His Stoic Mask, Her Bleeding Heart

Chapter 1: One Month

I found myself gazing at my own reflection in the glass tabletop of Elyria's apartment. It was strange, being able to see it. Elyria had always liked to keep it dark in here, finding the shadows more comforting than the light that humans always preferred to be surrounded by. Kyrianna, on the other hand, felt much safer in the light. She'd faced too many traumatic events in the dark - the slaughter of her family, an attack by a group of werewolves a couple of weeks ago, a run-in with a vampire when she was a child - and couldn't take it much anymore.

"It's been a month," the necromancer remarked, her voice so soft that she seemed to merely crack the silence instead of fully break it. I turned to her with my usual stoic expression in place, hiding the thoughts that were constantly running through my head, the plans and the pessimism and the feelings. I found her gazing at me with her sad eyes, casting a faint pink light wherever she looked.

We sat at opposite ends of the couch, though that was much closer than we would have been sitting a month ago. Elyria would've been sitting between us, and we would have hated the fact that we weren't alone with her as we'd so often wished we'd been. The competition we'd felt, the hostility between us, had faded after her passing, growing weaker and weaker until we were more friends than enemies.

"I know," I replied at length, my voice holding about as much emotion as the mask of pale flesh that I wore. I turned to the black screen of the TV, vaguely wondering why we didn't have it on to create some sort of white noise, no matter how quiet or irritating. We could've left it on MTV and neither of us would've cared.

"We should do something." She looked down, watching her fingers as they fidgeted on her lap. "We can't just leave her there..."

I couldn't count the number of times we'd had this conversation. Leaving her with James, letting him use her as a tool of the vampires against the werewolves, was painful to both of us, but there was nothing to be done. I couldn't take on a vampire army by myself, and she lacked the experience and the skill that would be required to help me. Sure, she could knock a few of them off, create a bit of a distraction, but ultimately, even that wouldn't do much good. Hale, their werewolf ally, also offered little assistance. While he'd promised Elyria that he would watch over Kyrianna, getting Elyria back from James didn't seem to be the best idea to him. She would have been a great addition to their forces, but the trouble they would have to go through...It just wasn't worth it.

"Would you like to die now or later?" I asked sarcastically, blatantly mocking her helplessness as I always did. It was mean, I knew, but how else could I react to that? There weren't many kind responses available.

She shot me a glare, but it was tinged with too much hurt to be intimidating. Hell, it wasn't even angry. "You're such a dick." She rarely swore, and the vulgar word made it clear just how badly I'd hurt her...as it always did. We'd repeated this cycle just one too many times...

"I know."

She stood and stalked out of the room as if she were angry, though I could hear her beginning to cry to herself. Elyria's bedroom door slammed shut behind her, leaving me alone in the living room with the cracked silence fully restored.

My eyes rested on the tabletop once more, remembering all the times I'd seen it broken and replaced. I could still hear the sound of her phone when it vibrated against the glass, still see the amethyst glow of her eyes when she leaned over it...

How had I fallen in love with her?

The thought was a sudden one, but not uncommon. I often mulled it over in my overburdened mind, a mind filled with conflicting urges and emotions. I'd come up with only vague answers, though. She'd been a strong woman, stubborn, caring and compassionate in her own distant way. She'd managed to survive more during her childhood and teenage years than anyone else could have. Always, in the end, I decided that this was just how love worked. You didn't need a reason to love someone. You just had to like them more than you hated them.