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Juliette was dying, as hard as she tried to keep her parents from knowing. They had already lost two children, in a way, she wouldn’t be the third and leave them alone.
Her mother had warned her about this long ago, at a time when the blood pills still worked and she couldn’t even think of killing a person. Her kind rarely loved, marrying for political alliances more often than not, but when they did…
A vampire that was lucky enough to find their soulmate, to meet them and taste their blood, would be forever bonded, and if that soulmate was a human, then their only hope was turning that human, or they would surely die. It was the only reason her grandmother didn’t hunt down and kill her father when her mother refused to get married, she could recognize they were soulmates and that the magic kept them bonded to each other.
Calliope was her soulmate, Juliette had been too afraid of telling her parents before, not knowing how they would react, but now that Calliope didn’t want anything to do with her anymore, she couldn’t say anything. It would break her parents’ hearts, and they would try to do something to help and would only make things worse. No, she had to deal with this alone, just as she had managed to hide how ill she was when the blood pills stopped having effect, she would hide this for as long as she could.
-
Calliope was afraid that any day now, someone would realize that she wasn’t cut to be a hunter. She received a certain reputation for being able to locate the largest group of legacies that anyone had ever seen, even if they did manage to get away, but there were rumors about her involvement with Juliette. Even after she underwent the severance, even after she told her she wanted nothing to do with her, the rumors didn’t stop.
It didn’t help that she was so behind Apollo in the number of kills. She couldn’t help but feel that she would never be able to keep up with him. It wasn’t as if she was trying to replace Theo, but she tried to keep their competitiveness alive. The only problem was, she was no competition for Apollo, whenever she managed to get one kill on a hunt, he had already gotten five.
She couldn’t help but feel that everything went wrong when she met Juliette, months ago. Before, she knew what she wanted to be, but now, all she could do was think about her, the terrible thing she was and what she had done, but also how much Calliope still loved her.
Calliope didn’t want anything to do with Juliette, not any more, not after her betrayal. It was hard enough to accept that her brother had died, but having to deal with him being turned, knowing that her family could never accept that, it was more than she could handle. She didn’t know what Juliette was thinking, especially because Juliette had been tempted by Carmen’s offer of turning human. She knew how precious humanity was, and yet she had taken it away from Theo instead of letting him die with it.
And yet, she would be lying if she said she wasn’t still in love with her. It was a complicated feeling, she knew they were enemies and had to stay that way, but she couldn’t tell her heart not to care about Juliette.
-
It all started with a kiss. Their first kiss together, which was appropriate considering how much of their relationship was made of firsts, connections and separations, trust and betrayal.
Juliette was so eager that she kissed Calliope without giving her a moment to consider, and when their lips met, she felt an electric current pass through them. She asked to kiss her again, too concerned about her need to touch her to consider the danger she was putting Calliope in, and then went to bite her without even thinking about it, pure instinct and lust.
It was only when she woke up, with a pain in her chest from where the stake had hit her, that she realized she could still hear Calliope’s heart, although she was no longer in the room. A heart she could hear from anywhere in the world, the true sign of a vampire soulmate, and hers had tried to kill her.
-
Calliope was running through the forest after a ghoul, moving almost through instinct as the thick foliage and new moon made the forest a pith of darkness. In the distance, she could hear her brother’s pleas for her to stop, that it was too dangerous for her to go alone, but she had to. He had sprained his ankle when the ghoul jumped him, and it was her chance to prove that she wasn’t just pretending to be a hunter.
She managed to catch up with it a couple miles into the forest, but missed her first strike. As she moved to reposition herself to try again, the ghoul pushed her hard against one of the trees and the darkness started to close in on her from the edges of her vision.
-
Carmen touched her hand to Juliette’s forehead. She was burning up, which would be already unusual enough for a vampire, but she also couldn’t sense any sort of curse that might justify it.
“I think you were right,” she told Oliver. “If the little hunter girl really is your sister’s soulmate, then she’s in trouble.”
“Isn’t there anything you can do?” he said, not taking his eyes off the window. As soon as his parents arrived, they would have to run from there, but he cared about Juliette, and would want to help her if he could. “She isn’t like them, you know. She’s actually a decent person.’
“Not to save her, only her soulmate can do that. But their dreams have been severed, I could do a spell to reconnect them. Maybe Juliette can convince her to come back,” Carmen said, reaching into her bag for the necessary supplies. “I think I have everything I would need.”
“Then do it, I can’t let Juliette die without at least trying to help. She didn’t ask for any of this, and she might still end up on our side.”
Carmen quickly gathered the herbs, and punctured Juliette’s finger to get a drop of her blood. It showed the state she was in that she didn’t react, although a vampire was usually very protective of their blood.
“This won’t work if either of them rejects the connection,” she warned as she mixed the blood with the rest of the ingredients.
“Then we’re just gonna have to hope they don’t. Quickly, I can hear their car coming.”
Carmen recited the incantation as she spread the paste over Juliette’s eyes, and watched it disappear into the skin as she finished it.
-
When Calliope opened her eyes, she was still in the forest. Only it was… different. Dark still, but somewhat ethereal, a tense fog covering everything around her.
In the distance, she could see someone in a red ball dress, running away from her. Not knowing what to do, she went after her. She didn’t know how far she went into the forest, she might as well be walking in circles, but the woman was always just beyond her, a distant glance that quickly disappeared.
She stopped to catch her breath, trying to understand what was happening, and when she did, a hand touched her shoulder.
Turning, she saw that the woman was Juliette, and that her dress wasn’t red as it had seemed, but white and stained with blood. Her long hair was decorated in white roses, and their petals too were stained with blood. She seemed like a bride in a horror story, covered in the blood of who had tried to claim her.
“Juliette? What are you…?’
Juliette started to cry blood, and terrified, Calliope realized that this wasn’t blood from a massacre, but Juliette’s own blood that stained the dress.
-
Juliette woke up with a gasp. It was the first time in months she had dreamt of Calliope, and something told her this was the connection between them, not a simple dream. She tried to stand, but found that she didn’t have the strength, and it didn’t take long for her mother to come rushing to her room.
“Sebastian, she’s awake,” her mother yelled, coming to sit next to her in bed. She touched Juliette’s cheeks and forehead, frowning. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” she lied. Not very convincingly, as her voice came out weak. “Just tired.”
“She’s burning up,” she told him as he rushed into the room.
Juliette could see that both of them were worried, which was the last thing she wanted. She had tried so hard to pretend that everything was ok, but now it was clear that she couldn’t do that anymore. She knew she was dying, it was just a matter of time, and there wasn’t anything they could do to stop this. But she had hoped there would be more time, she hadn’t been sick until now, although she knew it was coming.
“I’m fine, I must have caught a bug or something,” she tried, knowing how weak of an excuse it was.
“Honey, you don’t think this could be…?” her father started.
“Have you talked to Calliope at all since she left town?” her mother asked, clearly guessing what he was trying to say.
She shook her head. “She hates me. I was the one who turned her brother, when I told her, she said she would never want to see me again,” she confessed, feeling the warm tears fall from her eyes.
She pressed her eyes together, trying to contain the tears, for a moment forgetting she was with family and it didn’t matter if she was crying blood. She hadn’t told her parents about Theo, because it was taboo for legacies to turn humans unless they intended to make them their servants. She made him and let him go, and she was sure her parents would hate her for it.
Her mother sighed. “I wondered why Elinor would have done that, but I never imagined…”
“Margot, we have something more important to deal with,” her father warned. “If this is what we think, she doesn’t have much time.”
“I know,” Juliette said, “but it doesn’t matter. I deserve to die for what I did to her, I betrayed her trust and now she’s never gonna want to see me again.”
Her mother pulled her close, kissing away the tears of blood on her face, being immune to their poison as all other legacies. “I’m sure you were doing what you thought was best, we’ll figure something out.”
-
After Calliope woke up, Apollo won’t stop fussing over her, wanting to make sure that she was ok, and that she wasn’t going to tell their mother anything. Maybe one of those things more than the other, but she wasn’t sure which.
She could understand his worry. They were both still grieving for Theo, since although he wasn’t dead, he was dead to them. They already lost one brother, so all they had was each other, and they had to have each other’s back.
Maybe that was the reason why she ran into the forest by herself. If Theo was there, that was what he would have done to a monster that injured his brother, so she had to do the same. Despite the competition, they were siblings, and she couldn’t bear losing another brother.
For the rest of the night he wouldn’t stop pestering her, checking for a concussion and making sure that she really was fine, but she tried not to hold it against him. She wasn’t the one who was there when Theo lost his humanity, she didn’t know what it was like to be on the hunt and have someone she loved taken out. So if fussing was part of his grief, she could tolerate it.
But the next day she skipped school, needing a moment by herself to think. The place where they were not only had a nice forest, but beautiful mountain trails, so she went for a hike by herself. She still had a knife and a stake, so it wasn’t as if she was defenseless, and she could use the time to think.
The great thing about a hike was, the world disappeared. It didn’t take long for her to lose phone signal, and in the morning of a workday, there wasn’t anyone in that trail. She wondered what Theo was doing, if he was still alive, or some other hunter got to him. He knew the way they worked, so maybe he would be able to keep himself alive, but she couldn’t be sure.
The dream, if she could count something that happened while she was unconscious from a hit to the head as a dream, brought to the surface all those feelings for Juliette that she kept trying to snuff out. They were sworn enemies, a legacy vampire and a monster hunter, there was no way that things could work between them, and yet there she was, thinking of her again.
It was almost noon by the time she reached the top of the trail, where the mountain looked over the city. Before, she had often considered that there was no reason for Juliette to have done what she did, but that wasn’t exactly true. As much as Juliette might not want to be a vampire, she knew it was possible to live like that without hurting innocent people, and in a way, she had lost a brother too. Maybe she thought that it would be better for Calliope to have her brother like this than to not have him at all. It was horrible, yes, but now that he was out there, she couldn’t help but think that her anger should have been at Elinor for killing him, not at Juliette for turning him.
Whatever the case, it was too late now. She hadn’t talked to Juliette in months, even if she was ready to forgive her, which she didn’t know if she was, Juliette was far away now, and Calliope’s parents would never let her see her. Even if her dream made her wonder if there was something wrong with Juliette.
-
Margot had convinced Juliette to take a bath, in the hopes that the lukewarm bath would help with her fever, which hadn’t broken since it started the day before. It didn’t help, so she carried Juliette back to her room and helped her get dressed, before sitting on the bed with Juliette between her legs to brush her hair as she did when Juliette was a baby just so that she would feel like she was doing something useful. Her baby girl was sick, and there wasn’t anything that she could do to stop it, short of kidnapping that human girl and trying to force her to forgive Juliette.
It was the worst feeling of her life, knowing that she had failed all of her children. She couldn’t save her daughter, but she could take care of her. So she brushed Juliette’s hair, molding the long strands into a braid, and tried to keep the tears from staining her hair.
-
“You want to do what?” Apollo asked, as if she had suggested the most absurd thing in the world.
Maybe she had.
“I need to see Juliette, I keep having this same dream and I think she’s in trouble. You have to go to that side of the country anyway, just convince mom and dad to let you take me with you.”
“A hunting trip is not a road trip. Besides, I thought you were done with the vampire.”
Calliope declined to mention how it kind of was. She had only been in one so far, and had been told to stay in the car when the actual hunting happened, but they did stop at some landmarks and took pictures. They even went to a roadside museum. That sounded like a road trip as far as she was concerned, only one that involved a little more monsters than usual.
“I’m not sure I can forgive her for Theo, but she wasn’t the one to kill me. And mom thinks he’s better off as a vampire than dead, so maybe she has a point. I think… I think Juliette is sick. Really sick, like she might be dying.”
“She’s a legacy, it seems like nothing kills those things.”
“I can’t explain, but for the past three days, I have had this feeling. It’s like my heart is going to stop, and I know that it’s because of her. I think she’s in real trouble.”
Apollo sighed. “Fine, but just because I know you’ll find a way to go even if I say no, so I better watch out for you.”
-
Juliette kept dreaming of the forest. A dark, ethereal forest she didn’t know. Calliope was there, always just beyond her reach, but whenever she tried to find her, she woke up. She didn’t know why their dreams became connected again, although it had happened when she first got sick a few days before.
Not that it mattered. Even if she could talk to Calliope, which she hadn’t been able to in the dreams, Calliope wouldn’t want to help her. She was clear the last time she saw her, Calliope would sooner try to kill her than save her.
-
The universe must be against her, because every single song on the radio was about love.
“Will you quit that? If you don't want to listen to music just shut it off,” Apollo complained, slapping her hand away from the car radio.
“It’s not that, I just…” she dropped it, letting the song play. At least the music would take care of some of the silence between them.
As far as road trips went, taking his baby sister to make bad decisions had to be the worst kind that Apollo was ever on, because he had barely said a word to her since they started.
She looked out the window, trying not to pay attention to the radio. It was night already, and as they crossed the desert, the stars were visible in a way that they never were in the city. They were beautiful, and she couldn’t help but wonder if Juliette was looking at those same stars. Probably not, the whole reason why she was doing this was because she thought Juliette was in trouble, she wasn’t stargazing in her room thinking of Calliope.
If she even still thought of Calliope at all.
-
When Juliette next woke up, she was sure she must have been hallucinating, because she saw Calliope at the door of her room.
“Have you come to kill me?” she asked in a raspy voice, unsure if what she was seeing was even real.
Calliope shook her head, approaching the bed slowly.
“I… I dreamt of you, I knew you were sick. Your parents won’t tell me what you have, but they said my blood might help,” Calliope said, sitting next to Juliette and offering her wrist to her.
Juliette turned her face. “You don’t have to do this, I know you hate me for what I did.”
Calliope held her by her chin and turned her face. “I still do, a little. But I love you more than that, and I can’t let you suffer,” she said, then pressed her lips to Juliette briefly before offering her wrist again.
This time, Juliette wasn’t strong enough to resist. She bit down, making Calliope gasp, and drank. Not until she was satisfied, not until the hunger was gone, but until that hole in her heart seemed to be filled. Too soon, she felt the darkness take her, and dropped her head back, unconscious.
-
“I don’t understand, did I do something wrong?” Calliope asked Margot, looking at Juliette.
“No, you did everything right, but Juliette has been sick for nearly a week now, her body needs time to recover,” Margot said, placing a hand on Calliope’s shoulder. “Thank you for this.”
“I still don’t understand why she’s sick. Is this a legacy thing? The Guild doesn’t have anything about legacies getting sick, at least not that I know of.”
“It’s… complicated. Juliette can tell you when she wakes up, if she wishes, but it’s not something that is mine to share.”
Calliope hated that answer, but she couldn’t argue with it. It wasn’t a good idea to start a fight there, not with the history between her families, and the last thing she wanted was for Apollo to misinterpret a verbal fight from downstairs and start trying to kill people.
“When is she going to wake up?”
“Soon, I hope. I’ll leave you two here, if you need anything you can call me.”
-
Juliette woke up slowly, taking in the morning sun. For the first time in days, she felt her head clear, which didn’t make much sense, because then she shouldn’t be seeing what she was seeing, Calliope laying with her head on Juliette’s chest, sleeping while sitting on the bed.
“Callie? What are you doing here?” she asked, so shocked that she didn’t have time to worry about waking her up.
Calliope snapped awake. “Juliette? How are you feeling? Your mother wouldn’t tell me what you had, but she said my blood would make you better.”
Suddenly, Juliette remembered what had happened. After months apart, her body finally started to succumb to the separation illness that happened when a vampire was rejected by their soulmate. Calliope’s blood would have helped, but if she left again, Juliette wasn’t sure if she wasn’t going to get sick again. And yet, she couldn’t ask her to stay because of this.
“Thank you for helping me, I know it couldn’t have been easy.”
“Actually, it was. Deciding to come here was hard, but when I saw you like that, it was easy to help you. I’m still in love with you, I don’t think I can ever let go of that,” Calliope said.
Before Juliette had a chance to ask her what she meant, Calliope kissed her.
-
Of all the irresponsible things she had ever done, this had to take the cake, but she had come too far to still deny what she felt.
She climbed on top of Juliette without breaking the kiss, and Juliette pulled the covers away from in between them so that they could be closer. She pressed their bodies closer together, thinking of how the first time they did this, it was in a park where they could have easily gotten caught.
Then, she remembered that until not long before, Juliette was unconscious from some unknown illness. “Are you ok to do this?” she asked, out of breath.
“I… yeah, sure, great. I mean, I’m good,” Juliette said, flustered. The way she struggled to find her words was adorable.
Calliope took off her shirt, revealing the lacy red bra she had brought in secret before they had their fight. Maybe she had already decided to forgive Juliette for longer than she would like to admit it, because she had packed it, and gotten through the trouble of taking a shower and putting the sexy lingerie on in the last roadside motel she slept in.
“You look so beautiful,” Juliette said, reaching over to cup her breast over the bra.
“You can still drink more from me,” she said, offering her neck. “You barely took anything.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I know you won’t,” Calliope said, scratching over her chest just enough to break the skin and pulling Juliette forward to take her.
Juliette licked the wound to close, then bit her down on the other side, only drinking a sip before closing that wound too. This was probably the type of thing they should have discussed earlier, but Calliope found that she loved feeling Juliette’s mouth on her, taking her blood little by little, knowing she wouldn’t go too far.
Juliette adjusted them so she was sitting with Calliope on her lap, and worked a hand into Calliope’s pants.
She couldn’t believe how excited she already was just from having her blood sucked, and when Juliette pressed two fingers instead of her, she grabbed Juliette by the hair and pulled her to bite on Calliope’s neck.
Calliope bit her lip to try to remain quiet, and she must have cut herself, but Juliette realized before she did, kissing her through the blood and making the wound close. That was enough to push her over the edge, and Juliette swallowed her moans as she came.
-
Juliette couldn’t believe what had just happened. If it was the blood, the sex, or just the fact that Calliope was no longer rejecting her, she didn’t know, but she felt better than she had in ages. She liked to think that there was something magical about making love when two people were as in love as they were, so maybe it was that. After all, the few books about soulmates and vampires did talk of rejection and consummated love, so maybe they just had to consummate it again after they broke up.
“Will you ever tell me what made you sick?” Calliope asked, snuggling closer to her.
There was no point in hiding this from her now. Before, Juliette didn’t want to tell her and force her to help when she still hated her, but now, it was obvious that Calliope still wasn’t over her. They were both heads over heels in love, because both of them were each other’s soulmate, this wasn’t just some one sided thing.
“You’re my soulmate, I was sick because you left, and I got better because you came back.”
Calliope turned her head up to face her. “So sleeping with me and taking my blood were the only things that could save your life? Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
“I didn’t want you to come back because you felt like you had some obligation. I love you, and I know I hurt you.”
“You did, but I know you were trying to do the right thing. Mom helped Theo escape, I guess she agrees with you that he’s better as a vampire than dead.”
“I’m sorry about what my sister did. If I could have stopped her…”
“I know, but it’s not your fault. I don’t know what’s gonna happen now, I can’t leave my family, and I won’t stop hunting monsters that are dangerous to people, but I love you, and I want to stay with you.”
Juliette placed a hand over Calliope’s. “Then we’re going to figure things out, together.”