Page 47 of Vampires of Eden

Silently, he comes and sits beside me on the step. Every red flag in my body is waving at full mast. “I said give me a minute! If you came out here to tell me off for working too slow?—”

“I didn’t,” he says, bending his knees and staring out into the woods. “I wouldn’t do that right now.”

“Like hell you wouldn’t,” I say. God. My face is probably red and puffy. What is he doing? I look to the woods, waiting for some rude comment to fly out of his mouth and ricochet upside my head.

He doesn’t say anything. The weird, electric tingling across my skin is warm. It’s not uncomfortable, but it’s just… strange as I relax my shoulders. Exhaling, I lean and wrap my arms around my bent knees and rest my chin there. I close my eyes.

“Kathryn and Roland don’t know that Oliver fell in love with someone else, I take it?” Daniel asks after a long stretch of silence.

With my eyes still closed and my head turned against my knees and away from him, I sigh. “Apparently. They’re the only vampires left in Eden who don’t.”

Daniel falls quiet again. I breathe and try to soothe my sinking heart.

“Coming here, to Nantshire…” he begins quietly. “It helps to take your mind off of things? The broken engagement?”

“Yes, but…” I clench my eyes shut tighter, feeling my throat close again. “I shouldn’t have come here today.”

“Why?”

“Because I… Not that you care, but I had a shitty night yesterday. I’m not in a good headspace and I should have stayed home, but Raphael pushed me to come here.” Bastard.

“I understand what you’re saying, but that’s the whole purpose of this house, Alexander. Vampires won’t come here when they’re doing perfectly fine and are in a ‘good headspace.’ The point is to be around other vampires and get support with whatever you need.”

“But you said it yourself,” I tell him, lifting my head. “Who am I to come here for support? Maybe I don’t deserve it. Oliver ran away from me because I’m everything that you say I am, right? Because I was arrogant and stupid. I didn’t pay attention to what he needed and I was a shitpartner. The circumstance I’m in now is what I deserve. I need to get over myself.”

Another wayward tear cascades down my face and I hurriedly wipe it away. I can’t keep wallowing and feeling sorry for myself like this. It’s pathetic.

“Forget what I said that day,” Daniel says. “I was wrong. I apologized. You’re only twenty-two, Alexander. You’re allowed to make mistakes in your life and learn from them. You’re allowed to grow.”

“It’s too late for that.”

“How so?”

“Itjust is. I… I know I can change. I have changed! But what difference does it make if I can’t be with the vampire that I love? If the one who helped to change me can’t even witness the result? I wanted us to grow together. I wanted him toseeme.”

Did Oliver ever see me? I’m not even sure that he tried. With our every encounter, I felt like I was constantly waving my arms wildly in the air, trying something—anythingto get him to notice me.

Then Aries came along and captured his full attention without even trying.

“You shouldn’t feel like you have to prove yourself to someone,” Daniel says, staring out into the woods. The bright light from the sun makes his pale skin and eyes glow. “The right vampire will see and love you as you are—not because of where you couldbe. Or because you have ‘potential.’ That’s not how it works…” He exhales a heavy sigh. “You can still grow, but with someone new.”

The playful twittering of two birds makes me look up. I see them. A couple of red-breasted robins on a branch, hopping back and forth and singing to each other.

“No,” I say. “There isn’t anyone.”

“There could be.”

Impossible. I could tell him as much, but that means I’d have to talk about Lord Cherrington and the almost surefire arrangement between us. I can’t stomach talking about that gross vampire right now.

Daniel casts his gaze sideways. “So… what happened yesterday night that upset you?”

The memory of Lord Cherrington and the hazy, suffocating air of the cigar-smoke filled bar flashes in my mind. Him, casually touching me over and over again like I’m already his property—his palm on my lower back to urge me away from a passing waiter, his fingertips brushing my arms, neck and shoulders as hetalked. His thigh bumping and resting against mine when we sat down.

All seemingly innocuous points of contact, except I’ve expressly told him multiple times tonottouch me. Every single instance felt intentional—a subtle show of dominance over my established boundaries.

I shake my head. “I-I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s fine. You don’t have to.”