Page 9

Thea

W e were still so high in the sky that the air smelled of opals and pearls, the night growing liquid with moonlight.

“When will the Castle land?” I asked nervously, stepping out of the bathroom to find Hector turning down the bed, wearing only a pair of linen shorts and a billowy nightshirt.

We didn’t really have to share a bed tonight. No one was here apart from the two of us. But after dinner, Hector moved all of my things to his bedroom, and I simply didn’t object. It wasn’t like we hadn’t slept next to each other before. In fact, we would always fall asleep shoulder to shoulder at the observatory after hours of drowsy pointing at twinkling constellations. Thea, look! Look, the Ysorias are winking at us!

Part of me was glad he suggested it. I longed to occupy the same space as him, to have something of our youth back, to regain the lost time. So why was my heart making so much noise?

“Tomorrow. Midday, I think,” said Hector drowsily, my half-undressed presence in his bedroom leaving him utterly unaffected.

Well, half-undressed was probably an exaggeration. My nightgown was richly layered with a modest neckline and a hem that billowed around my ankles, far from the scandalous sort I used to wear whenever I spent a night with Killian.

I missed Killian sometimes. He was one of Queen Eloise’s personal guards, and we had a wonderful little fling last spring, which ended sadly and abruptly after he started pressuring me about the future. But the whole reason I’d stayed at the Thalorian Court after I broke my engagement with Jasper was because I didn’t know what I wanted for my future.

I didn’t know what my life was for nor what I was supposed to do with it. The only thing I did know was that I needed more time. Time to learn who I was and who I wished to be, for I had already spent so much of my life being other people. It was a terrible thing not to know who you were. Everyone always took it as an invitation to take ownership of your void.

But the good thing about Killian was that he was a simple and straightforward man, and I never felt all muddle-headed and tongue-tied whenever I was with him. With him I didn’t feel the way I felt when I was with Hector.

It saddened me to think that every boy I’d ever met had been compared to him. No one was as smart as Hector or as interesting or as thoughtful. No one knew or understood me like he did. Oftentimes I asked myself, Then why not have him? Him, who compared to no one. But the answer was always the same. Having someone meant there was a possibility of losing them too, and there’d been nothing I’d dreaded more than a life without Hector.

Ironic, wasn’t it?

My eyes darted to him as he got into bed, pulling the cover up to his waist and tucking a forearm under his pillow to prop up his head. The neckline of his shirt parted, revealing a shred of smooth, marble skin. Suddenly, I needed instructions on how to breathe. Not that he noticed.

“Oh, before I forget…” he mumbled distractedly as he grabbed something from his nightstand. He tossed the pretty little comb from earlier toward my side of the bed. “Here.”

Still dawdling by the bathroom door, I glanced between him and the comb as if waiting for some kind of explanation.

“It’s what you wanted, no?” asked Hector casually.

I didn’t have to look in the mirror to know there was nothing casual about the expression on my face. “Um… yes,” I croaked. “Thank you.”

Hector sighed in unhelpful exasperation. “For the love of the stars, Thea, there is no need to be so nervous. Come to bed. I’m not going to devour you.”

“Then why did you move my things here?”

“I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“That is not a real answer,” I argued, setting the comb upon the nightstand and slipping into a bed that was already warmed by his body.

He shifted a little to make some space for me, staring at the velvet-draped canopy. His profile glowed red and orange against the unsteady light of the fireplace, crackling a few feet away from his side of the bed. I’d never noticed how arresting his profile was. The way his lashes looked impossibly dark against his pale skin. The way his forehead cut into the line of his nose, mouth, chin. If you took in his features one by one, you’d call them delicate, and yet in his strong, square-jawed face, they gave him a very powerful, almost severe look. An air of command.

I pulled my gaze away, inwardly cursing the silence. Our silences had always been a thing of comfort in the past.

When I finally felt brave enough to steal another glance at him, I was startled to find him facing toward me. I hadn’t heard him turn. I never heard him.

His eyes were liquid in the firelight, his face drawn in shadow. “What do you want me to say?”

“The truth,” I whispered.

“Which is…”

“That you missed being with me like this. That you missed me.”

“Maybe you should go back to your room.”

“Why is it so hard for you to admit it?”

“Or, better yet, get on a boat to Thaloria.”

“I thought you said you wanted to have fun. ”

He exhaled, the breath whistling between his clenched teeth. “I will not lie. I’m anxious about tomorrow, too. I’ve never hosted the families before, let alone by myself, and yes, it will be more fun with you here. But if you’re going to be this nervous every time I breathe near you, I’d rather not risk my head for the price of an entertaining night.”

“I’m not nervous,” I hissed. “I just… I don’t know you as well as I used to. You drink from the vein now. I don’t want to do anything to tempt you.”

His lips twitched, holding back laughter. “Tempt me? Oh, Dorothea, it takes a lot more than a pretty neck to tempt me.”

I narrowed my eyes, doing my best to ignore the pulsing knot in my stomach. “Like what?”

Hector crept closer, and although he seemed perfectly unmoved by the proximity of our bodies, when he was near enough to take my jaw in his hand, I felt the tension in his hold, the faltering will behind it. His thumb traced the shape of my mouth. My lips parted. He tasted different than I’d expected. Saltier. Even his voice sounded unfamiliar in that moment, harsh and resonant. “Just go to sleep,” he said, slowly withdrawing. “It’s getting late.”

But I couldn’t sleep. I was flustered and excited and terrified all at once, not only because Hector was a vampire but because he was… Hector .

If something ever happened between us, it couldn’t be a meaningless little fling. It couldn’t be a distraction from our grief or the disarrayed paths of our lives. It would mean something. It would mean everything. But I wasn’t sure if I was ready to give myself to someone else, let alone him, when I had yet to figure out who I was going to give.

When had life become so complicated? A week ago my only problems were my demanding classes and my ever-increasing pile of unread books, and now I had to figure out a million different things all at once.

“Do you want to cuddle?” I blurted before I could stop myself. It was like muscle memory, for it had always been him I sought when life seemed unbearable.

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 to break 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.

“Because I missed you too, Hector,” I said. “I still miss you. Every day.”

I fell asleep after that.

It was the best sleep I had in four years.