HARRY HAS QUITE A KNACK FOR teasing her to the brink of insanity, because they've been driving for an hour now, and he has yet to tell her where they're going.
Since she lost the deal she made while she was under the delusional impression that she'd be able to pin a vampire with a supernatural degree of strength down, he took it upon himself to take advantage of being allowed to dictate all of their plans without her intervention. And, to him, no intervention means she will not get a clue as to where they're going or what they're doing.
The sight she finds while looking out of the car window is drastically different from the damp, dark nature beside his house. It amazes her that the terrain has changed so much within the hour. They went from the looming clouds and moss of the forest to a dark, but clear late-afternoon sky that is only interrupted by the cliffs and peaks of limestone mountains nearby.
Though it passes by quickly, she takes the time to appreciate it all the same. The chaos of her new life has taught her a lot, but the lesson of most importance has been simple: appreciate everything you see, do, and feel because you never know when it'll all end. As morbid as it is, it's actually helped her progress past the constant state of anxiety she seems to fall back on. Instead of being in her head all the time, she's tuned into the world surrounding her, and it feels better than she thought it would.
Plenty of the therapists she saw in her depression and anxiety-riddled adolescent years preached one word to her. Mindfulness. It drove her out of her mind. She thought that if she heard one more person say the godforsaken word, either that or meditation, she was going to lose her sanity, but they were right. It may have taken a few attempts on her life to realize it, but her eyes are more open than they were before.
The only time she spends locked away in her head now, spiraling down a rabbit hole, is when she thinks about him.
One of his hands is thrown over the steering wheel while the other hangs out of the driver's side window with the air whipping at his skin from every direction.
His hair is messy from a day of exercising and rolling around on the mat with her for hours at a time. It's smoothed back from his face, allowing her a view of his exquisite side profile, and she resists the urge to run her fingers through the brunette curls. It's been getting more obvious now, she realizes from the passenger seat, that her thoughts and urges about him are becoming inescapable.
They continued practicing the defense techniques he taught her for another hour at the gym before she collapsed, sweaty and exhausted, onto the mat to catch her breath. He only allowed her a moment of rest before she was faced with the sight of him standing over her with a knowing dimpled smile on his face.
The next thing she knew, they were on their way to wherever it is they're going now.
Music similar to what he put on at the gym invades the car speakers while she hears him singing along to it absentmindedly. Everything he listens to either consists of a strange blend of classic rock, dream pop, and oldies that she often heard her great-grandmother listen to when she was little. It's charming in a way that makes him more human to her. Vampires enjoying simple pleasures like music is something she didn't realize she needed to witness, but now that she has, it opens her up to him more.
Suddenly, he isn't a vampire and she isn't a human. No glaring differences are separating them at this moment, all they do is exist in silence and enjoy one another's company. Even with her antsy fidgeting, she enjoys his company.
His voice is smoother than syrup, clear and sonorous through the interior of the classic, pale yellow Jaguar that has carried them from the forest to the mountains. It's the type of beautiful sound that scratches an itch in your brain that you never knew was there.
He hums it lowly, tapping the steering wheel to the slow beat of the song, "I only have eyes for you..."
It takes her breath away to hear him sing, even if he isn't trying.
From where she sits beside him with her legs curled up on the seat, he can feel her eyes burning into his skin whenever he appears too focused on the empty road ahead of them to notice.
"I love this song," she says, letting her head fall back against the seat in her exercise-induced exhaustion.
His head turns ever so slightly to steal a glimpse of her in response to what she said. He takes the sight of her sitting there with his sweatshirt hanging off her with sleeves so long, they cover her hands like gloves and allows a soft half-smile to appear on his face.
Somehow, even beneath the weight of his full attention being turned onto her, she notices the car start to slow down. They aren't stopping yet, but she knows they're coming up on their destination. He takes every turn much more carefully than before. For most of the ride here, he didn't chance a look at a map or his phone to see if they were on the right track, so she assumes that he comes here often.
He brings the arm he had dangling out of the window back in once the path turns to dirt and becomes narrower than the wide tarmac road they relied on for the majority of the drive. The hand rests on the steering wheel with his other one before it drifts away to fiddle with the top button of his shirt.
"This version of this song was released sixty-two years ago, probably a little while before your parents were born," he says, turning the wheel and directing the car down another small road, and she has never been so painfully aware of their difference in age until now, "S'one of my favorites. Niall was the one that turned me onto it."
She swallows back a lump in her throat at the sight of him popping the shirt button open in idle restlessness.
Ignoring her disobedient mind, she responds, "My parents were born in the mid-70s...is fifteen years 'a little while' to you?"
The car rolls to a stop at the dead-end of the dirt path they've spent the past few minutes traveling down. Those limestone mountains are so close now, they loom menacingly over where they sit in the car, and she looks up at the nearest one. It's the smallest of the one she's seen so far, only nine-hundred feet or so tall in comparison to the largest mountain's three-thousand, but the cliff's edge is a steep, near-vertical wall of rock on one side.
He shifts gears into park, switching the hand that rests on the top of the steering wheel to the one that was fiddling with the buttons of his shirt, and unbuckles his seatbelt.
"Fifteen years is to me what one year is to you."
With that, he's already leaving the car and shutting the door a little too harshly behind him.
Jo hastily unbuckles her seatbelt, not wanting to be left behind, and steps out of the car after him.
He's already walking up past the end of the dirt road with nothing but a blanket tucked under his arm and a bottle of wine grasped firmly in his hand. The gravel crunches beneath the soles of his shoes, and her eyes track every move he makes. From the quick strides that force her to jog to catch up to him to the gentle tilt of his head as he glances around the area to whatever it is he's seeking, she watches all of it.
The song from the car continues playing in her head during her pursuit of him, the classic late fifties sound refusing to leave her alone. It was the way he brought it to life that made it particularly infectious. The song itself is catchy and lovely, but it's the memory of Harry's voice singing it that haunts her thoughts and drowns out the sounds of nature surrounding them.
By the time she catches up to him, they're standing at the near-vertical edge of the cliff that appears the same height as one of the smaller skyscrapers she saw as a child on the trips her family took to Manhattan.
She remembers the feeling of standing with her hand tucked safely into her mother's hand, looking up as far as her little head could tilt back to see a behemoth of human engineering towering above her. This time, the behemoth she tilts her head back to see is a product of nature, not human beings.
"I come here to climb sometimes," he says suddenly, making her jolt from the trance she was put under by the mountain.
At first, all she can do is blankly stare at him in disbelief, then she finds the words that escaped her upon hearing his confession.
"Are you a sadist?"
Harry's eyes widen with surprise, and he looks over at her like she has six heads from where he stands before the cliff wall.
"Excuse me?"
"I asked if you're a sadist," she clarifies, "cause there's no way I'm climbing that. I know I said I wouldn't intervene, but my muscles feel like cooked spaghetti—"
The sound of his gentle laughter stops her mid-sentence. Even if he weren't deliberately interrupting her, she wouldn't have been able to focus enough on what she wanted to say while listening to such a beautiful sound. Even his laughter sounds musical, and she hates herself for noticing it.
He turns around so his back faces the cliff and looks her in the eyes. It's clear to see the sense of amusement that settles over his face.
"Y'don't have to climb it, there's a trail up to the summit on the other side that we're gonna follow. It should only take us thirty minutes."
"Oh," she says, "well, that's much better. If you made me scale the side of a mountain today, I'd probably push you off once we got to the top."
After everything he put her through at the gym, she isn't even sure if she'll survive the trip up the hiking trail, so climbing would be absolutely out of the question today. Plus, they don't even have rope or climbing gear. She didn't see any in the trunk either, so perhaps he hasn't been out climbing recently.
The melody haunting her thoughts continues in the farthest corners of her mind whenever she looks at him, and he isn't making it easy on her with the constant eye contact. Most people her age aren't big on looking people in the eyes when they speak, which never necessarily gets on her nerves like it does to many haughty older generations, but he does. It's yet another clue she should've picked up on, because, despite his early to mid-twenties appearance, he never looks away when he's speaking to her.
His dimples make yet another cherished appearance when he grins at her.
He starts walking toward the direction of the hiking trail while speaking, "I expect nothing less from you at this point, but, no, I wouldn't take you climbing with me. I don't use ropes, and you humans are too fragile for that."
That makes her stumble over the small pieces of gravel that make up the path they're walking on.
"You don't use rope?" she asks, horrified, then halts as if she just realized the rest of what he said, "And what did I say about calling me fragile?"
The path takes a steep incline all of the sudden, which she assumes means they're starting their ascent to the summit of the small mountain, and the muscles in her legs burn with the effort it takes to accommodate the change in incline. It reminds her of how it felt that day in the woods when she pushed herself beyond her body's limits to escape the clutches of a bloodthirsty vampire. The sensation in her lungs and legs made her feel as if she was on the brink of collapsing, but with the added element of being susceptible to the cold temperatures, today feels somewhat worse.
"No, I don't. I don't need to though. The fall would hurt, but s'not like it would kill me."
Harry doesn't falter in his steps up the hiking trail as he side-glances at her to see her hugging herself for warmth and unravels the blanket beneath his arm in one hand to give it to her. That must have been why he brought it in the first place, she assumes, because it's not like he ever gets cold enough to need one. It's a warm, tartan fabric that traps her body heat when she wraps it around her shoulders and secures it in a knot at the front of her chest.
"Thanks," she murmurs, falling into step beside him.
The rest of the hike is spent in peaceful silence that neither of them minds. Actually, they enjoy it.
With most people, she feels the need to occupy silent gaps in conversation with something to say, even if it's stupid and empty words, but not with him. She rarely feels comfortable remaining in total silence with nothing but another person's presence. The only person she has ever felt this comfortable in silence with before was Arabella, but now Harry is added to the list.
When they first met, his silence and distance annoyed her, and, in a way, it still does. It's not his silence that annoys her, it's his distance. It has improved since she discovered that he's a vampire, but sometimes she wonders if she even knows the person she lives with at all.
This lack of knowledge about him is all that she can think about on their ascent to the summit. Even with her burning leg muscles and resentment for the fact that he decided, of all things after the exercising they did, that they'd spend their evening climbing up a mountain, she tries to make a list of everything she has learned about him. The fact of most importance, so far, is that he's a vampire that has been alive longer than both her and her parents' entire potential lifespan. For all she knows, it could be longer, but that's exactly the problem...she doesn't know.
Once they reach it, the view from the top of the mountain is the second thing to take her breath away tonight. It isn't the highest vantage point in the mountains here, not by a long shot, but it's gorgeous all the same. Towns below make themselves visible by the glow of the lights shining through the windows from the interiors of their houses, and she thinks, if she squints hard enough, that Westbrook is visible in the distance. Beyond that, his house in the forest is waiting for their eventual return.
She's busy admiring the view he has seen at least fifty times before she notices him sitting right on the edge of the cliff wall that loomed over them when they first arrived. His legs dangle off, swinging slightly and taping his ankles back against the limestone. The bottle of wine is balanced on the edge too, and she can't help but walk over and swipe it off of the ground out of fear that it'll fall and shatter on the dirt road where the car is parked nine-hundred feet below.
With the bottle of twenty-year-old Cabernet Sauvignon in hand, she carefully sits down beside him with her legs safely crossed on top of the cliff's edge instead of dangling off like his. As wild and adventurous as her venture into his world has been, she isn't willing to put her life at risk. For him, there is no such thing as fear. For him, falling off of this cliff wouldn't be a death sentence, only a silver blade or stake through the heart could do that.
She hands the bottle off to him so he can open it and asks, "Why do you climb in places like this with no protection? I know you won't die if you fall, but why? Doesn't it scare you?"
The sound of the cork popping open on a bottle that's only a few years younger than her makes her eyes avert from the breathtaking view to where he tucks the cork into the pocket of his pants to discard later. She doesn't bother with being amazed at the fact that he opened it with just his hands. After feeling his strength firsthand while he pinned her down against the mat at the gym, it doesn't surprise her that he was able to pull the cork from the bottle on his own.
He shrugs, taking a swig from the bottle, and passes it off to her without so much as a glance away from the star-flecked horizon.
"I like that it scares me," he says, taking a long, thoughtful pause, "it's the only time I feel alive in the way I did when I was human."
From where she sits, he's so close to the edge, it doesn't even look like he's sitting on the rock.
It looks like he belongs with the infinite abundance of stars that appear nearer to them now that they're nine-hundred feet closer to them. They, along with the waxing crescent moon, illuminate him for her to see. He may not have a beating heart like her or a reason to fear something as dangerous as scaling a cliff with no rope to fall back on if he slips, but he looks as alive as ever.
With his perpetual youthful glow, green eyes that she longs to see turn red sometime soon again, and tired, slumped shoulders, he looks more human than she feels.
If he didn't have such odd behavior to give it away, like the disturbing lack of food in his pantry when she arrived at the house or his mysterious nature that came as a result of hiding such a large secret from her, she never would've known that he wasn't like her. But most of the vampires she has met so far are like that too, some less than others, but they're all quite similar to the humans she knows.
Adeline felt grief and sorrow the same as any other human, as did Harry when he lost Melanie so long ago, and it was relieving to see that for the first time. Vampires are portrayed so terribly, a reputation which only some of them earn, but they're so human-like. After all, they were all like her at one point in time, perhaps that part of them never truly disappears.
"That leads me to my next question..." she trails off.
Jo swallows a sip of wine and tilts her head back to gulp it down.
Though she doesn't usually drink, her stressful existence lately makes a mighty compelling case for the hobby she once overlooked. It's not as if she has never had a drink in her life—she remembers having a particular taste for the fresh flavor of mojitos every once in a blue moon—but it's rare enough for her to consider herself someone who 'doesn't drink' when asked about it.
He asks, "The question you've been wanting an answer for since the dinner party?"
A hum rumbles from the center of her, the kind that he would be able to feel against his ear if he were cuddled up in her arms with his head resting on her chest. He isn't sure why that was the first place his mind went to, but he doesn't want to know either. The last thing he needs to be doing is thinking about cuddling up with a human after what happened with Mel.
Sex would be one thing, he has had sex with both humans and vampires since her, but small, unnecessary displays of intimacy like cuddling would be another.
He can justify feeding from her like he had at the party, and even having sex with her if she wants it, but those dangerous little urges that slip in while his defenses are lowered cannot be entertained. Because they aren't about how badly he has lusted after her since he saw her standing on the stairs with her dagger clutched in her hand the night she cut herself on the broken glass, they're about something more. They're about something deeper, and he can't allow that.
"I've been curious about how old you are. I feel like I don't know much about you, and, considering that you're my roommate for the foreseeable future, I'd like to."
Their hands brush when she passes the bottle back to him.
What she said strikes him as odd. Maybe she doesn't realize it since she doesn't know the ins and outs of his personal relationships like he does himself, but she knows more about him than most people ever will. He's a private person by nature, so her knowledge about him and Melanie means a great deal to him. It means more than she realizes if she's now saying she doesn't know much about him.
Nevertheless, he can't find it in himself to do anything but comply with her request either.
Even though opening up and directly telling people his life's details doesn't come naturally to him, something about her beckons him to spill every secret he has. That's why, against all of his instincts, he told her about Mel at the dinner party. The words left his mouth before he even realized what he did, and the only reason it didn't eat away at him all night was because of her understated reaction and what happened later in the upstairs bathroom.
"I was born in 1721. When I was twenty-three, I was turned—"
Much to her appreciation and amazement after weeks of speculation, Harry tells her more about his past than he's told anyone in his entire three-hundred-year lifespan. He asks her what she wants to know about him and tells her the answers with no prodding and poking necessary.
He relays stories from before he was turned and after, describing the confusion he felt upon first waking up in his new immortal existence and the ripple effects it had on the next twenty or so years of his life. Growing up in a small town as the son of two middle-class parents, he never expected anything extraordinary to happen to him. He never believed in anything supernatural like ghosts, demons, or, of course, vampires until he became one himself.
It took twenty years for him to come to terms with the direction fate shoved him down, kicking and screaming and demanding his humanity back. Then, he met a human named Melanie that would change him forever.
They spent four years together. Four years of love and laughter and sweet memories that he'd later mourn with the last scrap of his soul that remained passed by before she died.
Back then, diseases and illnesses weren't as easily identifiable or treatable as they are now, so there weren't vaccines for anything either. As time progressed, he felt guilty for having to be the one that lives forever. Diseases like the one that took the person he loved were later eradicated and losing her felt like it was for nothing.
However, on the bright side of his immortality, he found his friends on the other side of Mel's death. Niall is the youngest vampire of his group of friends. Recruited shortly after he was turned in 1942, he was the one who Harry became closest with after two centuries of living in loneliness. And, then, there was Liam, who was turned in the Victorian Era, but never became as close to him as Niall did despite meeting him sooner.
She fiddles absentmindedly with the secure knot where the blanket is tied around her shoulders. Her eyes flicker over him in a selfish gaze she'd normally never allow herself without a few glasses of alcohol in her.
"When did you stop drinking blood directly from humans?" she asks, "Well, except for when you drank mine."
The bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon is now empty and placed carefully to the side of where he sits, still dangling close enough over the edge of the cliff to make her worry in the back of her mind. With the equivalent of three glasses of wine each between them, he feels much less tense than he did at the beginning of the conversation.
"Around 1967. It's actually thanks to lovely people like you"—he shoves her shoulder playfully—"who work at hospitals because that's what gave me the idea. I figured that vampires already hire humans to be their personal supply, so why would some of you have a problem with giving blood like a donation?"
The wind blows the hair back from her face, and she wishes she had that headscarf that fell off of her while she was sprinting away from certain death that day in the forest. It bothers her, but she bears it for sake of staying with him.
He's the most fascinating person she's ever met—including every vampire she's met in this realm as well. On top of his personality, which she could spend years trying to pick apart, analyze, and put back together, he has lived through so many changes in the world and acts as if it's normal.
He told her about all of the things he has seen in his lifetime—the American Revolution, the rise of the Industrial Era, the sinking of the Titanic, two world wars, and much more. He obviously did not witness all of these personally, but the fact that they all occurred under his lifetime baffles her. The only historical event of that magnitude that happened while she's been alive has been 9/11, the worldwide Black Lives Matter protests, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
She has only witnessed three or so historical events happen in her life, yet he has witnessed countless and lived to tell her about them thanks to his immortality. Yet here he sits, acting as if all of that wasn't the most fascinating thing she has heard someone talk about.
"It's genius, actually, it really is," she says, looking into his eyes in a way that would've made her blush an hour ago, "...which one is better to you, though?" Upon seeing his confused expression, she continues, "You said some people still prefer forming a professional relationship with one human at a time and feeding from them instead of buying blood, so why do they do that? Is there something better about it?"
The stars seem to burn brighter when he scooters closer to her, as if his body moved on its own accord without instruction from his mind because he couldn't ignore the gravitational pull that always tugs them together. Across such distant worlds, it still managed to pull them together for this little, loud moment at the edge of a cliff.
But she becomes distracted from the beautiful field of stars above by the strange look he gets on his face. It would be difficult for her to put it into words, but, to put it simply, he's looking at her like she's a great mystery he'll never get to solve. It's the closest she can come to understanding it.
"C'mere," Harry says, outstretching his hand to her.
It feels like she's dreaming. With the wine making her feel somewhat tipsy and the eye contact they have yet to break, she can do nothing but stare at him expectantly, as if that would provide any explanation for what he's up to, before reaching forward to take his hand.
His hand is soft in places but calloused on certain patches of rough skin as she slides her palm against his until their fingers are intertwining together.
She assumes the callouses are from his climbing hobby that she didn't understand until knowing the connection he makes between fear and humanity. To some people, a never-ending existence would be ideal, but not to him. He spends every day of his life as a vampire chasing the feeling of being human again.
Her feet are dangerously close to the edge when he guides her forward, helping her step between his spread legs as he scoots back enough to make room for her. At the feeling of her squeezing his hand tight enough to make his fingers turn numb, he squeezes back and places his other hand on her hip to keep her steady while she sits down with her legs dangling off of the cliff just like his.
"I promise I won't let you fall."
Her body scoots as far from the edge as it can, so much so that her back presses against his chest and her ass is seated between the legs that lay against hers. It would be awkward if she weren't shaking at the sight of how far up they are from the ground.
But, he promised to keep her safe, and she takes promises from him seriously. He doesn't come off as the type of person to say things when he doesn't mean it. He's the type of person who'll tell you the truth, though tactfully, even if it isn't pretty to hear. As much as she hated it when they met, she appreciates his kind honesty now that they've gotten to know one another well.
"Look up at the stars," he says in her ear.
Looking away from the hundreds of feet that separates her from the deadly fall to the ground below helps, and it doesn't hurt that the alternative sight to see is one of the most beautiful things to grace her eyes. During the day, it's always cloudy and overcast, but at night, this world of his comes alive. The crescent moon is the centerpiece, but the stars are the accent pieces that accentuate it and make it shine brighter.
His arms slip beneath hers to wrap around her waist and pull her closer than she thought was possible. Knowing how scared she is, he doesn't want her to feel anything less than safe and secure, and being in his arms does make good on that wish. He and the stars both aid in settling her stirring, sick stomach.
"It's the closeness." His lips brush her ear with every word. "You can get sustenance from bought blood, but feeding from a consenting human is something that can't be replaced if you have a liking for it."
One of his hands flattens on her stomach to keep her in place while the other moves up her chest, dragging between her breasts, to move her hair off of her neck. Tendrils of brunette hair, wild and uncombed from the braid she kept it in at the gym all day, are swept aside to reveal the faded bite mark left behind from their encounter at the dinner party.
"So pretty," he murmurs, caressing the twin pinprick scars with his thumb, and tries not to smile at how her head lolls back onto his shoulder in response, "My human."
His. It makes her lungs expand faster beneath the hand he has braced on her.
The notion of being his is more terrifying than the prospect of slipping off of this cliff, but that's what she likes about it. Nothing in her old life was this thrilling, nor was it as dependable. With him, she can sit on the edge of a mountain and be sure that nothing will happen so long as his arms remain tucked safely around her waist. Where else can someone find such an intense level of dependability and trust?
Trusting someone whose kind traditionally sees her as prey feels so foolish, yet she can't help herself. The pull to him feels so instinctual and strong, she can hardly do anything but allow it to carry her away like a riptide in the sea. Swimming directly against it would only end in failure.
His mouth hovers over her neck.
"You start to notice the sound of the blood pumping beneath the surface of the skin, especially near the pulse points," he says and grazes his teeth up her neck, "and, suddenly, nothing else exists but you and them. It's isn't just the hunger either. You humans are so warm, being close to you s'like how it feels sitting near a fire."
Her hand reaches up from her lap to grasp his over where it rests, flattened against her stomach, and laces their fingers together. The sensation of him burying his face into her neck almost gives her goosebumps, and it surely makes it difficult to breathe.
"Sometimes you can notice the human's scent change right before you bite down. Yours always has hints of magnolia and vanilla, but it's sweeter right now."
Harry looks down at her, leaned back between his legs with her head on his shoulder, and finds himself utterly mesmerized. No human has ever been this trusting of him.
Mel didn't know he was a vampire. Even until the very end of her life, she didn't have a clue that led her to the conclusions Jo came to, and that's why he never made a blood bond with her. If she knew, perhaps he would've, but she never came close to knowing that integral side of his life that this girl stormed in and unraveled within the span of weeks.
It typically takes years for a vampire to form a mutual sense of trust strong enough for a human to feel comfortable in letting them feed from them, yet here they are. In complete honesty, it's starting to scare him. He feels as though he's watching a car collision as a passive witness, unable to do anything but watch, and he can't make sense of the feelings she stirs to the surface from deep within him.
With one last glance at the expanse of stars in front of them, he leans down to the faded mark from the dinner party and gently bites down on the same spot again.