Page 6 of Even Vampires Bleed (Even Ever After #2)

Cassiopé

I t feels like an eternity when Léandre finally releases me from the hug, but I’m not gonna lie. I liked it. I liked it way too much.

I know I shouldn’t. I definitely know that now isn’t the right time for my little heart to get attached to him.

His future is more than unsure, and there is a high chance the man I’m seeing now won’t even be the same in only a day.

No, I can’t get attached.

One hug needs to be enough, and I need to leave him be.

Maybe not laying on the ground, sad and pretty drunk, though.

“Come with me. I’ll lead you to your room,” I tell him as I help him up, giving a look around the room. Angélique disappeared. Gods know where she went, and it looks like Elhyor followed her. “You might need to sleep to sober up some more,” I add.

“I’m not drunk,” he responds, but the words are slurred, and he realizes as he says it that he might actually be really drunk. “Okay, I am,” he says in a whisper, “but not to the point that I won’t remember what was said this afternoon.”

He seems to ponder what he just said, and then he adds, “Well, I’ll remember tomorrow; after that, it all depends on a teeny, tiny button on the devil’s holo. Am I right?”

He’s not wrong, so I can’t even deny what he just said. Instead, I steer the conversation in another direction.

“Want me to tell you the end of Isabella’s story?”

That seems to perk him up—as much as that could in his drunken state—and brings a small smile to his lips. My heart soars when I see that his smile has no sadness in it.

Maybe I can find a way to keep him entertained enough so he doesn’t drown in sadness until we find a way to save him.

“I don’t have Isabella’s story in my library,” Léandre mumbles, and I feel him sag against me.

Oh gods, he’s heavy.

I don’t know how I’m going to manage to help him up if he puts so much weight on me.

I’m not a warrior. My body doesn't have muscle. My time is spent in libraries. Yes, plural. Short of Versailles, I’ve visited all the libraries in Paris, and I’ve read more books than I can count.

It might also help that bat speed isn’t to be underestimated, and that I can read faster than anyone I know.

“Léandre, any chance you can stand on your own?” I ask him. When I see the bewildered face he’s making, I add, “You’re crushing me, and I don’t think we’re going to make it up the stairs without crashing to the ground if we keep on like this.”

Something seems to light in his eyes at my words, and it feels like watching one of those old time cartoons where a light bulb goes on top of the characters when they have an idea.

There is also a mischievous glint in his eyes that I quite like, but don’t know what to do with.

“Let’s go for a ride, Little Luciole,” he says and in a burst of speed I didn’t know he possessed, I end up on his shoulder, with my legs dangling at his front and my arms at his back.

“Put me down, you idiot,” I say with a giggle. “You couldn’t support your own weight seconds ago. We’re going to fall! ”

“Have a little faith,” Léandre says, and I can hear the smile in his voice, so I don’t really push for him to put me down.

We’re shifters, after all. If we fall, there is nothing a little shifting wouldn’t heal. Still, I say, “If we fall and I’m hurt, I fully expect you to take care of me.”

I’m still surprised when I feel his chuckle going through my belly at my words.

I love that sound. Oh shoot, I’m doomed.

I slap his back for good measure and let him walk us up the stairs.

I probably shouldn’t have trusted him though because we’re not even up the stairs, and he’s already faltering.

He has the good sense of turning on himself, so his butt is the first thing that hits the stairs.

We’re on the ground, and I’m sprawled over him.

My butt is on his lap and my hands on his chest; I can feel the rapid way his heart is beating under my palms.

I’m not hurt, though, and I don’t think he is, either. Maybe only his ego.

But he doesn’t seem to care.

His hands come up my sides and settle at my back as if he’s trying to cradle me to him.

I like that. I like that a lot.

No, I can’t like that. I can’t like the way he’s currently looking at me. Because yes, he’s looking at me very intently, and I see a certain hunger in his eyes that I’m not ready to entertain.

Especially since there is a high probability that he won’t remember me in a day.

“I want to kiss you, Little Luciole. Tell me I can kiss you,” he says more than he asks on an exhale.

“We shouldn’t,” I say. It’s barely above a whisper, and I’m not sure he really heard me because his smile widens like he heard something completely different.

“Why are you smiling like that?” I ask, and suddenly I feel a little shy.

“Because you didn’t say no,” he says, and his smile widens even more. That’s when I know I’ll end up caving in, because that smile does wicked things to me.

“I didn’t say yes, either,” I still say.

“I take that as a ‘maybe’ and that’s enough for me for now,” he says as he starts getting up.

I’m still on his lap so it’s more than messy, but surprisingly he manages to get both of us up without releasing me.

Slowly this time, he climbs up the stairs with me cradled to his chest, an arm at my back and the other behind my knees.

It’s not like me, but I’m very silent. I think back on his words and I feel like that’s the way he’s feeling about life in general and maybe even about what is happening to him.

I don’t want to voice it though because I don’t want him to think about that microchip he has in his brain again.

But maybe, just maybe, he just wants to believe, as long as there is hope, nothing is completely lost yet.

And maybe I should do the same.