He stares at me for what seems like an eternity.
“Why do you think?”
He places the soiled rags in a glass container and lights a match.
“Personal interests?” I suggest. “We didn’t meet by chance. You were here for a reason, and that reason involves me.”
“That’s right,” he almost whispers. “But that’s not why I saved your life.”
Donn stares at me intently, and the sincerity in his eyes makes me instantly believe him. He looks upward.
“It was crazy of me to think that you could survive all by yourself. You’re a walking disaster that attracts werewolves, vampires, and ridiculous accidents.”
“Well, I survived, didn’t I?”
Donn nods. He seems preoccupied.
“This way we should be safe.” He throws the match into the rags steeped in alcohol. I jump as the pile flares up.
“I want to know what you really think,” I add, hesitantly.
“And I have, for the most part, told you. I note with pleasure, Miss Whitely, that you have not stopped being thirsty for more.”
“Thirsty for more information.”.
“Tonight, when I touched you, you seemed uncertain, prudent, but still the same old Stella.” Donn smiles. “I need to know it’s not too late. Have I hurt you irreparably?”
“No.” My voice is a feeble whisper. I hold back, unwilling to launch into a full explanation, afraid of giving away too much.
I raise my eyes to his face. He is looking at me intently; perhaps his mind is heading in the same direction as mine. I can hardly forget what he said he felt for me. But how reliable are his words, even if tonight he has shown some morsel of sincerity? I feel helpless, my back against the wall. I change the subject.
“So tell me what you meant when you said that J. is still a pup. And who is Graham? And just what is the Council?”
Donn remains silent and doesn’t seem pleased with me taking a step back. He looks at me suspiciously and returns my stare. A deep wrinkle appears on his marble-like forehead and a cold, hard smile appears on his lips. He probably would have preferred to keep talking about us.
Donn turns sharply, as if he has heard a sound imperceptible to human ears. His eyes comb the darkness of the room, then suddenly they turn to the door as if someone were calling him from beyond it.
I strain my ears, but hear nothing. His irritated grunt interrupts the silence.
“You’ll have to be a little bit more patient if you want the answers to your questions. Someone else is looking for you right now.”
I know it is Vuk.
“One more minute,” I beg.
He shakes his head, a phony tragic mask on his face.
“Vuk is waiting for you.”
“But I need to talk to you alone, if that’s not a problem.” He hasn’t even answered one of my questions.
“Not tonight, Stella, please,” he whispers. “Treat my heart delicately; I’m leaving it with you.”
He gracefully exits the room and see his aquamarine eyes as they fade into the dark. Then I notice his shadow, reflected on the wall, as he goes out the back door.
Moments later, Vuk is silently by my side, his warm hands caressing my face. I feel his arms slide around me. So much for making the boundary between us clear. I can’t bear hurting Vuk. There is a strange bond between us, and when he suffers, I suffer.
Another rock classic is being played onstage and his eyes search the room anxiously for signs of any other life. He is sure he heard whispering.
Tyler appears behind Vuk, and gives me a brotherly look, wanting to assure himself that all is well. He pretends to pick up a bottle from the storeroom before returning to the bar. I can make out the odd lyric to the song coming from the small stage, but don’t know if it is talking about love or telling some kind of horror story.
“Hey.” Vuk’s voice is hoarse after his performance.
“What’s new?”
I grasp his shoulders and melt into his scorching embrace. I need to keep a lid on my enthusiasm, so as not to lead him on, but it’s been ages since I felt so light-headed and blissful. It’s not easy to manage a sensation that has become so unfamiliar to me.
“Nothing,” he replies almost incomprehensibly, winking at me. I can feel the perspiration on his skin and the adrenalin in his breath. “I missed you,” he murmurs, lowering his face to avoid me seeing his reddening cheeks.
“I missed you too,” I admit shyly, knowing that I’m shooting myself in the foot with my confession. He breathes a sigh of relief, but doesn’t raise his head.
“Does your finger hurt?”
“No, it’s just a small cut. But your song! It was incredible, Vuk.” My eyes immediately fill with tears as I remember the lyrics. He breathes in the aroma of my hair and buries his nose in my neck.
“Can I ask what the
alternative
the song mentions is?”
“What’s brought your spirits up?” He looks into my eyes.
“I’m just curious.” I curl up into his rock-hard chest.
“It’s just that I know you’re really unhappy,” Vuk says. “Maybe it’ll do no good, but I wanted to tell you that I’ll always be here for you and promise that you can always count on me.”
“I do count on you, maybe more than you know.”
“I won’t let you down,” he promises.
“I know, Vuk.” I smile and shrug my shoulders in surprise. “I still can’t believe it, you finished the song and the lyrics are heart-wrenching. Incredibly beautiful. Real.”
“I didn’t realize that you could suddenly start talking sense like this,” he smiles. “Now I’m regretting having spent cash on your second present. I left it in your room before we went out.”
My smile widens, and Vuk brushes a lock of hair from my face. A shiver runs through me.
“I told you not to spend money on a present for me.”
“Well I did,” Vuk admits. “If you hadn’t moved to Medford, I would never have found happiness.” He hugs me closer to his chest.
“Stay here at the bar with me tonight,” I say. I can’t bear the idea of him going off and wallowing in remorse.
“Maybe it would be better if I went home soon.”
“But it’s my party!”
“I don’t get it. Do you want me to pretend or not that his is a special day for you?”
“Well, now everybody knows!”
“Come on, are you going to throw a fit now? You can’t! Decide which of the two it is.”
“I don’t want you to pretend,” I mumble.
“Then happy anniversary, Stella.” He bends slightly to brush his soft lips against my forehead.
“Thanks.”
Vuk releases his grip on me and dashes off toward the stage, returning in a flash wearing a blinding smile.
He’s standing before me, his hands turning over a big gift wrapped in silver paper.
A giggle escapes my lips, but then I give him a fake withering look. He holds his hands up in protest.
“I kept my promise. I didn’t spend a dime.”
“What is it?”
He simply looks at me.
“Give it to me.” I sigh, resigned.
He takes my arm and guides it to the gift. I take it into my hands and he grabs me, spins me around, and pulls me close to him. I clumsily try to tear off the ribbon, but the dressing on my finger hampers me.
“Here, let me do it.” Vuk takes the gift and tears off the silver paper with a single flourish. He hands me a box, the same shade of emerald as his eyes.
“How sweet. Thanks, Vuk!”
“The present is inside, Stella.”
“Right.” The knot on the second bow is giving me some trouble, too. With a sigh, Vuk patiently places the silver paper on the floor, takes the green box out of my hands and pulls the right string to undo the bow.
I hold out my palms to receive the gift. He opens the box and, laughing, pulls out another box, this one flatter and of the same color his eyes are now––a jade yellow.
“Thanks,” I say. “What is it, some kind of Russian nesting boxes?”
“Don’t worry, you’ve got the heart of the present.”
I open the final box. It contains a flat, white case. It takes me a moment to understand what it is. It contains a shiny CD, with no writing on it. Despite the fact that I didn’t want any presents, I’m thrilled.
“It’s my music,” Vuk explains, self-consciously, a shy smile on his face.
“What a wonderful present, Vuk! Your songs! I can’t believe it. It’s the best present I could have hoped for.”
“I figured you wouldn’t let me play my stuff for you at home anymore, now that your dad is back.”
“Really incredible,” I whisper. “Did you really make this? How?”
“I’ve set up a recording studio in my bedroom.”
“Unbelievable.” I turn the shiny CD over in my hands.
“Do you really like it? My music, I mean.”
“Of course, it’s fantastic, Vuk.”
“Will you listen to it?”
“You bet!” I put the CD back in its case and place it on Scott’s desk.
“How’s the cut?”
“Fine, it’s nothing.” To be honest, I need ice, I can feel it burning under the dressing. All I really need to do is move it away from his hot hand, but this would give me away. His expression mirrors my own, but as we gaze into each other’s eyes, it mutates. He loosens his embrace and strokes my cheek with his free hand. I feel him shiver.
“Donn seemed friendly tonight.”
“I wonder what got into him.” I feign indifference.
The cupboard in the corner catches my eye, and I spot the stereo through the open door. I never use it anymore, and had forgotten it was there, hidden under a thickening veil of dust. Vuk used to listen to it all the time when he slept in the storeroom.
Vuk is examining the long, black box. After a second, he recognizes the stereo as well. I’m not put out when he makes a comment about the hole gaping from the top of the stereo, a nest of wires spilling from it.
“What have you done to this? The radio is broken.”
“Yes,” I reply.
He pokes at the hole.
“Someone must have dropped it, it’s badly busted.”
“It was me,” I confess. “I couldn’t get it out of the socket.”
“So you tortured it?”
“You know how I am with these things. It was an accident.”
He looks doubtful, and I’m sure he thinks I did it on purpose. But then he laughs.
“You’d better not touch my second present then.”
“I’ll look after it,” I reassure him and put the CD in my pocket.
We don’t talk for a few moments. I hear his breathing, mingled with the sounds from the stage and the wind that rages outside.
The images of my hands ripping through the plastic of the stereo, my fingers dripping with blood, race through my mind.
“Things ain’t great, eh?” Vuk’s voice is dismal, and I hear the click of the lighter and his breath as he takes a hit from a cigarette.
“It won’t always be like this. But you should quit smoking,” I whisper, my voice breaking, as tears begin to form in my eyes.
“Forgive me. It’s my other addiction.” He looks relieved; my words seem to have soothed him.
“This is called blackmail!” I act wounded.
Vuk inhales on his cigarette deeply, a perfect smile spreads on his lips.
“No. I just asked you to forgive me.”
“I do forgive you. Almost”
He doesn’t look too happy mumble something under his breath.
“Apology accepted, but now put out that cigarette. Whoever heard of a wolf smoking?” I exclaim. I want him to quit. Really, I hold nothing against him. When he did what he did, he was out of his mind, that’s all. I’m to blame; I insisted on staying with him on the night of the full moon.
“I’m a werewolf, little girl, it’s different,” Vuk sighs. “I’m not a man, but I can’t turn into a wolf like my brother Doctor.”
He shakes his head, as if to stop himself.
“At least, not yet, and maybe I never will. That’s why my eye color changes, it’s as unstable as my nature, halfway between man and wolf.”
“You’re a tough werewolf, Vuk. You can do it, you’ll see.”
He holds back a smile.
“Thanks, Stella, but there are cases in my family of wolves with the same congenital defect. That’s why my father, who is not superstitious at all, called me wolf twice. To try to ward off the defect…” His emerald eyes seem to be reliving a memory from the distant past.
“What do you mean, he called you wolf twice?”
“In Serbo-Croatian, Vuk means wolf. Then there’s my surname, Vuk Wolf’––two times a wolf.” He purrs each word. “When Doctor, my brother, found out, he took it badly.” Vuk laughs. “I wish I’d gotten a normal name!”
Another song ends and Vuk looks out the door. Then he turns back to me, anxiously awaiting my reaction.
“I think it’s a nice name.”
He relaxes and shakes his head, a strange look on his face. “Anyway, little girl, you’re lights went out completely that night. You’ve forgiven me, I know,” Vuk smiles. “And when I quit smoking, you’ll have pardoned me for everything. In every way possible. But for now, let’s just start anew.”
He stubs out the cigarette under his shoe and throws it in the trash. Then he slips his arms around me again and brings his lips to my ear.
“I want you to be the same as you were before,” he whispers. His emerald eyes bore into me, but his thoughts have been distant for weeks now.
“What are you thinking?”
“About what’s right and what’s wrong.” A shiver runs through me when his teeth brush against my earlobes. I try to wriggle out of his warm embrace, but he pulls me closer and brings his eyes to within an inch of mine.
“You’ve gotta learn to just go with your feelings, sometimes. To give in to human warmth.”
I freeze. He hugs me to his chest, feeling my passive resistance. His hot hand finds a spot of bare skin on my collarbone, and I shiver involuntarily.
“That’s right,” he murmurs, looking at me.
He runs one hand through my hair, the other holding my arm; my body arches into him, making me lose my already precariously balance.
His face is familiar, cherished. There is more than one real reason to love him. He has always had my back, he’s been my safe house, my anchor. His hands caress my face again. His warm, delicate breath burns my cheekbones. Right now, he is deciding whether or not to kiss me. His mouth approaches mine, and he tries to make me his, whispering my name.
I think I lost the only real love I’ll ever know. Jason will never come back to reawaken me from my wait, but it would be madness to think that my decision would not have consequences. Maybe it wouldn’t be being unfaithful. But I’m not being unfaithful to anyone, except myself.