Chapter 4: Past Meets Present

[Cassius]

I broke my hypnotic gaze with Stella and looked up at Albert.

As a pureblood, nighttime visitors weren’t unusual.

“Thank you, Albert,” I said, then I rose to my feet. “Who is it?” I asked.

“It’s Jake, sir,” Albert replied.

“Jake,” repeated Stella. Her brow furrowed and then her eyes went wide. “That’s not the Jake from the bakery, is it?” she asked.

I nodded. “One and the same,” I replied, pausing for a moment to admire the candlelight dancing in Stella’s eyes. “We’re long-time friends.”

“I see,” she said, looking back at me, eyebrows raised. “He’s pure human, right?”

“Yes,” I answered simply.

I still felt the tightness in the air between us. I could tell that she was as intrigued by me as I was by her, but her attraction was tempered by fear, the fear that half-breeds naturally felt in the presence of a pureblood.

I could see that fear in her eyes, but along with it, there was something else…

I felt Albert look between the two of us. “Will you be staying long, miss?” he asked.

“Perhaps,” she said, almost too quickly. “That is– if I accept the position,” she added.

I regarded her for a moment, then broke my gaze with Stella to look back again at Albert, who raised his eyebrow at me. I answered back with a gruff stare.

Albert had been urging me for years to forget the past and build a future with another young woman. Not that anything like that would happen with Stella; I was intrigued by her, yes, but I would never risk having what had happened with the last woman I let into my life happen with her. No, I couldn’t allow anything to spark between me and Stella.

Although it may have been too late for that.

Albert seemed to get the point and nodded silently at me, then turned back to Stella and said politely, “No matter the duration, I hope you will find it comfortable here during your stay. Please tell me if there’s ever anything you need.”

“Thank you,” she said.

I rose and turned to her. “Forgive me, Stella, I must go. Please, continue eating. You’ll need your strength.”

“I will,” she promised, meeting my eyes briefly.

I turned and left the room with Albert following me.

I instantly felt the loss of Stella’s presence.

“So, do you think the girl will be staying?” Albert asked as we descended the grand staircase. “I’m surprised. Not only is that unusual, but I couldn't help but detect some discomfort when I’d entered the room earlier.”

“I think she’s still in shock,” I remarked. “That’s probably what you’re sensing. But Stella has informed me she’s considering staying long-term, and I’ve offered her the position as head housekeeper.”

“Good,” Albert remarked, and my old friend gave me a small smile. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had the company of a young lady in the house.”

I glared at him.

He only smiled wider in return. “I’ll say no more about it,” he said. “Regardless, we could use someone trustworthy in that position.”

Just before we reached the bottom of the staircase, a familiar scent reached my nose, a human scent.

“What happened in here?” a voice called out to me. “It smells like a barbecue gone wrong.”

“Something like that,” I laughed lightly. “My apologies for not greeting you at the door. I had other things preoccupying my time and energy.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Cass. We’ve known each other far too long for that.”

“I suppose that’s true,” I said, and when we reached the bottom of the stairs, a figure stepped out of the shadows. Jake offered me a smile and as he stepped closer toward Albert and me, the scent of his blood grew stronger.

Unlike the rest of us, Jake was one hundred percent human, and as such, the perfume of his inner life force filled the air. Though he was a good friend, I still felt the burden of self-restraint.

“It’s good to see you,” Jake said after he cleared his throat, and we exchanged a brotherly embrace. “It’s been a while.”

“A little too long,” I replied, and I gestured toward the living room. “Shall we?”

Jake nodded and we all entered the room.

“It looks quite… clean in here,” Jake said. “You haven’t been overworking old Albert here, have you?”

Albert tried–and failed–to suppress a chuckle.

“Actually, we have a new housekeeper,” I replied.

“Wow,” Jake replied, and his lips curled into a smirk. “A ‘she’…”

“Don’t say it,” I warned, raising an eyebrow.

Jake held up his hands as if in surrender. “I’m just saying,” he said, “that this will be a nice change of pace. I’ll leave it at that.”

“Maybe this place will actually be livable,” Albert joked, and I resisted the urge to punch his arm.

“Perhaps,” I said.

We stood in silence for a moment, and then Jake took a seat on the sofa, and I sat across from him.

“I’m sorry I haven’t made my way over here in a while,” Jake said. “You know how it is when business gets busy. And you haven’t aged a day.” He reached for a glass of whiskey that Albert had just offered him. “Of course, you wouldn’t, but still… I’ll never get used to it.”

I swirled around the alcohol in my glass. “I’m certainly accustomed to it.”

“So,” he continued, “aside from the new housekeeper, are there any other new ladies of the house?”

“What do you mean?” I asked bluntly.

“I mean are there any prospects for a wife, future children, people surrounding you so you’re not living in this huge mansion alone,” he said, then looked up. “No offense, Albert.”

“None taken, sir,” Albert chuckled from the corner of the room.

“No,” I said plainly.

I had no desire to talk about women and children, and Jake knew this. He was well aware of what had happened the last time I gave my heart to a woman. It was well before Jake’s lifetime, but in our long friendship, I had confided in him many times about my past… about her.

And I’d always made it clear to him that things like that… love and family… don’t work well for a pureblood vampire.

My thoughts turned to Stella.

The problem was that Stella reminded me a lot of that woman I’d loved so long ago. It wasn’t just her looks. There was something about her mannerisms that almost exactly matched… hers.

I’d been trying to ignore it, but the more I spoke with Stella, the more I felt drawn to her. It was difficult to have her so close, just up the stairs and a few rooms away.

But I couldn’t give my heart away again. I needed to stay strong… was I doing the right thing by offering her a job?

“Don’t need to bite my head off,” Jake said with a light smile, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Literally, or figuratively,” he added.

I just looked at him dryly.

“Oh, come on,” he said. “Where’s your sense of humor? Vampire. Bite my head off.”

“I don’t bite off heads,” I said plainly. “That’s not a vampire thing. And it’s most certainly not a pureblood thing.”

“I know that,” he said. “I’m just trying to lighten up the room. Something’s going on with you. It doesn’t have anything to do with the new housekeeper, does it?”

“Of course not,” I snapped, a little too quickly. I liked Jack and he’d been a good friend to me, but he knew good and well that this line of questioning would rattle me. I wasn’t even sure about what was happening with Stella myself. I certainly wasn’t going to talk it out with Jack, not when I knew I needed to keep my distance to keep her safe.

And Albert was still in the room with an annoying smirk on his face.

Jake shook his head. “I’ll change the subject then,” he said, “since it’s obviously a sore spot.”

“It’s about time,” I said, holding up my glass while Albert poured another round.

He walked over to Jack next and topped off his glass. I took a sip of mine and watched the amber liquid swirl around in the glass.

I tried to focus on the visit with Jack, but I still remembered how panicked Stella had been when the fire had broken out. I could tell that she was terrorized by the half-breeds.

Not only that, but even before the fire, the others from the cleaning company had been treating her horribly.

Yet I could tell by her demeanor that something inside her was strong and capable; she just needed to see for herself how special she was.

I looked back up at Jack and tried to keep my focus on the visit. We talked for a while longer about memories of good times together.

But the only memory I had in my head was Stella, lying on the bed with her eyes gazing longingly into mine.