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And yet.
I was touched beyond reason. Today was my eighteenth birthday, and somehow he’d known.
“You were born today, were you not?”
“How’d you know?”
He grinned, wicked Carden once more. “I have ways. ”
I gave a quick scrub to my eyes, anxious to put a chirpy face on it. “The whole all-powerful, omniscient thing really seems to work for you. ”
He barked a laugh, and I hushed him. The walls had ears. Maybe the other Initiates weren’t a threat, but there were secret vampire sympathies that were.
“I simply make it my business to know about you,” he added in a lowered voice.
“Eighteen. Hey, I can vote. Or be recruited. Oh wait,” I added, fighting my returning melancholy with an attempt at humor. “I already was recruited. I’m boots-on-the-ground in the vampire army. ” I stepped away, blithely asking, “So what’d you get me?”
He pulled something from the pocket of his coat.
“Wait,” I said, taken aback. “I was kidding. You really got me something?”
“Naturally. ” He waved the little parcel before me. It was rectangular and wrapped in plain paper.
“But you just gave me something. For Christmas. ” I star
ed at the package like he was offering me a bomb. I didn’t get a lot of presents, and this marked the second one from Carden. The first had been the awesomest throwing star ever, with a bird’s wing etched along the steel, though it was unsettling how I’d become the girl whom guys wooed with weaponry. “You’ve already given me so much,” I added dumbly, my mind going to all those emotional places I didn’t like to think about.
It appeared I was crushing pretty hard on my ancient Scottish vampire.
“Do you not want it?” He faked like he was going to tuck it back in his pocket.
“No. ” I snatched it from him. “I want. I want. ” The thing had some heft to it, and I could feel the spine of a book through the coarse paper. “Can I open it?”
He raised a brow, apparently an ancient Scottish way of saying duh. “Would you rather I did?”
I shot him a look that made him grin, and forget the gift, just the fact that I could make Carden McCloud grin sent warm tendrils of contentment through my veins. I sat on the bed, and he sat beside me, the bed sinking under his weight.
I carefully unfolded the paper. I’d keep it. I’d keep and treasure all of it.
“Oh. A dictionary. ” It was a basic Old Norse dictionary. Standard issue. In fact, I already had a copy, only mine was paperback, and this one was an awkward hardback in what looked like an older, outdated edition. I gave him a look that I feared was more like a mask than a smile. “Thanks. ”
He grinned. “For someone so lethal, you are remarkably polite. ” He took the book from my hands and turned to the back flap. Looking closer, I could see the binding wasn’t paper; rather, it had more of a leathery sheen. He picked at the corner, and it took a moment for him to get purchase with his short nails. “When will you remember? Things aren’t always as they seem. ”
He finally managed to loosen the top corner, and the binding peeled away to reveal a hiding spot.
I gasped. “Oh, wow. Cool. ”
“There is no more clever a hiding spot than in plain sight. ”
“Thank you. Just…thank you. I love it. ” To the naked eye, it would just seem like a musty old used book. The false cover was shallow, but just the right size to hide a key. Or a photograph. “It’s perfect. ” I flung my arms around him. “Perfect. ”
In that moment, to me, he was perfect.
He chucked my chin. “For a woman with secrets. ”
Then it really struck me—I was eighteen today. I was a woman.
Raised voices echoed from down the hall, rumbling their way toward us. I picked out Kenzie in the din, giving the first warning—lights-out soon. I checked the clock on my bedside table. “Crap. Three minutes to curfew. Frost will be back any minute. ”
