Colder

The next 5 hours felt like years. I felt unbelievably anxious, I’d been vibrating in my seat for the entire flight. By the time the plane was finally descending toward the black tarmac of the runway I was bouncing and fidgeting like a crazy person. I was certain the lovely gentleman sitting next to me was thoroughly frightened of my eagerness. The plane finally came to a stop and the stewardess allowed us to begin to leave the plane. The forced slowness of de-boarding left me feeling frustrated and ready to burst into a sprint the second I could.

And there he was.

Standing by the gate, anxiously waiting for me to come through was that tall, perfect specimen of a vampire. His angelic face was filled with deep concern despite the wide smile that crossed it the second he made eye contact. What was he doing here? How did he know I was coming? Oh…he looks even better than I remember!

I started pushing through the crowd now, running through the people as fast and I possibly could. When I finally reached him an hour later he wrapped his arms around me and lifted me into the air, squeezing me tight until I winced audibly and he let me go,

“Sorry.” He said as he glanced at the floor, embarrassed by his own strength.

“Jasper! Oh thank god you’re still alive.” I gushed. I held him even closer, burying my face in your neck and inhaling. The sweet scent of cedar wood and apple blossoms filled my nose and I gulped it in, savouring every breath.

A curious look flickered across his features, “Amelia, you have to go.” He said quickly. “You have to turn around, get on a plane and leave. Right Now.”

“Jasper, I am not going anywhere and nothing you can say will make me leave. End of story.” I said firmly. I pulled back and stared at him in the face, my eyes narrowing in warning.

“Amelia, he’s going to kill you. He’ll catch your scent here, he’ll find you and kill you.” He whispered urgently, his voice pleading with me to see reason.

I wasn’t having any of that. “Then right here is exactly where I need to be. There isn’t another person in this world who is better equipped to protect me than you.” I smiled at him and leaned up, kissing his amazingly soft lips.

He picked me up again, kissing me back enthusiastically before pulling back and flashing me a dazzling grin, “I guess we’d better get home then.” He said, winking playfully before turning and leading me toward the exit.

We were speeding down the freeway in Jasper’s silver Scion FR-S and out the southwest end of Houston, nothing but open grassy plain stretched before us with few trees and the occasional bush.

“This is quite the car, Jasper.” I said, astonished. It was very nice, silver with a black leather interior. I could barely feel us speeding down the free-way. It seemed like the perfect car for Jasper too it shimmers in the sunlight and is so fast you never see it coming, without being an entirely obnoxious car. I couldn’t imagine him driving something like a Ferrari or Lamborghini.

“Thank you.” He shot me a dazzling half-grin and I sucked in my breath quickly. “I like to be able to move fast, running or driving.” He winked playfully.

I smiled at this and took a moment to examine my surroundings. It was awfully green outside. Lots of grass and clusters of tree’s dotting the landscape. It was as though it used to be a forest but much of it had been chopped down to make room for agricultural land. I thought this was supposed to be a desert. Where is the scrub brushes and sand dunes and cactuses? The mountains in the distance looked right. Giant rocky formations with steep cliffs on all sides, made entirely of sedimentary rock worn smooth by thousands of years of changing weather. Desert mountains… but this wasn’t like any North American Desert I’d ever read about. Maybe we were too far east.

“This sure isn’t how I pictured the desert.” I said.

Jasper chuckle at me and shook his head, “Most of Texas is actually plains or scrub steppe, sort of like the…savannah of North America. The desert is way over on the western side of the state.”

“Oh.” I said, “that’s too bad. I wanted to see the desert.”

He glanced over at me, one hand on the wheel, the other on the stick shift between us. He smiled, “Then you will. I’ll take you there.” He flashed me a dazzling smile and I had to tell my heart to start beating again. God, I had missed that smile.

“I missed you, Jasper.” I said softly.

His smile faded, “I missed you too. Oh Amelia…” he said softly, “I hope I have what it takes to protect you, to keep you safe.”

I thought about this for a second, “You wouldn’t have to… we could keep each other safe instead... If you turned me.” My voice wavered. “I can’t bear the thought of ever being without you.”

He reached across the center of the car and stroked my cheek softly. He stared directly into my eyes, his other hand on the wheel still steering the car perfectly. “Then you won’t be. You will never be without me again, I promise. Let’s just go home now, we can talk about it again later. We have all the time in the world.” He dropped his hand and caught mine, entwining our fingers together and turning to face the road again.

I was still staring at him. He was at least willing to talk about it. I noticed we’d been driving down the open highway for some time now. “Where exactly are we going? I thought you lived in Houston.” I was suddenly curious.

He grinned, “Technically, no. We live on a ranch a little ways out of the city that has let’s say...been in Warren’s family for centuries.” He chuckled. “We’re almost there.”

“You live with Warren and Solen?” I asked.

“Not always, sometimes they live with me. It depends on where we are and who technically owns the house. In Houston it’s Warren’s house. In Alaska it’s mine. I also own a house in Chile, Norway, and Sicily. Warren and Solen also own multiple houses in multiple countries. Obviously we sometimes live apart but we’ve always been free to come and go as we please with each other’s homes.” He gave me a sly smile, “We really are a family.”

He turned the car onto a narrow dirt path, lined with same trees that formed the majority of the dense thickets in the area. The path wound its way through the trees for a good few miles until it emerged into the center of a clearing with a large house, almost completely composed of windows and wooden beams. White carpets and furniture could be seen through the windows. Sparkling rainbows danced across the room’s various surfaces, cast off from the numerous prisms stuck against the windows.

“Solen like’s rainbows, she likes to ‘feel comfortable in her own home’, as she puts it.” He said with a breathtaking half smile.

Warren and Solen were standing on the porch. His arm around her shoulder, each with a hand raised in greeting. I waved out the window at them and grinned widely. I think I liked these two.

The car slowed to a stop in front of them and I opened the door, stumbling out and landing on my knees in the dirt.

I hopped up to my feet and beamed at them, “Hi!” I chirped. Warren and Solen both laughed and held their arms wide. I rushed up and gave them each a brief hug.

“Hello Amelia.” Said Warren. His smile lit up the porch and I felt a soft warmth begin to spread wthin me. He was such a warm and kind person.

“I’m so glad you’re here.” Said Solen. “We shouldn’t have left to begin with.”

“Thanks. I missed you guys too.” I said.

I studied Solen for a moment. She had a beautiful smile that made her eyes sparkle. She was looking at me like I was the most welcome person in the world and she was genuinely happy to see me. I decided that she was equally warm and welcoming. I really like Jasper’s family. Suddenly I began to wish that someday they could be my family too.

“Hello Warren. Solen.” Said Jasper, dipping his head politely to each in turn. He began to walk up the stairs to the porch. He flashed a dazzling smile up at us just as he walked through a ray of sunlight. The sunlight caused rainbows to shimmer across his skin like a prism. Seeing his smile lit up in such a magnificent way caused my heart to begin pounding in my chest and my breathing caught in my throat. I heard a low chuckle from behind my right ear.

“Hello Jasper,” You could hear the amusement in Warren’s voice. “I see you failed in your determination to send her away immediately.”

“Yes, well. You try saying no to her when she’s being reasonable.” Jasper said with mock annoyance.

Warren raised one eyebrow curiously.

I looked at his questioning face and shrugged my shoulders, “I told him that the best way to keep me safe and protect me was to be with me. There is no being in the world more capable of protecting me than a vampire, especially against another vampire.” I said with a confident smile on my face.

Warren pondered over this for a moment, finally giving a slight shrug of his shoulders, “I suppose I would have brought her here also with an argument like that.” He grinned at Jasper before turning to Solen, “Why don’t you show her the house, angel? I’m sure it was a long flight, she might like to get cleaned up.”

Solen smiled eagerly grabbed my hand, pulling me into the house. It was a large open room, there was a fireplace on the far wall with a large white rug in front of it. The furniture was also white and went very well with the dark hardwood floor. Candles were lit on the mantle but no fire was lit in the fireplace as it was already very hot outside. The room was cool though. Air conditioning, I assumed.

“This is the living room, clearly.” She said as she moved me down the hallway. She walked slowly and turned into the second room on the left. It was a huge room, covered floor to ceiling with books of all types. Many of them very old with beautiful leather bindings. A large comfy couch for reading and a coffee table with an antique floor lamp were centered in the middle of the room. Along one wall was a large window overlooking the front porch where I could see the statuesque figures of Jasper and Warren, deep in conversation.

She wandered around the perimeter of the room slowly.

“I love this room.” She said. “I enjoy reading, learning new things, old legends, escaping into other worlds.” She turned to me and smiled, “Do you like to read?”

I nodded. “Yes, I read quite a lot. I know exactly what you mean.”

Solen nodded slowly and took a seat on the couch, patting the cushion beside her and beckoning me to sit. I complied and sat down with her. I was dazed, not really paying attention to anything. It was a nice library definitely, I could see myself spending hours and hours in here but right now my thoughts were elsewhere.

“What is it, Amelia?” Solen asked. The distraction must have been evident on my face.

“It’s nothing really... I’m just thinking.” The ghost of a smile passed fleetingly across my lips.

“You can tell me, you know. I won’t judge.” She reached across the couch and patted my knee comfortingly with one perfectly manicured and delicate looking hand.

I didn’t know if I should tell her or not. What if she agreed with Jasper? What if she didn’t think I should be a vampire? Then again… Jasper did say she liked being a vampire, maybe she’d be ok with me being one too. Maybe if Jasper wouldn’t…she would. With that hope in mind I took a deep breath and let it out in a long, slow sigh, “Solen…Do you think Jasper should make me a vampire?” I asked a little nervously.

She smiled at me, a look of understanding touching the soft lines of her beautiful face. “That is a difficult question with many answers. On one hand, anyone with eyes can see that this world was built for you and Jasper and the only path that ends in you being together, is one with you as a vampire. On the other hand, I know how Jasper feels about it… how he feels about his soul, and yours. Belief is a funny thing, it’s not always rational and can cause people to act in ways they otherwise wouldn’t. Belief…faith… is also one of the most difficult things in the world to change.” She smiled softly at me then and reached for my hand, clasping it in her own. I noticed immediately that unlike Jasper, her skin was ice cold and I wondered again how he could be so warm.

“Try to see it from his point of view, my dear. If you believed that you had no soul, could never get to Heaven, and he could… would you be able to ask him to give that up for you?” she smiled sweetly at me.

I understood his point of view, of course I could see where he was coming from but he was being unreasonable and unwilling to even look at my side of the situation. “That’s the problem, Solen. He thinks he is asking me to give up Heaven for him and that makes him selfish... He doesn’t understand that he is not asking me for anything. I’m offering my soul to him. ” I sighed softly and looked out the window to the breathtaking man standing on the porch, speaking in low whispers to Warren.

Solen glanced out the window and a look of pure contentment and love spread across her ravishing features as she stared at the man who created her. The man who had given her everything. “I understand entirely what you mean, Amelia. I offered my soul to Warren as well, he never even had to ask. I was his right from the start. I was born a human in 1941 but my life never really started until I was created a vampire in 1968 when I was 27 years old. I’d spent my life and childhood reading stories of witches and dragons, werewolves and vampires. Magic and mayhem and everything supernatural wherever you went. It was worlds away from the horrors of my everyday life.”

“My father… he didn’t like that I read so much, he thought I always had my head in the clouds and was never focused on reality. But I just didn’t feel like this was a world I belonged too. If I couldn’t exist in the worlds I found in my books, surrounded by magic… then I didn’t want to exist at all.” She smirked and chuckled softly, “Being a vampire however, was never something I had pictured for myself.”

“It wasn’t?” I asked, suddenly a little worried that she didn’t like being a vampire as much as I’d hoped.

She looked at me thoughtfully then and chuckled, “No. I pictured myself more as the fairy princess who gets saved from the evil vampire trying to drain me of my blood…” Her trilling, melodic laugh echoed through the room at the absurdity of such desired. “I wouldn’t have changed it for anything, though. I like being a vampire, because it’s not like the vampires I read about in my books. It is better….It’s beautiful. We are surrounded by rainbows and colours and things of great and unimaginable beauty. You can’t even imagine the way we see the world, Amelia, a vampire’s sense are heightened a thousand times that of a human. I can see the dust sparkling in a beam of sunlight, the dew drops clinging to delicate strands of a spider web. Did you know that flower petals are not just one solid colour? All flower petals are a mosaic, a kaleidoscope of many colours, some just more prominent than others…those are the colours the humans see. We see them all.” She drifted momentarily from the conversation, mulling over the wonders of being a vampire before focusing her eyes back on mine, “How can something that... enchanting, be evil?”

“I don’t think it can be evil. You know, he told me the story of how vampires were first created about them being the fallen angels… I don’t get it, how can someone as good and kind as Jasper, someone who is descended from angels, think himself a demon?” I was entirely bewildered by this notion. Certainly there was darkness in him but it was minute, very small compared to the light that radiates out of him.

“Jasper only sees the shadows and the darkness that are forever encroaching on the tiny flicker of light that is left inside of him. He doesn’t see that light, pushing the shadows back driving them further and further away. He doesn’t see the angel in him, only the demon.”

“Well that is utterly absurd. Angel or demon, I love him regardless…nothing could ever change that.” I whispered softly.

Solen suddenly chuckled at this and I looked at her curiously. I wasn’t sure how my unyielding love was funny. “Angels and Demons are cast from one mould till love guides them upward… or downward, I hold.” She was quoting a line from one of the poets I’d been reading to Jasper in the meadow back in Alaska.

“Quoting Amelia’s favourite poet, Solen? Now that’s hardly fair.” Jasper’s silky voice came from the doorway and I looked over to see both he and Warren standing there. I hadn’t seen them move from the front porch at all but I’d been distracted by my conversation with Solen and wasn’t paying attention.

Solen’s hand flew to her chest and she gasped in mock offence, “I’ll have you know I am quite the fan of Miss Wilcox myself.” She paused for a second and gave a soft sigh, “I only meant, Jasper that we all have both light and dark battling inside of us and it’s the choices we make that determine which of those opposing forces win the war. Those choices are most thoroughly influenced by love above all else. That love can be dark and dangerous it can lead anyone, even a human, down the path to eternal damnation, or it can guide us, lift us and carry us to the gates of Heaven if we let it. The only difference between us and them,” she gestured towards me, “is that we have a little farther to walk. If she is willing to walk the longer path by your side, if she is willing to carry you and show you the way to Heaven… What is stopping you from letting her? The only other option, is you both walk your separate paths alone.”

Warren gave his wife a loving smile and nodded. He reached out and placed a hand on Jasper’s shoulder, “It doesn’t take long for loneliness to become unbearable and drive you to madness, brother. Especially when you have nothing but eternity spread out before you. Take my word for it. I was alone for over 800 years till I found someone to make my existence bearable.”

“800 years? You’re over 1000 years old, Warren and Solen is only a few decades. I think you’ve got your math wrong.” Jasper said curtly. My eyes opened wide with shock. 1000 years old?! Wow. I didn’t know Warren was that old and I found I was curious as to what his story was. I would have to ask him about it later.

Warren flashed him a charmingly crooked grin and rolled his eyes, “I was talking about you, you big dope. You were the first to give me family and friendship, to bring me back from the insanity where the loneliness had led me. But the loneliness came back, you lessened it… made it bearable but it wasn’t gone completely. Something was still missing and then I found her. Solen has given my life meaning and purpose and a reason to want to suppress that demon inside of me.” He stepped from the doorway then and moved around the couch to stand behind Solen, his hands on her shoulders and his eyes still fixed on Jaspers stony face, “You deserve that same happiness, Jasper. Don’t throw it away just because you are afraid of the possible consequences for Amelia. There are consequences for her, no matter the path she takes. Which of those consequences she chooses to take on is her decision. Whether you are there to help her through them, or leave her to face it alone.” The corner of his mouth turned up in a wry half-smile, “Well, that one is your decision.”

Jasper sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, his face screwed up as though he were trying to banish a headache. After a few moments he dropped his hand and shook his head clear, regaining his composure. His eyes focused on me and a warm, dazzling smile spread across his face, defrosting the ice that had been present just moments before. He extended his hand toward me, “Come on, Amelia. I’ll show you my room.”

I glanced at Warren and Solen, giving them a pleasant smile and mouthing the words “Thank you” before taking Jasper’s hand and allowing him to lead me from the room. I really was grateful that both Warren and Solen were trying to help Jasper see the sense in turning me into a vampire. I could use all the help I could get in that department.