Brynjolf pulled the blanket up closer around himself and tried not to shiver. After three days of fever, suddenly having the cool body temperature of a vampire made him feel even colder and it was a bit of a shock. Neither his Nord blood nor the constant heat of the forge in the next room helped.
Now I know what he meant. No wonder he wanted to be in the bath. I’m sure it gets better. I hope so.
He tried to relax, maybe sleep, but he was too excited. Thoughts were racing, hurtling through his head, tumbling end over end in no logical order as he tried to sort out all the new sensations in his body and the implications of what had just happened to his life.
Well, I’ve really done it this time. Gotten myself into something that I can’t get out of. Died and come back with fangs.
I feel so different.
I can feel how strong Andante is and how weak I am in comparison. I’m going to have to lean on the lad to teach me what I need to know about this.
A Nightlord. I knew what that meant, in theory, but now I can feel what it means and I am in awe. He truly could take any of us down in a moment and yet he hasn’t. He’s just worked alongside us all.
But I can feed on him. I can feed on another vampire. He says that means I’m also strong. I feel strong. Just not nearly as strong as he is. But I will be. If I’m going to have to run the Guild I’m going to take care of it and I will rip the throat out of anyone who ever tries to take us down ever again.
And I’ll enjoy doing it.
He ran his tongue over his fangs. It had been exciting to feel Andante’s fangs, when he kissed him, but to have fangs of his own was exciting in a whole different way. He couldn’t even come close to words for the sensation of pressing them down into Andante’s flesh.
He tasted… good.
He let me do that, even though I didn’t know what I was doing. He trusted me. I might have killed him by mistake but he just let me go ahead, insisted on it, and he tasted so good.
Amazing. I’m ready to go hunting but I should let the lad sleep.
He rolled over and scooted a little closer to Andante’s back. He smiled, and tried to stifle the urge to reach out a hand and start touching him again.
That was also amazing, that little interlude. The two of us go together very nicely.
He grinned to himself, thinking about it.
I can’t quite seem to get enough of him. I’m a wee bit surprised at myself. I would have wagered that we would enjoy each other, after all, but I’m still surprised at myself. He certainly doesn’t seem to mind.
Brynjolf rolled onto his back and felt himself relaxing, just a bit, warming up just a bit.
Huh. I told him about Dynjyl but I never told Dag. I wonder why.
Why would I have, after all. It was decades ago. Another lifetime. She was probably not much more than a child when I was with him.
Except that she did ask, in a roundabout way.
He remembered that moment as vividly as anything that had ever happened to him. He’d been so shaken by what he had done just a few moments earlier as he tried to come to grips with what he’d just learned about Mercer: slamming Dagnell into the wall, growling at her like an animal, then struggling to get a handle on himself and sneering at her idea that Mercer had been in love with Karliah. In spite of it she had swallowed her own anger and turned to him, saying the words that had felt like a knife to the heart.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever been truly in love, but if you haven’t, you don’t know what it’s like when the person you want more than anything in the world is suddenly just gone, completely out of reach.”
But I do know. I was in love with a man married to a wealthy woman, and he died and I know exactly what it’s like. I could have said that, right then, but I didn’t. Maybe it was just the wrong time.
He turned his head to look at Andante again and grinned, picturing him with Dynny’s wife.
I might actually have been after her as well as her necklace, pretty as she was, but for her damnably beautiful and completely irresistible husband. A bad influence, like Andante but worse because he was careless and impulsive and not nearly as good at the game as he thought he was. At least he taught me to be cautious, even if he didn’t intend to.
He reached up and touched his face, the scar that marred it. He could still recall every split second of that first encounter, for time had slowed to a crawl while he’d tried to puzzle out why the woman was shrieking at him and at Dynjyl and determine how big a problem he’d gotten himself into. Then he had spotted the knife and the arm moving while the two of them tried to disentangle, move arms and legs, and stand to face her. He remembered the confusion of the pain erupting along the side of his face, reaching up only to have his hand come away covered in blood, and then grabbing his clothing and dashing for the door, casting a quick glance back at the beautiful cause of his predicament and seeing in his eyes an open invitation: come back to me, Brynjolf, come back when everything has died down and it’s safe. Wondering whether he was now too marred to warrant that invitation.
Not Dynny. He didn’t care about the scar. He thought it made me look dangerous, the wonderful fool. I guess I was dangerous, at least to him.
He could remember every day with Dynjyl, from that first breathless moment when they had both realized their lives had changed forever, until the last second they’d had together. Every adventure they’d had, all the scrapes when one or the other of them had nearly met a bad end, then falling together at the end, giggling like two schoolboys and hoping that Dynjyl’s wife didn’t find out about what they’d done.
He’d have never made it in the Guild. Way too careless. Not a particle of caution in him, that one. And it didn’t matter to me. It should have. Maybe he would still be alive if it had.
I wonder why the gods threw the two of us together like that. Was there something else we were supposed to have learned from each other, aside from “be careful?”
He grimaced.
Maybe it was “Learn how it feels to be in love, Brynjolf, learn it now while you have the chance so that you can torture yourself with the damned memory after it’s taken away from you.” The gods never have liked me very much. I guess I knew it wouldn’t last forever, but I wasn’t ever expecting it to end the way it did.
Still, I keep him with me, all these years later, the beautiful fool. And I always will.
And I keep her with me, too.
He frowned up at the ceiling.
Damn it to Oblivion, Dag.
He closed his eyes and in spite of himself saw her as he’d first seen her, walking around the outside of the stalls to Balimund’s forge, carrying a big bundle of gear on her back, gear that he just knew she’d stolen. He’d kept his eyes on her while he kept up his spiel.
She laughed at me, the little minx. Walked into the marketplace and laughed at my Falmerblood Elixir. I heard that laugh and I should have realized it was all over right that very moment. At the very least I should have known I was done when she called me out in the inn that night, called me Red. That’s when I should truly have realized I was lost, but I didn’t.
Why else would I have watched her everywhere she went. She irritated me. I didn’t want her giving me sass about things and I didn’t want to care about it when she did.
But that’s exactly why she was perfect.
She had the potential to be his equal in every way. He had known that immediately, and had known it was important, because he was worried about the Guild and tired from trying to prop it up. Tough as nails, smart, a quick study, sarcastic and fearless, and she seemed to hold very little regard for his position. She treated him like just another man where the others held him slightly in awe because he was Second.
She didn’t even seem to realize who I was in the scheme of things and didn’t care much even after she did. I liked that. I wouldn’t have admitted it but I really liked that. It was … tantalizing. I couldn’t stop thinking about her and I was angry and irritated and I wanted more. Especially when I saw her in her Guild armor. Gods but she was beautiful. I wanted more but I wasn’t about to let myself approach her. The Guild needed her.
It still does.
He’d just watched. He’d sent her on her way to do the Guild’s business, because the Guild needed her. And when she returned it had stung to hear her call out for Roggi and had stung to see her huddled together with Thrynn. He’d just watched, and moped, and tried not to be too obvious about it, even when she caught him staring at her across the Cistern.
I was so angry when I thought she had sided with Karliah against us, and then glad that she hadn’t. Then I made that stupid mistake, grabbing her and pushing her up against the wall. I look back at it now and I know, even though I didn’t know then. I didn’t want to hurt her. I wanted her. It felt like the gods were laughing at me again. “Look at her, Brynjolf. Look at her every moment that you can and see what you’ll never have. You thought she was gone but she’s not; and you still can’t have her.”
Maybe that’s why I didn’t tell her about Dynny. She would have been able to tell what I was thinking. I couldn’t have kept it out of my voice. I know I couldn’t have. Maybe that’s why.
Andante stirred in his sleep, sighed, and then began to snore lightly. Brynjolf looked at him and smiled, then closed his own eyes again, hoping that perhaps he could relax enough to sleep some as well. But his mind kept churning.
Maybe I was just too afraid of having a little bit of hope only to have it snatched away again. I guess I was right to be afraid of that.
He had watched her growing in strength, in skill, watched her becoming the leader he’d imagined she could be. When they’d found Mercer together and taken him down, and he had held her in Bronze Water Cave and heard her tell him he had beautiful eyes he’d wanted her so badly that it hurt.
I couldn’t believe it when she came to me wearing the Amulet of Mara. Couldn’t imagine that she actually wanted me too and acted like a complete idiot until she finally got it through my thick head. I know we loved each other. I know it. There’s not ever been anything else like that in my life. Nothing at all.
Not even Dynny.
I know he would have gone back to his wife, eventually. I know it. He was basically a good man and he’d made her a promise. He would have gone back. We’d have gotten over each other, eventually. We would always have loved each other but it would have ended.
But I’ll never really be over Dag.
I want her with me. I’d try my best to bury the past if she just came back. They would call me a fool and I wouldn’t care; I want her here, I want to be with her, I want to do everything there is to do in the world – with her. Gods how I want her back.
But she’s not coming back and I have to find a way forward.
He sighed. He had thought it was getting easier. It really wasn’t. His life seemed determined to punish him forever for a few moments of inattention when he was young. But now he had something to distract himself with, something he needed to do. He didn’t have the luxury of putting it off in order to torture himself with regrets. He needed to learn how to be a vampire so that he could survive.
So now what? What do I do about Andante?
He turned his head and looked at the handsome man sleeping beside him, and smiled. Then he rolled toward him and touched his arm, started planting light kisses down his back. Andante stirred, chuckled, and rolled over, and smiled his mischievous smile.
“I’m hungry, lad.”
“All right. Let’s go hunting.” Andante grinned. “If that’s what you’re hungry for, that is.”
I learn from him. I enjoy him. I try to make him happy. We take what we want.
We will see.