FOUR (RUBY POV)

Trigger warning: suicidal thoughts. I don't usually do this but it was hard to write a couple of paragraphs of this chapter and I think they'll be hard to read too. 

Also... wink at jekyll23 She knows why... I love that tattoo... 

"You'll get used to this," Iselen smiles for a second from the other side of the table before taking another bite of her egg and avocado sandwich.

"Sorry, what?" I ask confused and fidget on my chair, the vampire makes me feel awkward every time she looks at me, I get the impression that her eyes stop for a split second on my neck where my pulse is beating and I can't help remembering that she can smell my blood. Everybody living in the Wind Rose seems to assume that she can control her impulses but I'm not that sure taking into account the way she looks at me sometimes.

"You've yawned... It's after midnight but you'll get used to this. I'm a nocturnal animal, for obvious reasons, and the wolf is one of those too even if she can walk under the sun... She prefers not to do it, usually, and certainly not in summer because it's too hot and she can't take off her fur coat." Terra snorts amused and nods while eating her chicken and bacon sandwich sitting next to me. "People living in this house end up adapting to our schedule because... it's easier, I guess."

"Otherwise, you'd never see anyone... She's totally useless during day time and, if you try to force her to get up for whatever reason, she walks through the corridor like a sleepwalker crashing against the furniture... She doesn't remember anything the next day." The werewolf chuckles drinking her tea while the vampire stares at her with squinty eyes.

"So that's why my legs hurt and I have bruises on my arms when I wake up sometimes... At least, I'm a fast healer."

"Terra! Sorry..." Raven apologizes immediately when I turn around, startled, I'm not used to see her wings and horns yet but this girl is lovely, shy and kind. "Maeve wants to know if you can help her in the garden. The fairies have built a ring with magical mushrooms to dance with elves but the dogs have stormed into the lawn, even the ghost dog of the hunter that has been haunting the old cabin in the back garden for a century, and now everything is a mess..." I get up, scared, but the beautiful blue-eyed woman puts her hand on my shoulder smiling reassuringly.

"I'll take care of this, I bet it's not serious... Chaos is something we face every day in the Wind Rose." The werewolf walks out of the kitchen through the French doors leaving me alone with the vampire who has finished her sandwich and drinks a glass of wine slowly... I hope it's only wine. I look at her suspiciously and she smiles mischievously raising her glass at me in a toast but remains silent.

"So... I could sneak in your bedroom in the morning and stab your heart with a stake," I whisper angrily. I'm fed up with this girl making fun of me and trying to scare me: I fail to see the humor in her jokes, to be honest.

"That's not a good idea," she answers still smiling but her tone of voice has turned serious. "When I feel threatened, I wake up totally refreshed and can become pretty... violent. In addition to that, the stake doesn't work, it's only a legend that people from Transylvania believe: if you hammer a corpse inside the coffin, they won't get up to drink blood during the night." Iselen rolls her eyes and smiles again, leaving the glass on the table. "If you want to kill me, you should cut off my head, burn my body and scatter the ashes under the bright sunlight... Obviously, I won't let you get close to me if I see you carrying an axe, I'm strong and very fast..."

"But not invulnerable," I whisper frowning. My hand has moved on its own will and I put my fingers around her left wrist where a tattoo is standing out against her pale skin. "Hell couldn't hold me..." I read slowly while my thumb rubs the scars over her veins. "I thought vampires were perfect, that they became more beautiful than humans and all their wounds vanished without leaving a trace."

"Not all of them..." Iselen answers quietly, it's the first time I see her behaving so seriously since I've met her, and pulls her arm slightly forcing me to release her. "Scars of wounds that brought you very close to death remain on our skin, I guess they remind us that we aren't invulnerable, as you said..."

"What happened?" I ask worried. Suddenly, I feel awful because I thought badly of this creature since I suspect that her "I don't give a damn" attitude is a wall she's built to protect herself from pain... I know that game well because I've played too. "You haven't told me how you turned into a vampire, actually..." Iselen takes a deep breath and leans back on her chair, taking a nervous look at the terrace door through which Terra has vanished some minutes ago. "You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want..."

"I was different..." she whispers quietly, reluctantly, and keeps her eyes fixed on the garden lit up by the iridescent wings of fairies. "Since I was a teenager, I realized I wasn't interested in the same things my friends liked... In fact, I was interested in my female friends..." I nod encouraging her to keep talking and she smiles sadly. "It's a typical story, actually: young lesbian living in a very conservative community, where the priest threatened with the fire of hell all of those who dared to step out of the established norm, my family loved me and supported me, my dad was a man with an open mind that let his daughter learn how to read and write... But accepting she loved other women instead of marrying a guy and having babies till she died in childbirth... No, that would be too much."

"Yes, you're right, it's an old story... Most women accepted their destiny and hid their true nature, I guess."

"Not me... I couldn't lie to myself and it was hard for me to lie to other people. I was obsessed with my problem, I thought of it all the time, I didn't understand what was wrong with me... I didn't sleep, hardly ate, I turned grumpy... My parents thought I was going through a phase of adolescence and decided that I needed a husband as soon as possible. I was terrified, I knew I couldn't live the way they wanted... I talked to a priest who didn't know me when we visited the market of a nearby town, he heard my confession and was horrified... He told me Satan was tempting me to choose an unnatural path that God loathed and I was doomed... I was just a girl and ran away from that church, scared, I thought I couldn't be saved, that I was beyond redemption and going to hell so... Why should I care?"

"I'm so sorry..." I whisper holding her hand again and she looks down, frowning, surprised when feeling the heat of my skin.

"There's a hole in my head, a very deep and dark pit that's scary but also fascinating... When you look at it, it hypnotizes you. At first, I didn't realize I was leaning over the edge and slipping down the slope and, suddenly, I was falling but it was too late to ask for help. I tried to grab onto the walls till my hands were bleeding but couldn't stop and, when I hit the ground, I felt excruciating pain running through my body, it felt like all my bones were broken and my brain was burning. Darkness is thick down there and you feel blind, absolute nothingness surrounds you and suffocates you till you feel you can't breathe, you scream terrified but no one can hear you and you feel so exhausted... You only want the pain to stop and sleep forever... You can't fight anymore." Iselen sighs while my thumb rubs the palm of her hand and I try to hold back my tears.

"I know, I've been in the horrible pit before."

"I learnt a very hard lesson down there... They lie to us, you know." I frown, bewildered, and she smiles sadly. "When we're kids they tell us that love will save us, our parents, teachers, priests... They say that love conquers all... but the truth is that love is not enough, Ruby Rose. My family loved me, my friends, my pets and neighbors too... But that pit is so deep and massive that all my siblings and mother's love couldn't fill it, no matter how hard they tried to extend their arms, they were unable to reach me down there to help me to get back to the light... There's nothing inside there, no love or compassion, music or beauty... only pain. And it's nobody's fault, it wasn't my fault to fall in that hole or my family's fault because they didn't notice I was slipping down the slope... They loved me and I loved them too... But that's the way the pit is, deep and dark, and pain is too much... I just wanted to sleep..."

"What happened?" The vampire chuckles and, for a second, she's the shameless girl that made fun of me and scared me to death again.

"I hid behind the barn, took a knife and cut my veins, I looked down... and passed out." I blink staring at her in disbelief. "Yes, I know, isn't it ironic? Iselen, the human, felt dizzy when seeing blood before turning into a vampire... I couldn't cut my other wrist and that saved my life, I guess, although I was very weak when my father found me, he told my mom I'd had an accident and was sick for a while till I recovered fully. We never talked about it despite I knew my father was watching me closely but never told my family what he suspected had happened. Unfortunately, he was too busy helping those vampires to pay attention to me and got money in exchange, we had more food on our table during those months and they bought me a new dress... He thought that would make me happy."

"And then, werewolves arrived..." I whisper and she nods, pulling her arm away and freeing her hand from my grip gently.

"Yes, I found my family torn to pieces, literally, blood splashed everywhere and the smell was indescribable... I recognized my mother thanks to a piece of scalp with brown hair on the kitchen floor close to the fireplace... God, those mutts were fucking wild, merciless killers... Vampires weren't better but I had no choice, no one asked my opinion. I guess I was still in shock when I took a knife, went back to the barn and tried to kill myself again... A vampire appeared out of the blue, he was a tall and dark figure that told me it'd be a pity to waste all that blood... He gave me the gift without my permission, telling me he was doing it to repay my father the favor he did to his comrades, and he started training me to take revenge on the wolves that killed my family."

"And where is he now?" Ru and Charlie start barking and I can hear Raven and Maeve arguing with fairies and witches, trying to put an end to the chaos outside. "Your vampire father... or whatever you call him..."

"He's dead..." Iselen gets up looking at the French doors with a furrowed brow, avoiding my eyes. "I killed him... He tried to hurt Terra and I couldn't allow it... My action was what convinced her that I was serious about trying to end the war or, at least, helping all supernatural creatures that were sick of suffering in the middle of a battle that wasn't theirs. Oh fuck! I told you a hundred of times not to do this!" I get up too, scared when the vampire yells at the top of her lungs, but I can't see anything despite Iselen is staring at the stove with her hands on her hips, very furious. Suddenly, a weird white fog starts swirling near the sink till it becomes a woman wearing clothes from two centuries ago.

"What the...?" I ask moving a step back, startled, getting closer to Iselen looking for protection. "Who is she?"

"Ruby, she's Lady Georgina... One of the ghosts that live in the Wind Rose attic..." I nod swallowing hard while trying to decide whether I pass out again or that's a bad idea right now. I guess that explains why she's wearing a dress that looks translucent, all her body shines in a pearly white shade and she has no feet, she's floating over the floor, actually. "Don't worry about the knife buried in her chest, it doesn't hurt her..."

"The betrayal of that jerk of a husband hurt me more!" The woman answers bitterly, her voice seems to come for far away even if I can understand her perfectly while she points at the knife poking out her heart. "He made himself a widower to be able to marry my cousin who had inherited a fortune from my aunt... He thought he'd got rid of me, the son of a bitch... Haunting him for the rest of his life till driving him crazy was a pleasure... He couldn't enjoy the money, and besides, my cousin was an old hag..."

"Yes, we know the story..." Iselen rolls her eyes hard before walking towards the fridge and taking one of her bags of blood, she pours a little in a glass and mixes it with red wine before taking a big sip. "Sorry, would you like a drink?" she asks kindly and I shake my head, sitting down on the chair she's just left, far away from the ghost. Maybe I'm going a little crazy after all but at least I don't feel sick when I see her drinking blood... "Georgina, I told you many times, do not walk through my body while you're invisible... Your ectoplasm is ice cold, damn it!"

"Why do you care? I can't freeze your heart, anyway..." the ghost answers laughing cruelly. "You don't have one, you're a ruthless bloodsucker without feelings... Does she know how many werewolves you skinned alive?" The woman points at me while the vampire blushes.

"That was centuries ago and we were at war back then..."

"She had a velvet cloak lined with wolf fur..." Georgina whispers, winking at me and ignoring the vampire. "Made with the fur of Terra's little brother and cousins..." I turn around to look at Iselen in shock and she lowers her head abruptly, staring at the floor, I don't know if she tries to hide her flushed cheeks or the tears that filled her eyes suddenly. The ghost laughs amused for the last time before vanishing while the beautiful woman puts the empty glass on the table and sighs.

"If you'll excuse me..." the vampire whispers kindly and turns around. I can almost see how the protective wall is built around her again and I know the shameless girl will be back tomorrow trying to hide her sorrow but it's too late, I'm afraid I've seen the real Iselen behind the façade and feel more intrigued by her than I should be.

"Does Terra know?" I ask softly.

"Yes," she answers firmly standing at the door but never looks at me.

"She was very generous forgiving you..."

"Terra is better woman than I am in every sense of the word."

"Iselen, where are you going?" Maeve walks in the kitchen, followed by Raven who's holding Chance in her arms, Ru y Charlie come running and barking excitedly while Terra keeps arguing with fairies and elves in the garden.

"I'm going to establish order in the attic. Lady Georgina has scared Ruby to death... That woman is a fucking danger, she needs to learn to behave or I'll call an exorcist to kick her ass out of my house..."

"Oh, come on, poor lady..." Zara sticks her head through the French doors while watching Alfonso and his friends carrying the leftovers of the late dinner they all had around the swimming pool. "Her husband cheats on her with her cousin and kills her later..."

"I bet she deserved it," Iselen states categorically and I can't help nodding slowly; for what I've seen, Lady Georgina is an unbearable bitch.

"Be careful..." Terra walks in the kitchen with a little fairy sat on her shoulder and carrying a basket full of mushrooms that she puts on the counter. "Last time those ghosts were mad at you, they covered you with ectoplasm and you sparkled like that ridiculous vampire in love with a human from the movie Maeve forced us to watch with her..." Iselen growls and leaves the room stomping while the druid and Raven laugh hysterically.

"Edward Cullen?" I ask confused.

"Yes," Maeve confirms laughing. "For days... Every time we turned on the light in a room, Iselen shone like a lava lamp..."

"But she still looked hot, I bet." Lea whispers and Zara looks at her baffled. "Oh, come on, she's a gorgeous woman... and vampires have that sexy je ne sais quoi that's hard to resist when they show their fangs to sink them in your neck, hypnotizing you with their eyes..."

"I'm sorry, I'm petrified of needles." The French witch shrugs. "Sharp fangs are a turn off for me..."

"And you like men..." Alfonso smiles smugly putting dirty dishes in the sink while Zara looks at him with squinty eyes, upset.

"You've said it... Men... not immature boys..."

"Here we go again..." Raven sighs wearily and sits next to me holding a glass of juice, one of her wings grazes my arm when she bends down to pet Ru and I realize I don't care, my life has turned upside down officially and nothing happening around me surprises me anymore, it seems.

"Sorry, hello everybody..." A nymph from the forest with emerald green eyes waves her hand from the garden lit up by the moon. "Excuse me for interrupting... Terra, two centaurs are waiting in front of the gate of the property asking if they can spend the night in your stables. They come form far away and are really tired."

"Yes, of course. Iselen helped me to clean them two days ago and the straw bedding should be fresh still, there're blankets too..." The werewolf leaves the kitchen in a rush and they all go back to their conversations, the fairies are cleaning mushrooms and talking to Lea about vegan recipes to cook them tomorrow, Alfonso and Zara are arguing nonstop and Maeve pours more juice for Raven while I look at them quietly, not knowing what's real and what's crazy anymore.

"I should go to bed, it's been a long night..." I whisper wearily and the druid nods, smiling.