Once, I passed the cracked door to your room and overheard your voice, sharp with irritation.
“What’s the meaning of this?” you asked. “Alexi, look at me when I’m talking to you.”
Overcome with curiosity, and a little worried for Alexi’s sake, I slipped towards the door and peered cautiously through the crack. If violence threatened to erupt between the two of you, I could make up some excuse to spirit Alexi away.
Alexi was standing in front of you with his head bowed, kicking at the tassel on the rug like a schoolboy. You loomed over him, one of your silver pocket watches dangling from your hands.
“I found this under your pillow,” you went on. “Really? Stealing? After all I’ve done for you, after all I’ve given to you. Why?”
Alexi muttered something indecipherable, and you tossed your head like an agitated stallion.
“You don’t know? Really, you don’t know? Try harder , Alexi.”
There was a threat in your voice he seemed to pick up, because Alexi lifted his head and spoke up.
“I wanted to have something to pawn. Just in case. You’ve been so bored of me recently, I can tell. I annoy you, and you find me childish, and you’d rather it just be the girls and you. You’re going to turn me out soon, I just know it.”
You stared at him for a moment, gobsmacked. Then you set the pocket watch down on the table and massaged your brow with a weary hand.
“Alexi, Alexi,” you said, sounding ancient. You took his face between your hands, tall and dark as a specter as you ran your thumbs over his plump cheeks. “I will never get rid of you, do you understand? I sired you and you are mine. No machination of man nor beast can change that.”
Alexi huffed, but his eyes softened a little.
“Really?”
“Yes. And if we should ever be parted, my prince, I would hunt you down across the continents like my own little rabbit, do you understand?”
“Yes,” Alexi said quietly.
“Good,” you replied, kissing him sweetly and tugging him towards your bed. “No more stealing, understood? If you want something, just ask for it. Now come here.”
“But Maggie and I were going to play cards, I—”
“Hush,” you urged, pushing him down onto the rich fabric. “You talk too much.”
You knelt between his legs as your deft fingers found the lacing on his pants. Alexi knotted his brow and opened his mouth as though he had more to say but then, perhaps heeding your words, he simply threaded his fingers through your dark hair.
Alexi gasped when you took him expertly into your mouth, throwing his eyes around the room. In one shocking instant, they fell on me, still poised in the open sliver of the doorway in case I needed to intervene.
I flushed as deeply as my undead state would allow, then gathered my skirts in my hands and rushed away down the hallway.
I found Alexi crying once, pressed into a darkened alcove of the wallpapered halfway. He was scrubbing at his red eyes with the heel of his hand, his blonde curls disheveled as though he had been raking his fingers through them.
“Alexi?” I whispered, holding the flame of my candle up close to his face.
He recoiled, wrenching his face away from the flame like it was sunlight and buried himself deeper into the dark corner. I reached out a hand and touched his shoulder, felt the firm muscle beneath his shirt.
“What’s happened, Alexi? You can be frank with me. You know you can.”
He looked up at me with such a miserable, bitter expression I barely recognized him. Then he crossed his arms and let out a huff, every inch the petulant child.
“What do you think happened to me?”
The air left my lungs in a deflated rush. Of course. Who else in this house could bring somebody to tears like that?
I set the candle down on an end table and eased my arms around his neck, pulled him into a tight hug. I smoothed his hair back from his forehead and he clung to me as tightly as death, his shoulders shaking as the last of the sobs wracked his body.
“Do you think he knows?” he whispered, face buried in my hair. His breath was hot on my neck. “He must not know how cruel he can be, how he cuts right to the heart of you, otherwise he wouldn’t… No one who knew would keep doing it over and over again, would they?”
“Oh, Alexi,” I breathed. I drew away from him by a few inches, cradling his face in my hands. I gently rubbed the crease from between his brows with my thumb, then began kissing the tears from his cheeks.
“Alexi, Alexi,” I repeated like a mantra. He gripped my arms and pulled me closer, turning his face into my kisses. One moment I was kissing his cheekbone, the dimple a few inches below, and then his mouth was on mine, warm and insistent and real. Heat flooded my chest in a rush as I kissed him back. I hadn’t felt this alive in a hundred years, I realized. Lately, I hadn’t been feeling alive at all.