Reckless

Chapter 15 Part 1

Present Day

Character POV: Roxanne

Ariadne has been slowly summoning all of her vampires from across the globe to congregate in the area so she can march straight into a fight with Analize without having to wait. All she needed was to get me on board or convince me to just stand aside, and then everything else was lined up. By the time everyone is assembled, my leg is throbbing so bad that I have to sway on my feet to relieve the weight on my leg. I put weight on my left leg for as long as I can before my leg starts to cramp, and then I am forced to put weight on my right, bad leg. But after a about an hour of doing this, after the four hours I spent on my feet about a day ago, I have to bite my lip to keep from crying out from the sharp pain in my leg that's even worse now that my senses are un-dulled.

We're in the back area of the club again, behind the dance floor, waiting for Zebulun to tell us that everyone is here. Ariadne casts a glance at me every few minutes, but she says nothing. I try to stop fidgeting and shifting my weight because that only draws attention to my leg which is the last thing that I want. Enough people have already pointed out my weakness there, the last thing I need is to go in front of a bunch of vampires who already hate me looking like a weak target. It doesn't matter that their leader loves me, the history that I have with her. Vampires are capable of intense emotions beyond the normal mortal scope. If they decide to pin blame for all of their woes in this war on me, there's not going to be much that Ariadne can do, short of killing them. That's what I don't want to happen. We're going to need as many immortal, magically-graced individuals as we can get when we got up against Analize.

At that moment, someone else steps into the back room. I stall as I see Sita walk in, even as she shoots Ariadne and I a radiant smile. In her hands is an intricately carved black cane with a metal Celtic wolf head on it. She stops in front of Ariadne and hands it to her. "As you requested, my liege." She winks at Ariadne then, and Ariadne completely ignores her joking nature as she lifts the cane from Sita's hands and turns towards me.

Sita turns her attention on me then as she says, "You're looking much better now than when I last saw you. Smell better, too. You don't smell of sourness and alcohol anymore." She beams at that and looks between Ariadne and I and says, "And congrats to you both on rekindling your romance." I watch mutely as she reaches up and touches a carved necklace which has the image of a man on it, the way her face is drawn as she does so, but she quickly recovers, lowering her hand and nodding in farewell to the both of us before she turns and leaves.

It happens so fast that I have no idea what I'm feeling about it. Seeing another one of my exes around and how she is just so at ease makes me feel a little better. I may have been using her as a distraction, but from the way that she was holding onto that image of someone else, it looks like I was equally as much of a distraction for her. There's no hard feelings there, something which I cannot say of any of the men that I used to distract me from the gaping hole left in my life when I left Ariadne to save her from dying.

When Sita is gone and that distraction is out of my eye sight, all of my focus goes to Ariadne and the cane in her hands. "It's beautiful," I remark, and I mean it. It's not the image of a cane that springs to mind in my head when everyone has commented that I need one. No, the image that pops into my mind is a four-pronged silver thing with holes on the side to adjust the height and a spongy handle. You know, the kind that you see an elderly person using. But this cane that Ariadne has in her hands is a work of art, clearly hand-made. You don't get that level of detail from a machine. It must have cost a fortune and taken forever to come together. I see the way that the wolf's teeth are visible, sharp as if they were real, as the wolf's ears are back and its face is set in a snarl. This cane project an image of strength, not illness.

Ariadne nods to me as she hands it over and I slowly take it in my hands. "It's for you," she declares, as if it wasn't already obvious. Her violet eyes never leave my face as she watches me closely to gauge my reaction. "Press the button under its jaw," she tells me, and I find it. Instantly, there's a "zing" noise and I jump back a little as a sharp knife tip protrudes from the tip of the cane. No, this is no ordinary cane at all. This is a weapon. Ariadne steps closer to me as she says, "Every argument you have ever made against having a cane goes out of the window with this one. I'm tired of watching you pretend that there's nothing wrong while you're in pain the whole while. It's stupid. Really, it makes you look like the source material for every dumb blonde joke."

I scowl at her as I press the button again and hear the "whoosh" sound as the knife slides back into place on the inside of the cane. "You know that those jokes are highly sexist, right?" She smiles broadly at me as I continue, "Sexist, as in the same thing that you punished David for."

"If you don't want to give sexist men more to work with, then you'll stop being stupid and you'll use the cane, won't you?" She presses, arching a manicured brown brow at me in a defiant, dominant gesture. I look away from her then and back to the cane, and I just stand there staring at it for a long moment like it is completely out of my reach even though it is in my hands and ready to be used.

Ariadne steps up to my side as she pulls the head of the cane into the appropriate hand to hold onto it with and says calmly, "You are not weak. This is not a reflection of your capabilities. This is not a reflection of who you are. You are one of the strongest people I have ever met. You just found out the truth about your sister's death, and you would have every right to just curl up into a tight ball and not move for another century. Instead, you wanted to summon the others and move on Analize as soon as possible." I look at her then, feeling my eyes beginning to burn. Her gaze hardens and turns fierce as she says, "You are capable of flattening anyone, of burning a whole forest to the ground, with your magic. You are strong, no matter if you have a cane or not. But your body needs help sometimes, because you have survived and your body has taken some hits to ensure that you still live, that you get to have better days. You owe your body a little breathing room after all it has done for you. And that's where the cane comes in," she says, turning the cane so that the tip faces the ground. Her hand rests atop mine as she encourages me to put weight on the cane. "You have already endured so much pain, there is no reason to put yourself through any added pain. And if someone ever tries to use the cane to their advantage, that's where the nice sharp knife comes in," she adds with a wicked grin. "Then you can show them just how wrong they were about you."