“You’ve told me to trust her before. I don't see what makes you say it. Kenzie, Kenzie, Kenzie. What’s so special about her?”
I smile then, broadly. Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing? Once more, I reach for her. She flinches at first, but I won’t be stopped. I cup her cheeks in my hands, making her face me. “Kenzie and I aren’t close like you and I are, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” she says quickly.
“Good. Because you have no cause to be,” I say. “Kenzie is nothing to me. You are…” Everything, I long to say. You are everything. “She’s nothing to me, but you are. Trust me.”
“I do trust you.” She gives me a smile. It wavers but it’s genuine. I see relief on her face, and it settles something in my heart. “I just said so, didn’t I?”
I’d mentioned Kenzie, and she got jealous. That says something big. Something significant. I carefully set aside the thought to consider when I’m alone.
“Now do you trust me?” she asks.
I might’ve instantly said yes, but she uses an extra-sweet tone that puts me on guard. “Um, aye?”
She falls into me, curling her fists into the front of my jacket to give a little jiggle, and it just about slays me. “Then please tell me, Ronan. Pleeaase. Why do you have that supercool weapon?”
I can’t get her involved. Slowly, regretfully, I settle my armor back into place. “I have my reasons,” I say in a blank voice.
She isn’t having it. “Mmhmm.” She crosses her arms at her chest. “I’ve told you all my secrets. When will you tell me yours?”
“How’s never work for you?”
A joyful crack of a laugh escapes her, and she slaps a hand over her mouth. “Ronan! A smile and now a joke. I can’t believe it. Did someone come and switch bodies with you?” Her hands are still on my jacket, and she pats my chest.
She’s merely playing, but I stop breathing. No armor is strong enough for this.
But she’s seen what she does to me. She’s read my expression as only someone who knows me could. She stiffens, too. We each take a small step apart.
“Tell me,” she whispers.
I no longer know what we’re talking about.
And so I address the only thing I know how. Death. “There’s something I have to do.”
“You mean someone you need to kill,” she says, perceptive as always.
“There will be a big change soon.” A member of the Vampire Directorate murdered—it’s unheard of. “A seismic change,” I stress. “Things could get strange for a while.”
“Good thing I’ll have you around,” she says, fishing for a response I can’t give.
What she doesn’t know is there’s a very big chance I won’t be around. To assassinate a vampire that powerful—it’d be a miracle to come out alive. “You must be careful,” is all I tell her.
But she’s heard the unspoken message. I’m in danger.
Everything about her sharpens, hardens, and I get a sense of what it is her opponents face in the ring—what it is the other girls fear. “You’re going to do something.” She looks back the way we came, and even though the path is obscured, the roof of the Arts Pavilion rises above the hedges, its tiles taking on a ghostly glow in the starlight. “In there.” She knows who works in that building. Dagursson is the Arts building.
“True,” I say blandly.
She faces me, her eyes challenging, waiting. But I don’t elaborate.
“Whatever, Ronan.” She turns from me. “If you’re not going to talk to me, I’m heading back.”
I’m losing her. “Ann. Look at me.”
She turns slightly, and I study her profile, trying to read the peculiar expression there.
“Is it that I called you Ann?” I ask. “Do you not like when I call you that?”
“No.” She shrugs, looking pained. “I…actually…I like it. A lot.” She shifts, facing me once more. “What I don’t like is the feeling you’re keeping stuff from me. Like, how can I possibly believe I know you when you’re like a steel vault?”
But she does know me. She sees me as no other person ever has. I realize how lonely I’ve been—how much I’ve needed her, needed the way she just seems to get it, to get me. Perhaps it’s how she got past my defenses. How she found her way into my heart.
But I can’t tell her that, and so I’ll tell her everything else. I want to keep her safe, but she’s too smart to be kept in the dark.
“I fight in secret,” I confess, “against the Directorate.”
“Seriously?” Her eyes go wide, as I knew they would.
I nod. “And I’ve been ordered to kill Dagursson.”
“Tonight?” Her voice catches on the word. “You’re doing that right now?”
As she says it, I know. It won’t happen tonight. Annelise is here now, with me. There would be tomorrow to deal with Dagursson. But how many more tomorrows would I get with her? “Not tonight.”
I play a dangerous game—I suffer no illusions on that count. One day soon will be my last. The time will come when I see her, and it’ll be the last time I do.
Have I already touched her for the last time? I fist my hands tighter to keep my arms fixed like boards at my side.
“I figured something like that was going on,” she says. Her wide-eyed stare has been replaced by the shrewd Ann I know so well.
“You guessed?”
“No, not exactly. I just figured you’re too…too…good to be bad. If that makes any sense.”
I find myself smiling. “I’m good, is it?”
“You know, in a bad way, of course.” Her own smile fades, and she tenses as a truth hits her. “Before I showed up, you were going to go in there and kill Dagursson. You were going in, and you probably wouldn’t have come out, and then I’d never see you again.”
I nod, unable to speak. Her thoughts have mirrored my own, and it knocks me flat.
“Let me help you,” she says in sudden earnest. “We can do this together. We’re a team, Ronan.”
The sentiment is a balm, and yet I give a single sharp shake to my head. “I won’t risk your life.” What I won’t tell her is how I’m doing this precisely to preserve hers.
“My life…” Her arms flail. “What’s that without you?”
I mean something to her. Could it even be possible?
My eyes go to her lips. I step closer. What is this thing between us? What would it feel like to let ourselves go? To pretend our lives were different, that the smallest of our decisions didn’t have deadly consequences?
She opens her mouth but hesitates. “What are you thinking?” She speaks in a wondering tone, as awed and confounded as I.
“I’m thinking…” Again, my eyes go to her mouth. I’m thinking I might not survive the week. I’m thinking I’d like to kiss her before I die. But I won’t make something happen that she doesn’t want. She has Carden to consider, and so I must be sure. “Are you afraid?”
She shifts. Did she just edge closer?
“There are things I’m afraid of when you’re around,” she says, “and it’s not this.”
What does that mean? If it’s going to end soon for me, I can’t do it with this hanging over my head. This feeling. This unasked question. I must know what it’s like to kiss her.
There’s nothing to stop us. Not even Carden could avenge me for taking a simple kiss—not when I’m dead from my attempt to kill Dagursson.
And what of Carden? She shares a blood bond with him—a vampire of tremendous power—and, yet, even that isn’t enough to stop this thing between us.
But does she want it, too?
Her hand grazes mine. She has edged closer. Her eyes are steady on mine. She does want this.
I have to seize it. To take what might be this one last pleasure. To answer this one last question.
To take this one kiss.
Slowly, I lean down. I touch my mouth to hers.
They say the world stops when you experience
something this pure, this shatteringly true. But as I kiss Annelise the world doesn’t stop at all.
Rather, for the first time I can remember, I can breathe again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Striding to the breakfast the next day, I’m a man reborn. I can face anything. Anyone. Dagursson, Alcántara, Carden… Bring it on.
Bring it on. It’s something Annelise would say. Her spirit has infused me that fully, touched me that deeply. I’ll make her mine completely. I’ll find a way.
With the thought, I spot the Scottish vampire heading toward me on the path. Does he know about Annelise and me? Did he feel something from afar, stirring in her heart as we kissed? Does he know it was me?
I pull back my shoulders and pick up my pace. I can face anyone…especially Carden McCloud.
Maybe Annelise has already told him. She told him she feels something for me, and he’s come to confront me. I meet his focused glare and don’t look away.
But as our paths cross, the only thing he has to say to me is, “Best hurry, pup.”
“Hurry?” It takes me a moment to process that his scowl has nothing to do with Annelise. As pleasant as it is to imagine confrontations with my rival, it’s time to get out of my head.
“Aye, lad. Hurry. As in shake a leg. Get cracking. However you toddlers say it. Freya wants Dagursson dead. Or have you forgotten?”
I grit my teeth. “No, Master McCloud. I’ve not forgotten.” I’m so not in the mood for his vampiric condescension.
He cuffs me on the shoulder. “No need to ‘Master’ me, pup. You know I find the customs of Hugo and his lads to be a load of shite.” He swings an easy arm around my shoulders and pulls me into a walk. “I’m only wanting to know why Alrik is still walking about.” The shift in his tone is subtle, but I hear it like the blast of a foghorn—he’s serious.
“It’s not that simple. I had to stake him out first.” And then kiss your girlfriend.
“Time to stop staking out and just start staking.” He jostles me with a good humor I know is counterfeit.
I stop short, spinning to face him. “And what if I do my part and fail?” I’ve played it out in my mind dozens of times. Who knows, maybe I’ll manage to kill the old Viking, but it’s hard to imagine walking away from it alive. “As long as I do my part, do you swear she’ll live?”
He stares at me a moment. The way he weighs my words tells me his answer will be honest. I might not trust that we have the same goals, but Carden is driven, ultimately, by the older ways, the righteous and noble. I believe his word, once given, is good. It’s just how he is.
“Yes, pup,” he says finally. “You’ve my word.” He begins walking again, a pleasant strolling gait belying the fact that we were just casually discussing my likely demise. “Just get on with it, aye? Here’s the situation: if you don’t kill Dagursson soon, Freya will be forced to kill Drew. And if that happens, well, I’ll have no choice but to turn around and kill you, and that’d be a real pisser, eh? We’ll all be upset if it comes to that…. Well, just me, actually, as I’ll be the last one standing. Which means that after I kill you, I’ll have to slay the old Viking myself, and that’ll put me in a foul temper for certain.”
I pick up my pace. “You could always just cut to the chase and kill me now—isn’t that what you vampires do?” I force a smile but my voice is steel.
“Don’t tempt me.” He smiles, too. Our jousting is playful. Sort of. “You know I’m not as bloodthirsty as my vampire colleagues.”
No need when you have Annelise to feed on.
The thought churns my belly to acid. “As you say,” I manage. I quicken my step. I’ve got to get away from him before my fist cracking on his jaw turns from fantasy to reality.
“Why the rush?” His hand seizes my shoulder, stopping me. “I’m feeling…avoided.” His words ooze that easy Carden charm, but I know him well enough to sense the threat rippling beneath.
He knows something is up. Curiously, it seems he doesn’t know about Annelise and me. Which isn’t to say he doesn’t suspect something.
I flinch away. “Not avoiding you at all.” I shoot a casual look in the direction of the dining hall. Annelise will be there already, maybe even waiting for me. “I’m simply hungry.” Though it’s not food I crave.
Carden sends a considering glance to the dining hall then back to me. “I’ll reckon our wee Drew is there, eating her brekkie.” He speaks casually, but I’ve learned his nonchalance is its own weapon. “Tell me, pup. Is she worth the trouble?”
Always. My desire to see her surges at the thought. She is always ever worth it.
But I only shrug, keeping a careful handle on my own nonchalance. “Annelise?” I say offhandedly. “She’s no trouble. Why do you ask?”
“Slaying Dagursson is very nearly suicide.” He gives a considered shake to his head. “Which means you’re risking your hide to protect a girl who’s already bonded to another.” His quicksilver laugh is part humor, part reminder. “So either you’re a sucker for punishment or maybe just a sucker, eh?” His eyes narrow on me, seeking, probing. Does he suspect how deeply my true feelings run? “Listen, lad. I wish you no ill will. I’ve been around a long time. Long enough to know you need to seize what peace you can. This thing—you staying to fight on the Isle—it won’t bring your sister back. Drew isn’t Charlotte. You’ve got nothing to gain. Even now, you could be on Eilean Ban-Laoch, maybe having some sweet thing peel grapes for you, eh? Or paddling about in the surf as you do.” He gives me a friendly jostle. “Just do what you can to be happy. It’s something I’ve learned from our wee Drew. Why do you make it so hard for yourself? Pleasures are rare—it’s important to seize what you can. Freya would give you anything if she thought you were her creature through and through.”
“You mean if I followed her every whim without question?” I shrug it off, this moment between Carden and me. “I work for Freya. I don’t worship her.”
“You do more than work for her; you’ve a pact with her. A devil’s bargain—isn’t that what they call it? You’ve made a deal but get naught in return.” He gives a considering pause. “But that can’t be true, can it? We all want something. And I keep trying to figure what it is you get from all this. You say you want to protect Annelise, but you know I’ve got that covered. Maybe you just want to stay on Eyja næturinnar because you want to figure out how to make a vampire of yourself. Is that it?”
I speak before I think. “Not hardly.” I soften the words with a laugh.
Carden doesn’t smile with me, though. Instead, an uncharacteristically serious look crosses his face. “I want you to admit something.”
I brace for it. Now will he ask about Annelise?
“Your power,” he says. “Can you use it on vampires?” His words come easy, but his vivid gaze is pinned on me. “Will you be able to use it on Dagursson?”
It’s something I’ve wondered a thousand times, and the answer is, I don’t know. I suppose it’ll be tested soon enough…when I face Dagursson.
But as I begin to reply, I spot a glint in Carden’s eye—a hunger to know the strengths and weaknesses of someone who might become as much enemy as ally. “No,” I lie. “I can’t use it on vampires.”
“Then Godspeed, my man.” He gives a very Carden-like shake of his head, both apology and amusement. “I expect Dagursson to be dead by the end of the week. Or…”
“Or I will be?”
But his attention moves over my shoulder. He claps a hand to his chest as a broad smile spreads across his face. “And here I thought the sun rose in the east.”
I turn. It’s her. Annelise.
She looks from him, to me, and back again. I suppose he is a vampire—her bonded vampire—and I suppose it is wise to give such a creature your full attention, and yet I can’t help the jealousy that roils through me. She belongs to him.
For now.
“Acari Drew,” I greet her formally.
“Tracer Ronan,” she replies with a studied detachment tha
t hollows my chest. Is this her being afraid? Does she worry how her bond might betray her feelings?
I stiffen, poised to protect her in case of the worst. But Carden doesn’t seem to sense anything. Instead, he pulls her into his arms, drags his fingers through her hair, and tips her face to his. Now he’s kissing her forehead.
I have to look away. Is he doing this for my benefit? Marking his territory like a dog?
I sense more nuzzling, then he proclaims, “‘She walks in beauty, like the night. Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright.’”
“You have got to be kidding me,” I mutter.
But he heard me. I think maybe I wanted him to. “What’s the problem, boy? Not a fan of poetry?”
“Poetry.” I give a dismissive scowl. As if this isn’t secretly killing me.
Carden says I should try to be happy? Fine, I know what’ll make me happy: Annelise. She is the pleasure I’ll seize.
“That’s a poem?” Annelise asks. There’s a whiff of wonderment in her voice that makes me bristle.
I study her, the way the morning light hits her at an angle. Her hair has darkened this long winter, now yellow from a yellowish white. Beauty like the night? Annelise is more than that—she’s like the sun.
“Oh, aye, I’m full of surprises. That was Lord Byron.” Carden turns to Annelise. “He lived life…what is it you say?”
She shifts her weight. Balancing herself or trying subtly to pull away? I can’t tell. “He lived large?”
Carden’s laugh is joyful and heartfelt. “Aye, just so.”
I want to impale the bastard then and there. My wrists flex automatically, feeling the handmade stakes I keep ever hidden beneath my sleeves.
“You’d better get to the dining hall before the good stuff goes,” Annelise tells me. There’s a look of alarm on her face—she’s seen my gesture, just as she’s seen my secret stakes before.
She’s trying to get rid of me. I’ve been a fool. I begin to shutter my emotions.
But then her hand darts to mine and squeezes. “I’ll find you, Ronan. Later.” Intensity lights her eyes in a secret message.
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