With Cassandra off to her business, I step out into my backyard. I use a small bucket of water to wash my face off, but I don't wash further, not quite ready to get her scent off my skin. I gaze back at a window to my home, the room I know holds my bathtub where Cassandra is. A smile creeps across my face, and I blush somewhat again, telling myself that that just happened and was terrific. I splash another round of water on my face, then straighten. After wiping the water off my face, I start to head back to my home, but Cassandra is standing there, clothed, in the doorway. She drifts down to me and gives me a ghost of a smile, halting my progression.

"I don't know what to say." I blurt out after a long few seconds of silence.

"You don't have to say anything if you don't want to, Orion."

"Thank you for that."

She raises a hand to my face and trails her thumb slowly along my cheekbones and over to the start of my jawline.

"No, thank you, Orion." She whispers softly.

"I had questions for you–" I smile vaguely, unable to hide it from my facial features–and not really wanting to, either.

"Mmhmm, I vaguely remember you saying that earlier."

"–But I don't remember what they are now, so there's that."

Cassandra looks around before walking over and finding a simple seat to sit on at the small fire pit I have in my backyard. I follow shortly afterward and then slide down to sit next to her. She reaches over and tweaks one of my bare nipples with a laugh. I grimace and draw back at the sudden and unexpected sharp pain, then laugh.

"Ouch, damn, what was that for?"

"No reason; it just seemed like it would be fun to see your face."

"Okay, sure, Cass." I laugh another time before clearing my throat and rubbing my chest where she pinched me. "So, I kind of remember what I was going to ask, and some of it doesn't, uh, apply anymore."

"If you want, sure." She sounds indifferent, like she doesn't mind me asking her questions, even if they're bound to be annoying or basic.

I pick up a stick and start absently poking at the old cold embers from whatever fire I last had going in this small campfire-sized pit. Cassandra turns her now impassive, seafoam-colored gaze onto me while I formulate my thoughts, the hyperfocused gaze she had only a short while earlier completely gone.

"Someone told me never to share blood with your kind; how come?"

"Ah, the age-old warning against vampires. Going to ask if I've lied to you, too?"

"Hadn't planned on it," I murmur, a little defensively.

"If I drink your blood, I get sustenance and–as you got to see up close and personally–a little bit of time that I can act and feel alive. Your blood is different from animals or humans, though; it hums in my veins. Like, hmm, a beautiful summer day slowly moving through my body. As an aside, the sun here doesn't feel terrible and uncomfortable right now, so I'd imagine that's also a side effect."

"Maybe because I'm aligned to the sun."

"Probably."

"What if I were to drink yours?" I turn my pale eyes to her, watching for her response.

"Well, I could find you wherever you went."

"That doesn't sound that bad?"

"Depends on how you're looking at it, I suppose. Other things come with drinking from me, too, Orion."

"Would I be like some kind of vampire elf-kin or something?"

"What?" Cassandra blurts out a laugh as if that's the most ridiculous thing she's maybe ever heard.

"What?! It's a genuine question! I don't know how you people work!"

That only makes her laugh a bit harder. It's genuine, too, and she knows it's making me all restless, so her chuckled laughter continues for a few more moments every time she looks back at me.

"I sometimes forget how young you actually are, Orion."

"Yeah, that's one of my questions too."

"How old am I? Is that what you mean?"

"Yep."

"Old enough, but not old enough to return back to the real world."

"What's the real world?" I furrow my brow, unsure if I want to hear the answer to that.

"You called it the human divide. You know, through those seams."

"This is the real world for me, though." I deflate a little bit without realizing it, and it takes her reaching over to tilt up my chin with a finger to raise my head back up so she can look me in the eyes.

"Don't worry. I haven't done what I'm meant to do here yet, so I don't aim to leave any time soon."

I lean forward and kiss her palm since it's so close to me after she tilts my head up.

"You didn't answer my question all the way about drinking your blood."

She pulls her hand back; it's casual, but I can tell it's prompted by my circling back to the prior point in our conversation.

"Someone who drinks from a vampire becomes a little, how to say this delicately–infatuated?–I suppose. It isn't bad at first, but the more and more you drink from a vampire, the more and more it takes hold of you. Some humans who drink from us for years can completely lose their sense of self and just act on an instinct to serve."

"Wow, that's kind of crazy."

"They can be crazed, yes. Not always, though; it depends on the nature of the person in question, I think. It's a tool my kind can use–and will use–towards whatever our goals are."

"Have you done that to people?"

"Sure." She doesn't hesitate when responding, nor does she seem to think anything less of herself for saying it. She shifts her eyes to the side to look at me while I mull over that answer.

"I guess that kind of falls under the 'how old are you then' question."

"I was turned shortly after I was married."

"You were married?"

"For about forty minutes, maybe an hour, I was. It wasn't like you'd think, Orion. No fairytale there; I was supposed to be the woman of the house–a good-looking broodmare to smooth the society hit on our family for my brother's outspokenness of atheism. It was illegal in those days. My family understandably didn't want to be part of the big 'crisis of the faith' wave that was going on. The easiest way to soothe those whispers was to marry me to a 'good,' evangelical man and family."

"I don't really understand what you just said."

"I was married off by my family to correct an idiotic political move my brother made."

"Fucking politics, man."

"No comment. Anyway, like I said, I think I was married for about an hour before my maker decided she was done with the party. She turned me and had two others turned as well that night, but everyone else…" She lifts a shoulder slightly in a half-hearted shrug.

"Wow. She killed everyone?"

"She and others of the house did, yes."

"Uh, I'm not really sure what to say. That seems a bit, I don't know, psychotic?"

"It was a long time ago, Orion. It might seem 'psychotic,' but I understand why it was done, even though it took me some time to come to grips with." She doesn't share the reasonings with me, nor does she look like she intends to.

"So, how long ago?"

"A bit over a hundred years."

"Wow! You don't look a day over 93!" I offer her a cheeky grin, trying to lighten the mood.

She gives me a ghost of a smile in return. I touch her lips with my thumb before I even think about it, tracing the outline with the tip. I lean in to steal a kiss from her, which she only slightly reciprocates.

"So, I killed the mood. Womp-womp."

"No, no, Orion. I was just lost in thoughts, I suppose."

"Alright then. So, drinking your blood makes the person have a track on them that you can follow any time you want. It can make them all infatuated and crazy, and if they keep drinking your blood, they turn into mindless drone followers. What else?"

"Not necessarily mindless drones, Orion. They very much can act on their own; it's just that they also want to act constantly for the benefit of–we call them patrons. If you were to drink my blood, I would be your patron in the eyes of other draugar–what we are, what you call vampires."

"Weird name."

"It's old, just like most things about my kind–and yours, you know."

"Yeah, I know, but I'm a Wilder, so I don't have much of that background knowledge."

"You have plenty of time to correct that in your lifetime."

"True enough."

"There are other things from drinking my blood, but I don't want to talk anymore about this, Orion."

"Hey, it's cool, I get it. I'm sure we'll chat about it other times."

She makes a little noise in response, which is relatively noncommittal, but I don't worry about it. Instead, I look at her for a few moments, enjoying having her close. Finally, I decide to tell her my soon-to-be plans.

"Aria and I are going to the human divide in a couple of days when she gets back."

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That draws Cassandra's sharp attention. She immediately tilts her head questioningly but doesn't interrupt me as I speak.

"We found out the area where we think those disappeared fey went, so she and I will try to search around and see if we can find any trace of them. If we don't find anything in a few-ish nights, we'll come back; if we do find something–or them–we'll figure it out then."

"Where?"

"Where what?"

"Where are you going with the humans?"

"Uhh, a place called Asheville–with an 'e'–we found it while looking through old road atlases Aria had on hand at her place."

Cassandra draws back from me and stares at me, her gaze hardening about a hundredfold in the span of a second.

"What, Cass?"

"You don't want to go there." Her voice is low, dangerous. I can't tell if she's angry or worried because her face is serious and otherwise indecipherable.

"I mean, I have to know what happened to those fey; I can't just ignore it."

"Well, you should ignore it and not go there."

"Why?"

"I know the place, the area, I mean. And I know some of the supernaturals who haunt and hunt there, too."

"Hey, that's great news. Aria actually left a couple of nights ago to find someone who knows the area, but if you know–"

"–Did you not hear me, Orion?" She snarls at me, her fangs slightly poking out behind her lips. "You shouldn't go there."

"Whoa." I hold up both hands as if to defend myself from her sudden wrath. A small part of me remembers Jorge's little bit about vampires and their tendency to Jekyll and Hyde in general, but I try to ignore it, thinking this is just something else.

"Listen, Cass, I have to go because I have to know what happened to those fey–if only for this village's safety–and help them if I can. They're my people, and no one else seems to be the one who will do it. So, unless you want to share some kind of earth-shattering new information with me, you won't stop me from going. I hate to say it that way, but it's the truth, and I don't want to ever lie to you if I can help it. I was going to ask you to come with me, but I'm thinking that's probably a big, fat no."

Her seafoam eyes flash with anger, but instead of advancing on me, she turns away and walks further into my admittedly tiny backyard. She's forced to stop about ten feet away when shrubbery and small trees block her path. I watch her quietly. She stands there for a good two or three minutes in silence before she finally turns with her arms crossed loosely over her abdomen and walks back toward me. Her fangs haven't retracted, but her eyes aren't screaming murder at me.

"I can't go with you."

"Yeah, I kind of figured you wouldn't want to go."

"No, I said I can't go with you."

"Oh. Well, that's a difference a word makes. Can I ask why not?"

"I have to stay here–as I said earlier–until my task is done. It isn't done, so I can't leave."

"Can't, or won't?"

"Can't–some of our kind make promises we dare not break."

"We have something that sounds like that, too. No one ever swears them unless they're basically forced into it by someone else. At least, as far as I've seen."

"I know, it's like what you did to Kline. Who, by the way, wants your head on a spike. You made an enemy for your entire lifetime with him, Orion."

"Yeah, well, he's a little bit of a bitch, so forgive me if I don't give a shit that he's upset at me."

That causes her to exhale air through her nose suddenly and laugh, breaking the tension for at least a moment.

"He is, isn't he?"

"Yeah. So–" I start again, trying to redirect the conversation. "–What do I need to know about Asheville?"

She sighs, then drops her hands to her sides. Her fangs disappear behind her lips, and she settles back down next to me. Instead of leaning against her, I turn and prop myself up across the length-cut log bench we're using to sit on, my legs hanging off the edge, feet on the ground. I lean back and carefully lay my head on her lap, looking up at her.

"I can take care of myself, Cass. Even if your kind is there."

"We're weak here."

"Bullshit."

"I'm serious, Orion. I'm pretty sure it's the downside we get from moving around in this." She gestures upwards at the daytime sky. "We can move here freely even if it's a bit uncomfortable most times, but overall, we're weaker in strength, like our abilities just don't work as well, or sometimes they just require more blood to manifest."

"So you're saying you'd have hulked out when you tore off my belt earlier if we were in the human world?"

I give her a pesky, wide grin. She laughs softly and flicks my nose with one of her nails. I scrunched up my nose in response, and she gently brushed her fingers over my hair, her nails lightly dancing across my scalp in a soothing gesture.

"I'm serious. I doubt you'll come across my kind, except maybe near whatever seam you go through, but if you do, you must be careful."

"Alright, I promise I will."

"If one starts to stalk or bother you or your friend, tell them I'm your patron."

"Will they know who you are?"

"Cassandra Bentham. If that doesn't trigger any recognition, tell them my maker is Delilah, Delilah Falk. If even that doesn't stop them, well, they're an idiot. But if it doesn't, mention we're of the Falcon House, and that should stop it right there."

"Should I know who or what the Falcon House is?"

"Don't worry about that right now. Just repeat back to me the name and what I said?"

"You're my patron, Cassandra Bentham. Doesn't work? Go with Delilah Falk being your maker, and if that doesn't work, mention Falcon House. That cover it?"

"That covers it." She leans down and brushes her lips across mine.

"So, Cassandra Bentham, nice to meet you all official-like." I give her another cheeky grin, and she tilts her lips at the corners.

"I'm different there than here, Orion." She replies with some amount of hesitation, which I find weird.

"I bet you probably have to be. That's okay. You can be who you want when you're with me."

"Just keep me as Cass or Cassandra here; it's better that way. I don't particularly want to be Cassandra Bentham here."

"You're talking like you have some kind of split personality or something."

"Maybe my kind does. I'm not kidding, either. We can compartmentalize so much that before too long, we don't even realize we're doing it. It just happens, like remembering to blink."

"You have to remember to blink?!"

"Yes, Orion."

"Holy shit, how do you keep track of all of that in your brain? The only time I've had to remember to blink was when I got waaaaay too fucked up once with Khalil and a couple of other dudes. It was on this root you can dig up that if you burn it in a fire, it starts making everyone around hallucinate and such. I had to convince myself that I needed to blink my eyes and also remember to breathe. I'm not sure if I actually needed to tell myself that, but I thought I did."

She doesn't interrupt my rambling about a party night with a hallucinogen, but she does broaden her smirk at me the longer I keep talking. Finally, her lips twitch, and she responds.

"I told you, before too long, it becomes second nature. You train yourself to do it and no longer think about it. The really old ones of my kind don't even pretend, though; they sit there and watch. They never move unless they want to; it's still eerie, even for me."

Her fingers trail out of my hair and down one side of my face, tracing the outline of my pointed ear, then cheekbone, then jawline.

"Anything to know about Asheville?"

"Stay out of the mountains if you can. There's a lot of nonsense in those old hills."

"Uhhhh."

Cassandra openly sighs at me.

"Of course, you're not staying in the city; you're going into the wilderness."

"I mean, we're going to head out east of the city; we don't have a marker of what to look for, other than a valley with mountains nearby' essentially, which isn't a whole lot of detail."

"I'm familiar with it. I didn't spend a lot of time there, but I did spend some with my–with my house. Mostly in the city, admittedly, but every month on the full moon, the local power structure for my kind has gatherings at its main homestead in the mountains overlooking the city. Nice place, but never go there."

"Roger that."

"Will you need money?"

"I'm taking a few trade items that usually move pretty much instantly to get some of the currency they use over there. I told you I've done this before, so it'll be alright. Everyone always acts like I'm a gigantic idiot or something."

"No, I don't think that; I just want you not to go, but since you're going no matter what I say, I want you to be safe. You should look for the smell of blood if your people are in those hills. I'm not saying that they're in danger, though they probably are; if they're stranded out there and afraid to come across humanity, then they'll be hunting for themselves as a large contingent, so they'll probably have to catch a lot of wildlife and such to sustain themselves."

"That's a good idea. Teaching me to hunt like a vampire?"

"Just reminding you there's more than just what your eyes can see."

I pause. Something about what Cassandra just said reminds me of my long heart-to-heart with Hannah in the recent past. Cassandra notices my thoughtful change, but she doesn't inquire. She just lazily draws abstract patterns with an index fingernail over my chest and collarbone while I lay my head on her lap and thighs.

"Sorry, spaced for a second. It's nothing; it's just thoughts going on in my mind. Speaking of my mind, you were sooo dirty doing that to me at first!"

She bursts out laughing. It's a full-throated laugh, too, as if she had forgotten about that entirely.

"Oh, I know, it was terrible of me." Cassandra grins impishly at me, "I admit it. I couldn't help myself, though. It was so easy to get you flustered. That amused me for hours. I should have kept going and found out how long I could torture you."

"I thought I was having some internal freakout, with my body telling me to bone everything that even looked a little appetizing. Thanks a lot!"

She laughs again and then leans down to press her lips against mine. She draws back and then starts to stand, which causes me to sit up.

"Thank you for making me feel something, Orion."

The way and slightly different intonation she uses makes me a bit sad for her suddenly. I stand to face her, take a few steps in her direction, and place my hand against her cool cheek.

"I'll make you feel this way for as long as I can, however I can."

"Don't write checks you might not be able to cash."

"W–What?"

"Right," Cassandra smirks, "probably not a phrase you would have heard before. It's an idiom."

"A what?"

"An idiom." Even though I give her a bewildered look, she continues, "Never mind. It essentially means don't make promises that you don't know if you can keep. You don't know the future or what might change in it."

"Nobody knows the future, sure, but nothing should change as long as I'm here and you're with me. You don't understand what I mean, Cassandra; you're not elf-kin. You bring out something in my being that I didn't know even existed."

"I know what you mean, even if I don't have the deep connection to an emotional well anymore like you–and others–do."

"It's not just that. I feel a connection to you, like–" I trail off, unsure how to describe it to her. My pale eyes search her face while I think, and after a few long moments, I continue again. "–Fuck, this is going to sound so stupid."

"Try me, anyway." Cassandra murmurs in encouragement.

"Okay. Like I said, a connection to you as with two trees growing next to each other. Most times, roots and branches from one will choke out everything around it, but in my case, with you, I feel like we could provide root support to each other, an understanding, and even a sharing of life. We could grow stronger and taller together. Man, I'm no good at this. I'm sorry."

I lower my eyes, having struggled to explain the depth of feelings and feeling embarrassed for having tried so clumsily to do so. She lowers her head slightly to catch my pale eyes with hers before she leans forward to press her soft, icy lips to mine again.

"That's the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me, Orion. Don't be ashamed of it."

"I just want you to know it's different. You're different. I might be young, but I'm not a wean; I've been around the block for a little while. We age slowly, remember? When I saw you, I knew something had flipped a switch in me. I never believed in anything like that before. Sure, I've crushed on people–probably still will, if I'm honest–but something in you just called out to my soul. I was always going to come and find you, Cassandra, even if you didn't come to me today. I feel like it was an inevitability. Fate, maybe."

She smiles at me, a genuinely soft smile. Not an amused or joking one, but a sincere smile full of affection. She touches a hand to my chest, then lowers her eyes to where she trails it. After what has to be a full minute, she murmurs to me.

"Did you eat those eggs like I told you to?"

"Yep."

"How strong are you feeling?"

"Oh, I'm feeling real strong." I shift my weight, a little flush taking to my cheeks before I can stop it.

"Real strong, hmm?"

"Yep. Like forged metal."

She looks down between us and then casually raises an eyebrow while looking at my crotch.

"Hmm, I'm not sure I'd consider you like metal yet. Maybe, hmm, a bit more like a malleable clay."

My mouth opens slightly in the shape of an "o," and I laugh, the flush of my cheeks almost instantly taking over my whole body.

"Oh man, you are asking for it." I immediately move in her direction, and she laughs, stepping back toward my home's back door. She takes a few steps back purposely, leading me like a dog following a treat–or a bone.

"We'll see how long your strength holds up this time, fey of clay."

I don't say another word. Instead, I chase Cassandra back into my home, laughing at her good-natured lover's teasing, yet still prepared to rise to meet her challenge–quite literally, in this case.