Page 3 of Even Vampires Bleed (Even Ever After #2)

Cassiopé

“ Y ou’re not going to celebrate your best friend’s wedding?” I ask as a greeting.

He’s still facing down, looking at the people milling around downstairs, and doesn’t turn at my words. He doesn’t flinch either, as if from the corner of his eyes he’s been following my every move and knows exactly where I’ve been.

He could have heard me, but I highly doubt that.

Yes, bird-shifters have good hearing, but I’m a bat—or a vampire if you listen to the humans. We can hear ten times better than the birds, and I’ve learned to stay silent.

How else would I avoid my dad’s surveillance? He’s a bat, too, and a damn good one, so I had to learn to be extra quiet every time I wanted to sneak out as a teenager.

Those skills stuck. Now I can hear anyone trying to approach me, but I don’t think anyone could hear me coming.

It’s a cool trick, but it doesn’t work with Léandre.

Not that I really wanted to surprise him, though.

The only answer I get from Léandre is a shrug, as if he can’t be bothered to answer.

I cross my arms around my middle and lean on the corridor’s stone railing, much like Léandre.

“You’re going to sulk here all day?” I tease with a small smile.

I don’t think he’s going to answer me. He looks lost in his own thoughts, so I’m surprised when he finally breaks the silence.

“I’m not sulking. It’s just a lot to deal with.”

He doesn’t say anything else, even if I feel like he might want to.

I move closer to him and nudge his elbow.

“I know it might be hard for you, but I think Angie needs you right now,” I say in a soft voice.

“We don’t know each other, but I know you care about her, and I care about her, too, so we can either go down there and act as if everything is normal, or you can tell me what is wrong and I’ll be your verbal punching bag,” I say with a bright smile.

He likely won’t take up my offer. Instead, he’ll—begrudgingly—choose the first option, but I’m an optimistic girl who chooses to believe he could surprise me.

I also gave him an option that is going to be hard on me. But whatever.

I’ll see if I can stop myself from talking and interrupting him for at least a while so he can efficiently pour his words—and his heart—out.

“I can’t do that,” Léandre starts to say, but then stops himself completely before passing his right hand through his hair.

I can see it on his face. The angst. The sadness. The exhaustion.

It’s in the way he’s slouched against the railing, his face pale and all scrunched up. It’s in the way his eyes barely seem to stay open and are darkened by deep bags under them.

But then he sighs and looks back to the church’s floor.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he tells me, his eyes turning thoughtful.

He has beautiful hazel eyes. I’m sure they would glint in the sun. They currently glint from unshed tears. I just want to take his hand, hug him, and promise him everything is going to be okay.

Except I don’t know what is going on, and it’s obvious now that he isn’t going to tell me.

I’m basically a stranger to him.

A friendly stranger, but a stranger, nonetheless.

“Tell me a story,” Léandre says as he finally turns his face in my direction.

I must look as dumb as I feel because the man has the nerve to chuckle, and I’m not even mad about it because it lights up his whole face. I know I look dumb for a whole other reason now.

He still thinks it’s because I didn’t understand what he meant.

“Keep my mind busy so it doesn’t spiral?” he asks softly.

“I can do that,” I say as I school my face to the best I can.

And so I tell him the story I started reading last night in great detail.

By the time I’m done recounting how Isabella, the main character of my book, managed to save the prince only for her to discover that he was an asshole all along, Léandre doesn’t look so gloomy anymore, and most of the guests have started filtering out of Notre Dame.

But then, something catches his eyes, taking his mind somewhere else again.

“And then she punches him in the face,” I tell him and receive a grunt as an answer.

“And she gets naked and slaps him with her titties,” I add. Same, only a grunt as an answer.

I punch the side of his arm.

“You’re not even listening to me,” I tell him with a fake pout.

He finally looks at me again.

“Go on,” he says, but I can see that his mind isn’t into it anymore.

When I see what he is looking at downstairs, I understand.

Angie just returned inside the church and she looks like she’s searching for something. Or someone.

“Let’s get down,” I tell Léandre, and it seems to propel him into action.