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It had changed from anger to something else, something familiar, because we had a similar history in at least one way. The prince and the pauper had a lifetime of being abandoned by everyone we cared about. For Louis-Cesare, it had started with his mother, who had given up the tiny boy who loved her in order to keep her reputation intact, and her betrayal had been followed by a host of others, from his treacherous half-brother’s to that of my uncle Radu, the one who had made him a vampire. And who had then abandoned him to find his own way in a hostile world.
Radu had had a good reason, one that had been explained to me a couple times now, but that I still didn’t completely get. But it didn’t matter, because it hadn’t softened the blow. And for someone who had lost her own mother early, who had spent years thinking that her father had abandoned and rejected her, who’d had to leave every lover or friend she’d ever had—yeah, I knew that look, that pain. I saw it on his face, in his eyes, and I suddenly couldn’t do it to him. Not again.
Fine. So let him stick around until Dorina guts him, a little voice said. See how you feel then.
I shoved the mental voice away. It wasn’t the right time. Not now. Not like this, with other people around to overhear and when there was no way to give him a proper explanation.
And you think he’ll accept it if you do? You already tried that in the shower. He won’t leave unless you make him go!
But, as it turned out, I didn’t have to do anything. Louis-Cesare suddenly took my hand, bowed over it, and left. Turning around and striding so quickly down the hall and out of the house that he was gone almost before I realized what was happening.
“He isn’t staying for the party?” Soini asked, blinking after him.
I just stood there, not sure I could say anything.
“But we’re having roast pork.”
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said roughly, shoved Stinky at him, and ran up the stairs.
I made it back to my room feeling like I’d been stabbed, straight through something vital, and now it was just a case of bleeding out.
His face.
God, his face.
I shut my door behind me and then just stood there, in the dark, empty room. Only it wasn’t. There was the wall Claire had once thrown him through, misunderstanding some sounds, thinking he was hurting me when he never would. There was the bathroom where he’d first told me he loved me, shocking me to all but speechlessness. There was the bed. . . .
I felt sick. Like, actually, physically ill. There were no chairs, Olga having taken hers down again, so I settled for leaning against the wall. And realized that I was still holding his rose. Somehow, I hadn’t dropped it with all the others.
It was a little worse for wear: a couple of the outer petals were missing, and one of the leaves was hanging by a thin bit of stem, the rest having been ripped from the stalk. I stared at it, feeling as empty as the room. Fuck.
I bent over, hands on my knees, and just breathed for a minute.
It’s okay, the stupid voice said. You’ll feel better in time. You always knew this wasn’t going to work—
I beat my fists into my temples until the voice stopped. Until I was dizzy and probably completely demented looking, but I didn’t care. There was no one to see. There never would be. . . .
My head felt dizzy, my gut was roiling, and my legs were weak. I slowly slid down the wall, until I ended up clutching my knees and the rose, and then just sat there in darkness. I didn’t cry. I wasn’t going to fucking cry. This was my fault, all of it. So I didn’t get that release. I didn’t get anything, because I knew better, knew these things never worked out, and that was with normal guys. What the hell had I been thinking? Me and Louis-Cesare—what a laugh.
But, for a little while, it hadn’t been funny. For a little while, it had been . . . like nothing I’d ever known. I’d lived five hundred years, more or less. The less being the swaths of time I didn’t remember, when Dorina had been in charge. But even if you crossed those out, I’d been around a long time. I’d seen amazing things, some frightening, some wonderful, some terrible.
I’d never seen anything like him.
For a moment, I let myself remember: sunlight turning brown hair to red; electric blue eyes, the most vivid I’d ever seen; a rare laugh breaking through the facade of sangfroid he determinedly kept up even though he was really bad at it; him accepting an eighteenth-century-looking satin ensemble from Radu even though it was lavender, and probably intending to wear it sometime because it would make his father happy and he didn’t care what people thought of him. Most people . . .
I thought about him looking so pleased with himself as he smugly said “three,” after exceeding the number of bears I’d wanted despite the odds, and I felt my legs tense, because I wanted to run after him so badly I was vibrating. I’d never had anyone like him, and for a moment, I let myself grieve.
I didn’t deserve him, but I’d had him anyway, something that had frequently made me thrilled and terrified and grateful and suspicious and amazed—just jaw-droppingly amazed—all at the same time. And I’d thrown him away, without even a decent explanation because there was no explanation he’d understand.
I didn’t even know if I understood.
So I sat there, dry-eyed and staring at nothing, until somebody rapped on the wood behind me.
“Dory?”
I stood up and cracked the door.
Claire’s worried face looked in. “Is something—” She broke off. And before I could say anything, if there’d been anything to say, she was pulling me into her arms.
