A Vial of Life

I could’ve asked one of the witches to help in moving the stuff, which would have been far quicker, but with everything that was going on in and around The Shade, I didn’t want to bother any of them with such a trivial matter.

Seeing that Caleb and I had some downtime now, Caleb came with me to help move the rest.

“Do you actually need all this?” Caleb asked, scrunching his nose as he eyed the remaining possessions I had, some packed up in bags, some still strewn around the room.

I threw him a grin. “Why do you ask? We’re not exactly lacking space in our new apartment. We’ve got to fill it up with something.”

“Uh, no,” he remarked. “There is a joy to space and simplicity. Not every room has to be cluttered like a trinket store.”

I couldn’t deny that I had already cluttered up our penthouse quite a lot, but I found it amusing that this was the first time Caleb was commenting on it.

He bent down and scooped up my hair straightener. He eyed it with a frown. “What’s this?”

I moved up to him, taking the straightener from his hands and snapping it shut. “Oops,” I murmured. “I didn’t mean for you to see this. It’s a kind of torture device wives keep for their husbands when they don’t behave themselves.”

He pulled me against him and pressed a kiss against the side of my neck. “You can torture me anytime,” he said, his voice turning husky.

“Stop distracting me,” I said, pushing him away even as I smiled from ear to ear. “I’ve been procrastinating on this job for weeks, I need to finally finish it off.”

He gave me the eye before turning and surveying the rest of the room. “Well, we’ve already transferred most of it. I figure, what… twenty more trips and we should be done?”

I rolled my eyes. “Leaving aside all the gifts, I haven’t got that much stuff, okay? At least not compared to other girls my age. You’d have a heart attack if you visited some of my girlfriends’ bedrooms. We should be able to manage the rest in only two trips.” I smirked as Caleb and I bent down to pick up armfuls of bags. “You know we sound like a legitimate married couple.”

He smiled. “Maybe that’s because we are one.”

Caleb was, of course, grossly exaggerating the number of things I had. I was right in my estimation that we could carry the rest of the stuff in two more loads. This was definitely one upside to being a vampire: my strength. I was able to carry an inhuman number of things. And of course, Caleb, being larger, could carry much more.

We picked up as many things as we could and brought them back to our penthouse. We dumped them in the entrance hall before returning to my parents’ apartment for the final load.

The final load.

Caleb began picking up bags and, strangely, I found myself stalling. Looking around my room, I realized that unless I went out of my way to come in here, this could easily be the last time that I set foot in this space.

It hit home for the first time that this was it—the final string that still attached me to my old, familiar life. In clearing out the last of my things, I truly would have moved on, into the next stage of my life. My life with Caleb.

Caleb eyed me, raising a brow. He set down the bags he’d picked up and approached me. He reached for my hair and tucked a strand behind my ear before sliding his hand down my jaw and tilting my chin up so I faced him. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing’s… wrong,” I said, my voice three tones deeper than usual. “It’s just that…” I broke off. I didn’t really know how to describe it. I wanted to move out, and I was over the moon to begin my new life with Caleb, but at the same time… it would be different. A permanent change to the only life I’d known. “What I’m feeling isn’t bad or good, it’s just… change.”

From the look in Caleb’s eyes, he understood. “I know what you’re feeling,” he said. “Change, however good, can be unsettling.”

“Did you feel it too, like when you proposed to me?”

He shook his said. “Not when I proposed to you, or when I married you. I felt it when you initially suggested that I come live in The Shade. I don’t need to remind you of how reluctant I was, even after realizing that the bond tying me to Annora’s island had broken.”

I nodded. At the time, he had given me a variety of excuses for his reluctance, like the bad terms that he and my father had left off on, and the general feeling that he just wouldn’t fit in. I guessed at the end of the day, it had been a fear of change.

Caleb still had an expression of mild concern as he looked me over. He dipped down and caught my lips between his, kissing them gently as his hands traced my waist. He raised his head and gazed down at me through his warm, chocolate-brown eyes. He didn’t say anything more, he just held my gaze, and my body close to him. And he couldn’t have done anything better in that moment. The strength of his arms around me felt like an anchor, and the confidence in his eyes warmed me inside, causing the uneasiness in my chest to lift. I might have felt homesick to be leaving my parents, but Caleb’s arms were the only home I needed.

I cleared my throat and returned his confident gaze. “I love you, Caleb,” I said, draping my arms around his neck. “And nothing thrills me more than the thought of starting a life together.”

I kissed him again. His arms tightened around me and he lifted me off the ground, kneading his lips passionately against mine. When he set me back down on my feet, he eyed the bags waiting for us and then my empty bed.