AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Emma squinted at me and asked with a tease in her voice, “Are you lying, Blondie?”
“Since when do you call me Blondie?” I scowled playfully, jerking a thumb toward Yasuo. “He’s bad enough. Jeez, guys, I spend a few weeks in training—”
“In hiding,” interrupted Yas.
I nudged him with my shoulder. “In training. I lie low for a little while, and you brainwash farm girl here. ”
And boom, like that, it was all good betwe
en the three of us again, as teasing and easy as before.
But afterward, I did go into hiding. I couldn’t deal with running into any of them, with the pain of these protracted exchanges that only I knew were good-bye. Just as I couldn’t deal with the questions cropping up for me.
Like, what did this connection with Alcántara mean for me? What did it mean for all of us that there were evil vampires out there, meeting and plotting?
If I wanted to survive, I needed to focus. So I dug in, and trained hard, and then I woke up one morning, and it was time.
I went to the dining hall for breakfast, and by lunch I was on a boat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
We set off when the sun was at its highest, in a rusted-out trawler that stank of petrol and rotting fish. A couple of fishermen from town were at the helm, and I studied them, taking in their weathered faces and faded overalls. Might they be related to Ronan? His family was out there somewhere—a father maybe, or a brother, someone with the same eyes, the same ways, the same habit of raking the hair back from his face.
I scrubbed a hand over my own face. Scrubbed Ronan from my mind. He was a thing of my past now. I had to look forward if I planned to survive what was coming.
I was here with Alcántara, and that should’ve been the only thing demanding my attention.
The day wasn’t bright by any means, but the sky was bleached whiter than usual and sunlight reflected off the water. Looking pained, the vampire shielded himself from the glare, pulling his hood low over his face and holding it fast in the wind.
I eyed his hand, so pale against the coarse black fabric. “So vampires don’t like the light after all?”
He cut his eyes to peer at me through the shadow of his cowl. “Curiosity killed the cat, querida. ”
“I thought you liked me curious,” I said with a raised brow.
He chuckled at that, and the energy that snapped between us felt like a triumph. “Yes, I confess I do appreciate a keen mind. ”
He settled lower in his seat, and just when I thought our exchange was over, he said, “You guess correctly—it is no secret that vampires do not relish daylight. We can be in it, yes, but it is very…fatiguing. Incómodo, no? Uncomfortable. ”
“If it’s troubling, why didn’t we wait till later to leave?”
He pulled his hood even lower, but his voice cut clearly through the wind. “Because if it’s troubling to me, it will be troubling to others. ”
“Ah. ” While I had him talking, I almost asked who the fishermen were, too, but when it came to human townsfolk, something told me that guarding my thoughts would be safest for everyone. I had to put the Isle of Night behind me.
Instead, I passed the time taking in the scenery. There was water. And more water—in a flat, gray, monochromatic palette to match the white light blanching the sky overhead. We passed the occasional island, but each was bleak, and many were more like rocks than any sort of inhabitable terrain.
The chugging and swaying of the trawler was making me dozy, and my chin bobbed down, then whipped back up again as I began to nod off.
There was a low chuckle beside me. Alcántara was watching me, an unreadable expression on his face. “To be able to sleep once more,” he mused. “To close one’s eyes to the world and melt into dreamlessness. I would trade many things for such sweet bliss. ”
So, vampires didn’t sleep—another new fact under my belt. I met his eyes, waiting to see if he’d divulge more. I felt an errant pang of sympathy, because it would kind of suck never to rest again, for all eternity. “It must feel interminable sometimes,” I said carefully.
“In point of fact, querida, our lifespan is, by definition, interminable. ”
Unless a stake gets in the way. But I definitely didn’t give voice to that bit.
He nodded toward the companionway stairs. “Go sleep, little one. There are thousands of islands in the North Sea, and many hours ahead of us. You will need your rest for the work ahead. ”
