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“What we are is vampires. You just play-pretend you’re a human.” Charity’s eyes narrowed. “Is that why you got yourself another girlfriend? A simple, stupid human girl filled up with the best blood of all—”
“You don’t get to judge her. Judge me all you want. You’ve got the right. But not Skye.”
She bent over, bringing her face not far above his. Despite her disheveled appearance and singsong voice, her eyes were shrewd. “Or are you saving her for yourself? Make her your girlfriend, and then you can have all the blood you like and never, ever share.”
If only he could answer that he’d never drunk Skye’s blood.
Instead, he rose from the snow, forcing Charity to stand, too, until they faced each other again. Balthazar repeated, “Not Skye. Don’t let Redgrave set you on her, Charity. Don’t do to her what he did to me or … or what I did to you.”
Charity said nothing. She never moved, even as he got back in his car and drove away. In the rearview mirror, he could see her remaining there, utterly still, until she was erased by the snow that surrounded her.
The next few days were … awkward.
Skye was as good as her word. She didn’t text him during study hall, didn’t exchange glances with him during history class, and spoke only to answer “present” during the homeroom attendance roll. It wasn’t that she froze him out; in every way, she was calm and polite.
Balthazar managed to remain polite, but he wasn’t at all calm.
There she was, walking down the hallway with That Lump. Or exchanging notes with Madison in study hall, Madison all giggles; probably they were talking about Keith, or the dance, which he already profoundly regretted agreeing to chaperone. The next weekend, she wanted to go riding again, but suggested evenly that it made more sense for him to be at something of a distance, the better to scout around for intruders. “That way I won’t be a distraction,” she said, as if everything about her wasn’t maddeningly distracting.
He kept guard over her house at night, which he felt was in no way like stalking. Except, that was, for that moment every evening when she walked to the window, just before turning out her light. It was her silent way of affirming that she knew he was there—her only acknowledgment of the bond between them that survived their silence. The silhouette of her body against the bedroom light always stayed with him throughout the long hours before dawn.
Teaching at Darby Glen High began to feel like a job. Watching her began to feel like a mission. Countless little details distracted him (Tonia Loos’s endless flirting in the staff room, Madison Findley’s numerous questions about her impending term paper on John Alden), but nothing ever took his mind away from Skye.
Balthazar was beginning to think that nothing ever would—that even if he walked away from her in Darby Glen after the immediate crises were resolved, Skye would always claim a part of him.
One night, after hours of tossing around in bed and trying desperately not to think of Skye, he finally fell asleep—and dreamed of her.
They were back at Evernight Academy, though no longer strangers to each other as they had been then. Together they rode on the grounds, which were green and warm as summertime:
“You’re too slow,” she called, glancing over her shoulder. Her deep brown hair, free from the helmet she always wore, framed the curve of her face. As Skye urged Eb onward, she said, “Catch up!”
“I’m coming!” He spurred on Bucephalus, thinking idly that it had been too long since he rode him. Why didn’t he take this horse out every day? Bony and awkward he still looked, but he was fast. Fast enough to catch Skye.
She and Eb vanished into a glade of trees, and Balthazar followed, eager to find her again. When he found her, he’d take her into his arms and kiss her again. This time nothing would stop them. Nothing would get in the way.
Once they entered the clearing, he saw Eb standing still, bridle aside, so he could munch on the grass. Balthazar dismounted, expecting to see Skye somewhere nearby. Perhaps she was hiding, turning this all into a game. He felt himself starting to smile. “Skye?”
“Find me!” Her voice rang out joyfully from deeper in the glade, and he dashed toward the sound. The branches seemed incredibly thick—and the sunlight was dimmer here, less steady than it had been but moments before—yet it didn’t matter, not if he were about to find Skye.
Finally he pushed aside the last branch and saw a small grove. In the center stood Skye, her ruffled sundress fluttering in the sudden strong breeze. Her bare feet were pale against the vivid grass. She simply stood there, waiting for him with a smile on her face, and Balthazar took a step toward her—
—just as Redgrave appeared behind Skye, and slipped his arms around her waist.
“Only her friend,” Redgrave whispered as he stroked Skye’s hair away from her face. She simply glanced back at him, as eager to be with him as she’d been for Balthazar a moment before. “Only her protector. And yet you dream about her dancing for you barefoot in a meadow. How incredibly pathetic, Balthazar. Your erotic imagination might at least have become a bit more creative in the past few centuries.”
This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be. Why wasn’t this real anymore? “Let go of Skye,” Balthazar said. The words were difficult to force out. “She doesn’t want you.”
“I’m the master of this dream now,” Redgrave said as he traced his fingers along Skye’s bare arm. “So I think she does want me. Don’t you, my dear?”
Skye’s response was to turn to Redgrave and kiss him, as passionately as she had ever kissed Balthazar. But Redgrave wasn’t pushing her away the way Balthazar had. Instead he was responding to her, delighting in her, and the sight was sickening to behold.
This isn’t real, Balthazar thought. He knew that, didn’t he? He attempted to step forward and break this up—to fight for her if he had to—but his feet wouldn’t move. Glancing down, he saw that he stood in mud, or quicksand … something dark and liquid that had begun to drag him down.
Redgrave’s laughter made him look up again. “I’ve half a mind to make you watch this in real life, Balthazar. It could be even more enjoyable. And you know I can do it, don’t you?”
Balthazar awakened with a start. Panting, he leaned against his headboard and put his face in his hands. The fact that his sire was invading his dreams again to torture him was bad enough.
Worse that Redgrave knew what Skye really meant to Balthazar—and had figured it out faster than Balthazar himself had.
