Thirst by Karen E. Taylor

Author:Karen E. Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2012-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 2

We walked back to our new home, a small flat above a pub in the oldest section of town. The street was narrow, dark and paved with cobblestones; wonderfully atmospheric, it was usually deserted at this time of the night, especially now that the tourist season was drawing to a close.

The flat itself was more than adequate for our use, not a huge amount of space, but it had a bedroom and sitting area with a large fireplace, a kitchen with a long counter and a small alcove that held a table and two chairs, and an impossibly tiny bathroom. Once the front entrance was refitted with a steel door and the two windows with steel shutters, it was reasonably secure.

Home had been a foreign concept to me for most of my life as a vampire. Always, it seemed, I had been running and hiding, not really living but just existing—so very many cities, so many different houses and apartments and rooms. I remembered each and every one of them; if I closed my eyes I could recall the colors of the carpets or the patterns of the wallpaper. But they were all empty, cold and loveless. And none of them could be called home.

The longest consecutive period of my life had been spent in New York. I dwelled in a posh hotel, in an upper-floor penthouse suite, the living room of which would hold our entire flat here. Ten years spent there did not make it home. It was only when I met Mitch that I began to understand the concept.

I remembered fondly the cabin in Maine where we had dwelled together for a time, happy and safe, until events conspired to separate us once again. Even that retreat was gone now, burned to the ground as a result of my anger.

The truth of the matter was that I belonged nowhere, felt safe nowhere, except in the circle of Mitch’s arms. My only home, I realized, was with him. So it did not matter how much we traveled or how many times we were forced to move as long as we were together.

We were here now, and here we planned to stay for as long as fate allowed. And in spite of the threats of Other attacks, we could still be happy in our cozy little flat.

The pub below us was called, in one of life’s ironies, the Black Rose, an appellation my creator and nemesis, Max Hunter, had bestowed on me many years ago. I laughed to myself every time I passed under the sign.

My onetime business partner, Pete, had found the flat for us and negotiated the lease with no questions asked. When we arrived, we discovered with surprise and delight that he himself had bought the pub below, with the proceeds from the sale of our shared pub in London.

“I needed a change of scenery after the wife died and here seemed as good a change as any,” he’d said on the night we moved in.

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