REMINISCE

"It's difficult to let go when you see knights in armor and the faces of women you've never met mixed up with scenes from your own past."
Diana Bishop
A Discovery of Witches

Fennel and star anise undertones flavored the scent of sweet cardamom.

In a stunning rush, her body responded. His scent carried notes of leather, black pepper and cloves smoothed with a woodsy perfume she couldn't place. Could never quite place . . . but it spoke to her; secrets half-remembered from a life stolen away.

The feel of his hand, cool against her blood-flushed skin –

I rubbed tired eyes.

Blood.

Was it too soon to bring attention to that, when my immortal had only just found her? I highlighted and deleted the last sentence. Rephrased it: The feel of his hand, cool against her skin – Ugh. No. Loose the flush and the sentence turned anemic.

The feel of his hand, cool against her blood-flushed skin, she felt as if the two of them were suspended in air, tethered by choice, not trapped by circumstance and –

"– and you're not calling it love, Ann," I muttered, already annoyed by the direction this was going. I needed heat, desire, two souls colliding but not . . . not love. Not yet.

I eased back in my chair, muscles aching with exhaustion. The kitchen dark, I hadn't bothered to switch on lights when the sun started to set. Dipping low on the horizon, trembling there right on the edge of the world as if loathed to leave –

Night fell.

I was writing again.

And it felt good. It felt like coming home. Through the frustration of being unable to write, of having lost the words, I forgot how much I loved this. Forgot what it felt like to create; to make real a thing that existed only in my mind.

Cardamom.

I had been looking to round out Dante's scent; leather, black pepper, a woodsy perfume Ann couldn't place . . . but that she would later recognize as cypress. And something else. I'd known, had been feeling it in my bones, that there was something missing.

Not until today, sitting across from my enigmatic if unwelcome guest, did the final piece click into place. Cardamom. The spiced, rich fragrance of his skin. I could taste him, it, in my mouth even now hours later.

My heart ached with it.

I was never going to see the man again.

That thought shouldn't have depressed me, but it did. He was the most exciting thing to come into my life. Ever. And god, if it didn't feel like catching a glimpse at adventure, something dangerous, and forbidden, the fairy king holding out his hand, never knowing what might have happened if I'd taken it.

To spend the rest of my life, remembering this moment.

And my decision.

To let him leave.

Or maybe I was spending too much time in my own head . . .

I propped my head on a fist, and studied the screen; hours of work in words. Jane should be happy, at least. Three bright pink cans of my favorite sparkling water sat empty on the table behind my laptop. A fourth, the water lukewarm, gone flat, would end up in the drain.

I was thirsty.

It was late.

I wasn't done –

– tethered by choice, not trapped by circumstance and light as . . . as . . . asfaskd

Yeah, I was done.

I saved the document, and shut everything down then sat a second, in the dark, in the quiet, letting the vivid imagery in my mind blink out like dying embers. One by one, I let them cool and fade. Fervently hoping I'd be able to reignite them in the morning.

Moonlight pooled on the distressed wood flooring, bright as headlights shining in through the windows. The wind howling outside, rattling the glass, sounded cold and drizzly. What was I feeling? Tired.

Inspired.

BALDWIN
11:12pm(CET)

Blood could not slake his thirst.

Baldwin paced the luxurious rooms of his rented suite in Paris' Plaza Athénée hotel, restless and disturbed.

Congealed blood stained the crystal glass in his hand. He had already drunk a decanter full . . . and it wasn't enough. Hunger burned. Igniting in his veins. He recognized in himself no real desire to feed but rather a need to hunt, to kill, to gorge on blood hot from the vein.

It had not escaped him that he'd fled the country – placing that sort of distance between himself and the American. Simone.

She was human.

Of that he had no doubt. Anymore. But he'd needed to be sure. Needed to meet her, to sit with her and listen to the cadence of her voice. Drink in the fragrance of her skin, her blood.

A mistake.

Her scent dark, rich. Chocolate truffle. Wheat. Something else. Heady. Even now, hours later, he could still taste it. Smoke. The hot, delicious aroma of wood smoke. Of hearth fires. And an understated sweetness . . .

. . . summer raspberries.

Baldwin let his attention wander to the hardback book set on the low table of the hotel suite's living space, set between two silk-embroidered sofas. Its cost negligible, a mass-produced novelty set against the sparkling Parisian night –

Luring her to his property had been a simple affair. Simone had already been looking to get away; searching for rental properties overseas. Specifically, for foreigner friendly homes available in the north of Scotland.

He'd believed – truly believed – that he would find a witch.

One of tremendous power, of vision, baiting him, and he had been prepared to kill her right there on the age-worn steps of the yellow cottage. He might have, regardless, had she not turned around and pinned him with eyes caught somewhere between the sea and the sky. Blue. And yet . . . gray.

She stopped him as if as if laying a hand on his chest, quietly, gently, soothing the kill-urge.

He'd been wrong. She was no witch. What she was . . . he had no idea, and was willing to concede that fact. And not until he'd introduced himself did he realize she herself had no idea what she'd done. None. To stop a vampire . . .

Again, he looked at the book on his table. Lit not by lamps, but the sparkle of Paris at night. Her name scrolled across the front cover. Its sell; the author. Baldwin was so wired it felt as if his skin were humming. Simone.

He hadn't lied.

He had read her books.

At the insistence of Ysabeau who had been shown them by Marthe, who was said to have been recommended the book, the first in the series, by a store clerk in the town. And because he'd been told to do this, he'd taken his time; waiting weeks before bothering to find himself a copy.

He read it in an evening.

. . . no one had needed to press him to read the rest.

The immortal on the cover striding out from a billowing fog, the glow of city lights, or urban skyscrapers, rising up in the near distance. He wore a gunmetal gray duster, silvering the hazel of his eyes. A strong, handsome face. Eerily familiar. The hair a shade darker than his own, more brown then Baldwin's distinctive copper.

Immortal. Nightwalker.

Vampire.

Nowhere in Simone's fiction did she call her immortal a vampire and yet, there was no mistaking this creature. A blood-drinker. Mesmerizing. Absolutely lethal . . . adrift, searching, always searching. Cursed to solitude, forbidden to die –

A simple concept that Simone had complicated to an impressive degree. Four books in circulation, while the author sat in a small yellow cottage in the north of Scotland working on the fifth – no book felt incomplete. Each possessing an engaging, deliciously emotional story.

He looked again, sharp eyes drawn unerringly toward the block of paper and ink and felt a chill like apprehension.

The man on the cover was him.

There was no mistaking it. It was as if the artist had been given an accurate physical description, yet was never shown a picture. The cover art imperfect, but undeniable.

And creatures the world over had noticed.

Glass broke in his hand.

Razor-edged shards cracking between his fingers. Splinters needling into the palm of his hand, breaking the skin and, mercifully, replacing the scent of blood – of her blood – with his own.

This was ridiculous.

Baldwin prowled from the foyer, aware of his blood splattering the clean white marble, dribbling off the ends of his fingers, trailing him to the suite's bathing room. He lingered there, letting the water run over his hands.

Taking a moment to collect himself, more so than to wash.

Forearms braced on the sink basin, sturdy porcelain, he dragged his attention to the mirror on the wall and watched himself leash the vampire with ruthless restraint. Watched the mania fade from his eyes. Breathe. Breathe –

Raspberries. Wheat. The heavier fragrance of chocolate truffle.

And smoke.

She was still there. Simone. Her scent trapped high in his sinuses, he drank her in deeper with every breath. Hunger stirred, and he studied it, coolly, recognizing in himself a want and little else. To conquer oneself . . . therein lay true strength . . .

Control.

He was in control.

Simone would ring him, and soon. It was no mistake that he had left his business card with her; nor the souvenir he'd dropped as she escorted him to the door.

A deliberate manipulation.

Baldwin had left her with both means, and a reason, to contact him . . .

SIMONE
4:00am(GMT)

Outside was . . . something to see.

The moonlight headlight bright. Heather and grass, ferns, shrubbery, and the distant spike of trees like paper cutouts and the sheer swaths of indigo cloud. The rain died away hours ago. There were stars again.

I was alone.

And . . . not.

My toes cold on the bare floor, arms crossed over a thin sleep-shirt, I stood at the back door of the little cottage staring out into the night and had never felt so un-alone in my life. There was something out there.

Ghosts.

I had tried to go to bed; tucking myself under the down comforter, sticking my feet under the folded quilt, switched off the lamp, closed my eyes . . . and yearned. My heart positively aching with want. With something I had no words for.

What did I feel? Motivated.

Inspired. Passionate.

. . . passionate.

The plywood sheets over the broken windows did a fairly good job of keeping the rain out, but they weren't a tight fit so the parlor felt colder, damper, then the rest of the house. The piney smell of the fresh-cut plywood permeated the air.

I shivered, the scene unfurling in my mind – words I'd thought I lost –

Even as Anne's bare feet went silently over the chilly, bare floorboards, there were no lamps to turn on – they had all been sucked into the vacuum along with the tables where they had been set.

There was, however, enough light to see by; thanks to exterior fixtures mounted on the corners of Dante's manse, artificial light bled through –

I watched the moonlight eddy on the clean tile, marveling at the sight of those moonbeams filtering through drizzle-speckled windows.

A taste of magic.

– looking as if the plywood panels were doors to pass through to other planes of existence.

I shivered, tugging on the hem of my sleep shirt and considered booting up my laptop to write all this down but I was tired, and just loosely narrating a scene, like talking to myself, and I'd already forgotten how I phrased half of that . . .

I edged away from the back door, letting the pretty lace curtain fall across the window.

Anne found what she was looking for on the mantelpiece over the marble fireplace. Dante's book barely fit on the ledge, its ragged leather cover hanging off nearly to the point of falling.

The smell of Folders coffee lingered, over the lemony scent of Sunlight dish soap. My dishes set neatly to dry on a towel beside the sink basin. My laptop set on the dinner table, untouched from where I'd left it. What was I looking for?

Restless, and disturbed.

Outside were the sounds of the highland moors. The wind breathing against solid walls. The windows. Around doors. Searching, always searching, for a way in. Some weakness, a flaw, for where even a whisper of air to pass.

"Dante."

My protagonist.

Such a clinical word for a fictional character I'd fallen in love with. He was mine, as near to me as the drumming of my own heart; unfathomably distant. He didn't exist. But I loved him. The source of my heartache.

He wasn't real.

He wasn't . . . real . . .

My skin pimpled on a sudden rush of heat.