Chapter 157 - Better Than Me

"This is so stupid. There's still a demon on the loose, and they already jump at each other throats." I paced back and forth in the private confines of my room as I expressed my negative opinion about the altercation. From a place where people I expressed opinion on couldn't hear me, not that they'd be inclined to listen if they could.

This entire situation moved my mood from the above average it was before and down into rotten garbage again. I imagined in other covens, not just in the city, but around the world, similar arguments happened at this very moment. From there, it was easy for me to extrapolate what would happen. Both parties will segregate into milder and more radical sub-parties, after which more radical ones will start do what radicals always did.

Use violence to push their cause. Especially the Secrecy Party, aka Conservators. I imagined that most of them would be vampires, especially old ones, who worked for said secrecy for centuries and saw no reason to stop now.

But I wouldn't put it against people like Prom Queen to not start showing the righteousness of their cause from demonstrating in practice what they could and would do with people who are trying to push the First Commandment on them.

It was a gunpowder barrel set to explode, and I told JJ just that.

He sat on the loveseat with his chin propped on his elbows, but the usual relaxed quality he had wasn't there now. I paused in my tracks before I could make burn holes in the wooden floor and took a moment to study him. There was tension in his lean shoulders and a wrinkle between his eyebrows that was a rare guest on that face that was usually so full of smiles. These grass-green cat-like eyes of his stared somewhere I couldn't see without a time machine, and if I had to guess, didn't see much good.

Drawn by an impulse, I came up to him and leaned to smoothen that wrinkle with a kiss.

When JJ's eyes widened in surprise, I knew he was even deeper in his thoughts than I thought. I stepped back, feeling bashful now that he looked at me, but the flutters in my stomach turned into warmth when he smiled with humour.

"Was it a hint that you'd like me to distract you from worrying about things we have little influence on with carnal pleasures, ma chèrie?"

"No." As attractive as that idea sounded, the thought of what was happening outside of this room made my stomach churn. There wasn't much news coming from outside that I didn't hear before, and few of these were good. I resumed my pacing. "But it made me feel better to see you concerned, too. Better enough that I wanted to stop seeing you so concerned, and now I'm, as you put it, worrying about things again. What were you thinking about?"

"Same things as you, ma chèrie, except that I have seen more examples of similar things in the past and therefore, have easier time imagining the possibilities. Enough to know that things like these shouldn't be discussed without a source of comfort in hand. I'd offer you wine if you were one to find alcohol soothing, but since you don't—"

I had no warning. One moment I was burning holes in the floor with the soles of my feet, next I was caught by JJ's hands, strong like steel and gentle like a touch of velvet. He caught me out of my track and onto the loveseat together with him.

"—this will have to do," he finished, not missing a beat.

Now I was seated between his legs and my back was pressed tight to JJ's chest by his hands on my waist. I had to incline my head to the side to avoid hitting my skull with his chin. For a moment, everything else but the touch of his body to mine left my head, and when it returned a second later, as inevitably as a wave returns to shore, it didn't hit as hard anymore.

I shifted more comfortably and let my body melt into his, fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. The curly golden strands of his hair tickled my neck, mixed with my straight and black, tickled my neck. "Warn me next time, will you?"

JJ chuckled, not at all put off my the pretend annoyance in my voice. "I might… if I feel like it. Isn't it great to act on an impulse, to let spontaneity of a moment guide you?"

"You are saying this because you the one taking me by surprise and not the other way around."

"And you are saying this because you are still too worried about what is happening outside to relax."

I huffed and leaned my head back to try to catch a glimpse of JJ's face. "Don't I have a damn good reason to?"

He lifted a hand to my forehead, moved a few strands of hair away from it His fingers ran over my cheek as he was studying its shape purely by touch with a casualness of a blind man. "Indeed, and yet I can't stop wishing that you didn't. I know that your worries, Diana, have faces and names. Your grandparents, your friends, your shop, your city… I fear for all the innocents that will suffer because of someone's foolish, arrogant misconduct and the echoes of it, but it's not the same. They are abstract to me, and while my heart will ache for them, this won't leave a wound more than just a bruise."

"Bruises are wounds too, JJ. A person can die from a bruise in a wrong place. I imagine very few people lived as long as you did and still stayed soft enough on the inside to even bruise." I smiled a soft, sad smile and lifted my hand to his cheek. "And if you feel really down, I can name off the bat at least five personal qualities in which you are better than me."