Page 150 of The Vampire's Mercy

Stop thinking.

Just stop.

I had to get out of the palace. And I wanted him with me.

“Paris?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you like to go for a flight?”

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

PARIS

Arms and legs wrapped around him, the wind whistling in my ears, he flew me across the ocean, heading east.

“Where are we going?” I asked over the cold rush of air.

“You’ll see.”

I probably shouldn’t be alone with him. Not because of the him killing me and me killing his kin stuff, but because he confused me. Again. One minute I hated him, the next I had all this sympathy hanging off me like an anvil on a chain.

I shouldn’t give a shit, but I did. He was… He was a victim of Aidan. A man who’d fallen in love only to lose his brother. The pain he’d be going through would be brutal.

Should I tell him about Pearl?

My hate for him started to waiver. Not gone completely yet, but washing away bit by bit like a sandcastle caught in a rising tide.

Weirdly, I couldn’t point any blame at him for his fuck up. How could I? How would that be fair? How could I be sure I’d have acted with a clear head in the same situation?

Check me out with the character growth.

All the blame was at Aidan’s feet.

Damn. Everything I’d ever believed in was gone. How would Hal feel about this? Man, I wanted to see him. Whatever had gone down between us, fuck it. I needed to tell him the truth.

I drew in deep breaths, relishing the ocean air. Its cold slaps were refreshing, helping to keep me from spiraling.

I’d shed too many tears for one lifetime in a matter of hours.

Fuck tears.

No more tears, please.

Silvanus saved me,I thought as we approached another island. Stepped between me and Aidan, stopped the prick from turning me into an elf kebab.

The vampire king landed on a small island with a solitary house at the top of a hill. He put me down on a cracked stone path, the garden around us overgrown and wild and super happy to see me.

I greeted the weeds and the solitary hawthorn tree, along with the ivy crawling across the building’s slate structure.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“Hawthorn Isle,” he answered, approaching the black door with a peephole, two empty flower baskets hanging either side of it. “It was abandoned a long time ago. I found it one night and fell in love with its solitude.”

He was bang on the coin there. Nothing but choppy ocean around it, with no other land in sight. A place for clearing your head away from the rest of the world.

And pretty chilly. I rubbed at my arms.