Sundown & Serena (4 page)

“They were going to kill me and Theo.”

“Why not call the police? And who is Theo?
You sound like you don’t like him. There is resentment in your
voice.”

“The police wouldn’t have helped, Sun. These
people...they operate outside the law. The police are in their
pocket, and they’re utterly ruthless. They have connections to the
highest state levels, some federal officers—”

“Enough with the conspiracy theories, Terian.
Why did you risk your life?”

“The woman who was being held saved my life a
few months ago. She risked herself for me back then and got hurt
for it.” He paused. “I owed her.”

There was a lot more emotion in his tone than
mere obligation called for. “Who was holding her? How did they get
her in the first place?”

“A guy named Devlin Dalcon grabbed her at her
home when Theo wasn’t there. Sarelle shot some of his men, but they
overpowered her and took her to Devlin’s brother, Danial—”

Sarelle was the woman’s name, the one he’s
carrying a torch for. “Why take her there?”

“Danial and she were...married before. Devlin
wanted her for himself. He wanted to run it by Danial first, I
guess.”

He’s stumbling over words and pausing a
lot
. I concluded Terian was leaving out much of the truth. “Why
would a crazy guy willing to do a home invasion with armed guards
care about checking with his brother for “ex” permission?”

“Danial told him to do what he wanted with
her, since she’d left him.”

This was beyond illogical; this was crazy.
“No man has that kind of power over his wife, much less an ex.”

Terian nodded in agreement. “It didn’t last
even a week. Danial’s too much of a possessive bastard. He hit
her.”

Anger focused my thoughts, remembering times
I’d been hit myself by people who professed to love me. “Bastard.
Did you smack him around a little, I hope?”

“Yeah. They won’t be bothering her again.” He
flashed me a proud smile.

I didn’t reply. I had too much on my mind and
it had nothing to do with what he’d just said. Every time Terian
mentioned Sarelle, it was obvious that he still had feelings for
her. While it hadn’t mattered when she’d merely been a woman he
liked a few months ago, it was bracingly upsetting to know he still
felt the same way now. Worse, he’d run off with barely two words to
me, to risk his life to rescue her.

“Do you mind if I stay here with you?” he
asked awkwardly, coming closer to hug me. “I’d like to be like we
were, back before I left,” He took a deep breath. “I won’t pressure
you for anything more, Sun.”

Leave off discussing Sarelle for now.
Don’t ruin this
. “Okay,” I said, squeezing him in my arms.

Chapter
Four

The next six months were blissful. It was
summer, the flowers were blooming, and I was in love. Terian and I
went on picnics, went hiking in parks, swam in the local pool, and
made love at every opportunity. Yet even as I was blissfully having
it all, I began to wonder at some of my lover’s odd habits.

Terian never seemed to get too hot, even on
the hottest day. He didn’t seem to sweat at all, except when we
made love for hours, and even then, it was barely noticeable. Yet
sometimes his skin seemed hotter than it should be, to the point
where touching him was uncomfortable. Weirder still was that
happened most often when I startled him.

He seemed to like food of all kinds, but
sometimes he ate meat that was so rare it sickened me. He always
said he’d cooked it, but it looked completely raw to me. I told
myself that was quirky, but not abnormal. And if I felt my skin
crawl sometimes when something upset him, I chalked that up to my
empathizing with him. But what bothered me the most was our sex
life.

It was plain weird that he refused to have
sex with me without a condom, even after I got a clean bill of
health from my gyno along with some birth control pills. I used all
the normal arguments guys had always used on me: it will feel
better, its more natural, we’re protected, but to no avail. Terian
just repeated that it wasn’t safe, and that he wouldn’t have sex
without a condom, period. So I shrugged and agreed, thinking him
paranoid.

What broke us wasn’t any of this, though; it
was his refusal to let me see his real eyes.

Terian had worn colored contacts the whole
time I’d known him. Sure, they were the kind people wore for a
month at a time; that wasn’t the problem. After being with him for
six months, I just wanted to know what color his eyes really were.
Yet Terian flatly refused to let me see him when he changed his
lenses out. I tried asking nicely, then bluntly, then angrily. He
just refused, quietly reiterating again that the eyes he was born
with weren’t very pretty, and then requested that I leave it
alone.

I didn’t leave it alone, of course; I just
bided my time. Finally, in October, I got my chance.

Terian was opening his new contacts in the
bathroom behind a locked door when his phone rang. When I heard him
answer it, I knew I had just a few seconds to get in there and
solve the mystery. Jimmying open the door quietly with the top of a
pen, I peeked in. Terian’s back was to the door, so he didn’t see
me. I still don’t know to this day how he missed hearing me, but
some of his distraction likely was because the person he was
talking to was the infamous Sarelle, known as Sar to her
friends.

She called every week now, though Terian
didn’t tell me why or what they talked about. But he’d often go for
walks alone after they talked, and then return home eager for sex.
I didn’t need it spelled out for me that Theo wasn’t in the picture
with Sar anymore, and that Terian was thinking hard about leaving
me to go to her. He’d slipped once and said something to the effect
that I resembled her. After that, I couldn’t help feeling jealous
of her, even though I knew he hadn’t been with her or anyone else
since he’d come back to me.

Terian looked up in the mirror. I let out a
gasp. I’d expected hazel eyes, grey eyes, or maybe even icy blue
eyes. But his eyes were none of those. His eyes were bright, deep
red.

I turned to run. Terian had hold of me before
I’d gone a step, angrier than I had ever seen him. “You wanted to
see! Go ahead, look!”

“What are you?” I demanded.

“I’m half demon,” he grated out.

“How?”

“My human mother had sex with a demon,” he
said sarcastically. “You do know how sex works, right?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” he said suddenly, hugging me. “I
wanted to tell you, Sun. I was afraid though, afraid you’d be
scared of me.” He swallowed hard. “I didn’t want you to be scared
of me.”

“I’m not,” I said slowly. “I’m not
scared.”

“Good, because I’ve been wanting to ask you
something,” he said anxiously. He went to one knee. “Would you
marry me, Sundown?”

I felt like throwing up.

“I love you,” Terian went on. “I should have
told you sooner, but...I needed to work some things out for myself.
Now that I have, I want to be with you.”

“What about Sarelle?”

Terian blushed. “She told me she didn’t like
me as more than a friend. Nothing’s changed. She...she’s—”

So I get you by default.
No.
“I can’t marry you,” I said, letting out a long breath.
“I don’t want to get married, Terian. Not even to you, and I like
you a lot—”

“You wouldn’t have to give up your,
um...lifestyle. Things would be like they are now.”

“Then why can’t they stay like this?” I asked
bluntly. “I couldn’t wear a ring for you, not even an engagement
ring, not to work. My boss frowns on that, says it makes the
customers think they can’t ask us to dance, if we’re married.”

“Then he’s an asshole!”

“Terian—”

“Look, I have a lot of money now! You don’t
have to sell yourself! You could do anything you wanted, go back to
school, get a degree—”

I felt one of my legendary rages coming on.
Who is he to think I needed to better myself? I’m
fine like I am!

“I don’t want a fucking degree! I want my own
life! I want to do what I want, and that’s not marrying any fucking
demon!”

“Half-demon! I’m only half!”

“What’s that mean anyway? You tell me you
want me to marry you, but only because I accidentally find out what
you are?”

“No,” Terian said, hurt. He went to his
drawer, and took out a box. “I got this for you a month ago. But I
didn’t want to rush you. I was willing to wait years if that’s what
it took, decades even, until you began to age, and maybe decided
marriage wasn’t so bad.”

I got an ominous feeling and went perfectly
still, as what he was saying sunk in. “Until I began to age?” I
repeated in slow measured words. “‘I’? Why not ‘we’?”

“I don’t age,” Terian said sadly. “I’ll look
like this in another fifty years, Sun. But—”

“How old are you?” I whispered, staring at
him.

“Seventy or so,” he said in a low, broken
tone.

I lost it right there. “Seventy!” I cackled.
“And you were a virgin! How could you have waited seventy years to
get laid?”

“I thought I might hurt a human woman, if I
was with her,” he replied, tears in his eyes. “I didn’t know what I
was.” He swallowed hard. “I only recently learned that I wouldn’t,
but that I’d have to use condoms, always.”

“I’m not marrying you! You love Sarelle!”

“She doesn’t love me!” he roared, and I felt
an unseen wave of black evil come out of him and wash over me. I
let out a scream, and like magic, it dissipated as if it had never
appeared. But the memory of it lingered, making my skin crawl. I
backed away from Terian, my eyes wide and scared.

He started toward me. “Sun, I’m sorry.”

“Get out!” I spat at him. “You’re evil! I can
feel it, Terian! Get out! Get out and don’t come back!”

“Sun, I love you!”

“I don’t love you! Get out, or I’m calling
the cops!”

Terian gave me one last pained look, and then
he packed his things, and left.

When he had gone, I spent the rest of that
night crying, because I had lied to him. I did love him. And I’d
quit my job earlier that day, because I knew he wanted me to, and I
had been hoping that he was going to pop the question.

* * * *

I moped around my apartment for a while. What
was the point in going anywhere? I no longer had a person who
wanted to spend time with me. I told myself that he’d lied to me
about what he was. He’d kept it from me, and he was an evil being,
the kind every religion in the world said was in league with the
devil. So what if he was half-human? So what if he’d been the one
man who’d never hurt me? I told myself repeatedly that it didn’t
matter, and didn’t stop repeating the litany until I finally
believed it.

I went later that day and got my job back at
Hotcakes. It wasn’t as if I needed the money right away. Terian had
left me money in our joint account, enough to live on for a while.
But it was going to run out eventually. It wasn’t great to be ogled
again, especially after I’d been telling myself all week I was done
with that, but I’d done it before. And I took to it like I’d never
left.

Days passed, then weeks, then a month. But
the time that went by didn’t help the loss I felt at not having
Terian in my life. If anything, it made it worse. Every day I’d
spent with Terian seemed to have taken on a rosy glow, like the
best memories always do. I remembered all the good times we had
touched, and been happy together, and how good it had been, having
someone for the first time in my life who had loved me, really
loved me.

Had I made the biggest mistake of my life? I
was feeling more and more like I had ruined the only good thing I’d
ever had. That feeling of self-destruction lingered and grew day by
day, as I became more and more sure that there was no point in
anything I did, and that the pain I felt was not only permanent, it
was warranted.

Eventually, that self-contempt drove me to my
worst dive bar. It was a rough place, one I went to only when I was
feeling truly awful, and wanted to find a man to make me forget my
pain. Davy’s was a good place for that. There were always a lot of
rough men there, no matter the night. If I was blatant about what I
was looking for, I knew it wouldn’t take long to find one. Maybe if
I had sex with someone else, I could move on. It was a given that
whoever I picked up here wouldn’t be a knight in shining
armor

he’d be a coarse bastard. Yet I was
confident that I could handle any situation that cropped up; I
always had before.
And if something happens, it’s
just what I deserve.

Oddly, when I walked in that night, Davy’s
was practically empty.
Where is everyone? It’s
Saturday night.

The jukebox was on, playing “Sympathy for the
Devil” by Guns and Roses. The weird thing was it was playing
quietly, the normal super loud volume turned down to barely
audible. I could just hear the song over the sound of some
scuffling noises coming from the back room, where the pool tables
were.

I wandered into the back room, and found the
source of those noises. A man was sitting on the pool table, a
woman astride him, and she was riding him so hard the table legs
were rocking. He had her hair gripped in his fist, pulling it back
as she rode him.

God, that’s bizarre! Who
the fuck has sex like this out in public?
I was so shocked I
couldn’t speak. I just stared at them with my mouth open.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Gary the barkeep
whispered. He was cowering behind the bar, his eyes scared. “Get
out of here, Sundown.”

“Why?” I murmured.

“Now, Gary,” a clear and beautiful voice
intoned. “You’ll frighten your one legitimate customer. And we
wouldn’t want that, now would we?”