Seriously, when was that elf going to learn? Dice knew all of his moves before he made them. He needed to be genuine with her, and not put on the act he was putting on. But I remembered what he’d told me the first night we met. How he was still hurting. How he didn’t think he was ready for love again yet. He was probably acting this way because he didn’t want to get serious with anyone. And Dice knew it, so she put up with his Romeo act.
I sighed and let them be, bemoaning my lack of sweet tea.
Draven curled his arms around me, and while everyone else was jiving and shimmying and laughing and sweating up a storm, I was slow-dancing with a vampire, with my head resting against the curve of his neck, and his chin resting on the top of my head.
I don’t think I opened my eyes the entire rest of the time we were in the club.
On the drive home, he held my hand.
I tried to remember if I’d held hands with someone before. Someone that mattered. I’d maybe held hands with my adopted parents a few times? I couldn’t remember. My memories of that time were fuzzy.
The country roads were winding, and for once in his life, Draven was driving leisurely. He had one hand on the wheel, barely steering with his fingertips, and the other was holding mine. I glanced at our hands clasped together and then glanced up at the stars.
The top was down on the car because I no longer cared if my hair turned into a bird’s nest. The wind was whipping my curls everywhere. And even though I’d wrapped the band with the feather boa around my hair in a bun, strands kept escaping and tickling my face.
“You’ve lived this whole other life,” I blurted out suddenly. My brain had been constantly churning facts like this at me since we’d left the club. I kept remembering the images I’d seen in his mind. The woman that had been killed, and him sobbing over her body. The wars that he’d fought in. The immense measure of time that he’d been alive.
I don’t know why this was hitting me this way. I had known these things before; I’d just never put them together with the possibility of us being together. In my mind, it was like Draven and his life as a vampire differed from the Draven that I worked with day in and out. I’d separated them somehow. But they weren’t separate. My Draven, my boss Draven, was a vampire who’d lived almost a millennium.
A millennium.
I tried to wrap my brain around that.
The longer I sat there thinking, the more I tallied up all the pluses on his side, and all the minuses on my own. It was impossible for me to match him in wisdom, raw power, wealth, or cleverness. I considered myself to havesomewisdom, and to bemildlyclever, but after spending all this time with Draven recently, I’d come to see that he wasfiendishlyclever. Like, clever to the 10thdegree. He was nothing short of brilliant.
If that wasn’t intimidating enough, he was also humble, kind, and sweet. I mean, yes, he could be overbearing and way too protective, but I knew that was in part because of his experiences.
“You’ve gotten quiet. Are you thinking yourself into a corner?”
I glanced at him, then away. “Maybe.”
He squeezed my hand. “This is hard for me, too.”
I scoffed.
“Really, it is. I was certain I wasn’t ready or willing to attempt being with someone yet.”
My heart squeezed. “How long has it been?”
“A few hundred years.”
“That’s areallylong time to be alone.”
He smiled. “My kind are less changeable than mortals. Change takes more time for us, and the effects of change last longer. We don’t flit from thing to thing, from flower to flower, as mortals do. When genuine change, lasting change, takes place within us, it becomes a part of us in a way that’s difficult to excise. My wife has been gone nearly three hundred years, but in some ways, it feels like it happened yesterday.”
“Change is hard,” I agreed. In a softer voice, I said, “I’m sorry about the loss of your wife.”
He squeezed my hand again, and we drove the rest of the way in silence.
That night, he left me at my door with a kiss to my forehead, and I spent the rest of the night snuggled with Zian, trying to picture the days ahead. I had no idea what was going to happen. No idea if we could work and date, no idea if we were a good fit romantically at all. I really had no idea about any of it. And that was terrifying to me.
I dialed Rhys. “Will you let me stay with you if I get kicked out of here?” I asked without waiting for a greeting.
“Well, hello to you too, Starshine.” Rhys’ voice was warm and sultry. He was teasing me like he didn’t have a care in the world.
It was annoying when I was freaking out so badly. I wanted someone to freak out with me! That’s what best friends werefor!
“I’m serious!” I hissed. “If things go badly between me and Draven, I might need a place to stay until I can find work.”
