The figures leaned together until the flames overlapped, and for a moment the flames were just flames until Travis started speaking again.
“She turned me and we ran away together. We decided we wouldn’t play by anyone’s rules but our own. We would be free and in love and well-fed forever as long as we were together.”
In the fire, the flames of Travis and Shea circled a screaming man. They drew closer, and then they bit him, one on each side.
“And for centuries, we were.” The image fizzled out. “I think of those as our golden years. We were legends, myths, gods. Passing through towns, taking sacrifices. Killing who we wanted to kill. Drinking what we wanted to drink.” Travis caught Brennan’s growing horrified expression and shrugged. “It was a different time.”
Travis kicked his legs out and reclined, leaning back on his hands.
“I say all this to emphasize that this is how she lived her life for thousands of years. Before me, and with me. It was her normal.” In the flames, a tree sheds its leaves and blossoms and sheds them again, time passing in an endless cycle. “Why would she change what worked for her? But, after a while, I started getting interested in society again. Some cool new artists were doing some great work in Italy, and it excited me.”
A silhouette that looked suspiciously like Michelangelo’sDavidappeared in the campfire, and Brennan’s head spun trying to make sense of that information. The Renaissance was the fifteenth century or so, and if Shea was thousands of years old before then, she could beliterallyprehistoric.…
The fire shifted again and Brennan tabled that existential crisis (and history-nerd fangirling) for later. The flame lovers stood at odds, shouting and waving their hands.
“I tried out the whole undercover vampire gig, theurbanthing. Shea couldn’t take it. We were pretty on-and-off for a while because of our, ah, conflicting lifestyles. So on and so forth, blah blah blah, eventually, I ran away to America.” The figures dissolved into a ship cutting through waves on a rough sea. “It was all very dramatic. Sometime after the Civil War, if you’re familiar with it?”
“Um, yeah,” Brennan said. “I’m familiar with the American Civil War.”
“Oh, good. Who’s to say, you guys get so much right and so much horrendously wrong. Anyway. Shea followed me out and said she’d make the sacrifices ’cause she missed me. Most romantic thing that’s ever happened to me. We fucked for six days straight after that.”
The figures in the fire illustrated this with more detail than he’d thought fire capable. Ew.
“So for, I wanna say a good fifty years? I don’t know, awhile,she did the whole housewife thing. But some creatures aren’t meant to be domesticated.”
A house with a picket fence fluttering in flames.
“Which led to the vampire ball of 1928. This was after Sunny and Nellie had teamed up and started campaigning for all sorts of urban clan regulations, and it was the final straw for Shea. She told me one day she couldn’t take it, she couldn’t keep hiding. I asked if she was going to leave, and she said she’d do one better.”
The house and picket fence rotted and crumbled.
“She had a plan. She wanted to out vampires to the world. She wanted to be feared again, like we were in the glory days. She wanted to be known. You have to understand—that’s only human.”
Even Brennan leaned forward in anticipation.
“What was the plan?” he prodded.
“She wanted to spark frenzy in the vampires, getting them to attack the humans publicly and, theoretically, start some sort of vampire uprising. The plan was hazy, admittedly, but she was gung ho about it. And I was in love.”
The fire dimmed to a soft glow, as if that was the end of the story. But Brennan needed all of it.
“You helped her,” Brennan pushed.
“I tried to.” Travis shrugged. “Needless to say, didn’t go as planned. Sunny and Nellie stopped us before the ball even started. Shea put up a fight. They killed her. They didn’t have a choice, really. I don’t even blame them. They bound me to these woods as punishment for helping her and, well, I’ve been here ever since.”
Travis waved a hand over the waning fire and in an instant, it flickered out.Storytime’s over, kids.
“Wow,” said Cole.
“Hold on,” Brennan said. “Why did Dom want to know about Shea? How did this come up?”
“Oh,” Travis said, suddenly bashful, examining his fingernails. “She asked me what my greatest regret was.”
“And? What is it?”
“That I didn’t die with Shea that day.”
Travis looked off into some middle distance for a moment before blinking away the memories and coming back to himself, easy smile returning slightly forced. Brennan couldn’t imagine living for thousands of years, let alone losing someone you’ve loved for that long.
