Page 25 of Love Immortal

Twenty-Four

“ I ’m not expecting you to make a decision right away,” Dacian says once we’re back in his driveway. “Take your time.” The heavy implication of danger hangs in the air between us.

I nod and turn to open the door, but he stops me. His hand lands on my shoulder and for a moment, I have a burning hope that he’s done holding back and that he’ll say the words I crave hearing. I can barely breathe. “What?” I ask.

“Are you all right to drive back?” His concern sounds genuine—and that hurts even more.

“I’ll be fine,” I mutter, shoving the jagged shard of disappointment further down into my rib cage.

I don’t look back as I exit his Jaguar and climb into my much-less-attractive Chevy. But I feel his eyes watching me.

For the next few hours, my brain is too shot to process what I saw in the woods. I simply go through the motions of my day. I drive back to campus. I clock in for my library shift. I listen to Jessi grumble about working Friday night when she could be at the movies with her boyfriend. Apparently, there’s a drive-in theater not too far from Camden that’s showing the new Nightmare on Elm Street sequel. I tune out most of her complaints and nod in between her sentences so as to appear invested in our conversation, but I’m not. Unlike Jessi, I’ve never been to the movies with a boyfriend. I’ve never done anything fun with a boyfriend. My only boyfriend had to be a secret.

And my day with Dacian turned out to be a date with a corpse instead of a romantic getaway. I wish I had the authority to let Jessi go early so I could wallow in my misery alone.

By late evening, the secrets Dacian revealed to me start to crop up in the background of my mind, grabbing hold of my thoughts and not letting go. It doesn’t help that it’s a slow night, and there isn’t much to distract me from thinking about him.

Fiona’s hunch proved correct in the end: the stolen book was an inside job. But I stand by my faith that a true librarian would never have done such a thing. Eric wasn’t one of us. He only got the internship because he stole that, too—from me.

I would never allow a book to go missing. But what would I have done when Dacian eventually came looking for it? Would I have tried to stop him from taking it? Is it even possible for me to say no to him, or would he just have mesmerized me with those lightless eyes of his? I’m so helpless against them. It might not even have come to that, though. Dacian likely would have decided that dealing with humans was too much trouble. With his vampire powers, he could’ve snuck in and taken his diary without me ever knowing.

The cart full of returned books that I’m rolling between the shelves screeches to a stop. With unexpected fierceness, that thought wrenches at my heart: I could’ve lived my whole life without knowing that Dacian exists. And that’s a fate much worse than seeing a thousand rotting corpses or being tormented by Clay’s ghost. Was it Dacian who sent his shadow wolves into my dream to tear the ghost to pieces, to protect me? I’ve never asked. But something so cruel and so merciful at the same time sounds just like him.

He did confirm the mind link between us, though. Rationally, I understand that I should be freaked out by the revelation that a vampire can peek inside my mind and unearth all my secrets. And yet some twisted, savagely lonely part of me rejoices at the idea that Dacian and I are tethered to each other. That he can haunt my dreams. That maybe he wants to know the real me, with all my guilt and sadness and anger.

But then again, maybe he only got close to me because he needs an ally in his quest for the missing journal. But is that really all he wants from me?

I think of his arms around me in the woods, carrying me. It makes sense now that he didn’t want my feet to touch the ground. If rangers ever find Jeremy’s body, they might spot my footprints in the dirt, and their canines could pick up my scent. It’s unlikely that I could be implicated, but the chance isn’t small enough to disregard. Still, why did Dacian choose to hold me the way he did—his arm around my waist, his breath in my hair? He was so quiet the whole time, as though he didn’t want to interrupt the moment.

Surely, he knows he doesn’t need to seduce me to get my help looking for a stolen book, even if it involves going up against a bunch of rabid vampires. So why visit my dreams? Why seek me out to tell me how much he wants to see the world? Why let his touch linger if this is all just business? Could he be holding back because of what happened between him and the other Jonathan? Well, I’m not that other Jonathan. I don’t want to be pulled in by the dark vortex that is Dacian, only to be pushed aside because I remind him of someone who’s been dead for decades!

I push the cart forward again a little too forcefully—a sign of my building frustration. So many damn questions, so few answers.

I wish I’d kissed his fingers that night in the woods; then, maybe, I’d be certain about some things. Or that he’d haunt my dreams not as a silver mist but in the flesh, so there would be no denying what we’d done in the morning…

But Dacian doesn’t visit me again despite how badly my heart aches for him.

I wake up Saturday morning feeling unusually rested. Maybe it was delayed shock from seeing Jeremy’s corpse, but as soon as my head hit my pillow, I passed out and slept for fourteen hours straight.

I glance at the box of letters on my nightstand—even Clay’s ghost didn’t visit me. The entire night feels like a giant black hole. Outside, the sky is leaden gray. Seems like it’s going to be one of those days when the sun never makes an appearance. By the time I drag myself out of bed and trudge to the dining hall for brunch, a thin drizzle starts to break through the clouds.

Fiona isn’t here, so I fill my bowl with cornflakes and take a seat at an empty table at the far end of the room. I chew my cereal, watching students mill about still in their pajamas, some clearly hungover from last night. I’ve no desire to scan the tables for familiar faces or find someone to sit with. I can’t relate to any of these people, especially after recent events. My points of connection to the world are growing fewer by the day. What would I even say if someone asked me how my Friday was? A vampire flew me out to the woods, showed me a decomposing corpse, and then asked me to help him uncover a vampire cult right here in Camden. Oh, and by the way, I’m hopelessly pining for him. How was your Friday?

Exasperated, I drop my spoon into the bowl with a clatter. Milk splashes onto my tray. There is a serious possibility I might be losing it. Dacian has given me a way out, insisting I think things over before I decide, yet I stubbornly keep digging deeper, getting more entangled in this mess, in him. But I can’t turn away now. He promised answers when he proposed that I take a ride with him, but all I got were more questions. Besides, there’s something that bothers me about the story he told me—something I didn’t catch right away, but it sticks out when I replay our conversation in my mind for the millionth time.

If Dacian wants my help, he will have to be honest with me.

So once again, I resolve to confront him and demand the truth.