Nothing Gold Can Stay (Kindred: the Embraced, Caitlin Byrne/Lillie Langtry)
Title: Nothing Gold Can Stay
Author: havocthecat
Fandom: Kindred: the Embraced
Pairing: Caitlin Byrne/Lillie Langtry, secondary Lillie Langtry/Julian Luna and Caitlin Byrne/Julian Luna
Warnings: Canon Character Death (offscreen)
Summary: "Does it matter which of us loved him first? We both did." Caitlin's eyes were reddened, and the tears she shed were human. Julian had always loved Caitlin for her humanity.
Author's Notes: This is a prequel to Lovely, Dark and Deep, the story I wrote for Yuletide 2009. Thank you very much to ariestess and not_from_stars, who betaread for me, and triciabyrne1978, who encouraged me. (Yay, obscure fandoms!) You can read the story here or at the AO3.
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
--Robert Frost
"Julian!" Caitlin shook him. His body was limp, unresponsive, and blood spread in an ever-increasing pool under the wool of his suit.
Lillie stood watching in the doorway for an all too brief instant. The blood that fueled her let her move to Julian's side faster than any human could dream. She ripped open his dress shirt. The skin underneath was pale and unblemished. His heart was intact, but there were marks on his throat. His blood had been taken without sanction of a blood hunt, and another Kindred had used it to strengthen himself.
"Julian." Caitlin's voice was a soft whisper. She stroked his forehead. "Come back to me. You've done it before, I remember that much, but I don't remember how. Just come back to me, please."
"What happened here?" asked Lillie.
Caitlin looked up, startled, and stared at her. "What?"
"Julian was drained of blood. Who did this to him?" asked Lillie. She settled his shirt back into place. Even in death, he was Ventrue. He deserved dignity.
"I don't know. I didn't recognize him." Caitlin shook her head. "Julian can't be dead. Something like this happened in Manzanita. Why can't I remember what happened in Manzanita?"
"Focus, Caitlin," snapped Lillie. A haze of furious red anger descended on her, and she kept it leashed, if only just. Her only source of information was in hysterics in front of her. It wouldn't do to kill Caitlin because she couldn't stop talking.
"Your eyes." Caitlin reached for Lillie's face. "Your tears. You're crying blood. What are you?"
Lillie stood, dragging Caitlin up with her. "Someone's attempting a coup. I'll deal with this breach of the Masquerade at a more appropriate time."
"The Masquerade?" asked Caitlin. She tried to fight Lillie's hand on her wrist, but Lillie tightened her grip.
There was a snarl of rage that Lillie couldn't control. "Keep your mouth shut until this is over," said Lillie, walking out the door. She kept Caitlin's warm, mortal wrist in her hand, and tried not to bruise her. Marks would be inconvenient. "If you want to make it out unscathed, that is."
***
It wasn't until the long night had passed and the Brujah hid from the dawn in their warehouses that Lillie came down from the fury that possessed her. Her clothing was, as always, immaculate, but she had vague memories of the destruction of furniture and throwing someone across a room.
"Are you all right?" asked Caitlin. She sat at the Primogen Council's conference table. Her clothing was still covered with splashes of Julian's blood, but she'd taken the time to wash it off her hands.
"What do you think?" asked Lillie. "I loved Julian before you were born, and now he's dead."
"Does it matter which of us loved him first? We both did." Caitlin's eyes were reddened, and the tears she shed were human. Julian had always loved Caitlin for her humanity.
Caitlin's very humanity had kept her apart from Julian. He'd learned from Alexandra that granting the Embrace to a woman wouldn't bring them together. Poor, doomed Julian, who always wanted the unobtainable, and who only sometimes remembered the strength of Lillie's feelings for him.
"Will you just say something already, Lillie?" asked Caitlin. She sounded frustrated, almost angry, and underneath it all, afraid. "I need to understand what's going on."
Cash pushed through the doors into the council room. "We've found Sasha."
"Did she have any part of this?" asked Lillie.
"Are you kidding me?" Sasha shoved past Cash. "Uncle Julian is dead, and you think I'd have any part of it? I've spent all night trying to figure out who the hell it was."
"She didn't do it," said Caitlin. She pushed back from the table and stood. "It was a man."
"Who's this?" asked Sasha, giving Caitlin an angry, hard once-over. "Wait, she's Uncle Julian's girlfriend. What's she doing here?"
"Caitlin was with Julian when he died." The wood of the chair back that Lillie's hand had been resting on splintered in her grip.
"She'll testify?" asked Cash. He gave her - and the chair - a worried look. "When we find the bastard that did this, she'll testify in front of the council?"
"I don't understand--" began Caitlin, looking between Lillie and Cash.
"I'll see to it," promised Lillie. "Daedalus has the Nosferatu searching for more information on the conspiracy, and Sonny has the police on the streets rounding up the Brujah's human agents."
"The Gangrel have those Brujah rats pinned down," said Cash. He stepped forward, his fist thumping against the council's table for emphasis.
"The warehouse district?" asked Sasha. She grinned. There was a family resemblance; she looked as bloodthirsty as Julian had when he'd been Archon's enforcer. "I told them to diversify. Looks like no one listened. Want to get your inner arsonist on, Cash?"
"Don't let it get out of control," said Lillie. She let the fingertips of one hand skim the polished wood of the table. "We don't want to attract more human attention than we can control."
"Going to teach Grandma how to suck eggs while you're at it?" asked Sasha. She met Cash's amused glance and rolled her eyes. "What? I raised hell without getting caught for years before I became Kindred."
"Just a reminder," said Lillie. She managed enough of a smile to blunt her disapproval.
"I hear and obey, dear Prince," said Sasha, giving a mocking bow before she left. She was still young enough that Lillie could tolerate a little disrespect. Besides, one of these nights, Sasha was going to be Lillie's ticket to controlling the Brujah.
"Go with her," said Lillie, jerking her head at the door. "Her blood is heated tonight."
"We'll make those bastards pay," said Cash, following Sasha out the door.
There was a moment of silence, where Caitlin stared out at Sasha and Cash as they left, and Lillie made plans to gain control of the warehouses and the docks. The Brujah had taken most of the record producers in L.A., but, if she could break their clan's power here and redirect it, then she could start independent labels. In a hundred years, they'd be a threat to the main producers.
The mood was pensive, more than anything, and broken when Caitlin squared her shoulders and took a step toward the door.
The vision took Lillie with enough force that she closed her eyes and swayed for an instant. "If you leave this room, you'll die," said Lillie. She focused on Caitlin, who took another step toward the door, then paused, looking uncertain.
"Are you going to kill me?" asked Caitlin. Her voice was strong despite her fear, and Lille thought that, perhaps, she could understand what had engendered such powerful devotion in Julian.
"No, but there are Brujah lurking outside this home who'd think nothing of putting a bullet in that pretty little head of yours." Lillie sat down in Julian's chair - hers now, she supposed - and gestured to one of the chairs. "You may as well sit. You're perfectly safe with me."
"Because you need me." Caitlin's voice was flat. She was well versed in the game of tit-for-tat. Humans played it too, after all, though not so often, nor with such finesse as the Kindred did. They had less time to perfect the art.
"Because I need you," confirmed Lillie.
"What happens when you don't need me any more?" asked Caitlin. It was interesting that, of all the chairs in the room, Caitlin chose the seat filled by the Toreador Primogen.
"That's up to you, Caitlin." Lillie smiled, not to put Caitlin at her ease, but to disconcert her. "I need your testimony in the role the Brujah played in Julian's death, so I can't just erase your memories of the past few nights."
"Erase my memories?" asked Caitlin. She shook her head. "How is that even possible?"
"How do you think you forgot what happened at Manzanita?" asked Lillie. "Julian told me everything about that weekend."
"Julian wouldn't--" Caitlin fell silent.
"Are you surprised?" asked Lillie. "He couldn't bear the thought of you looking at him as if he were a monster."
"Julian wasn't a monster!" exclaimed Caitlin. How sweet. She defended Julian, even after his death.
"Yes, he was," said Lillie, with a finality in her tone that would stop anyone, even Archon himself when he'd been alive, from arguing with her. She wanted a glass of wine, even though it would do nothing to dull the pain. "So am I, and so are a lot of other people out there."
"What does that have to do with me?" asked Caitlin. "I don't know these names you're throwing around. Nosferatu. Brujah. Gangrel. I'm not a part of whatever you're involved in. Not by choice, at least."
"That's where you're wrong," said Lillie. This was what she'd been dancing around. This was what she'd been waiting to bring up until it wouldn't break Caitlin's spirit. Humans were always so much more interesting when they were spirited. "The laws of our kind say that humans must remain ignorant of what we are. Since you, unfortunately, are the sole witness, our first option - killing you - is off the table. At least for now."
"You said that killing me was the first option." Caitlin's heartbeat had sped up, fluttering in her ribcage like a staccato drum beat. Fear danced in her eyes. "What's the second option."
"The second option is to Embrace you, of course," said Lillie, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She leaned back in her seat, the picture of casualness. "How do you feel about becoming a vampire, Caitlin?"
"A vampire? Is that what you are? What Julian was?" Caitlin laughed, but it was a bitter sound, not incredulous. "You'll have to excuse me, but I find it a little ironic that, for all the times I asked Julian to be honest with me about who he was, it's you, of all people, who finally tells me."
"Some things are more important than petty rivalry," said Lillie. Some rivalries, like the one with the Brujah, were more than petty, after all. "We don't call ourselves vampires, though. Only you humans do that. We call ourselves Kindred."
"This is all crazy, you know that, right?" Caitlin's tears were threatening to well up again.
"This is the world you're going to have to get used to." Lillie smiled. This time it was almost meant to comfort. Not quite. "Unless you'd like to have a very short lifespan."
"I see." Caitlin's stomach growled, and she looked down, startled.
"It's probably been a full day since you've eaten, hasn't it?" asked Lillie. "Come, let's go into the kitchen. I'm sure you'll find something there to tempt your palate."
***
There was food, mostly canned goods bought for the sake of the Masquerade, and donated to food pantries every now and again, when Julian had a fit of sympathy for humanity. The refrigerator had very little, and Lillie found herself glad that Caitlin knew how to cook. Lillie certainly couldn't come up with something a human would want to eat.
"I don't know what to do." Caitlin chopped vegetables and threw them into a saucepan while Lillie stood with a glass of wine and watched her. The woman had an economy of movement that was elegant.
"The choices are simple." The zinfandel in Lillie's glass was heavy on her tongue, with dark tannins and hints of raisin. It wasn't what she wanted, but it would do. For now.
"I suppose that they are." Caitlin traded her knife for a spoon and twisted the knob on the stove. "Why can't you just leave me alone to live my life as a human? I have no interest in telling anyone about you. Who would believe me?"
Frank Kohanek, for one. She'd wait to tell Caitlin of the secrets Frank had been keeping from her.
"You'd be surprised at what happens when humans learn of our existence," said Lillie. She took one long drink from her wineglass, then set it down on the polished marble. She walked around it and pulled the spoon out of Caitlin's hand. Before Caitlin could say a word, Lillie leaned forward and kissed her.
Caitlin tasted of the tears she'd shed when Julian died. Her lips were dry, chapped from the salt, but warmer than Lillie's mouth was. The kiss was a surprise to both of them, though it wasn't an unwelcome one. Lillie could read the signs of human attraction well enough to see the almost furtive looks she'd gotten from Caitlin over the years. Sometimes sizing up the competition hid other motives.
After Lillie ended the kiss, Caitlin brought her fingertips up to touch her mouth. "What did you do that for?"
"You're a beautiful woman, Caitlin. You're intelligent, creative, and passionate," said Lillie, chuckling. "You're going to make a wonderful Toreador."
"I don't even know what that is," said Caitlin. She plucked her spoon out of Lillie's hand and turned back to her skillet. "And I haven't decided yet."
"I think you already have, whether you're admitting it to yourself or not." Lillie stayed close instead of going back to the other side of the counter. She leaned over Caitlin's shoulder to see what was cooking, and turned her head just enough that the breath from her words shivered over Caitlin's neck. "I can see it in your eyes. You're not ready to die."
No one, not even Julian, could read what was in people's hearts better than Lillie.
***
After Caitlin ate, they retired to the sitting room. It was a small one, off to the side. Except for Sasha, the Kindred who lived there had been born before the invention of television. It wasn't their first choice for entertainment, though it could, on occasion, be informative. The news broadcasts were quiet that night. Lillie stared at the television. Whatever her people had done, so far, it was off the human radar.
"I've got twenty messages to respond to," said Caitlin, snapping her cell phone shut as she turned her head to look at Lillie. "I suppose you'd stop me if I tried to return any of those?"
"It wouldn't do for everyone to think you'd gone missing," said Lillie. She turned off the television. "Feel free. I'm afraid it wouldn't do for you to start telling people you've been kidnapped, but you can certainly tell them you're my guest. It's only the truth, after all."
"If I became Kindred, I couldn't continue as editor of the paper, could I?" asked Caitlin. She tapped her notepad with her pen. "I love my job."
"You can work as long as no one notices you're not aging." Lillie swept the back of her hand along Caitlin's cheek. "Then you move behind the scenes. Use a pseudonym. There are plenty of ways Kindred operate in the human world."
Caitlin was silent for several long moments. There were thoughts churning in her head that never made it out. "I'll do it. I guess you're right; I'm not ready to die."
"You'll see very soon." Lillie's voice was soft and her smile was reassuring as she moved to lean over Caitlin. She was about to bring a new clanmate into the fold, after all. "There's nothing to be afraid of."
--end--
Author: havocthecat
Fandom: Kindred: the Embraced
Pairing: Caitlin Byrne/Lillie Langtry, secondary Lillie Langtry/Julian Luna and Caitlin Byrne/Julian Luna
Warnings: Canon Character Death (offscreen)
Summary: "Does it matter which of us loved him first? We both did." Caitlin's eyes were reddened, and the tears she shed were human. Julian had always loved Caitlin for her humanity.
Author's Notes: This is a prequel to Lovely, Dark and Deep, the story I wrote for Yuletide 2009. Thank you very much to ariestess and not_from_stars, who betaread for me, and triciabyrne1978, who encouraged me. (Yay, obscure fandoms!) You can read the story here or at the AO3.
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
--Robert Frost
"Julian!" Caitlin shook him. His body was limp, unresponsive, and blood spread in an ever-increasing pool under the wool of his suit.
Lillie stood watching in the doorway for an all too brief instant. The blood that fueled her let her move to Julian's side faster than any human could dream. She ripped open his dress shirt. The skin underneath was pale and unblemished. His heart was intact, but there were marks on his throat. His blood had been taken without sanction of a blood hunt, and another Kindred had used it to strengthen himself.
"Julian." Caitlin's voice was a soft whisper. She stroked his forehead. "Come back to me. You've done it before, I remember that much, but I don't remember how. Just come back to me, please."
"What happened here?" asked Lillie.
Caitlin looked up, startled, and stared at her. "What?"
"Julian was drained of blood. Who did this to him?" asked Lillie. She settled his shirt back into place. Even in death, he was Ventrue. He deserved dignity.
"I don't know. I didn't recognize him." Caitlin shook her head. "Julian can't be dead. Something like this happened in Manzanita. Why can't I remember what happened in Manzanita?"
"Focus, Caitlin," snapped Lillie. A haze of furious red anger descended on her, and she kept it leashed, if only just. Her only source of information was in hysterics in front of her. It wouldn't do to kill Caitlin because she couldn't stop talking.
"Your eyes." Caitlin reached for Lillie's face. "Your tears. You're crying blood. What are you?"
Lillie stood, dragging Caitlin up with her. "Someone's attempting a coup. I'll deal with this breach of the Masquerade at a more appropriate time."
"The Masquerade?" asked Caitlin. She tried to fight Lillie's hand on her wrist, but Lillie tightened her grip.
There was a snarl of rage that Lillie couldn't control. "Keep your mouth shut until this is over," said Lillie, walking out the door. She kept Caitlin's warm, mortal wrist in her hand, and tried not to bruise her. Marks would be inconvenient. "If you want to make it out unscathed, that is."
***
It wasn't until the long night had passed and the Brujah hid from the dawn in their warehouses that Lillie came down from the fury that possessed her. Her clothing was, as always, immaculate, but she had vague memories of the destruction of furniture and throwing someone across a room.
"Are you all right?" asked Caitlin. She sat at the Primogen Council's conference table. Her clothing was still covered with splashes of Julian's blood, but she'd taken the time to wash it off her hands.
"What do you think?" asked Lillie. "I loved Julian before you were born, and now he's dead."
"Does it matter which of us loved him first? We both did." Caitlin's eyes were reddened, and the tears she shed were human. Julian had always loved Caitlin for her humanity.
Caitlin's very humanity had kept her apart from Julian. He'd learned from Alexandra that granting the Embrace to a woman wouldn't bring them together. Poor, doomed Julian, who always wanted the unobtainable, and who only sometimes remembered the strength of Lillie's feelings for him.
"Will you just say something already, Lillie?" asked Caitlin. She sounded frustrated, almost angry, and underneath it all, afraid. "I need to understand what's going on."
Cash pushed through the doors into the council room. "We've found Sasha."
"Did she have any part of this?" asked Lillie.
"Are you kidding me?" Sasha shoved past Cash. "Uncle Julian is dead, and you think I'd have any part of it? I've spent all night trying to figure out who the hell it was."
"She didn't do it," said Caitlin. She pushed back from the table and stood. "It was a man."
"Who's this?" asked Sasha, giving Caitlin an angry, hard once-over. "Wait, she's Uncle Julian's girlfriend. What's she doing here?"
"Caitlin was with Julian when he died." The wood of the chair back that Lillie's hand had been resting on splintered in her grip.
"She'll testify?" asked Cash. He gave her - and the chair - a worried look. "When we find the bastard that did this, she'll testify in front of the council?"
"I don't understand--" began Caitlin, looking between Lillie and Cash.
"I'll see to it," promised Lillie. "Daedalus has the Nosferatu searching for more information on the conspiracy, and Sonny has the police on the streets rounding up the Brujah's human agents."
"The Gangrel have those Brujah rats pinned down," said Cash. He stepped forward, his fist thumping against the council's table for emphasis.
"The warehouse district?" asked Sasha. She grinned. There was a family resemblance; she looked as bloodthirsty as Julian had when he'd been Archon's enforcer. "I told them to diversify. Looks like no one listened. Want to get your inner arsonist on, Cash?"
"Don't let it get out of control," said Lillie. She let the fingertips of one hand skim the polished wood of the table. "We don't want to attract more human attention than we can control."
"Going to teach Grandma how to suck eggs while you're at it?" asked Sasha. She met Cash's amused glance and rolled her eyes. "What? I raised hell without getting caught for years before I became Kindred."
"Just a reminder," said Lillie. She managed enough of a smile to blunt her disapproval.
"I hear and obey, dear Prince," said Sasha, giving a mocking bow before she left. She was still young enough that Lillie could tolerate a little disrespect. Besides, one of these nights, Sasha was going to be Lillie's ticket to controlling the Brujah.
"Go with her," said Lillie, jerking her head at the door. "Her blood is heated tonight."
"We'll make those bastards pay," said Cash, following Sasha out the door.
There was a moment of silence, where Caitlin stared out at Sasha and Cash as they left, and Lillie made plans to gain control of the warehouses and the docks. The Brujah had taken most of the record producers in L.A., but, if she could break their clan's power here and redirect it, then she could start independent labels. In a hundred years, they'd be a threat to the main producers.
The mood was pensive, more than anything, and broken when Caitlin squared her shoulders and took a step toward the door.
The vision took Lillie with enough force that she closed her eyes and swayed for an instant. "If you leave this room, you'll die," said Lillie. She focused on Caitlin, who took another step toward the door, then paused, looking uncertain.
"Are you going to kill me?" asked Caitlin. Her voice was strong despite her fear, and Lille thought that, perhaps, she could understand what had engendered such powerful devotion in Julian.
"No, but there are Brujah lurking outside this home who'd think nothing of putting a bullet in that pretty little head of yours." Lillie sat down in Julian's chair - hers now, she supposed - and gestured to one of the chairs. "You may as well sit. You're perfectly safe with me."
"Because you need me." Caitlin's voice was flat. She was well versed in the game of tit-for-tat. Humans played it too, after all, though not so often, nor with such finesse as the Kindred did. They had less time to perfect the art.
"Because I need you," confirmed Lillie.
"What happens when you don't need me any more?" asked Caitlin. It was interesting that, of all the chairs in the room, Caitlin chose the seat filled by the Toreador Primogen.
"That's up to you, Caitlin." Lillie smiled, not to put Caitlin at her ease, but to disconcert her. "I need your testimony in the role the Brujah played in Julian's death, so I can't just erase your memories of the past few nights."
"Erase my memories?" asked Caitlin. She shook her head. "How is that even possible?"
"How do you think you forgot what happened at Manzanita?" asked Lillie. "Julian told me everything about that weekend."
"Julian wouldn't--" Caitlin fell silent.
"Are you surprised?" asked Lillie. "He couldn't bear the thought of you looking at him as if he were a monster."
"Julian wasn't a monster!" exclaimed Caitlin. How sweet. She defended Julian, even after his death.
"Yes, he was," said Lillie, with a finality in her tone that would stop anyone, even Archon himself when he'd been alive, from arguing with her. She wanted a glass of wine, even though it would do nothing to dull the pain. "So am I, and so are a lot of other people out there."
"What does that have to do with me?" asked Caitlin. "I don't know these names you're throwing around. Nosferatu. Brujah. Gangrel. I'm not a part of whatever you're involved in. Not by choice, at least."
"That's where you're wrong," said Lillie. This was what she'd been dancing around. This was what she'd been waiting to bring up until it wouldn't break Caitlin's spirit. Humans were always so much more interesting when they were spirited. "The laws of our kind say that humans must remain ignorant of what we are. Since you, unfortunately, are the sole witness, our first option - killing you - is off the table. At least for now."
"You said that killing me was the first option." Caitlin's heartbeat had sped up, fluttering in her ribcage like a staccato drum beat. Fear danced in her eyes. "What's the second option."
"The second option is to Embrace you, of course," said Lillie, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She leaned back in her seat, the picture of casualness. "How do you feel about becoming a vampire, Caitlin?"
"A vampire? Is that what you are? What Julian was?" Caitlin laughed, but it was a bitter sound, not incredulous. "You'll have to excuse me, but I find it a little ironic that, for all the times I asked Julian to be honest with me about who he was, it's you, of all people, who finally tells me."
"Some things are more important than petty rivalry," said Lillie. Some rivalries, like the one with the Brujah, were more than petty, after all. "We don't call ourselves vampires, though. Only you humans do that. We call ourselves Kindred."
"This is all crazy, you know that, right?" Caitlin's tears were threatening to well up again.
"This is the world you're going to have to get used to." Lillie smiled. This time it was almost meant to comfort. Not quite. "Unless you'd like to have a very short lifespan."
"I see." Caitlin's stomach growled, and she looked down, startled.
"It's probably been a full day since you've eaten, hasn't it?" asked Lillie. "Come, let's go into the kitchen. I'm sure you'll find something there to tempt your palate."
***
There was food, mostly canned goods bought for the sake of the Masquerade, and donated to food pantries every now and again, when Julian had a fit of sympathy for humanity. The refrigerator had very little, and Lillie found herself glad that Caitlin knew how to cook. Lillie certainly couldn't come up with something a human would want to eat.
"I don't know what to do." Caitlin chopped vegetables and threw them into a saucepan while Lillie stood with a glass of wine and watched her. The woman had an economy of movement that was elegant.
"The choices are simple." The zinfandel in Lillie's glass was heavy on her tongue, with dark tannins and hints of raisin. It wasn't what she wanted, but it would do. For now.
"I suppose that they are." Caitlin traded her knife for a spoon and twisted the knob on the stove. "Why can't you just leave me alone to live my life as a human? I have no interest in telling anyone about you. Who would believe me?"
Frank Kohanek, for one. She'd wait to tell Caitlin of the secrets Frank had been keeping from her.
"You'd be surprised at what happens when humans learn of our existence," said Lillie. She took one long drink from her wineglass, then set it down on the polished marble. She walked around it and pulled the spoon out of Caitlin's hand. Before Caitlin could say a word, Lillie leaned forward and kissed her.
Caitlin tasted of the tears she'd shed when Julian died. Her lips were dry, chapped from the salt, but warmer than Lillie's mouth was. The kiss was a surprise to both of them, though it wasn't an unwelcome one. Lillie could read the signs of human attraction well enough to see the almost furtive looks she'd gotten from Caitlin over the years. Sometimes sizing up the competition hid other motives.
After Lillie ended the kiss, Caitlin brought her fingertips up to touch her mouth. "What did you do that for?"
"You're a beautiful woman, Caitlin. You're intelligent, creative, and passionate," said Lillie, chuckling. "You're going to make a wonderful Toreador."
"I don't even know what that is," said Caitlin. She plucked her spoon out of Lillie's hand and turned back to her skillet. "And I haven't decided yet."
"I think you already have, whether you're admitting it to yourself or not." Lillie stayed close instead of going back to the other side of the counter. She leaned over Caitlin's shoulder to see what was cooking, and turned her head just enough that the breath from her words shivered over Caitlin's neck. "I can see it in your eyes. You're not ready to die."
No one, not even Julian, could read what was in people's hearts better than Lillie.
***
After Caitlin ate, they retired to the sitting room. It was a small one, off to the side. Except for Sasha, the Kindred who lived there had been born before the invention of television. It wasn't their first choice for entertainment, though it could, on occasion, be informative. The news broadcasts were quiet that night. Lillie stared at the television. Whatever her people had done, so far, it was off the human radar.
"I've got twenty messages to respond to," said Caitlin, snapping her cell phone shut as she turned her head to look at Lillie. "I suppose you'd stop me if I tried to return any of those?"
"It wouldn't do for everyone to think you'd gone missing," said Lillie. She turned off the television. "Feel free. I'm afraid it wouldn't do for you to start telling people you've been kidnapped, but you can certainly tell them you're my guest. It's only the truth, after all."
"If I became Kindred, I couldn't continue as editor of the paper, could I?" asked Caitlin. She tapped her notepad with her pen. "I love my job."
"You can work as long as no one notices you're not aging." Lillie swept the back of her hand along Caitlin's cheek. "Then you move behind the scenes. Use a pseudonym. There are plenty of ways Kindred operate in the human world."
Caitlin was silent for several long moments. There were thoughts churning in her head that never made it out. "I'll do it. I guess you're right; I'm not ready to die."
"You'll see very soon." Lillie's voice was soft and her smile was reassuring as she moved to lean over Caitlin. She was about to bring a new clanmate into the fold, after all. "There's nothing to be afraid of."
--end--