Stone Cold

Chapter 43

There comes a moment in our lives when we wish for the relentlessly ticking hands of the clock to stop their doomed venture and freeze us for eternity in its bottomless embrace; whether the reason be a timeline we do not wish to leave behind or a dreading period whose ominous arrival we detest. For her, it was both.

The solace she had discovered in the arms of her loving husband three months prior was something she couldn’t imagine letting go ever whilst on the other hand, she was well aware of the fact that none of this was going to last forever. No matter how desperately she wanted it, she didn’t belong in that time. She had to return; the reality had splashed her face like ice cold water the morning she woke up after their first night together only to discover that the markings on her back had fainted for the second time. They looked more like a smudge than a tattoo now, narrating to her that the spell was going to be completed any moment, one more move and she’d be transported back into her own time.

The dreadful feeling of being alienated stayed with her since then; even in her sleep, the voices didn’t stop haunting her. She had to leave, go back to the place where she originally came from, leaving him behind, all alone.

He, too, had seen the scarcely visible linings on her back, but it seemed like he purposely avoided talking about it; she could tell it by the way she often caught him staring longingly at her. He looked at her as if he was afraid of her vanishing in thin air any given moment. Even though the burden of his works had increased too much after Cyrus and Ruth’s unforeseen arrival in their town, he never let her feel neglected amidst this chaos. He knew their days together were numbered so he made sure to always be there, watching her silently with his deep longing emerald gaze.

Another complication they were forced to face was the numerous bodies found littering the town every other day, sickly pale to the point that any onlooker could immediately conclude that they had been drained of blood down to their bones, and there was no doubt about the culprit. The only vampire who was present in the town besides Ares was Cyrus. Drained bodies left and right, even getting blood for Henry was proving to be more and more difficult with time, leaving no chances for Ares to feed himself. Starving his own self to feed his family, burning midnight oil to protect what was rightfully his in the first place, it wasn’t getting any easier for the aloof vampire prince.

The nights he wasn’t locked inside his study, he spent them holding her close to him in his broad arms, cocooning her in his unusually cold warmth. When his fingers weren’t holding a pen to graze against the smooth texture of paper, they would generally be found caressing the white of her skin or stroking the tip of his brush to carve these features of her, reproducing her reflection captured by his magnanimous gaze on a clear canvas. Now she knew what lay behind the third door in his bedroom in future; her portraits. The room was covered from floor to ceiling with her countless traces.

At times like these, she felt like he was trying to remember her shape, the nooks and crannies of her features, furiously rubbing color laced fingers on paper as if possessed by some unknown fear—fear of having to live without her for many centuries to come.

It was evident that the more time they spent with each other the more scared he got of it becoming their last memory together.

Things were rapidly getting out of hand, taking a turn for worse when the news spread out and the lord of the town was summoned to report to the King and his officials regarding the numerous unnatural deaths occurring in his land. Ares and Gabriel had planned on labeling it as animal attack yet the town’s people, as if they had been waiting for the this moment, struck while the iron was hot and started various rumors about her, naming her a symbol of misfortune that brought bad luck to their town.

Leaving her behind that too without Henry to guard her had proved to be a difficult task for Ares. Taking her with him was equal to exposing her to numerous people, a risk he wasn’t willing to take. Surprisingly Gabriel had offered a hand to help in their difficult times which Ares had ended up reluctantly accepting.