Page 28 of Even Vampires Bleed (Even Ever After #2)

Cassiopé

I can’t breathe.

I’m not going to survive a full week with him in the same room. Even if it’s just half a day each day.

We still have a food recovery mission this afternoon. Those can’t wait.

And I thank Christina for forcing us to keep planning them while we’re going through the way we can use to get inside this “curiosity cabinet.”

I hated her for making us do small jobs still, but I could kiss her feet now just because of that.

Well, I’m not going to do that literally, though.

First, because it’s really not something I’d like to do and second, because her office is blessedly empty right now and it’s the perfect place to hide until Elis is back from above ground.

He’ll know where I am, but it still gives me time to collect myself.

He’ll have questions, I know.

Because I might have been a sad mess since I arrived at the Sacré Coeur, but I’ve never been curt or dismissive with anyone.

I was both today.

I know it, and Elis might like keeping his secrets, but he likes not being ordered around even more .

He stays silent about the way Christina talks to him only because he knows she can provide him something. I have a feeling that it was all about this mission we just started and that he won’t accept the way she talks to him anymore when this is over.

He might not even be around anymore.

Their interests can align only for so long.

“Explain,” Elis says when he finally finds me in Christina’s office.

“Only if you tell me what we’re getting from this live collection,” I retort with a bit of bite.

Who said I was going to explain so easily?

“You don’t want to know,” Elis answers, and my eyes must be talking for me because he relents and gives my answer.

“I’m getting a fish.”

“A fish?”

I must look dumb while asking my question because Elis sits right next to me and laughs.

“There’s plenty of fish on Earth,” I say. “Well, in any of its water bodies, so why do you need that fish so much? There must be a reason. Because it’s the reason why you’ve been staying with the humans, am I right? Yeah, I’m right. So, why that fish?”

I take a heavy breath.

Did I say I was getting better at not doing long speeches? Scratch that. I’m still awful.

“Are you just a bat?” Elis asks. It takes a second for my mind to compute what he just told me.

Michael had a living fish-shifter in a tank like it’s a pet.

That fish-shifter is probably still stuck in that tank.

A mermaid—or a merman—as humans would call them.

There is a mermaid—or a merman, again not making assumptions—stuck in a freaking tank under Versailles’s castle.

Oh God, I hate that man.

If Angie hadn’t already killed him, I’d want to kill him again—over and over.

I have no idea how Elis knows about that fish-shifter or why he’s wanted to save them for so long, but I finally get why he’s so grumpy.

Because you don’t put up with bullshit for someone you don’t care about.

This fish is someone Elis cares about, and all I want to do is hug him.

Oh well, I’m doing it.

Elis is surprised when my arms squish him against me, and he awkwardly taps my shoulder with the palm of his hand but doesn’t push me away.

“I don’t think I needed that,” he tells me when I release him. “Now tell me what that bird shifter ever did to you for you to act like an ass.”

This isn’t even a question.

It’s a demand, and one I comply with.

Why?

Because I said I would. But more than anything else, because it feels liberating to finally tell someone how hard it’s been for me and because I need an ally for the week to come.

“So, do we hate the host or the body?” Elis finally says when I’m done recounting everything, and I can’t help laughing.

“Neither,” I answer when I can talk again. “But I like the way your mind works.”

“So, what are we doing now? Do we ditch the cockatoo and do the mission just the two of us? You do know that he’s here only because Christina told Elhyor there was something he wanted in that collection, right? We don’t need him to complete this task.”

“I know, but I feel bad for him. He lost his memory. His dad is the only person he has left, even if he doesn’t remember their shared past. I know that the man he used to be, loved his dad deeply and I guess that’s his way to reconnect with him.

So, it all boils to something. If we ditch him, would you be able to steal the pair of wings? ”

“No,” Elis answers, and I don’t know what I expected, but surely it wasn’t that.

“No?” I ask in disbelief. “But you said you were only taking a fish. Surely, even with the tank, it wouldn’t be so big that you can’t carry something else.”

Elis casts me a dark glare.

“Why don’t you carry the wings yourself and let me deal with my fish?” He growls.

Oh, I think I struck a nerve.

“I can’t carry that, but okay,” I say half-heartedly.

I guess our friendship only goes so far, and that I’ll have to survive a week with Léandre if I want him to get his father’s wings.