We Become the Night
Chapter 28:

A birthday surprise

After a night of constant nightmares, I wake groggily to see a grinning Garrett right in my face.

“Huh? What?” I mumble. I push at Garrett’s chest, but he doesn’t move. Instead, he laughs.

“Happy birthday, Caleb!” He thrusts a wrapped box at me that he was holding behind his back. I sit up and rub my eyes. Garrett places the box on my lap. The box isn’t very big which makes me wonder what it could be. I pick it up and hold it near my ear, shaking it.

“Just open it,” Garrett impatiently instructs me. I groan but pull off the bow and wrapping paper. The box inside is a deep, blood-red plush box about four inches square. The opening is ringed with silver.

“The box alone is a beautiful gift.”

“Yeah, but you need to see what’s inside.”

I open the lid slowly, the hinges silent. My jaw drops as I take in what is nestled inside.

My hand shakes as I reach for the jewel lovingly protected by the velvet lining. A long silver chain drags behind the jewel. The jewel itself is pink at first glance, but after pulling it from the box I see hints of green, purple, and blue. When held up to the sunlight, I can see all the colors of the rainbow swirling around in it.

I lift my eyes to Garrett’s face. He’s practically bouncing with excitement.

“Where... Where did you get this?” I ask quietly. I can’t seem to make my voice go any louder.

“Do you like it?”

“Like? No. I love it. It’s absolutely beautiful.”

“The stone is a type of tourmaline. I’ve held onto that since I was a kid. I knew that someday I would give that to someone special. I had Alexis work up the fittings and chain. According to Mrs. Corey, that stone will protect the wearer from magicks and will connect two people wearing identical stones.” He reaches in his shirt and pulls out a necklace of an identical stone.

My eyes shimmer with tears of joy and love for this vampire.

“Here. Let me.” He holds his hand out for the necklace. I hand it to him and turn around. He reaches around me and pulls the chain back towards himself. I hear the clasp slide into place and feel the chain fall onto my neck. The chain isn’t super long, so the stone sits right in the crook of my collarbone.

I turn around and wrap my arms around Garrett, pulling him close for a deep kiss. Before I could initiate anything further, there’s a light knock on the door.

I pull away from Garrett and answer the door. Balan is standing there with his hands behind his back.

“Well, hello there, Bay. What’s going on this morning?”

“Happy birthday, Cal.” Balan swings a small, wrapped package around from his back, much in the same manner as Garrett just had.

“Thank you, sweetie. Wanna come in? I’ll open it in here.”

“Okay. Max told me your birthday is today, so I wanted to make sure you got something.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you.” Garrett told Balan, picking up the young changeling and settling him on the bed so he can watch me open the gift. I pull the paper off in slowly exaggerated movements, making Balan laugh. Inside is an acrylic painting on a piece of cardboard. The picture, obviously done by a child, is of three wolves and one human figure and one that must be Garrett judging by the over large fangs. The wolves are all wearing party hats and the human figure is blowing a noise maker while the vampire is cutting an oversized cake. In the background is a large banner which reads, “Happe Birth Day, Kal!”

“It’s us.” He points to the three wolves, one large, one medium sized and one small one. “And Max and Garrett.” Then he points to the human and vampire in turn. “Remember the first night we changed here? I wanted to give you something to remember me and the first time I came to the house.”

“I absolutely love it,” I tell him, hugging him. Garrett wordlessly gets up from the bed and takes down a framed picture. He takes the picture out of the frame and holds his hand out for the painting. I hand it to him. He places it in the frame and rehangs it on the wall.

“There. Now we’ll be able to see it every single day.” Garrett smiles at Balan. Balan beams at the thought of his gift being well received.

“Thank you so much, Bay. I love it.” I pick him up and hug him tightly. He returns the tight hug.

“I love you, Cal,” he tells me and melts my heart.

“This is starting out to be the best birthday ever. Thank you, guys.”

Kali and Max peak their heads into the room.

“Hey, Cal. You and Garrett come on downstairs. We have a surprise for you,” Kali announces cheerfully. Max doesn’t say anything. He just grins like an idiot.

“Now you have me worried,” I joke, smiling. Max laughs, but still doesn’t say anything. I grab a t-shirt that’s draped over the top of the dresser and throw it on. Garrett does the same. We follow Max and Kali out the door and down the stairs.

The living room is decked out in tons of birthday decorations. Though there are streamers, dangles, banners, mylar balloons, latex balloon, plates, napkins, cups, tablecloths, and tabletop decorations everywhere, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of theme to the decorations. There’s generic style, Pokémon, Luau, Military, Spiderman, Avengers, and so many more. What I don’t see is anyone in the living room. I can hear them practicing outside though, so maybe the setup is for later.

“Did you guys buy out a party store?” I ask incredulously. Kali laughs.

“It was Max’s idea to get silly decorations. A few of us went to the store and we couldn’t decide, so we got a few. Perhaps, we went a little overboard.”

“Uh huh. Perhaps.”

Just as my foot hits the bottom stair, a dozen paras pop up out of nowhere and yell, “SURPRISE!”

“AHHHHHHH!” I screech and stumble back. I would have slammed my butt on the edge of the stair behind me if Garrett hadn’t caught me. Everyone, including myself, burst out laughing. It feels good to laugh after the weeks of constant fighting practice and worry.

“Max! Was this all your idea?” I accuse him, still laughing. He shrugs.

“You’ve always said you wanted a surprise party.” I turn around and hug him.

“Thank you. Thank you, everyone,” I address the room at large.

“Happy birthday, your majesty,” one of the changelings tells me. I recognize him as one that has been excelling at the practice of sword fighting. It takes me a second, but I’m able to recall his name as Channing.

“Thank you, Channing.”

“Come on, let’s eat.” Kali drags us from the living room to the patio. What I heard as sword practice, turns out to be more paras setting up several picnic tables outside for brunch. Though it is a little cool to be eating outside in mid-March, most of us can easily withstand the cold.

Persia comes up to me and wraps me in a motherly embrace.

“For your mother that can’t be here with you today.” She holds me to her slightly longer than I normally would have liked, but what she said makes me hold her tighter.

Because she’s right. My mother can’t be here today. Neither can my father or brother. My father would have taken today off of work, and my brother and I would have stayed home from school. We would have done anything I wanted today, from just hanging around the house, to going to the mall, to going to an arcade. That has been our family’s tradition.

Now it’s time to make new traditions with my new family. The paranormal community is my new family, and, as I look around at so many paras willing to give their life for my faction, I can’t help but be touched by their love.

Persia guides me to an especially over decorated table and sits me in the center. Kali comes over and places a Pokémon party hat on my head. I laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Garrett plops down beside me and grabs another hat, this one Avengers, and straps it to his own head. Max and Balan drop down on my other side and each grab a party hat for themselves. Max grabs a bright blue one with lei flowers and Balan grabs a Spiderman one.

The whole morning and most of the early afternoon is spent just having fun. Someone made a huge cake, large enough to feed over two hundred paranormals, who eat more than regular humans. Persia and Dart catered with food from their deli. A few of the more enterprising paras made up games for everyone to play. A couple of the tigers and eagles made a pinata shaped like a vampire, complete with blood dripping from the oversized fangs. I worried for a moment that it would offend Garrett, but he was laughing his ass off when they revealed it. He even took his turn to hit the pinata with the bat.

The highlight of the whole experience has to be when a young hawk shifted and grabbed the pinata in his talons and dropped it on the patio because it wouldn’t break with the bat. Everyone was cracking up at that.

Someone had found a boom box, I didn’t even know they still made those, and put the radio on an older alternative station. So now we have Nirvana and Goo Goo Dolls blaring out in the back yard.

By the midafternoon, everyone has pretty much started to do their own thing. Kali and Persia have roped a few unlucky tigers into cleaning.

Garrett grabs my hand and leads me away. I see Max playing in the yard with Balan. He catches my eye and nods knowingly. We go inside and up the stairs.

In our room, he turns and locks the door.

“Now, I want to give you another part of your present.”

I know what he means, but still, I can’t help baiting him.

“Didn’t you already give me a present though,” I ask innocently. He grins at me. He grabs my jeans by the waist and roughly pulls me to him. In one slick move, he yanks me to his chest, slides his hands around my waist and slithers them up my shirt, skimming my back.

“Caleb, I want you. I want to be with you in every way possible as I know that this might be our last chance.” I start to speak, but he shakes his head. “We don’t know what’s going to happen tonight. So, let’s take now.” With that declaration, he swoops down and claims my mouth with his. I let him. I am completely at his mercy. My arms seem to move of their volition and suddenly my hands are examining every inch of his body that they can. It’s as if this is our first time. Well, if this is our last time, I’m sure as hell going to make the most of it.

His fangs scrape dangerously rough against my lip, but I don’t care. I push to him for more. I begin to protest when he leaves my mouth, but he only pulls my shirt over my head and his mouth is on mine again. I feel his calloused hands graze along the muscles of my back.

His mouth moves away from mine again, but the kisses continue. He leaves a trail of kisses from my lips to my neck and shoulder. I pull at his shirt, yanking it over his head and depositing it on the floor behind me. He wastes no time continuing his trail of kisses. He spins me around so that my back rests against his chest, his lips at my neck again.

I gasp as I feel a sharp pain in my neck as his fangs pierce my skin. Though Garrett has drawn blood before, he’s never actually drank from me. He does so now. The erotic feeling of Garrett drinking my blood has my body both tightening and loosening at the same time. I shiver, not from fright, but from arousal. I feel Garrett’s body behind me tightening just like mine.

He gives a single lick up my neck, sealing the puncture marks. He whips me around in his arms so that we are facing each other again. His eyes are hungry and not for the blood he just took from me. He backs me up to the bed while simultaneously claiming my mouth again. I let him. I give him everything he is asking for and much more.

We lay together in bed, the covers barely concealing our nakedness, modesty be damned. I lay on top of Garrett, my head resting on the middle of his chest. His fingers lazily drawing circles on my back. I smile for no particular reason.

“What are you thinking?” he asks me, his voice gruff and husky.

“About you.” My voice just as husky as his.

“What about me?” I can hear the smile in his voice.

“About just how much I love you and how happy I am right now. And that it can all change in the next several hours.”

His lazy movements stop. He doesn’t say anything right away, and I worry that I’ve ruined the mood.

“No matter what happens tonight, I’ll be by your side through it all.” His circle drawing continues. “And, the gods be willing, we’ll be back here like this tomorrow evening and the one after that and the one after that for the next several hundred years.”

I smile, snuggle closer to his chest, and place a strong kiss on his sternum. He shifts, moving out from under me. I jolt and roll off of him.

“Cal, there’s something that I need to talk to you about.” He gets out of bed and crosses to the dresser. He rummages around through the top drawer. When he replaces whatever it is that he’s looking for, he turns back to me.

“Cal, we’ve been together now for, what two months?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, we’ve been through quite a bit in that time, but there’s....”

I don’t hear the rest of what he says because a loud banging on the door interrupts him. Garrett narrows his eyes, puts the object back in the drawer, and throws on some boxers. Before he can get to the door, there’s banging again, this time accompanied by Max yelling, “Guys!”

Garrett pulls the door open sharply to see Max and Kali standing there. I check to make sure I’m still covered, thankfully I am.

“What’s wrong?” I ask them, noting that both their faces are panicked.

“Balan,” was all Kali could get out before breaking down into tears. Instantly, I’m terrified something happened.

“Balan what? Is he hurt? What happened?” The questions pour out of me.

“He’s gone,” Max supplies.