The next four weeks went by relatively peacefully at the spa. Business went about as usual around them, and Domino spent time almost every day with Samir. She had finally gotten Alexandru to cook for her, and he would spend part of each night prepping meals for her for the next day. He wasn't overly thrilled that in doing so, he was cooking for her blond friend, but he dealt with it because he knew Samir watched over her during the day. Domino was working again, her computer was stored for her in the room upstairs so that she could sit in a sunlit room while she completed her daily tasks. Her job was something that she and Alexandru hadn't really agreed on. He wanted her to quit, and she wasn't ready to. She liked the work and enjoyed the interaction that she had with her coworkers through emails and IMs.
Samir had taken her fishing several more times, and he'd walked with her around the large property, talking to her about the creatures a little more that lived on it, or ones that had lived there at one point or another. she was kind of happy to have missed a few of the former employees. The gargoyles had sounded a little intense to her. Deandra, who she had finally met, was a big fan of card games, and along with Samir and Shi, the four of them had set up a regular mid-afternoon game of pitch while the rest of the spa rested during that part of the day. Mr. Hughes would even join them from time to time. Domino felt like she had friends here, and the agoraphobia that had plagued her while living in Vermont in her little apartment had all but seemed to vanish. The only thing that kept her chained to the property, it seemed, was the pole and blood pump that she had to take everywhere.
The only things that had really changed in the last month were that her transfusion rate had increased gradually each week, and Alexandru had become a much more tender lover, afraid to aggravate the life growing inside of her. He had grown into that attentive, protective boyfriend who wanted to know every minute detail of her life, and he would lay in bed, their bodies on their sides, facing each other, and they would talk about their past, their present, and their future. He told her about his childhood as a human, about growing up and becoming a soldier. He told her about the night that he'd been injured, sliced open with a wound that would have proven fatal if fate, or more aptly, a vampire named Klaus, hadn't intervened. He'd woken the next night a vampire and his life had changed forever. He was adamant when he told her that he wasn't dead, however, like all of the movies and books liked to say about vampires. He was very much alive. She already knew that, she knew his body now just as well as he did.
It had surprised her to hear that he had been married at the time of his change, to a Romanian woman he described as curvaceous and lovely, and they'd had children together. He had spied them from afar for many years after he had changed, but had never returned, too afraid that he would scare them, or, at the very worst, feed on them. They had grown older, eventually dying, and he had felt their passing deeply, finally leaving his home country once and for all after his youngest daughter had died. It was a part of the vampire that he usually kept very much to himself, but he felt a need to tell Domino everything. So he told her the good, and he told her the bad, and she listened and responded, and loved him all the more for his honesty.
He didn't feed on her again, either, though Domino knew that there were times that he really wanted to do so. She knew it was especially hard when he would wake at night and make love to her for a few hours before begging her forgiveness and saying that he had to leave, and that he probably wouldn't be back for a day or so. He never left her for longer than that, and she found herself okay with the absence, she was getting more and more tired now, and the extra sleep was appreciated.
On days when Alexandru was gone, she would often awake to find not Samir, but Mr. Hughes in the kitchenette. He didn't cook, but he would be waiting for her to leave her room, a tray of food from the upstairs kitchen on the table in front of him. They would talk about his plans for the day, and he would tell her a little about the clients in the spa and some of the interesting situations that arose from time to time. She could tell that he was very fond of his employees, even the obstinate ones like Alexandru. Domino had quickly realized that he had made this place into somewhat of a sanctuary for non-humans that either had nowhere else to go, or felt more comfortable hidden away in this remote Canadian paradise. She could understand that, it was beautiful here, and they were surrounded by gorgeous bits of nature.
It was where she was now, walking slowly beside the owner, along a carefully constructed path through the woods, and Domino was gazing absently out at the trees around her. It was a quiet majesty to walk in these trees, the air sweet and fragrant to her nose, the sunlight striking as it beat little paths through the stalks of the trees. One could definitely lose themselves quite happily here.
"I think I want to talk to you about Anya." The barely audible voice beside her made Domino stiffen a little and she looked at him out of the corner of her eye.
"Only if you want to, Arc. I can't think of a touchier subject for you." She told him gently, wrapping her hand through his as they slowed their walking a little.
"She came to the spa by way of her lawyer, she'd told him she'd missed having sex, and he had thought to oblige her. He didn't know that she was a light siren, there is something about her that keeps most of us from realizing why she affects us so much. An adaptation, I suppose, that allowed her kind to survive, even just a little." He started, leading her over to a boulder along the side of the path, and they sat down on it, one leg tucked up on it so that they could face one another.
"You have a history with the light sirens, don't you?" Domino squeezed the hand that still held hers.
"I do," He nodded slowly as he looked without direction behind her, "And it's not a good one."
Domino shivered, no, it wasn't a good one, "She can't blame you for it. You were told to."
"I killed women and children, unborn dragons, I blame myself for it more than anyone else ever could." His voice was pained and she knew where some of the pain in his eyes came from, he was punishing himself.
"Afterwards, I shared my anger and opposition with my god, and he cast me out, but I had been a favorite of sorts, so he allowed me to fall to earth instead of being sent to hell to become a demon. I chose to come here." He waved at the ground around them.
"I am thankful for that, however selfish that is. But I can't imagine losing my place, my home, with the rest of my kind. Not when how you felt was justified." She told him.
Mr. Hughes looked at her with a soft smile, his explanation only touched at a much larger picture, but he didn't want to burden her with too much of him, not all at once, "I didn't expect to fall for a client. I know she wanted to be with me, too, but not in the way I needed her. When I found out what she was, later, after she had left...I didn't handle it well. I was angry that I'd lost her, I was angry that I'd loved her, I was angry all the time. I blamed her for my punishment, I blamed her for making me go against my god. I blamed her for this life, and I blamed myself for killing off her species."
"You were just a hot mess."
He nodded, "That's putting it simply."
"Did she know? Did she know what she caused you?"
He nodded, "She was told before me."
"It didn't change things, though, did it? It didn't make you feel any better?"
"She won't talk to me, she thinks I tried to control her life after she left the spa. Whatever I did, it was out of concern for her. She affects non-humans and I wanted her safe. But all she can see was my interference."
"Yet, it's because of your guilt over having to murder off her kind that you've been taken away from your own species and left here. Alone." Domino frowned, he was looking away from her again, his face tilted up lightly as he looked into the sky.
"I can still hear them, you know, faintly, through the heat of the sky, the wind, I hear the songs, the call, that will never go away, but I can never return." His words made her gut tighten, it must be miserable to know what he was missing, to be unable to get back into the favor of his god. It seemed very unfair.
"Cutting off your wings was supposed to do what, soothe that pain?" She prodded, his eyes moved back to her face as he frowned at her.
"We all have our dark moments." He muttered.
