“He left an hour ago, with an amazing amount of gear.”
He’d be gone all day. So it was just me and Edythe, in an empty house, with no need to go anywhere. So much time. I felt like some crazy old miser, gloating over his piles of gold coins, only instead of coins, it was seconds that I hoarded.
It was only then that I realized she’d changed her clothes. Instead of the thin-strapped tank top, she wore a peach-colored sweater.
“You left?” I asked.
She opened her eyes and smiled, putting one of her hands up to keep mine against her face. “I could hardly leave in the clothes I came in—what would the neighbors think? In any case, I was only gone for a few minutes and you were very deeply asleep at that point, so I know I didn’t miss anything.”
I groaned. “What did I say?”
Her eyes got a little wider, her face more vulnerable. “You said you loved me,” she whispered.
“You already knew that.”
“It was different, hearing the words.”
I stared into her eyes. “I love you,” I said.
She leaned down and rested her forehead carefully against mine. “You are my life now.”
We sat like that for a long time, until finally my stomach grumbled. She sat up, laughing.
“Humanity is so overrated,” I complained.
“Should we begin with breakfast?”
I threw my free hand over my jugular, my eyes wild.
She flinched; then her eyes narrowed and she scowled at me.
I laughed. “Come on, you know that was funny.”
She was still frowning. “I disagree. Shall I rephrase? Breakfast time for the human?”
“Okay. I need another human minute first, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course.”
“Stay.”
She smiled.
I brushed my teeth twice again, then rushed through my shower. I ripped through my wet hair with a comb, trying to make it lie flat. It ignored me pretty thoroughly. And then I hit a wall. I’d forgotten to bring clothes with me.
I hesitated for a minute, but I was too impatient to panic long. There was no help for it. I tucked the towel securely around my waist and then marched into the hall with my face blazing red. Even better—the patch of red on my chest was exposed, too. I stuck my head around the edge of the doorframe.
“Um…”
She was still in the rocking chair. She laughed at my expression.
“Shall we meet in the kitchen, then?”
“Yes, please.”
She was past me in a rush of cool air, down the stairs before a second had passed. I was barely able to follow the motion—she was just a streak of pale color, then nothing.
“Thanks,” I called after her, then hurried to my dresser.
I knew I should probably put some thought into what I wore, but I was in a hurry to get downstairs. I did think to grab a pullover, so she wouldn’t worry about me getting cold.
I raked my fingers through my hair to calm it again, then ran down the stairs.
She was leaning against the counter, looking very at home.
“What’s for breakfast?” I asked.
That threw her for a minute. Her brows pulled together. “I’m not sure.… What would you like?”
I laughed. “That’s all right, I fend for myself pretty well. You’re allowed to watch me hunt.”
I got a bowl and a box of cereal. She returned to the chair she’d sat in last night, watching as I poured the milk and grabbed a spoon. I set my food on the table, then paused. The empty space in front of her on the table made me feel rude.
“Um, can I… get you anything?”
She rolled her eyes. “Just eat, Beau.”
I sat at the table, watching her as I took a bite. She was gazing at me, studying my every movement. It made me self-conscious. I swallowed so I could speak, wanting to distract her.
“Anything on the agenda today?”
“Maybe,” she said. “That depends on whether or not you like my idea.”
“I’ll like it,” I promised as I took a second bite.
She pursed her lips. “Are you open to meeting my family?”
I choked on my cereal.
She jumped up, one hand stretched toward me helplessly, probably thinking about how she could crush my lungs if she tried to give me the Heimlich. I shook my head and motioned for her to sit while I coughed the milk out of my windpipe.
“I’m good, I’m good,” I said when I could speak.
“Please don’t do that to me again, Beau.”
“Sorry.”
“Maybe we should have this conversation after you’re done eating.”
“Okay.” I needed a minute anyway.
She was apparently serious. And I guess I’d already met Archie and it hadn’t been that bad. And Dr. Cullen, too. But that had been back before I’d known Dr. Cullen was a vampire, which changed things. And while I had known with Archie, I didn’t know if he knew that I knew, and that felt like kind of an important distinction to me. Also, Archie was the most supportive, according to Edythe.
There were others who were obviously not as generous.
“I’ve finally done it,” she murmured when I swallowed the last bite and pushed the bowl away.
“What did you do?”
“Scared you.”
I thought about that for a moment, then held up my hand, fingers spread, and waved it from side to side in the international symbol for Kinda, yeah.
“I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you,” she assured me.
But that just made me worry more that someone—Royal—would want to, and she would get in between to rescue me. I didn’t care what she said about holding her own and not fighting fair, that idea really freaked me out.
“No one would try, Beau, that was a joke.”
“I don’t want to cause you any problems. Do they even know that I know?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, they’re quite up to date. It’s not really possible to keep secrets in my house, what with our various parlor tricks. Archie had already seen that your dropping by was a possibility.”
I could feel a variety of expressions rippling across my face before I could control it. What all did Archie see? Yesterday… last night… My face got hot.
I saw her eyes narrow the way they did when she was trying to read my mind.
“Just thinking about what Archie might have seen,” I explained before she could ask.
She nodded. “It can feel invasive. But he doesn’t do it on purpose. And he sees so many different possibilities… he doesn’t know which will happen. For example, he saw over a hundred different ways that yesterday could have gone, and you only survived about seventy-five percent of the scenarios.” Her voice got very hard at the last part, her posture brittle. “They’d taken bets, you know, as to whether I would kill you.”
“Oh.”
Her expression was still rigid. “Do you want to know who sided for and against?”
“Um, maybe not. Tell me after I meet them. I don’t want to go into this prejudiced.”
Surprise erased the anger from her face. “Oh. You’ll go, then?”
“It seems like… the respectful thing to do. I don’t want them to think I’m shady.”
She laughed, a long, bell-like peal. I couldn’t help but smile.
“Does that mean I get to meet Charlie, too, then?” she asked eagerly. “He’s already suspicious, and I’d rather not be shady, either.”
“I mean, sure, but what should we tell him? I mean, how do I explain…?”
She shrugged. “I doubt he’ll struggle too hard with the idea of your having a girlfriend. Though it’s a loose interpretation of the word girl, I’ll admit.”
“Girlfriend,” I mumbled. “It sounds… not enough.” Mostly, it sounded transitory. Something that didn’t last.
She stroked one finger down the side of my face. “Well, I don’t know if we need to give him all the gory details,
but he will need some explanation for why I’m around here so much. I don’t want Chief Swan putting a restraining order on me.”
“Will you really be here?” I asked, suddenly anxious. It seemed too good to be true, something only a fool would count on.
“As long as you want me.”
“I’ll always want you,” I warned her. “I’m talking about forever here.”
She put her fingers against my lips, and her eyes closed. It was almost like she wished I hadn’t said that.
“Does that make you… sad?” I asked, trying to put a name to the expression on her face. Sad seemed closest.
Her eyes opened slowly. She didn’t answer, she just stared into my eyes for a long time. Finally she sighed.
“Shall we?”
I glanced at the clock on the microwave automatically. “Isn’t it a little ear—wait, forget I asked that.”
“Forgotten.”
“Is this okay?” I wondered, gesturing to my clothes. Should I dress up more?
“You look…” She suddenly dimpled up. “Delicious.”
“So you’re saying I should change?”
She laughed and shook her head. “Never change, Beau.”
Then she stood and took a step toward me, so that her knees were pressed against mine. She put her hands on either side of my face and leaned down till her face was just an inch from mine.
“Carefully,” she reminded me.
She tilted her head to the side and closed the distance between us. With the lightest pressure, her lips touched mine.
Carefully! I shouted in my head. Just don’t move. My hands balled into fists. I knew she would feel the blood pulsing into my face.
Slowly, her lips moved against mine. As she got more sure of herself, her lips were firmer. I felt them part slightly, and her breath washed cool across my mouth. I didn’t inhale. I knew how her scent made me do stupid things.
Her fingers stroked from my temples to my chin, and then hooked under my jaw and pulled my lips tighter to hers.
Careful! I shouted at myself.
And then, out of nowhere, the dizzy, hollow ringing sound started up in my ears. At first I couldn’t concentrate on anything but her lips, but then I started to fall down the tunnel and her lips were getting farther and farther away.
“Beau? Beau?”
“Hey,” I tried to say.
“What happened? Are you all right?” The sound of her anxiety helped bring me around. I wasn’t totally gone, so it was fairly easy. I took two deep breaths and opened my eyes.
“I’m fine,” I told her. She was leaning away, but her arms were stretched out to me; one hand was cold on my forehead, the other on the back of my neck. Her face looked paler than usual. “Just… kind of forgot to breathe for a minute there. Sorry.” I took another deep breath.
She eyed me doubtfully. “You forgot to breathe?”
“I was trying to be careful.”
Suddenly she was angry. “What am I supposed to do with you, Beau? Yesterday, I kiss you, and you attack me! Today, you pass out!”
“Sorry.”
She sighed deeply, then darted in suddenly to kiss my forehead. “It’s a good thing that it’s physically impossible for me to have a heart attack,” she grumbled.
“That is good,” I agreed.
“I can’t take you anywhere like this.”
“No, I’m fine, really. Totally back to normal. Besides, your family is going to think I’m insane anyway, so what’s the difference if I’m a little unsteady?”
She frowned. “You mean more unsteady than usual?”
“Sure. Look, I’m trying not to think about what we’re going to do now, so it would help if we could get going.”
She shook her head but took my hand and pulled me out of the chair.
This time she didn’t even ask, she just headed straight for the driver’s side of my truck. I figured there was no point in arguing after my latest embarrassing episode, and anyway, I had no idea where she lived.
She drove respectfully, without any complaints about what my truck could handle. She took us north out of town, over the bridge at the Calawah River, and continued till we were past all the houses and on to close-packed trees. I was starting to wonder how far we were going when she abruptly steered right onto an unpaved road. The turnoff was unmarked, and almost totally hidden by thick ferns. The trees leaned close on both sides, so you could only see a few yards ahead before the road twisted out of sight.
We drove down this road for a least a few miles, mostly east. I was trying to fit this lane into the vague map I had in my head, not very successfully, when there was suddenly some thinning of the forest. She drove into a meadow… or was it a lawn? It didn’t get much brighter, though. There were six enormous cedars—maybe the biggest trees I’d ever seen—whose branches shaded an entire acre. They pushed right up against the house in the middle of the lawn—hiding it.
I don’t know what I expected, but it definitely wasn’t this. The house was probably a hundred years old, three stories high and kind of… graceful, if that word could be applied to a house. It was painted a soft, faded white and all the windows and doors looked original, but they were probably in too good shape for that to be true. My truck was the only car in sight. When Edythe shut off the engine, I could hear the sound of a river somewhere close by.
“Wow.”
“You like it?”
“It’s… really something.”
Suddenly she was outside my door. I opened it slowly, starting to feel the nerves I’d been trying to suppress.
“Are you ready?”
“Nope. Let’s do this.”
She laughed, and I tried to laugh with her, but the sound seemed to get stuck in my throat. I mashed my hair flat.
“You look great,” she said, then took my hand casually, like she didn’t even have to think about it anymore. It wasn’t a big thing, but it distracted me—made me feel just a little bit less panicky.
We walked through the deep shade up to the porch. I knew she could feel my tension. She reached across her body to put her free hand on my forearm for a second. Then she opened the front door and walked inside, towing me behind her.
The inside was even less like what I was expecting than the outside. It was very bright, very open, and very big. It must have started out as several rooms, but most of the walls had been removed from the first floor to create one wide space. The back, south-facing wall had been entirely replaced with glass. Past the cedars the lawn was open, and it stretched down to a wide river. A massive staircase dominated the west side of the room. The walls, the high ceiling, the wooden floors, and the thick carpets were all different shades of white.
Edythe’s parents were waiting for us. They stood just to the left of the door on a little platform in front of a huge grand piano. It was also white.
I’d seen Dr. Cullen before, of course, but it hit me again how young she was, and how outrageously beautiful. She was holding hands with Earnest, I assumed—he was the only one of the family I’d never seen before. He seemed about the same age as Dr. Cullen, maybe a few years older, and had the same pale, perfect features as the rest of them. He had wavy hair, the color of caramel, a few inches longer than mine. There was something really… kind about his face, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was that made me think that. They were both dressed casually in light colors that matched the inside of the house.
They smiled, but made no move to approach. I thought they were probably trying not to scare me.
“Carine, Earnest, this is Beau,” Edythe said.
“You’re very welcome, Beau.” Carine stepped forward, slow and careful. She raised her hand hesitantly. I stepped forward to shake, and I was kind of surprised by how okay it felt to do that. Maybe it was because she reminded me of Edythe in a lot of ways.
“It’s nice to see you again, Dr. Cullen.”
“Please, call me Carine.”
I grinned at her, surprised that I f
elt pretty confident. “Carine,” I repeated. Edythe squeezed my hand lightly.
Earnest stepped forward as well, offering his hand. His cold, stone grasp was just what I expected.
“It’s very nice to know you,” he said sincerely.
“Thank you, I’m glad to meet you, too.” And I was. This felt right. This was Edythe’s home, her family. It was good to be a part of it.
“Where are Archie and Jess?” Edythe asked.
No one answered, because they’d just appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Hey, Edy’s home!” Archie called, and then he streaked down the stairs, just a blur of pale skin, coming to a sudden stop right in front of us. I saw Carine and Earnest shoot warning glances at him, but I kind of liked it. It was natural for him—how they moved when they didn’t have to worry about strangers watching.
“Beau!” he greeted me, enthusiastic like we were old friends. He held out his hand, and when I went to shake it, he pulled me into one of those one-armed bro-hugs, thumping me lightly on the back.
“Hey, Archie,” I said; my voice sounded winded. I was shocked, but also a little pleased that he really did seem supportive—more than that, like he already liked me.
When he stepped back, I saw that I wasn’t the only one who was shocked. Carine and Earnest were watching my face with wide eyes, like they were waiting for me to make a run for it. Edythe’s jaw was locked, but I couldn’t tell if she was worried or mad.
“You do smell good, I never noticed before,” Archie commented. My face got hot, and then hotter when I thought what that must look like to them, and nobody seemed to know what to say.
Then Jessamine was there. Edythe had compared herself to a hunting lion, which was hard for me to picture, but I could easily picture Jessamine that way. There was something like a lion about her now, when she was just standing there. But despite that, I was suddenly totally comfortable. It felt like I was in my own place surrounded by people I knew well. Easy—kind of like when Jules was around. It was strange to feel that here, and then I remembered what Edythe had told me about what Jessamine could do. That was weird to think about. It didn’t feel like someone was using magic or whatever on me.
“Hello, Beau,” Jessamine said. She didn’t approach or offer to shake my hand, but it didn’t feel awkward.
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