Chapter Thirty-Four: Raid Vaziri

Present day

Outskirts of Albemarle, NC

"Over my dead body!" Raid snapped.

He caught up with Stef as she walked quickly towards the stairs. What was she thinking? That it would destroy their friendship if she fed on him again? It had already happened twice. Granted, she didn't realize what was going to happen the first time and was too weak to refuse the second time, but he wasn't about to let her do this with someone else – someone she didn't even know. That wasn't her. He knew she would regret it if she went ahead with it.

"You're not doing this, Stef," he continued, following her up the stairs. "If you're not feeding on me, then don't do the spell to protect me."

"It's not just you I'm thinking about," she said. "It protects Adam too."

"Then neither of us will go to the meeting. We'll be safe here."

Stef stopped mid-step and turned. "Even if you stayed behind, you wouldn't be safe. I put up the wards to this house, a coven of witches could still take them down if I'm not here."

Raid was beginning to get frustrated with the way Stef had answers prepared for everything. Every thought she had was like a constant risk analysis for saving her friends. They reached her bedroom door and Raid clutched the handle, preventing her from opening it.

"Tell me you wouldn't prefer it to be with me," he said. "If you can tell me that, I'll drop it."

Stef stood facing the door, lowering her eyes. She didn't want to lie to him. "I would prefer it to be you," she whispered honestly.

"Then let it be me," he whispered back. He wasn't telling her, he was begging her.

Stef sighed softly, looking up at him. He didn't understand what he was asking of her. He had been back in her life for two days. Everything he was experiencing right now had been her life for over three years. This wasn't his life. She wasn't his life. If she went ahead with this, it would be amazing for a moment... then the moment would be over. He would return to his old life, and she would be yearning for another moment like that again for the rest of hers. There would never be another chance for them like there was for Gabe and Winifred. Raid had one life to live and it wasn't going to be as long as hers.

Stef then thought of her parents. She knew the story: her mother was a human, swept up in the world of vampires. She had not once told Stef that she regretted it, but Stef also couldn't keep track of the amount of people her mother had lost as a result. So much sadness attached to so many memories. She wondered if her mother could even look at old photos without mourning a little each time.

Her parents had wanted Stef to have a normal life, but instead they were going to eventually find out that she was a vampire. There was no avoiding it, and she knew it was going to break their hearts. Everything they had already been through, they would have to live through again: all the risk, all the danger. Her parents didn't want this for her. So why would she ever want Raid to be part of this either? She shouldn't give him a reason to stay.

But she also couldn't hurt him by pushing him away.

Stef had told Raid the truth. Now she needed him to do the same for her. "Raid, do you know the risks of being close to a vampire?" she asked.

"I don't care what the risks are," he stated without hesitation.

Stef shook her head in disappointment, moving his hand from the door handle. "Then you don't know the risks," she confirmed solemnly. She open the door to her room. "I need to get dry. If you know the answer before I leave, maybe you can change my mind." Without another word, she went inside and closed the door.

Raid remained outside wondering where he was going wrong. He said he didn't care about the risks. He was prepared to accept them all. What answer could she possibly want? He walked in a confused daze back towards the stairs.

Then he saw Phoenix waiting on the steps for him.

"Couldn't help but overhear," Phoenix said, sitting down on the top step. "Of course, that was because I was listening." He gave a short chuckle to lighten the mood, but it was filled with too much concern to brighten either of them. He patted the step next to him, inviting Raid to sit, which he did. "Want my advice?"

"Please," Raid answered, eager to hear anything that might help.

"Do you know why Stef and I slept together?"

Raid's eagerness deflated, annoyance setting in. "That's not advice."

"Hear me out," Phoenix continued, undeterred. "Imagine the scene. Two friends, both vampires, recently turned. She couldn't tell her parents. I couldn't tell mine. An eternity in front of us, just the two of us. Now, I may act like nothing gets me down, but – damn it, Raid – when she went off to Oxford, I had nobody. I mean, I'd already met Gabe at that point, so I had him, but he was hundreds of years old and a moody asshole most of the time, he couldn't replace the friendship I had with her. Stef and I went through something big together, and when she left, I felt a loneliness like I'd never felt before. Then when she came back the summer after her first year..." Phoenix sucked in a breath, letting it out slowly. He wasn't comfortable baring his emotions; he wasn't even comfortable feeling them this deeply. "I needed her, Raid. I missed her so much, and she felt the same way. We needed each other in a way that broke every friendship boundary – blame it on vampires' heightened emotions, I don't know – but we needed each other because each other was all we had."

Raid hated that she had felt that way. It was so easy to forget that she had gone through this practically by herself. "So that's the risk? The loneliness?" he asked, hoping that was the answer. "Is she scared I'm going to leave?"

"She's scared you won't," Phoenix replied. "You're high risk, Raid, you act without thinking, even your cousin said so. She'd been hiding the fact that you're a witch for three years and you exposed that within a day."

"To save her," Raid reminded him. "What did you expect me to do? Let Cristian stake her?"

"Let me tell you something," Phoenix sighed. "Last summer she joined Gabe in tracking down a sex trafficking ring in Texas – orders of the Council since the kidnappers were suspected to be vampires. She tracked them to an isolated barn, but there were more than either of them bargained for. They staked her in the heart and that's when she discovered that it didn't cause her to die instantly. She had seconds to rectify it with her magic. She turned the stake into a damn carrot – a carrot, Raid! And, believe me, when her ribs shredded it after pulling it out, she spent the rest of the week having to manually dig carrots julienne from out of her organs and from under her skin. That shit was way too fine and flexible to draw out with magic." Phoenix tried to gauge whether Raid was understanding his point, but he continued to stare at him inquisitively. Phoenix locked his fingers together, shaking his head. When was he going to get it? "Stef still had her magic when you saved her, Raid, she wasn't going to die. She's stronger than you. She's more powerful than you. She's more experienced than you at all of this. But you still don't trust that she knows what she's doing."

Raid rested his elbows on his knees, lowering his head. "I do trust her. I just want to help her. What's wrong with that?"

"Acting on impulse doesn't help her. You've joined this game thinking you can win, but you don't know the tactics, you don't know the players, and – like she said – you don't know the risks," Phoenix informed him. "She's not the same person she used to be. You need to prove you can work together to earn her trust."

Raid was beginning to understand. He still saw Stef as exactly the same girl he knew three and a half years ago. The girl who didn't drink, with the shy smile and the asshole boyfriend. The girl who was cowering on her knees in front of Cristian in his last memory of her. Between those days and now was a huge gap of her life that he had missed. He needed to fill that gap. He needed to learn who she was now. He needed to learn everything. "What does she want me to know? What's the risk of being close to her?"

Phoenix smiled. Finally he was getting it. "Hurt," he stated. "Hurt is the risk. Her getting hurt. You getting hurt. Any of her friends getting hurt. Her parents getting hurt. You might have noticed, but avoiding that seems to be her damn goal in life. She can't even tell her parents she's a vampire. I mean, her father has a torture basement for vampires, who can blame her for hiding it from him? Her parents would be upset, Cristian has her believing she's a monster, and even you can't accept that she's not the fragile person she was when she was human. So she pushes everyone away. Except there's no avoiding the inevitable. One day she will lose everyone, and so will I. Then it will be back to just being me and her. That's what we realized the night we slept together and I guess we both thought it would be so much easier if we could find that kind of love with each other."

"But you didn't?" Raid asked.

"No, we did. In fact, you're gate-crashing our honeymoon, could you give us some privacy?" Phoenix answered sarcastically.

Raid chuckled lightly. "Right. Stupid question." He just didn't understand how anyone could not fall in love with her. But was Phoenix right? Was Raid still in love with the person she used to be?

For a moment, Phoenix laughed along with him, but then he slowly turned serious, realizing their conversation was ready to come to an end. "You're dealing with a woman who's afraid of everyone getting hurt. Can you guarantee that she won't get hurt? That you won't? That anyone won't?"

Raid knew immediately. "No," he replied softly.

Phoenix shrugged. "Then there's your answer." As he walked down the stairs, he stopped on the lower landing, offering a final piece of advice. "We both have defense mechanisms, Raid. I'm a joker, she's a fighter. You're going to have to acknowledge that and call her out on it. Show her you love her for who she is now, not who she used to be."

Raid nodded. "You know, Phoenix, I actually prefer you when you're not joking."

Phoenix wagged his finger at him. "Call her out on it, Raid, not me. I'm fucking hilarious and intend to stay that way." He then tilted his head, hearing the sound of Stef's hairdryer being switched off. "She's ready. This is your chance. Don't fuck it up. Remember, work with her, just like you did on the Hanging Fields, when the witches enhanced your powers and you gave them to her."

Raid drew his eyebrows together. "The witches gave the powers directly to her. They didn't come from me."

"They must have," Phoenix said, shaking his head. "Stef's never been able to generate fire. You could have fought for her. Instead you gave her what she needed to fight for herself. So keep doing that."

Then, with a wink and smile, Phoenix left.