“You can’t always choose who you fall in love with.” I heard the bitterness in my voice, and tried to fix it. “But I mean, he has to understand that, right? He’s not pushing you too hard to love him?”
“No.” She pulled her legs up to her chest and put her head down on her knees. “And lately, I feel like he’s backing off completely. I know he’s busy and worried about trying to find your mom, but it seems like something’s changed. What if he’s giving up?”
Ashleigh’s line of conversation was starting to sound vain, like she was disappointed not to have Glen fawning over her all the time even though she didn’t return his love. “Do you think that maybe you just miss the attention? I mean, from his perspective, isn’t it better if he doesn’t keep trying to love someone who doesn’t love him back?”
Her gaze drifted back to me, and I saw her eyes shining with tears. “What if he found someone who does love him back? That’s what I’m afraid of. It’s a political marriage, and there’s a lot hanging on it. I don’t need him to dote on me, but if there’s another girl, one that the Court didn’t like, then either everyone would be very upset by the threat to his betrothal to me or her heart would be broken when I marry the man she loves.”
I stared at her, and started to ask, “Who—”
But I stopped before I finished the question. I knew who it had to be. There was only one other girl who it could be, and she was a dear friend to both of us.
“Oh, no.” I gripped my mug. “Are you sure? Has something happened between them?”
She shook her head. “No, nothing’s happened. I just see the way that they look at each other, and the way that they avoid looking at each other too much. The way that they talk and the way that the silence stretches out when they don’t talk.” She gave me a bitter smile. “I’ve never felt that way about anyone before, but I think I know it when I see it. They might not even realize it themselves yet. I have to be prepared for when they do.”
My head was spinning with the implications. I never thought about my friends having problems as complicated as mine, but this would affect the three of them in so many ways. I tried to find a way to reassure Ashleigh, because she was the one who had come to me for help, but I was still reeling.
“Faeriekin aren’t expected to be monogamous,” I said at last. “This doesn’t have to turn into a huge scandal. The Count and his wife are known to have other lovers.”
“I know,” she whispered. “But think about how chivalrous and honorable Glen is. Do you think that he could stand to marry one girl and keep another as his secret mistress? The Court would never accept her as his consort in public. Not the vampire’s daughter.”
Pieces clicked into place in my mind. “You were trying to protect her. That’s why you made her oath into such a big deal at the party last weekend.”
She gave a half-hearted chuckle. “My lame attempt to shift their opinion of her. We’re closer to them, so we see these things first. But if they’re not careful, then other people might start to suspect too, and we can’t let rumors get out. The rest of the Court would turn on her in an instant.”
I put my mug over on the table and leaned back against the cushioned wall. I traced swirling shapes on the window, feeling the cold outside through the glass. “I don’t know what to do except to help keep it a secret. If nothing’s even happened yet, then there’s not much to hide.” I glanced back at her. “This has to be hard for you, though. Do you feel jealous?”
She poured herself another mug of tea, back to her usual calm self. “I feel a little happy for him, actually. He’s a sweet guy and he deserves to be loved. I only feel bad because I still have to marry him, and that’s going to complicate everything, especially since she’s not in the Court’s favor.”
I groaned. “The whole arranged marriage thing is so archaic. I used to think it was okay in your guys’ case, because you get along so well. But if Glen loves Heather, he should be able to marry her, and damn the Court’s favor. If he’s going to be Count, isn’t it his choice?”
“Vampire in-laws,” she whispered. “And Heather’s children would be his heirs. The Fae would never accept it.”
I fell silent, unable to argue any further. I was afraid that anything I said would reveal what I knew—the truth that I didn’t think Ashleigh even suspected. Fortunately, Ashleigh delicately changed the topic of conversation to other school gossip, and the tension in the room soon melted away like the snow when it started to rain outside.
21
Teens Can't Be Trusted
Rosmerta
I squinted at the photographs that Elizabeth had brought me. Some of them were blurry and difficult to read. “She couldn’t get to a copier?” I asked. “Why does everything with her have to be about her camera? And she took them all in black and white. I can’t make out this one passage here.”
The girl barely glanced at the pictures spread out over the kitchen table. “I didn’t get to ask her any details. She just kinda dumped them on me and bailed.”
I raised my head and fixed her with a stare. “That’s hardly helpful.” If I couldn’t scold my daughter directly, then I was going to make my displeasure felt through the messenger.
“It’s not my fault!” She backed up, putting her hands in the air. “Rosa’s been avoiding me the past couple of days. I can’t get her to talk to me.”
To think that all of my plans hinged on these unreliable teenagers. And now it was too late to adjust my strategy. “You were supposed to get close to her,” I said in a low, menacing voice. “You promised that you would be nice to her and win her friendship. What did you do that made her want to avoid you again?”
“I don’t know.” She looked very upset about it, sitting down, folding her arms on the table, and resting her chin on top. “I wish I could read her mind, because I have no idea what she’s thinking. One minute she’s all friendly and says that I’m the only person who tells her the truth, then the next she gets weird and pulls away from me.”
Mary leaned closer and put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “Now, dear, you know that you can be abrasive without even realizing it. Are you sure that you didn’t say anything by accident that she could have taken the wrong way?”
Elizabeth scrunched up her face, and I wasn’t sure if she was reviewing her past conversations or just trying not to cry. I sighed and bent back over the photographs.
In reality, I didn’t need to decode everything that Glen had written down. I just wanted to assess his general knowledge of sorcery to see if he would be capable of performing advanced spells—like opening a gate between the worlds. So far, his grasp of the delicate art seemed solid, and I was beginning to hope that our crazy scheme might actually work. But if Elizabeth had done something to jeopardize her connection to Rosa, then we wouldn’t even have a way to get to Glen. We couldn’t let her lose this for us.
The pookha girl shook her head and sighed. “No, I’m sure that I didn’t do anything. I was being really nice and she was starting to open up. She took me flying on her broom, and we looked out at the snow . . .”
She trailed off with a wistful note in her voice. I glanced up, and saw a strange smile on her face. It was almost as if she were talking about some boy she was swooning over instead of a friend.
I cleared my throat pointedly. “There’s such a thing as being too friendly, you know. Maybe you scared her off.”
“No!” Elizabeth said quickly, but I saw the fear in her eyes and knew that she was worried about the same thing. “I mean, I think I remember when she started acting weird. It was right after I told her that she had to make a copy of Glen’s stuff. Maybe she just feels bad about going against her friends. We’ve got to be careful about how fast and how far we push her, or we could lose her completely.” She looked down at the table without really focusing on the pictures, and added quietly, “She went over to Ashleigh’s house after school today.”
I grabbed the first photograph that came to hand and held it up
before her face. “This is only the beginning. We need Rosa to help us kidnap that prissy faerie, so you have to prepare her for that. Find a way to drive a wedge between her and them. Lie if you have to.”
Mary had been looking between the two of us for the entire conversation. Now she clutched her daughter tighter and gave me a disapproving frown. “Take it easy on the poor girl. She’s not used to this kind of manipulation.”
“Nothing about this plan is something that we can just ‘take it easy’ about.” I gathered up the photographs and tucked them back into the envelope from the development lab, then pushed my chair back loudly and stood up from the table. “She wanted to be involved. I’m doing my best to make sure that none of us go down for this, but I’m the one who will be exiled if we fail and I’m caught. Forgive me if I’m not more compassionate.”
Clutching the envelope to my chest, I swept out of the room. The dramatic exit would prove my point. If I were a little harsh, no doubt Mary would do what she had to in order to console her daughter, and then offer her a few suggestions on fixing the current problem.
Akasha trailed after me, shaking her head. “I don’t trust her,” she muttered when we were out of earshot.
“Neither do I,” I admitted. “It’s too hard to tell what’s really going on.”
I would have to find a way to spy on them together. Maybe then I could see what the real issue was between them. Our whole plan depended on it.
22
Three-Month Anniversary
Rosamunde
February 1st was a Friday, the day of my three-month anniversary with Kai. We had plans to go out to dinner that night, just the two of us, but first he took me back to his house for the afternoon.
“You’re going to have to take me home before we can go out tonight,” I told him as the pickup truck pulled into his driveway. “I want to change into something nice before dinner, but all I have with me is my school uniform.”
He turned off the engine and slid across the seat to wrap his arms around me. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure that you get the chance to dress up.”
We kissed in the car for several minutes and I relaxed under the soft touch of his lips on mine. By the time we pulled apart, the windows had steamed up. I wiped one off nervously and peered outside. “Your moms aren’t around, are they?”
“Nah, they’re both still at work.” He reached over me and pushed the door open. “We’ve got the house to ourselves. Shall we?”
Sure enough, there were no other cars in the driveway, and when he let us in, all of the family’s shoes were gone from the entryway. We kicked off our shoes into the corner and barely paused to put on the house slippers before he pulled me by the hand down the hallway.
I’d only been in the front part of the house that one night for dinner, so I didn’t realize where we were going until he stopped and leaned against another door.
“I tried to clean up my room,” he said with a smile. “But promise you won’t laugh.”
When he opened it, I caught a glimpse of a computer desk with stacks of video game cases on either side of the monitor. My eyes widened and I took a step back, but didn’t let go of his hand.
“Are you sure that it’s okay for us to be back here?” I looked at him.
His smile widened and he gave an easy shrug, as if he couldn’t possibly see what was wrong. “Sure, no one will be home for a few hours. C’mon, I want to show you something.”
I let him draw me to just inside the doorway. My gaze went to the computer again. “Your parents let you have that in here? Aren’t they worried that you’ll stay up all night playing games?”
He laughed. “Sure, I do that sometimes, but if it’s in here then I’m not keeping anyone else up. I can go without a lot of sleep most days.”
I tried to laugh, too, but I still felt nervous. I glanced around for something else to talk about. “You have a lot of band posters,” I noticed aloud. I recognized a lot of the pop artists he’d been listening to up on the wall.
“Yeah, but that’s not what I want to show you.” He reached over to the desk and picked up a CD with a hand-drawn label that said “Rosa” in blue marker. “I made you a playlist.”
My eyes widened as he handed me the case. I turned it over to the back and saw that he’d scribbled down the track names. Many of them had been on the top radio charts in the past month, but a few of them I couldn’t identify by name. I pointed to the first one, “I Surrender.” “What’s this song?”
He beamed. “It’s from one of my favorite games. Hang on, I’ll play it for you.” He took the case from me and popped out the disc with one hand, turning on the computer with the other.
A few minutes later, the speakers filled the room with a drum machine, too much synth, and a sultry woman’s voice echoing over the top. I tried to hide my disappointment. “It’s very . . . catchy,” I said, smiling so it sounded like a compliment.
“I know, right? Sometimes I get it stuck in my head for days!” Kai grabbed me around the waist and pulled me over to sit down on the bed next to him. “I want you to hear the whole playlist. These songs say all of the things that you make me feel.”
He was very sweet for trying to impress me. I snuggled up to him and giggled. “You made me a mix tape.”
“Yeah, I made you a mix tape. I guess that means I like you.” He grinned and kissed me.
“I would do anything . . .” The woman’s voice drifted from the computer.
His kisses went from sweet to passionate quickly, then he tried gently to lean me farther back on the bed. I resisted but he grew more insistent.
“I will give everything . . .” The lyrics interrupted me.
“Hey, Kai,” I said, a little breathless from the kisses. “There’s something that we’ve never talked about before.”
He made a little pouty face. “I thought we were listening to the music right now. You’re going to ruin it if you talk.”
“I belong to you, body and soul . . .”
The song was really starting to get on my nerves, like it was trying to tell me what to do.
I scooted away so there were several inches between us on the bed. “Can you just turn it off for a minute? It’s pretty important that we talk about this. Things have been heating up between us but we haven’t really discussed what we’re comfortable with.”
“What’s there to talk about?” he said, but he leaned forward and stopped the music. “You’re beautiful. I love you, you love me back . . . Can’t we just let things happen naturally?”
I looked at the floor so I wouldn’t see his pleading looks. “That doesn’t work for me,” I said flatly. “I didn’t talk about things with Lindsey before, and we both regretted it after.”
“That was completely different.” A note of annoyance was creeping into his voice. “I can get why you’d be scared after that, but I’m not just fooling around and I’m not going to leave you. Trust me when I say that I’m very, very attracted to you.”
I sighed. “That’s not what I’m worried about. I just don’t want to rush into things before I’m ready.”
“We’ve been together for three months.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him folding his arms. “I don’t want to push you, Rosa, but it’s not like you’re a virgin. Three months is already a long time to wait.”
I shot up off the bed and turned to glare at him. “I can’t believe that you’d tell me I shouldn’t wait just because it’s not my first time. I told you about what happened so you’d understand why I have trouble trusting people now, not so you could shove it in my face.”
His face fell and his arms came apart, holding out his hands pleadingly. “I’m sorry, Rosa, I wasn’t trying to use it against you. I just love you so much, and I worry that you’re not really attracted to me because I’m a guy.” He tilted his head to one side. “Is that why you want to stop? Are you afraid that it will hurt, or are you just not that into guys?”
“How can you ask that?” I felt like I’d
stepped into some kind of crazy alternate reality. “I told you that I’m bisexual. Of course I like guys, and you know that I like you. That has nothing to do with this.”
He looked down and shook his head. “Then I just can’t figure out why. I thought you’d gotten your girl phase out of your system with Lindsey, and you were ready to be with me. Yet I keep feeling like there’s something between us.”
“I’m always gonna be bi, no matter if I’m with a guy or a girl!” I clutched the sides of my head, almost tempted to start tearing my hair out. “I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation. You know how much stress I’m under right now with all my family drama. I just can’t deal with an intimate relationship on top of it. I’m not ready, and that’s all you need to know!”
He stood up from the bed and faced me directly. “It sounds like you aren’t ready for any kind of relationship right now.”
“If you need to have one to have the other, then no, I’m not ready to be with you at all!”
I couldn’t stand there and yell at him anymore. I turned and ran out of the room, down the hallway, and just stopped at the front door to shove my sneakers on before I raced outside.
The cold air reminded me that my coat was locked in Kai’s truck, under the front seat with my school bag. I hesitated for a moment, but I could hear him following behind, calling for me to stop and just let him explain how much he loved me.
I hopped into the back of the truck and grabbed my broom. The moment I was on, I took a flying leap off the edge and launched into the air. It was going to be a cold flight but I had to be anywhere else right then.
Kai burst outside just as I jumped. “You’re ruining our anniversary!” he screamed after me.
Fae of Calaveras Trilogy Box Set Page 42