Wanted: Undead or Alive

April (Snow) Showers

In the middle of the night, Nick held me against his chest and murmured against my hair. "You're amazing, Olivia Nowicki. In all of history, there's never been a woman such as you." He'd healed every scratch, bruise, and bite mark on my body, but only smirked when I told him I was a bit tender between my legs. "I think I'll leave that be. Don't want you to forget about me."

As if I ever could. Good Lord, I was in deep. With my head on his shoulder, I traced the light blue swirl that ran along the outside of his ribcage with one finger. The djinn tattoos were easier to see in the dark. "There's something more I want to ask, but I won't wish for the answer. It's up to you because it might be too personal."

He trailed his fingers down my back and up again. "What we just did was fairly personal, I'd think. What do you want to know?"

"Have you ever... I mean... I don't know how old you are, but you must have... Obviously, you're not... After so long you probably... You said that you had an affair with Agloape but it wasn't..."

He chuckled, and I buried my face against his chest. It was like pressing my face against a heating pad. Even with the outside world covered in snow that Nick may or may not have caused to accumulate to an impressive depth, it was toasty warm curled up beside him.

"You want to know about my love life before now?"

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." Thankfully, in the dark, he couldn't see how red my cheeks were.

He was quiet for a long time, stroking my back and saying nothing. I thought maybe he'd decided not to answer but then he spoke softly. "I was not joking when I told you about Pompeii. The panic and the anger, the fear... It's one of my earliest memories. I was three years old."

I barely dared to breathe. My mind simply couldn't wrap itself around anything so big and terrible.

"My father..." He squeezed me a little tighter and pulled the sheet up over our bodies. "For a very long time, somewhat later, I mean, I was something of a recluse. There were... encounters. Sometimes I developed a friendship with a woman. Never a human. I... Never a human. As a general rule, I did not associate with humans." He took a slow, deep breath. "I had companion lovers. I never expected anything more than that to develop."

It wasn't so hard to read between the lines of what he was saying, especially not when my heart ached with his emotion. "But then you fell in love with a human."

"A touch more than a hundred years ago. An Irish woman," he said. "Oonagh. She'd married young and lost two children before her husband died as well. After that, she returned to her father's house. I was just passing through town. She immediately saw me for what I was, and she showed no fear at all."

So, the bravery thing was a running theme for him. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

"We had a happy life together for more than ten years. I cared for her and her kin, provided for them, protected them. It was a dangerous time in Ireland, but they knew they were safe with me in the house."

He stopped then. I waited, but he offered no more. I couldn't stand the suspense. I propped myself up on my elbow to look at him. Tears cut silvery tracks along his luminescent cheeks and disappeared into the dark shadow of his whiskers.

"What happened?"

"I left the house." He sniffed and wiped his tears with the back of his free hand. "I went hunting." His eyebrow arched upward a bit. "Just regular hunting for food for Oonagh. Her father, his new wife and her bairn were out. They went to visit friends, but Oonagh stayed home with a headache." His gaze stayed on the fan above the bed. "Men came while I was gone. They beat her and raped her." He sniffed again. "When I came home, I saw. I hunted them. I made them pay for what they'd done."