Page 96 of Coveted

“Yes,” he says. “Guilt about something specific.”

Oh god, oh god, he’s a maniac. I knew it.

I gulp more whiskey before speaking.

“Do you hunt people for sport?” I ask.

The question hangs in the air like a sword, deadly and sharp.

He snickers into his tumbler. “No, Sadie. I don’t hunt people for sport.”

My shoulders release and the knot in my chest loosens. Of course he doesn’t. I’m ridiculous for thinking such a thing.

“Okay, good,” I say with a chuckle. “Sorry. And what did you learn about guilt?”

As I relax, my bag strap falls to my elbow. Maybe we can have a normal, enriching conversation like adults.

“Guilt’s a pointless emotion.” He swirls his drink around. “It achieves nothing except keeping us in the past.”

Snippets of my own past flash through my mind like a nightmare reel. Fire, running in the dark, sirens, hiding. Somewhere during that sequence, my engraved locket fell from my neck, which Lucan later found.

My guilt about that night is why I had mixed feelings about receiving the Darkbloom scholarship. An invitation to build a future for myself seemed too sweet to be true.

Death awaited me at Darkbloom though. Maybe that’s my justice.

“What if the guilt is deserved?” I ask.

“Pointless,” he repeats emphatically. “Guilt just tears holes in your spirit. Weakens you.”

“And if the deed was bad?” I hesitate. “Like really bad.”

“Same thing. Pointless.” His shoulders roll. “Learn from it. Do better next time.”

“I wish I could believe it’s that simple.”

Lucan’s eyes twinkle in his apartment’s low light. “Maybe you should borrow The Stranger.”

“Maybe I will.”

We share a long look, which somehow seems to say more than our words did.

He opened a little to me, I opened a little to him. Did I just have a cute moment with Lucan Hale, the evil Prince of Darkbloom? Wonders never cease.

“What did the wind mean in your poem?” he asks.

I sniff. “The poem you snatched from my hands and read aloud?”

“Yes, that one. I liked it, by the way.”

“I could really tell by your open hostility.”

“Come on. What does it mean?”

I fidget, feeling more shy than when he ordered me to give him head. “The wind is life. Grief. The things that come along and sweep us up.”

He nods slowly. “That’s beautiful.”

“Are you making fun of me?”