I meet my husband for the first time on the day of our wedding.

Which is fine. Really, it is.

I do try to arrange for us to get coffee together the week before the ceremony, just so we’d… well. Just so we won’t have to shake hands and say, “How do you do?” in front of the officiant and a couple thousand invitees. But my mother’s lips thin, and my father shakes his head before I even finish the sentence.

“No daughter of mine is going to get coffee with a werewolf,” he yells, wagging his finger in the air. “Least of all with a Moreland!”

“Right. Yes. But I am marrying him next Friday,” I point out. “And you’re the one who brokered the agreement, so—”

“Ivy. That is different,” he says, but he doesn’t explain why, or how it’s different, and after a short while he turns away and goes back to watching his documentary on the life cycle of mound-building termites. My mother never stopped.

So I sigh, put on my pink pom beanie and my Ray Bans, and head to the lab to supervise a twelve-hour experiment which, I tell myself, will at least clarify a couple of things about light-mediated intermolecular photocycloadditions.

 

~*~

 

Update: the twelve-hour experiment I supervise tells me nothing about light-mediated intermolecular photocycloadditions.

 

~*~

 

It’s a little like the Middle Ages, when strategic alliances used to be formed by marrying off one’s royal kid to some impoverished Northern European aristocrat—who usually also happened to be a cousin not-enough-times removed. At least Lowe and I are sure not to be genetically related, what with the fact that we’re from different species and all that. If we ever have kids—which seems highly unlikely—we’re going to be skipping the Habsburg jaw and the hemophilia-related deaths.

I’ll take it as a win. Because I really need a win.

“I don’t know. To me it sounds a lot more like those mafia stories you hear,” my friend Lawrence says during a commercial break from Clueless—the movie, not the (significantly inferior) TV series.

“How so?”

“Well, they used to do this thing, whenever there’d be a truce in one of those organized crimes wars. The Genovese family would send one of their kids to, say, the Gambinos. And vice versa. So if the Gambinos broke the armistice, the Genovese could retaliate quickly.”

“Retaliate how?”

“On the kid.”

“But how?”

Lawrence slowly draws a finger across his throat.

“Oh.” I blink. “Oh.” I blink some more. “How do you know about that?”

“The Sopranos. Or that Criminal Procedure class I took in Law School.” He shrugs. “One of the two.” He pilfers a pink Starburst from my stash and switches it with an orange one from his own.

“So, I’m like… insurance?”

“I think so. That’s why you’re marrying Lowe Moreland and going to live with the wolves, and why Moreland’s little brother is being sent to ‘boarding school,’ or whatever they call it, with the vampires. So we’ll both have insurance. This stupid war will finally end, and we won’t need curfews all the time, and the human anchors on the news will stop calling us gangs and talking about Were on Vamp violence with that punchable expression.”

I’m still blinking, but it makes complete sense. And it’s not that I hadn’t known what the marriage arranged between Lowe and me was about. It’s not that I’m stupid.

Just—it’s been three days since I was shown a bridal catalogue and ordered to pick between a mermaid gown and a sheath; two days since I had to put my childhood plush toys in storage; one day since I realized that from next week I’ll have to change three trains to get to campus. I haven’t really had the energy to put any of this into coherent thoughts so far.

Okay. Maybe I am stupid.

“Hey.” Lawrence pokes my arm. “It’s not—no one is going to kill you. And it won’t be a real marriage. Just, you know… a good faith agreement. And, everyone’s grateful to you. Because they’re sick of this shit war. Your father made the right decision, and he would never put you in danger if he—this is not organized crime. You and Lowe come from old, respectable families, and it’s just the structure of the agreement that sounds a bit like—”

“No, you’re right,” I say. I turn around to punch my pillow into shape. “That’s exactly what it sounds like.”

I steal back my pink Starburst as the commercials come to an end.

 

~*~

 

I’m not sure why I want to know what Lowe Moreland is like, given that I’ll soon be seeing way more of him than I ever cared to.

Could be masochism. Natural inquisitiveness. Professional researcher’s bias, perhaps.

I’m about to marry the guy (wolf? weredude?) and I still feel a bit like a creepy stalker, typing his name into Google, trying to divine something about him from his liked pages on Facebook, his Instagram highlights, his TikToks. It’s a bit fruitless, since he doesn’t appear to be on social media—except for LinkedIn. Apparently, before his parents died and left him to navigate the joys of primogeniture in the federal monarchy that is North American werewolf society, he launched some kind of engineering start-up with a couple of college buddies.

Still, there’s no picture of him to be found. I mention it in passing to Lawrence, when we meet to go stock up at the blood bank. He strokes his chin pensively, and two days later he stops by campus in the dead middle of office hours, opens my door without knocking, and plucks a ginkgo leaf out of his coat.

“Hey, love.” He drops the leaf on the floor, takes a picture out of his pocket, and waves it under my nose. “Here’s your groom.”

The sophomore sitting in my guest chair gives him a wide-eyed look.

“Thank you, Laurie, but I was actually—” The picture lands on my desk, and I can’t help looking at it.    

Oh. Oh? Lowe Moreland couldn’t be more… I don’t know.

I don’t even know.

Wolfy?

He looks like he spends most of his time in his pelt, running around in the forest, chasing rabbits for fun and then letting them go, intimidating moose, loving it, howling at the moon in harmony with his pack buddies. He looks like what he says, goes. He looks like he laughs with his belly, like he’s his friends’ kids’ favorite uncle, because he throws them up in the air and catches them, solid and just a little dangerous, every time he visits. He looks like he watches Monday night football, and eats four sandwiches in a row for lunch, and spent one year in France as an exchange student, where he broke at least five hearts and got his own shattered exactly zero times.

He looks tall. Wide-shouldered. A mop of curly dark hair that he won’t bother trying to tidy because who cares, because what’s the point? Flannel shirt. Sun crinkles around his eyes and one dimple, only one, in the middle his right cheek. Barely-there stubble, very GQ-worthy.

Beautiful, tanned brunette smiling against his neck, one arm tight around his torso.

“Is she his…?”

“Some kind of girlfriend,” Lawrence says. “She’s a wolf. From another pack. They’ve been on and off for a while.”

I trace the edge of the picture. Notice, for the first time in years, the pallor of my fingers. “Where did you get this?”

“I know people. And vampires. And wolves. And even a couple of selkies from that year I fucked my way through Europe. Lowe’s supposedly fun, but a bit of an asshole. And there’s a rumor that he was maybe a tad too involved in his father’s death, but I’m sure you’ve heard about that—the father was an asshole, too, anyway. Most wolves are assholes, so…”

The sophomore squirms in her chair, and I’m reminded that she’s human, and disastrously failing Org Chem. She also smells anemic, but it would be quite rude of me to tell her to go see a doctor. Maybe I should sneak some iron supplements inside her backpack—

“Oh, and he fucks. Again, all weres fuck, but he has a bit of a reputation for not caring if he—”

“Thank you, Laurie.” I smile weakly. “I’ll give you a call later.”

I slide the picture in the second drawer from the top, close it a little too forcefully, and go back to talking about ketones and ethers.

 

~*~

 

I find the picture again the following day, while looking for my Hello Kitty stapler.

I turn it upside down, move it to the third drawer, and don’t think about the dimple until the day of my wedding.

 

~*~

 

Lowe, I believe, doesn’t do nearly as much research.

To be fair, he couldn’t even if he wanted to. Vampires don’t exactly photograph well. Or at all, really. There is that oil portrait my parents commissioned when I was sixteen, but we all agreed that the result looked more like a slowly melting Shar-Pei than a teenage vampire, and jointly decided not to publicize it too much. 

Truthfully, I imagine Lowe Moreland doesn’t ponder this whole thing nearly as much as I do—an understandable, logical reaction, since no one expects our marriage to be anything more than a glorified handshake between two species who are too exhausted to lose more bodies over whose territory Burger King’s parking lot on fifth should be part of.

Rage, apparently, is not quite bottomless.

They did it in Canada. In Quebec, a few years ago. And it worked, for the most part. The sons of a vampire leader over there married wolves from the local rival pack. There was a big civil ceremony that made even the human news. All four grooms spoke French, gave strained smiles to the interviewers, put pretty white flowers in their pockets.

“They’re called boutonnières,” my mom told me at the time. “Made of real roses.”

I nodded and went back to my algebra homework. I didn’t think about them again until the day of my own wedding.

Maybe it will work for us, too. Maybe those couples quietly divorced two weeks later. Maybe Burger King’s parking lots are a peaceful oasis in Canada. I don’t know. If I have to be half of an arranged marriage in 2020, anything is possible, really.

Lowe is wearing a black suit. Or maybe a tux—I never quite got the difference. He turns to me as my father walks me down the aisle, and he seems…

He seems annoyed. Handsome. Energetic, elegant, tall. Impatient, as though he could be doing other, better things, as though I’m making him wait. As though I’m late to my own wedding even though I’m not—I timed myself with www.time.gov, the same clock I use to enter my lab logs.

My dad’s hands shake when he lifts my veil. He doesn’t meet my eyes, and I think that now’s the moment to be gracious, to tell him that it’s okay, that it’s fine, that it needed to be done, that leadership means choices, that he’s not sending his oldest daughter to the butcher, not at all. But I’m a tad too bitter for that. Which is why I just turn around to Lowe Moreland. Lowe Moreland the Alpha werewolf, Lowe Moreland who used to be on par with the boogeyman, Lowe Moreland who’s supposedly on my side, Lowe Moreland whom I somehow now resent less than I do my father.

Lowe Moreland, who hasn’t done any research at all. It’s abundantly clear that he had no idea what I looked like until a second ago, and it’s just as immensely obvious that he’s not pleased with what he’s seeing.

His pupils widen. His nose twitches. He inhales sharply and then leans forward, ever so slightly, as if to see me better, as if to smell me better. Then he pulls back, wide-eyed, lips parted, silent.

Still.

“Lowe?” his best man says, behind him. “Are you okay?”

Lowe keeps staring. At me. Motionless.

“Lowe? Do you—?”

“You don’t have to go through with this!” A woman whispers furiously, grabbing his wrist. His sister, maybe. They have the same cheekbones. “These are fucking vampires—you don’t have to martyr yourself for—”

“Is there a problem, Moreland?” my father asks, loud enough for everyone, even the humans in the second to last rows with their paltry auditory receptors and abysmal hearing.

Lowe ignores him. And stares at me some more.

His blood smells hot. Good. Coursing healthy through his veins. I feel my fangs twitch.

My father clears his throat as attendees whisper. “I asked if there is a problem with—”

“No,” Lowe finally says. Still. Staring. “No, there isn’t.”

He frees his wrist from his sister’s grip and his hand comes up to my elbow, hovering, not quite touching but warm nonetheless.

Good blood, my hindbrain says. He’d make for good blood.

Ten minutes later we are officially married. The groom is not told to kiss the bride, and before I say, “I do,” for some inexplicable reason all I can think about is the brunette in the picture. And my pale blue eyes. And how I almost burned myself this morning, the singed smell when I twined my white-blonde hair around the curling iron for just a second too long.

~*~

 

The party is at night, the moon not full, but high.

“You’re both nocturnal species, after all,” the human wedding planner told me with a nervous laugh when she laid out the schedule. I shrugged, just hoping I’d be able to get home by bedtime. I’m running a lab for Org Chem tomorrow, at nine AM.

Though I must admit, it’s a bit of an amusing sight, the way the werewolves enthusiastically feast on the banquets, and the half-bored, half-disgusted looks the vampires throw at them, sipping on their waters, tuning out all but the classical orchestra.

God. God, I married a wolf.

The conversation at my table is about everything, everything but the reason we’re all here: brown Norwegian cheese; this matryoshka dollmaker who opened up a tiny shop on 22^nd; when to sign up kids for summer camps; what a delightfully unconventional idea using succulents as flowers in the ceremony is; they said it’d be a mild winter and instead will you look at the temperatures? Barely September, and already sending pups to school in snow boots.

I sit next to my mother with no idea where my husband is. An hour or so ago someone produced a soccer ball, and I can hear it bounce against the outside walls, dangerously close to the windows of the reception hall. There’s an ongoing game, and I think a couple of vampires joined in. A few humans, even. There are laughs and cheering, and this wedding is already working minor miracles.

“It went very well, considering,” my mother says, tight-lipped, looking straight ahead.

“Yes.” The veil itches in my hair. I can’t wait to take it off. “It did.”

 

~*~

 

My stuff has been moved. To a bedroom in Lowe’s house. That is mostly empty. Completely empty—except for my stuff. That has been moved.

I guess this answers my question on whether we’ll share a bed with a nice, reassuring no.

My shoulders drop in relief. I’m not sure I’d sleep well next to someone who turns into a giant wolf whenever he likes and who may or may not have murdered his own father. Then again—rumors are a bitch; I do know that. In high school I refused to put out for AJ Cole, this vampire I only agreed to date because he once said that Rosalind Franklin should have won a Nobel Prize, and in revenge, he told everyone that I had let him drink from my vein even though I—

“Ivy?”

I turn around. Lowe is in the entrance, leaning against the doorframe. Staring at me again. It feels as though he has been staring at me since the moment we met, even though it’s impossible, even though we weren’t even in each other’s sight for most of the day.

“Is the room okay?” he asks. The first words he has spoken to me.

Well. Aside from, “I do.”

“Yeah.” I scratch my temple, where my tiara left a painful imprint. “It’s nice to meet you,” I add, even though it’s not.

“No, it’s not,” he says, blunt, grumbly, and then pushes away from the door and puffs out some air, impatient. “I’m sorry you had to… That they forced you.”

I’m sorry, too. That I had to. That they forced me. But I shrug. “You didn’t have much of a choice, either.”

“Yeah. But I’m Alpha of my pack—I signed up for this shit. You’re just…” He doesn’t spell out what I am. I guess we’re being polite?

I shrug again. I can smell his blood. I think his heart is beating faster than normal, but it might just be werewolf physiology. I know next to nothing about it.

“You’re still a student?”

“Grad student. Chemistry. I’m… finishing up my dissertation soon.” I bite my lip. “I hope.”

He nods. I want to ask what kind of engineering he does, but he starts, “I’m sorry you had to move here. I know campus is far away from my house, but there wasn’t really much that—”

His phone rings. He looks at the caller ID and then makes a face, one that my dad makes all the time—I’m the leader of a large group of people and I gotta take this because this large group of people depends on me—and then turns around and exits the room with a small gesture of his hand, not quite a wave.

I don’t see him again for five months.

 

~*~

 

I am, if not happy, surprisingly content.

Perhaps it’s that my experiment on [4+4] photocycloaddition starts giving me some results just as I’m about to toss the entire study out of the window and move to a cave in Montana, to lick my wounds with the mule deer and sustain myself off of lichens and tears. Perhaps it’s the reprieve from having to learn to be someone’s—a wolf’s—wife.

Perhaps it’s just who I am at baseline. I always thought of myself as a sullen, testy, moody sort of girl. Now, at twenty-five years old, I’m finding out that when the signal of my life is not drowned by father’s constant yelling, by my mother’s eternal disapproval, by my siblings’ natural knack for being better than I am at all the right things, I can have a pretty decent time.

Ivy York: a naturally content person. Who would have guessed?

I’ve never lived by myself before. Vampires love their clans, or at least they are supposed to, and it’s probably not safe for me to be alone, anyway, but… oh, well. I do worry that Lowe’s carcass might be in a ditch somewhere in rural New England, and after seventy-two hours of absence I cave and call his sister to let her know that he’s been MIA.

All I’m told is, “He’s fine.”

“I’m just concerned that—”

“You should mind your business. Listen, Ivy—I have nothing against you personally, but I’m sure you understand that this is not supposed to be anything resembling a real marriage. He has other things to do. And other wom—people, other people he wants to spend his time with. So don’t keep tabs on him. That’s creepy, for fuck’s sake, even for a vampire.”

I ponder the matter for a minute. Then decide that she’s right, and after that, I barely think of Lowe and who he might be with—the brunette—and slip into my new life like a trout in a lake.

A semester ends. Another starts, and this time I’m assigned to Intro to Chem, which I can teach with my eyes closed. George, my least favorite lab member, graduates and sets me free of his constant garlic bread stench. My experiments are on a streak, a good one for once. I still spend less time in the lab—because for once I’m not escaping anyone at home. It gives me time to watch about fifteen Korean dramas on Lowe’s Netflix until his Recommended for You has completely shifted from sports and procedural thrillers to romcoms, and Love Island becomes a ninety-nine percent match. I always run cold, so I set the thermostat for eighty-three degrees, night and day.

I eat. I don’t feed, I actually eat—dessert, usually mousses or cakes or cookie dough straight from the tube—and gain three pounds. My clothes fit the same, and I decide that I don’t care.

Lawrence comes to visit with a potted cactus, gives me a long, appraising, suspicious look, and says, “You look good.”

I slide on the thick woolen socks I knitted in December. A first effort, and the pattern is a mess, and according to Reddit user KnitMeBabyOneMoreTime I chose the wrong yarn. They’re warm nonetheless. 

“I think,” I say, “that married life suits me.”

Lawrence seems skeptical. “Seems to me like you’re a natural-born widow.”

I smile and keep on smiling for a few days, which turns into weeks, that turns into months.

Then, one night, Lowe comes back. And my smile falters.

 

~*~

 

He doesn’t look too good, though I can’t put my finger on why. He’s not bleeding, not limping, not gaunt or thinner than he was the day of our wedding. He smells good. Healthy, nourishing blood. Really, really good.

Maybe it’s the eyes. His expression. Some bone-deep fatigue that seems to weigh on his shoulders. Maybe it’s the blue light of the TV as he steps inside my living room.

Wait.

His living room.

“Hi, Ivy.”

“Lowe,” I croak. It’s a Saturday night, which means that I haven’t spoken to anyone in over twenty-four hours. Plus, I’m in the middle of embroidering a black cat on a piece of practice fabric.

He lets his duffel bag fall to the ground and collapses on a chair. It’s the same Lawrence sits on when he visits, but it looks about half the size with Lowe in it. Interesting trick of perspective.

“How are you?” I ask, putting Love is Blind on mute and setting my embroidery loop aside.

“Tired,” he says after several seconds. “Just tired.”

“Would you, um, like something to drink? Or, um… eat?” I offer, as though he’s my guest.

He leans back in a surprisingly graceful, exhausted move, shaking his head. Then we are silent for at least ten minutes.

I wonder if he’s fallen asleep. Should I turn off the TV? Would it be weird to cover him with a blanket? Will he be mad when he notices that I changed the lightbulbs to softer tones? Is he going to leave again tomorrow and stay gone for five more months?

I’m tiptoeing anyway, trying to slink off to my room, when I hear, “I tried to call you.”

I turn around. Lowe’s eyes are still closed. “Oh, you… You did?”

He nods. “Every day. Until you blocked my number.”

I frown. “Are you sure? Because I—” Oh. “Do you happen to have a California number?”

“Yup.”

“Oh.” Shit. “Why California?”

“College. Went to Caltech, lived there for a bit.”

“Ah.” I nod. “Ah, yeah.” I scratch the back of my neck. “Sorry. I just—I don’t really answer unknown callers. I figured you were probably a telemarketer and…” And not my husband.

He smiles, just a little. Like he doesn’t mind.

“Did you…” I clear my throat. “Did you have a good time on your… trip?”

He doesn’t move. “No.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“There were disputes. With allied packs—the armistice with the vampires has knocked a couple of things off balance. I had to… oversee. Some talks.”

“Oh.” I wonder if overseeing talks is code for beating the shit out of unrest. “Sorry. I thought that maybe you were on vacation or something…”

He shakes his head, slowly. Somehow, he looks exponentially more tired than when he came in. Still smells good, though.

“Do you like the house?” he asks.

“I… yes. Yes, I do.”

“Great. Feel free to—” he yawns “—change whatever you like.”

Really? “Really?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I have… switched out some lightbulbs. And I’ve been using your TV.”

“Mm.”

“And I… I might have screwed up your Netflix algorithm.”

A shade of a smile. “I noticed.” He’s almost asleep. “I’ve been getting emails about something called The Kissing Booth.”

Shit. Again. “You’re not mad?”

No answer. I wait for half a minute, then a whole one, then figure he must have conked out. So I turn and begin to gather my stuff, trying to be as quiet as possible, almost dropping one of the embroidery needles on the hardwood floor. I’m not going to cover him with a blanket—that would be creepy. Intrusive. Yeah, no.

I’m almost out of the living room when I hear something.

Lowe. Probably talking in his sleep. Already dreaming.

“I think,” he mumbles, inhaling deep within his lungs, “I think that I could die happy, rolling around your smell.”

~*~

 

When I wake up the following morning the house smells like food.

I pad inside the kitchen barefoot, feeling a little weird, telling myself that I have no reason to act like he’s invading my personal space, since I don’t pay rent, or the mortgage, or property taxes. Come to think of it, I haven’t even wondered about utilities since I moved in. I hope they’re not about to disconnect our Wi-Fi because a life without internet is not one I care to—

“Hungry?” Lowe asks, giving me his back. His naked, muscled, broad back.

I guess I’m the kind of person who notices backs?

I look away, noticing that he has made breakfast. Bacon and eggs and a bowl of fruit, full of something yellow that’s probably banana and then other small, colorful pieces that must be different berries. I can’t really eat them, so I never bothered memorizing their names. Plus, they are very counterintuitive. Blueberries? Not blue, purple. Blackberries? Once again, not blue, (a slightly darker) purple. Strawberries? Not straw-shaped. Raspberries? They do not rasp. In fact, they don’t make any noise at all. Cranberries? They—

“Ivy?” He turns around. “Are you hungry?”

“Oh. Um…” I scratch my arm, suddenly very aware that I’m only wearing an oversized NYU Chemistry t-shirt. But it’s okay. It barely matters because we’re different species, anyway. And it’s a fake marriage. And he likes brunettes. “We… Vampires don’t really… eat.”

He nods. “Should I pour some of the blood from the bags in the fridge, then? Maybe in a chalice? With a little umbrella?” He’s not smiling, but I get the feeling that he’s laughing. At himself? At me? With me? 

“It’s not… It doesn’t really work like that.”

“No?”

“We don’t drink blood for pleasure, for the most part. It just doesn’t feel that good, unless we need to feed. And I fed yesterday, so I should be good for a few days.”

“I see.” He sizes me up. “Care to keep me company, then?”

If he thinks this whole deal is awkward, he doesn’t show it. He waits for me to sit across from him and just digs in, eating a little like a child: looking down at his plate, with big, savoring bites, the next one chasing the previous even though he’s not quite done chewing.

It’s a little endearing. Cute.

Then I realize that I’m staring and that since I’m the only one whose mouth isn’t full; I should probably be attempting conversation.

“Do you…” I clear my throat. “Did you maybe want to talk about this?”

He looks up. Chews a little longer. Swallows his food. “This?”

“The fact that we are, um, married.”

“Ah.” He nods, but the eating doesn’t slow. “Yes. Of course. What’s up?”

“I was just wondering… should we… if we are living together, should we have…” I realize I’m gesticulating like a maniac and trap my hands under my thighs. “How is this going to work?”

“How is what going to work?”

“This… marriage.”

“Ah.” He sips his coffee. “How would you like it to work, Ivy?”

“I… I don’t have any preferences, really. You can do what you want, and… I guess all I want is to not be in your way.”

He finally stops eating. Leans back against his chair. Crosses his arms on his chest. “Not be in my way?”

“Yeah.”

“All you want is to not be in my way.”

“I… yeah. That’s what I said.”

“I find that hard to believe.” He studies me silently for several moments until I find myself fidgeting in my chair.

“Well—I do want other things. From life. Like to finish my dissertation and publish it, and then maybe get a good job. But that doesn’t really have anything do with you and I don’t want to bother you with—”

“What’s your dissertation about?”

“Photocycloaddition. It’s basically combining an excited state enone with an alkene to produce a cyclobutane—nothing groundbreaking per se, but I’ve been using it to synthesize organic compounds with interesting topology. Mostly, I’ve been focusing on how carbon skeletons are…” I trail off, realizing that he can’t possibly care about any of this. And yet, for some reason, he’s still looking at me intently. My family is usually staring at their phones by now. “Anyway.” I clear my throat and get out of my chair. “I have to go to the lab.”

“Ivy?” he calls when I’m almost out of the room. “Is that cheesecake in the fridge?”

Uh-oh. “Yes.”

“I thought you said you vampires couldn’t eat?”

I feel myself blush. A bit of a feat, considering how little blood there is in my circulatory system. “Um… I didn’t say that we can’t eat. Just that we don’t eat.”

“So, you do eat cheesecake?”

I don’t answer him. “Eating, in general, is frowned upon. For vampires.”

“Why?”

“It’s just unnecessary. And harmful if done in large quantities. Vampires don’t exactly have, you know, much of a metabolism, and sugar is a delicious and very addictive substance for all species, so it would be better to avoid it. For everyone, really. Vampires. Humans. Werewo—”

“Wait. Rewind.” He crosses his arms on his chest, seeming half-delighted, half-intrigued. “So, you do eat cheesecake. And every time you have a slice of cheesecake, it’s basically the vampire equivalent of doing hard drugs?”

I wince. “That is an unfair, excessive comparison.”

“Is it, though?”

“Lowe.” I frown, biting my lower lip. “Will you please not tell anyone?”

He smiles a small, amused smile, and makes no promises.

 

~*~

 

“How are things going?” my father asks during our bi-weekly call. Lowe has been home for about ten days, three of which I spent in the lab running back-to-back experiments while desperately trying to meet the unjust, arbitrary deadlines that my advisor likes to spring on me out of the blue.

“Fine,” I say, toeing out my boots in the entrance. I can hear the TV in the living room—something about a serial killer being about to be apprehended and a district attorney pushing for evidence. Now that Lowe’s back, my Netflix recommendations are all screwed up again.

“If Moreland is being in any way—”

“It’s fine,” I repeat firmly.

It’s not even a lie. And it’s not even because bite-sized cheesecake has begun to appear in the freezer.

 

~*~

 

I take a nap on the couch.

When I wake up, there’s a blanket I’ve never seen before on top of me.

 

~*~

 

“This is Lawrence,” I tell Lowe the first time he comes over. “My best friend since middle school.”

Lowe, who got home about twenty minutes ago smelling like rotten leaves and soil, and then took a shower while telling me through the bathroom door the admittedly-hilarious story of how he shifted into wolf form to go to a pack meeting, but his instincts took over and he ended up chasing a raccoon in Central Park; Lowe, my “husband,” pushes away from the wall in the entrance and gives Lawrence the once-over.

“You were at the wedding,” he says, sounding suspicious. A little aggressive. Even though we were laughing about his raccoon issues until the doorbell rang. “And you’ve been in the house while I was gone. I can smell you.”

Lawrence swallows audibly and takes a step back. “Oh—it’s just—”

“We have movie night every Friday,” I explain before Lawrence can piss himself. “We skipped last week because of those studies I told you about. But yeah, every Friday, for the most part.”

Lowe looks skeptical for a moment. Then he nods slowly. “Okay. You can have the TV.”

“Oh, no need.” I grab Laurie’s sleeve and drag him upstairs. “We’ll just be in my bedroom.

“Does he hate me?” Lawrence whispers once the door is closed behind us, while I search for my wayward laptop.

“I don’t think so.” I shrug. “You’re still okay with watching Practical Magic?”

“He is terrifying. Did he really kill his dad?”

Ah! Under the pillow. “I doubt it. And he’s not. He’s chill.”

“That was not chill, Ivy. He looked at me like I was gonna steal his flock and—” His eyes widen. “Oh em gee.”

“What?”

“He’s jealous! He thinks that I’m boinking his wife! A fucking Alpha werewolf thinks I’m boinking his vampire bride and—”

“No, he doesn’t, you weirdo!” I throw the pillow at him for good measure. “He doesn’t think of me as his wife—we’re just, like… arranged roommates?”

But the next Friday Lawrence comes over to watch Hitch, and he manages to sneak into his greetings to Lowe a “Hey man, just FYI: I’m very happily in love. With a dude.”

I roll my eyes, a little embarrassed. But after that Lowe softens quite a bit towards Lawrence, and as the weeks go by, he starts joining us for movie night, laughing at our romcoms in all the right places, as though he actually finds them enjoyable.

 

~*~

 

“That’s it. I’m done.”

“What’s it?”

“The next time you forget to lower the toilet seat you lose bathroom privileges and piss in the garden for a week. Like the wolf you are.”

“Okay. Fine. Then the next time you flood said bathroom you lose shower privileges and I hose you down on the porch.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“I’m about to watch a documentary on alien abductions. Want to join me?”

“…Sure. I’ll get some cheesecake.”

 

~*~

 

We’ve been married for months the first time I see him as a wolf.

It’s the full moon, some pack function I sort of don’t want to go to, which overlaps with a lecture I kind of don’t want to go to, and with my cousin’s birthday party, which would mean hearing my mom comment on the fact that I’m filling up a bit and that my hair is a little too long and that I should really learn to apply eyeshadow better—which I really don’t want to go to.

“It’ll be fun,” Lowe says. “And people need to see us together, at some point.”

“Do they, though?”

“Yep. Otherwise, they’ll think I chopped you up and hid you in the basement. Or, worse, that I’m a loser who made up a Canadian girlfriend.”

I finish my blood and lick my lips. It used to be embarrassing, the idea of him seeing me feed. I spent weeks sneaking my blood bags in my bedroom, waiting for him to go out, keeping an ear out for him.

Then one morning he padded into the kitchen, noticed me fitfully gulping blood over the sink, and asked through a yawn, “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable sitting down?”

And that was that.

“Do vampires often show up for your spring celebration festivities or whatever?” I ask.

The post-feed heat is blooming inside me, warm blood rushing to my cheeks, to my breasts, to my legs, to my… It’s normal. It’s normal to come alive after feeding. It has nothing to do with Lowe. I just wish he weren’t here to see it. To look at me like he knows what’s happening to my body.

“Unfair question,” he says, eyes briefly falling on my chest, “considering that this is the first time we’re not at war in like, three centuries.”

“I’ll take it as a no.”

He sighs, taking the empty blood bottle from my hands and putting it into the dishwasher. Without rinsing it first—as ever, a point of contention.

Humph.

“Ivy, I need to show my pack that this is working. That you’re around. That vampires are not some kind of overgrown leeches who sleep in coffins and drain babies. They need to see that their Alpha is getting along with his vampire wife, and therefore they should get along with their vampire neighbors, or whatever.” His tone is annoyingly rational.

“Right. Yes. Totally. But counterpoint: what happens when they get peckish and decide to maul me?”

He frowns. Crosses his arms on his chest. Straightens his back until he looks his full height, many inches over many feet.

“Do you really think I’d let anyone hurt you?” he asks me, sounding half-outraged, half-hurt himself.

I stare at him for a long time, and then let my shoulders drop, resigned to go to the York spring festival or whatever the hell it is.

Because, no. Alas, I really can’t say I do.

~*~

 

Lowe’s fur is light gray, beautiful, thick and straight and glossy. Not at all like his hair—which is also beautiful, but in a completely different way. I stare at him like an idiot. Like a child who’s both scared and mesmerized by a dog who just happens to be as tall as she is.

He licks one of his paws, shakes his body, and then comes toward me and butts his head against my hand.

“Oh. Oh, do you—?”

Another head butt. Something wet—his tongue—rasping against my fingers.

“Gross,” I say. A lie, as it’s actually quite pleasant. “Is there something you’re trying to—”

Head butt. Hmm.

I start petting him, long scratches on the top of his head, behind his ears, under his chin, and it must be the right thing to do, because after a while he curls on the ground, dragging me down next to him, and stays there, resting, eyes half open and blissed out, for I don’t know how long. The smell of pine and grass and the coming night swells up my nose, and I feel the softness of Lowe under my finger, and I feel myself smile, I feel myself thinking that maybe he was right, this isn’t so bad after all, not nearly as bad as a lecture on the Woodward-Hoffman rules or my mother’s frosty disapproval.

When I lift my eyes, many minutes later, there are hundreds of wolves in the field. And they’re all staring at us.

 

~*~

 

“Emma,” the brunette from the picture tells me with a smile.

Her handshake is strong and warm, and her body, naked after her graceful shift into human form, is tall and beautiful.

“I had to skip the wedding, but I’m glad to finally meet you, Ivy. Lowe has been going on and on about you.”

“Oh.” I look around. Lowe is nowhere in sight. “Has he been complaining about the thermostat? Because if he didn’t lower it so often, then I wouldn’t have to—”

“Oh, no way.” Emma laughs, and her breasts wiggle, careless and free and supple. I want to be her. “No, he’s been saying great things! He knows better than to bitch about his wife with me, anyway.”

“He does?”

“Yeah. I’d totally side with you.”

“Oh.” I scratch my temple. “Oh, that’s really…” I look around, and my eyes fall on Lowe’s sister, who’s glaring at me from under a maple tree.

“Ignore her,” Emma tells me. “She’s young and very morose. I’m pretty sure she hates vamps because she lost to one at a track meet, like, ten years ago.” She twines her arm with mine. “Come with me and tell me about grad school. I’ve been thinking about going back for an MBA—can you please talk me out of it?”

 

~*~

 

“I like Emma a lot,” I tell Lowe later, much later, after we’ve said goodbye to his surprisingly welcoming pack under the moonlight; after we’ve stumbled home laughing about the way I slipped and almost broke my neck on a puddle of ice; after a game of rock, paper, scissors to decide who gets to use the shower first; after two mugs of mint tea on the couch, Lowe’s with cloves in it, mine without; after we both put on thick, newly-knitted socks, bright red and yellow, and the pattern is still a bit of mess, but I’m getting better every day; after I slide my feet under his warm thigh, the wool rough against the cotton of his sweatpants.

“Me too,” he says, grabbing the remote and turning on the TV. “I like her a whole lot.”

My heart drops, and the words sting a little. Then a lot. Then unbearably. 

Then Lowe’s hand wraps around my ankle, solid and firm, warm, and I tell myself that it doesn’t really matter. The TV drones on, my lids are closing, and everything, almost everything is fine.

 

~*~

 

I’m looking for the Bed, Bath & Beyond Coupon I hid somewhere around the entrance table, just to make sure Lowe wouldn’t toss it, and that’s when I find it.

“What is this?” I ask him as he comes downstairs, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“What’s what?”

I lift up the book to show him.

“What it says on the cover. Chemistry for Dummies. Riveting read, by the way.”

“I—I know what it is, but why is it here, in this house?”

He shrugs as he disappears from the hallway. “I bought it.”

“Why did you—?”

“So I can follow along next time you talk about your thesis,” he yells from the kitchen.

I drop the book back on the table like it’s burning.

 

~*~

 

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Okay.” I swallow. I bite my lip. I scrunch my nose. “Okay, well, why—”

“Because it’s insane.” Lowe steps in front of the door like he’s a bouncer at a nightclub. “Ivy, there’s a pandemic out there. The city’s in lockdown. Plus, it’s the middle of the day and sunny as fuck, which means that you’re going to be sluggish the second you step out.”

“Yeah, well—I’m gonna be a hell of a lot more sluggish if I don’t get blood to feed on.”

“The blood banks are closed. The open ones are crowded with desperate people, and they probably ran out days ago, anyway. And you don’t know what precautions they’re taking if any—”

“Okay—you know what? Good point. Banks are running out of blood, which means that the sooner I go out the better—”

“No.”

I exhale. Inhale. Exhale again, more sharply. “Lowe.”

“I said, no.”

“Awesome. Great.” I shrug. “Also: irrelevant. You have no right to tell me what to do, and—”

“You are my wife, last I checked—”

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t mean that you can tell me what to do—”

“No, but it does mean that we live together. And that you can feed. From me.”

I snap my mouth shut and take a step back. Just as he takes one forward.

“W-what?”

“Just feed from me,” he says, like it’s not a big deal. Like he doesn’t understand. Like it’s not the most—the most— “Or let me go out to the bank for you. Wolves have great immune systems.”

I shake my head. “They won’t give you blood. You’re—you’re not a vampire. And you’re a…”

“A wolf?”

“Yeah. Which is sort of the opposite.”

“Then just feed from me.” He’s starting to sound irritated. And I’m starting to feel a bit heated. “Why not? Who do you usually feed from?”

“You…” My fangs have descended. I’m lisping a bit. God—this is mortifying. “You’ve seen the bags. The bottles.”

“Yes, but what about when you feed from people.”

“It’s just not really a thing that we do. Unless we’re… in a relationship. Like, a serious one. Like, married.”

He lifts one eyebrow.

“Not married like us! Like… married, married. It’s very intimate.”

“Why?”

“Because… things happen. Sometimes.”

“Like what things?”

“I… I don’t know. I… It’s different from person to person. And I’ve never done it. It’s a—we don’t talk about it. It’s—” I’m blubbering. So I shut up.

He frowns. “So it could be next to nothing, for all you know. It could be just like drinking from a bag, but you’d rather go out and risk getting this horrible virus that we know next to nothing about?”

“Lowe, it’s—”

“Ivy, I don’t give a fuck,” he says, and I realize all of a sudden how easygoing he usually is with me. He is an Alpha. I have no doubt he’s an Alpha, right this moment. “I’m not letting you put yourself at risk. Not over something that I can easily do for you. Okay?”

Time stills. The ground shakes a little. Outside there are no cars, no traffic, no people going out for their lunch break, for coffee, for a midday run.

I look into Lowe’s eyes, dark and earnest and so, so simple.

“Okay,” I rasp out.

 

~*~

 

The couch seems like a bad idea.

Terrible, really. It’s the place where we spend almost every night together, the place where we yell at The Great British Bake Off, where I bitch about my advisor and where Lowe tells me that he loves being Alpha, yes, he absolutely does, before launching on a ten-minute rant on how much better his life would be if only his pack listened to him. It’s the place where I asked him if he really killed his father and he laughed that no, no he hadn’t, and then sobered up and said that he kind of wishes he had. The place where I explained that I haven’t visited my family in months because I don’t particularly want to, because there must be something wrong with me, and I never really fit in with the other vampires, or with the other grad students, or even with the Women in Science Association I’ve been a treasurer for in the past two years.

It’s a good place, that couch. I see no reason to defile it, to taint it with what’s sure to be—

“Come on,“ Lowe urges, sitting in his usual spot, bending his neck to show me his vein. 

My heart lurches. And my fangs descend. They ache.

“Are you sure that—”

“Ivy,” he says, sounding tired and a little irritated. Shit.

“I… your wrist. Can we… Can it be your wrist?” I’m lisping again.

He shrugs. “Sure. Right one okay?”

No. No, it’s not okay. “Yeah.”

“Do you need me to cut the vein open?”

“No! No, I can… My fangs are…”

His wrist is a millimeter from my lips, the smell of his blood warm and potent and delicious under the tanned skin, and I really—a terrible, terrible idea that—I should, I really should not—I changed my mind and—

Thick.

His blood is thick. Nourishing. Sweet, pouring down my throat, filling up my belly, quickly surging into my own veins. At some point I’ve reached up to steady his arm, to pull it flush against my mouth, and it’s just two, three, four small gulps but I am already feeling the best I’ve ever felt. They say drinking straight from the source is good, that the taste is better than the bags from the bank, but—this. This.

This this this this, it’s unlike anything, heady and addling and addicting and—

“Fuck,” I hear, just a whisper, and I open my eyes.

Lowe’s pupils are blown wide, black and large and glazed over. There’s a sheen of sweat over his skin, one that wasn’t there a moment earlier. I make to pull back.

He stops me with a hand on my knee. “No! I—it’s—no. Please.”

I’m not sure what the please means. What he’s asking me for. But I lean into his wrist, closing my lips around his skin. Can’t really help myself.

“Yeah,” he says, a little nonsensical, a little breathless even though he’s sitting down, leaning comfortably against the back of the couch. “Yeah. Like that.”

There is something sticky and heavy pooling in my abdomen, licking up my spine. I am molten. Hot. Wet, liquid, coming apart in pieces. Lowe’s blood is doing things. To me. Doing scary, dangerous—

“I don’t suppose you’d be interested in me fucking you, right now?” he slurs.

The world stops.

Did he—did he just—?

A wave of heat washes over me. My eyes widen.

“No. Right. Yeah—I didn’t think so. I don’t really want to, either. I’d like for our first time to be a bit more…” he ends the sentence with a grunt.

His hips roll up, little more than an involuntary jerk, but I can see it. I really couldn’t miss it—nobody could.

He’s huge. As hard as a rock.

“Fuck, Ivy,” he groans, and I—I need to stop drinking from him. I need to—this is a terrible idea and I should let go of his arm and take a step back, but I am glowing heat and for once something feels good and— “Holy fuck, Ivy. This is… holy shit.”

Oh my god. Oh my god. He is biting his lower lip and closing his eyes like he’s about to explode, like he’s about to lose it, and I can’t keep doing this. This is just—

“Could I—can I take it out?”

My brain is liquifying. Boiling hot. What is Lowe talking about?

“I’ve just never been harder and…” His hand fists in the cushion at his side. I hear an odd sound—something tearing. The upholstery. “Do you mind if I jerk off a bit? I don’t need to come. Just…”

What? Is he—is he insane? No. Of course he can’t. Of course he cannot.

I feel myself nod, foreign to my own mind.

I think I’ve never been wetter.

“Oh, thank fuck.”

He rips open the fly of his jeans as I take another gulp, and—god. He takes himself in hand, and—they’re big. His hands are big, all of him is big, always has been. But when he fists his cock I can’t quite tear my eyes away.

My breath hitches, and I almost choke on his blood. Almost.

“Jesus.” He pumps himself slowly, long drags, and his expression goes slack with pleasure, or relief, or something else that I cannot quite decipher. The tip of his cock is glistening, an aggressive red. His fingers tighten just underneath, a tight vise, and his breath catches.

I am still drinking. I cannot stop, not now that his blood has taken a different, darker flavor. I think I taste it, whatever he’s feeling.

“Can I look at you?” I glance up from the wet, pumping mess in Lowe’s lap, but he doesn’t meet my eyes. His gaze is fixed on my chest. On my breasts.

“I—I’m sorry. But your nipples are really hard, and I shouldn’t stare at them but I can see them poking through your shirt and—fuck.” His hand is moving faster. “And your cunt. It always smells sweet and ripe after your feed, but God, never like this and I—I want to eat you out so bad. You smell wet. Oh god, you smell so fucking wet. I can—I need you to tell me if I can take care of you. Do you want me to eat you out? To fuck you? I dream of it, Ivy. I jerk off to it. In the same shower you use.”

I moan, and the vibration seems to go straight through his skin, right up his cock. He thrusts harder in his own grip, and for a moment he tenses as though he cannot breathe, cannot speak, cannot see. Then I notice it: something thick swelling, growing, pulsating at the bottom of his shaft.

“Oh fuck—Ivy. You’re going to make me knot, aren’t you? With your pretty little fangs, you’re going to make me knot. God—do you know I haven’t done it in years? Do you know that I can’t even remember the last time? I was probably fucking fourteen the last time, I—shit. Shit.”

A second of nothing. We are quiet. Suspended. Strung as taut as drumheads.

Then Lowe starts coming. Long, thick spurts running down his shaft and his fingers and his knot; noises, and slurred words, and my name, over and over, whispered and grunted and pleaded; his head arched back as he gulps in air, fitfully, just barely. It goes on and on, on for minutes, as if he’s lost in pleasure, blind to anything else, and I think that maybe so am I, maybe I’m coming, too, maybe that’s why I’m shaking like a leaf.

Then the flow ebbs, and his eyes open, and his hand, the one next to my mouth, the one I’ve been drinking from, it turns and moves, just enough to touch my skin and cup my face.

“Ivy. Sweetheart.”

My body goes icy cold.

I—

I just—

Oh my god, I—

What just happened hits me like a boulder.

I jump back, forget all about closing his wounds, and dart into my room as fast as I can.

 

~*~

 

I avoid him for three days.

Not an easy task, considering that Lowe and I live in the same house. That we are quarantining together. That I will soon need to feed again. That I must use the restroom at the end of the hallway. That he comes to my door about twice a day, knocking softly, sighing softly, speaking softly.

“Ivy.”

“Please, Ivy.”

“Can we talk about this?”

“I…”

“Ivy, could you come out?”

“We can’t continue like this.”

He is right. We really can’t. We can’t keep living together after I—after I drugged him with my stupid bite and then—then took advantage of him while I stole way more of his blood than he’d probably agreed to. What I did was unforgivable. And it doesn’t matter, that I didn’t know what would happen. It doesn’t matter, that I didn’t mean to. It doesn’t matter, that when I text Lawrence to ask him how it feels like when he feeds from his husband all he says is:

 

L: Nice.

L: I mean, good.

L: Why?

What about sexual arousal?

L: Like… do we get horny when we bite each other?

Yeah.

L: Only if we’re already horny. Biting just kind of amplifies what we’re already feeling, anyway.

L: Why are you asking me these questions?

L: Ivy?

L: Ivy whatever you’ve been up to, I have a right to know.

L: IVY!!!

 

I bury my face in the pillow. In the mattress. In my hands, my desk, my laptop. I just bury my face a lot, because I’m not sure what else to do, and the alternative—thinking of a way to fix what I’ve done—is not something I care to contemplate.

Then, at 2 AM on the third day, when I sneak out to use the restroom, the worst possible thing happens. I find Lowe sitting in the hallway, a paperback in his huge hand and his reading glasses perched on his nose, clearly waiting up for me.

An ambush.

He looks up, smiles softly, and puts his book away, face down on the floor to keep his place.

“Hey, Ivy.” His voice is low and warm. “Long time no see.”

 

~*~

 

“All I ask for is five minutes,” he tells me after I’m done peeing. He has shepherded me to the living room, forced me to sit down, right on the couch where we did The Thing. I have avoided this part of the house like it’s a cesspool for the last seventy-two hours. “To talk through what happened.”

“Sure,” I say, voice small and weak and resigned. God, what if he hates me. What if he yells at me? What if he wants to press charges and—

“I’m sorry.” He takes a deep breath. “What I did was unforgivable. And believe me—I understand if you want me to move out.”

Uh?

Did he just…? “Isn’t this your house?”

He shakes his head, staring down at his hands. “It’s our house. And the way I acted is—”

I frown. “Is it? Our house?”

“Yeah.” He looks up. “I told you.”

“Well—I know I can, like, change the furniture, but the legal owner of the house is—”

“—the two of us. Both our names are on the deed. Because we’re married.” He shrugs, a little impatient. “Anyway—the point is, clearly I’m the one who took advantage of—”

“Hang on a second.” I lift one finger. “We—we had a forced, arranged marriage. It’s not—why would you put my name on the deed? We’re just—it’s not like we married because we wanted to.”

He cocks his head as if surprised. “No,” he says slowly, “we didn’t. But then things started changing.”

“They… they did?”

“Yeah,” he says, still slowly, as though I’m a child who’s not quite bright. “Then we started spending all our time together. And just being… us.”

I scratch my neck, puzzled. “I mean, we did. But just… because we’re friends. We just kind of… get along. And are making the best out of a bad situation. But that’s it.” I notice the way he’s still staring at me, and suddenly feel insecure. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

Lowe presses his lips together. As though he’s trying to avoid smiling. “Right. Yes. Because you see me as a friend, Ivy?”

“I mean, I—yes. Yes, I—” A rush of heat sweeps over me. I bet I’m crimson. Actually, no—I can’t be crimson, because I haven’t fed in three days. “Of course we’re friends. And I…” I don’t think about you all the time. And I don’t know your smell by heart. And I absolutely never pretend to myself that on our wedding day it was just the two of us, and no pack, no clan, no stupid interspecies war to mend.

“Right.” He is fully smiling now. As though this is amusing. As though I am amusing. “So, just to be clear, you do not think that what happened the other day here, on this very stained couch, is where we were headed all along?”

My eyes widen. “No. Not at all. And we should probably get the couch cleaned before your, um, crusts all over—”

“So—” Lowe is practically laughing now “—where is it that you think our relationship is headed, Ivy?”

“Oh, I… I don’t know. I guess… I guess I’m going to finish my dissertation. Defend it. And maybe get an academic job. And then in a few years you and I will quietly divorce and the vampire and werewolf communities will never know and maybe we’ll keep in touch with some emails, maybe not, it really depends on whether your future wife will hate me, and—” There’s a weird smell in the air. Wet. Salty. It’s coming from my eyes.

“And?” Lowe prompts me with another grin. He’s standing from the couch.

“And, I don’t know.” I wipe my cheek. “I mean, maybe you will marry Emma, and she’ll be nice to me, she’ll invite me for Thanksgiving and stuff. Or maybe you’ll end up with some other beautiful wolf who can hold a plank for more than twelve seconds. And I guess maybe I’ll get a dog, since I always liked pets, or maybe even a cat, and I—I—”

I can’t speak anymore. Because Lowe slides down to the floor between my knees, and he cups my face, and then he’s kissing me, his tongue sweet against my fangs, his fingers firm inside my hair.

It doesn’t even matter if he’s laughing against my lips.