lock of her hair that had come out of her ponytail. “Makes the more civilized of us feel a bit better about feeding from human beings. Which we aren’t anymore, but we once were. Makes us slightly less barbaric in our own eyes.”

She leaned against his shoulder and let her cheek rest against his bare arm.

“You’re not barbaric, Jacopo,” she said. “You’re one of the kindest men I know.”

His skin automatically heated against her cheek. “Why do you call me by my human name?” he asked softly.

“Would you rather I didn’t?”

“No, I…it is comforting to hear it again.”

His hand came to rest on her left arm, and his fingertips traced gentle circles along the inside of her wrist.

“Am I the only one who calls you Jacopo?”

“You’re the only one who knows my name.”

Beatrice closed her eyes and gave in to the comfort of his warm hands. The low hum that always accompanied the touch of his skin on hers soothed her. As she sat in bed, enjoying the feel of him, she realized if she was robbed her sight, her hearing-of every sense she had-but could only feel his touch, she would recognize him by that alone.