“Don’t stress it.” He shut the door and appeared in the driver’s seat a breath later, smiling widely. “Let’s just go have some fun training some knights.”
He clicked his seatbelt into place, and I offered a smile, exhaling, though, inside, my gut was missing—still left on the ground where David’s words tore it out.
* * *
The grass arched outward like a parting sea, green and thick, flat under his outstretched leg; he tapped his foot to a beat only he could hear, while the pages of the tatty old book in his hand flickered in the warm summer breeze.
“Read me a line?” a girl said, swinging one leg over the branch of the tree above him.
He looked up and his closed lips spread wide with a smile for a moment, then he flipped through a few pages and read aloud.
The girl sat back; one leg tucked under her knee, her dress hanging loosely past the branch, twirling a strand of her long brown hair. “I like the sound of your voice when you read. It’s so soothing.”
The boy stopped and closed the book. “That was my aunt’s favourite passage.”
“Why?”
“Never asked her. My uncle told me he used to read this one passage to her, sometimes three or four times in a row—sitting under this very tree.”
“Under this tree?” she said. “But this is my dream. How can they have been here?”
The boy’s smiling eyes rested on his book again, a secret hiding behind them that he could share if he wanted, but chose not to.
“What was your uncle’s favourite passage?”
“I’m not sure he had one. I’m not even sure he liked this book.”
“Why did he read it then?”
The boy rested his head against the trunk of the tree. “He told me once that he never felt good enough for Arietta—that he always felt like a monster, darkening her purity. He read this story to her because he liked to believe even one who is deemed a monster can truly be good inside—that we all deserve love no matter what we are.”
“Is that why you like it?”
“No.” He grinned and stood up, leaving the book on the grass. “I like it because it has a tragic ending.”
“Liar.” The girl smiled and sat with both legs over the same side of the branch, the boy right beside her knees. “You like it because you can relate to Quasimodo.”
“Relate? Is that because the beastly creature falls in love with the beautiful girl?” He hooked a hand over the branch and swung himself outward a little. “I never said I was in love with you.”
“You didn’t have to.” She jumped down. “And that wasn’t what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I meant…that you’ve always been misunderstood. David is like the good guy—the one they all think is beautiful on the inside—the hero, while you, who truly means to do only good by all, have been labelled the bad guy, the hideous beast. You’re just misunderstood.” She shrugged. “Like Quasimodo.”
The boy stared forward, his arms folded over his chest. “You have a very unique way of analysing things.”
“Or maybe I just know good when I see it.”
“So, you think I’m the good guy, huh?”
“I know you are.”
He scratched his brow and smiled, then dropped his arms to his sides. “Well, you were right about one thing.”
“Yeah, what’s that?” the girl asked, tilting her head.
“I do lo—”
A groggy hold stuck in the back of my throat as I lifted my head off the window, wiping a sliver of moisture from the indent left in my chin where I’d been leaning on the lock.
“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Mike said, then grimaced as he looked at me. “Or should I say Beast.”
“Shut up.” I whacked his arm then flipped the visor down to look in the mirror. Oh, my dear God.
“There’s a brush in the glove compartment,” Mike said, reaching across to open it.
“You keep a brush in your car?”
“Don’t judge.” He eyed the road, smiling. “A guy likes neat hair, too.”
I grabbed the brush and fixed my hair as best I could, huffing when it stood its ground as a frizzy monstrosity. “Argh!”
“You okay, baby?”
“Yeah.” I ditched the brush into its home and slammed the little door shut. “I think I’m just a bit blood hungry.”
“Well, didn’t you eat before you left?”
I shook my head, toying with the lone white-gold band on my finger. “I didn’t want the taste of David on my lips all the way here today. It would’ve been too much for me.”
“It’s okay. Eric’s at the manor, you can feed from him when we get there.” He turned his head and smiled at me. “Unless you want some of mine—to hold you over for now. You do look a little pale.”
I shook my head again, watching his proffered wrist. “No. Blood lust combined with spirit bind and missing my husband could be a bad combination.”
He withdrew his arm. “Right. Good thinking.”
I shuffled in my seat, wishing I’d taken his offer. My throat burned and my stomach twisted in knots—which could’ve just been nerves. “Hey, Mike?”
“Yeah.”
“David doesn’t really like me drinking Eric’s blood. Are those Sacrificials at the manor yet? The ‘you call; we deliver’ blood guys?”
“There are a few there, posing as guests under protection. But we can’t call them Sacrificials yet, remember, until we let the secret out about blood immunity.”
“So, until then, I just have to let people think I’m killing vampires?”
“Or just not biting them to feed. We have the Upper House convinced we’re using prisoners to feed you.”
“And that I’m killing them?”
“Sometimes. That was how Lilith lived. Her food was sent to her by Set leaders who had sentenced vampires to death for their crimes.”
“So, Lilith never discovered immunity?”
“Never had reason to.”
“Oh.” I rubbed my face a few times, readjusting my seat to get comfortable. “So, who knows about the immunity?”
“Just your Private Council.”
“Not even the other one? What did you call it? The Upper something?”
Mike scoffed. “No. They don’t know. And they don’t need to.”