My mind raced within my incapacitated body. It felt as if my eyelids were glued shut. I should have wanted to open them, resisted the tug into oblivion. There were other things I wanted to do, wanted to say, but I was useless, trapped within the too-large prison that was my body, trapped by the silken whisper of sleep.

I don’t know how long I lay there, awkwardly laying against her sofa, mindful of the ache my body would later contain. Eventually, time bled into more time, and the blackness that weighted down my eyelids, won. I fell asleep with the alarm sounding outside, signaling the next round of predators.

*** *** *** ***

I jerked awake. It was as if my mind, tired of waiting, had jolted me awake. Tension eased out of my muscles a second later, and I, unmoving as I was, started to drift off again. I spent more time sleeping with her than sleeping with her. It was a shame, really, and a shot to my already unimpressive ego.

I yawned widely, and forced myself up, handling the wave of dizziness that hit me as well as I could. The first time I’d been sick, but, in all reality, I had been dealing with more than just a little blood loss. I’d had to handle the fact that I was on my date’s food chain. Did her screwing me then constitute bestiality?

Questions like that always popped into my head. I found it funny to be as large as I was and still subject to the appetite of a much smaller female. She should have, if life was fair, been afraid of me. I blinked, scanning the room for Lily, but didn’t see her. She would be close by, I knew.

I reached for the glass of sugar water she’d left on the table, and had to stop and focus on steadying my hand. I drank it and lay back against the sofa, shoving the blanket down into my lap, allowing the sugar to seep into my blood and give me enough energy to go and find her.

Outside the room I could hear the claws of some unknown beast walking past. The entire center was a large coven for those of her kind. I always shied away from the term vampire, but that was what she was. Lily drank blood, but there were others there that fed off of different things. It was those things I wished I could unlearn when she’d told me, things I’d wish I’d never heard. They were certainly people I counted myself lucky to have not encountered.

It was also the reason for the security, and my escort through the center. While each of the sections were allowed to leave their rooms at any time, except the brief times when visitors were allowed in and out, it was only safe to do so when the hand pad showed green. Right now, with the click of the claws outside on the tile, I didn’t have to check to see that it glowed deep red. Lily, she could handle her own against whatever it was on the other side of the doors. I would likely find myself made into a meal.

I groaned softly in the back of my throat, and I felt her hand settle against my forehead. I opened my eyes and smiled lazily into her face. She was flushed. My hand reached up and smoothed over her cheek, following her down as she kissed my mouth lightly.

‘How do you feel?’ She mumbled it against my lips as she settled into my lap, her thighs on either side of mine. I slid both of my hands into her dark hair and I felt my heart shudder in my chest. Her fingers were immediately on my chest. ‘David?’ She pulled back enough to search my face. Her cool fingers were on my face, her thumbs ran over my closed lids.

‘I’m fine, Lily.’ I pulled her hands down with my own and laced them together. ‘Stop worrying.’ I studied her face, as I had done a thousand times before. She tried to pull her hands from mine and I held her, leaning forward until our lips touched again.

The alarm sounded outside and there was a click as the locks shifted back to green, and the extra bolts retreated into the wells within the door frame.

I glanced over Lily’s shoulder and sighed deeply. ‘I’ve got to get going. I don’t want to get stuck when they let the dogs out.’ I said it with a slight twist to my mouth.

Lily smiled, but it was a shadow of her former one. She wanted me to stay. Hell, Lily would have converted me if I’d allow it, but it was against the law to covert someone, willingly or not. In most cases, it was difficult to determine who the culprit was, but Lily would easily be identified by the print of her teeth. She had double incisors, a rarity even for vampires who prided themselves on being unique.

That, and we’d been an item long enough for there to be a slew of people pointing the finger back at her in the event I was converted. Investigation was followed by execution and rarely did the vampire or shifter come out on the winning side. Lily shifted and sat off to one side. ‘I’ll go by your place later.’

‘I’ve got dinner with Serene and Elsa,’ I said, speaking of my sister and her lover, ‘but I’ll be home afterwards.’ I turned and cupped her face, running my thumbs over her mouth. ‘I want to see you.’

She smiled and stood with me as I moved to the door. The dizziness had receded, but I was still careful with my movements. I placed my palm on the scanner and waited for the door to click open. She rested her hand over mine. ‘Thank you for coming to see me.’

‘I knew you’d be hungry.’ I looked out in the hallway with no small amount of tension. A moment later a guard appeared. He nodded at Lily and then started to walk back down the path from which he’d come. I kissed her quickly and followed him, looking back only long enough to watch the door shut behind me.

I didn’t relax until the center’s main entrance was behind me.  It wasn’t the daylight that kept them pinned inside their center, it was the curfew established by the government which restricted their movements.  Daytime was ours, night, theirs.  There were few times it overlapped.  Full moons, days or nights, were always given to the Weres, because containing them had proven dangerous and ultimately impossible.  Vampires had rallied for the equivalent treatment and were given that same time.  Full moons were dangerous times, and inevitably, someone was nearly always hunted afterward.

I sank into the driver’s seat of my car, and cranked on the air.  I closed my eyes briefly and then reached into the glove compartment for my cell.  They were forbidden inside the center, but only for the guests.  I flipped it open and played the messages as I pulled out of lot onto the long driveway leading to the gate where the ‘half-breed’ guards waited.

Unworthy of perfection, even if were to want it.

The lines at the corner of my eyes are deeper, the gray hair at my temples, more pronounced.  I find my head resting in my hands more and more as I try to draw myself out - force myself to make connections that are difficult for me to do.

Trust.  It’s always, always, been an issue, but someone most recently, candidly, exposed the raw nerve of it all.  I don’t trust anyone, not him, not any of my friends, not my family.  It’s ironic for someone who feels almost like a raw nerve most of the time, that not one of them can pick up how much I care, because, at some point, I perfected, finally, the poker face I prayed for as a child.

Careful what you ask for.

It’s funny, as much as I hurt for you, and because of you, that you don’t know it.  It’s funny that you’ll read this with my voice, it’s level tone, and still see the poker face reciting it to you.

I ask myself, how can I love someone and not trust them?  It isn’t possible.

I’ll tell you what I said…

…the greatest deception that the devil ever pulled, was convincing the world he didn’t exist.

Narrators do so often tend to put a spin on things, you know.

Second flaw from the reviews?  The unlovable lead character.  Hm.  While he did make choices I wouldn’t have made and cannot understand, what I can understand is imperfection.  I’ve got it in abundance and in so, can relate to his and his sort of need to feel superior in spite of the obstacles he faces, hell, because of them. It didn’t make him any less, just perhaps a little more difficult to embrace.

I found a sort of dry sarcasm punctuated his dialogue and I found it uplifting and amusing.  I laughed out loud at least twice that I can recall (bananas come to mind).

I won’t go into the details of the book.  I don’t offer, or want to offer, a cliff’s notes in my mini review.  I will say that many stories were woven together with great skill.  I will say that I was impressed with the progress the character made and indeed, my patience in waiting for the author to reveal the story rather than skipping ahead.  It was tempting, but I would have had to break off reading long enough to think to do so.  Rather, I found myself picking the book back up, over and over again.

All things in a single book, bound by love.

Yes.  Yes.

However, if the question was asked when he wasn’t calm, or the issue entirely too close to his heart, he would rage if I didn’t somehow know the right answer.  These lessons taught me several things:

Watch.  Study.  Listen - If I observed him, studied his nature, how he responded to other people, I could almost mimic his answers word for word.  The answers usually were a little more harsh than I would normally have given, but to save myself the headache (or any other ache) of argument, I would spout back my carefully learned answers when the ‘if’ questions came about.

Think Ahead. - Watch for potential ‘if’ questions, answer them silently in my head until they were perfected.  If I thought I still didn’t have the answer…

Seek outside help. - My mother was useless with these kind of things, my sister, equally so.  I often went to the store to purchase something for one of them, and the shopkeeper would answer my odd questions with few of his own.  I digested his, and hopefully came up with the right answer.

When I didn’t…

Self - Doubt - Beat myself up, repeat whatever he said to me over and over in my head until I could write it verbatim weeks later.

In all of this, it took me ages to unlearn my father’s answers.  At some point, I stopped reciting them, and adopted them instead.  Perhaps it was rage, driven by being his puppet, that brought out the sadist in me, perhaps it was genetic and as simple as just being his son that did it.  He was dominant, I am dominant.

When I lost those two years I found a lot about myself that was wrong.  In the time since, I’ve reshaped my thought process to allow some simple things.

Watch.  Study.  Listen. - The situation.  For in doing so, I have a complete picture upon which to base my opinion.

Think Ahead. - Have an idea of the curve balls I face as a person.   Know my own triggers, insulate them.  Determine what action I’d take now, rather than when the emotion breaks upon me.

Seek Outside help. - Therapy, if I need it.  Or better, a good friend who doesn’t mind telling me that I’m an asshole.

Accept that I am allowed to be wrong. - The hardest lesson of all.  I force myself to accept that I sometimes fail, but it is always a bitter pill to swallow and I often choke. This lesson I learn anew with each failure.