Page 26 of The Vampire Castle in the Sky

Hector cocked a brow. “You cannot be serious.”

“It will break the ice.”

“There is no ice.”

“Yes, there is.”

“Thea,” he growled. “I promise, there is no ice. In fact, we’re swimming in lava right now.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Do I make you feel hot, Hector dear?”

“Were you this annoying when we were kids?”

“I’m fairly certain I was worse.”

He turned his back on me, pulling the covers up to his neck. “Goodnight, Dorothea.”

Minutes passed, but his breathing never slowed.

“Hector?”

“What now?”

“Why didn’t you write to tell me about Esperida and Eron?”

He didn’t say anything for so long I started to reconcile with his silence.

I was about to turn my back on him too when he said very quietly, “I knew it would break your heart. And I didn’t want tobreak your heart. I didn’t want you to see me like this either. I… I was in a very dark place. I still am, if I’m being honest.”

“Keep going, then,” I whispered. “You don’t want to stop in the dark.”

I wanted to touch my palm between his shoulder blades, but just before my fingers reached him, his whole body stiffened, and I let my hand fall on the empty space between us.

The distance didn’t bother me this time. I could see now it was not an ocean or a vast space as I’d initially thought. It was a closing rift. It was a bridge waiting to be built. All my earlier fears and reservations hushed as I held onto the bundle of my memories with him, the small and grand things that were going to help us cross this distance now.

“Do you remember the last time we slept like this?” I asked. The light in the room was dimmer now that his broad frame had swallowed the glow of the fireplace. It was easier to speak of the past in the darkness.

“Observatory. Four years ago,” he murmured.

I remembered he had bent over me as I was dozing off to cover me with his jacket, and when his forearm had accidentally brushed against my breasts, he’d jolted back, blushing through his hairline.

“Oh, I love a man who blushes,”I’d teased him.

“You’re a menace.”

“Best thing a girl can be in this world.”

The color never left his face that night.

“You were adorable.”

“Ten minutes ago you were afraid I was going to maul you. Now I’m adorable?”

“I used the past tense for a reason, you know.”

“If I’m so scary, then why do you insist upon staying?”

Without thinking much of it, I slid a little closer, close enough to find myself drowning in the warmth and scent of his body,my face hovering a few inches from the commanding slope of his back.