by Moore, E. M.
“Don’t hate me,” he said.
I closed my eyes and swallowed. Even he should know that was impossible. There was no way hate would ever enter my head when I thought of Christian Ravana. I picked my hand up and placed it on his cheek. He trembled beneath my touch. It was contagious because it made my whole body tremor. It had been less than a week since we’d seen each other, but damnit, it was far longer than that in my head. I didn’t think I’d get to see any of them for weeks, maybe even months, and I’d already tried to desensitize myself to that. But here he was, in front of me, and we were centimeters away from breaking the law. “Why are you here, Christian? I told your mom—”
He bit down on his lip. “Yes, I know all about what you told our mother.”
The harshness to his words reeled my head back. It thunked off the door at my back.
“She wouldn’t even let us come to you afterward. We’ve been dying wondering if you’re angry, wondering if you’re okay or hurt or in trouble. You had no right to take that goodbye away from us. Then, you don’t answer your phone and worse, you powered it down so you couldn’t even hear it ring anymore.”
Okay. That did sound awful, but I was doing it for us. “The temptation is too much. Anyone could see what we write to one another. What if they saw our phones? What if—?”
His eyebrow arched. “God help me, but I’m going to channel Nicolai for one second. I could give a flying fuck what anyone else does.” He leaned in closer, his lips within grazing distance. A taste, a taste would be all it took…
I pushed him away. “Don’t.”
His features softened. For the first time, he caught the agony in my gaze even though I felt as if I was wearing it like a winter coat. “If this is about the decision, let me explain. Checkov had us cornered before we even walked in the room. We agreed to a temporary law change before something else could be arranged. The fear in the room was palpable, and if Gregor didn’t do something, we would’ve played right into Checkov’s hands. It is not permanent and will not be permanent.” His gaze raked over me. “But why do I feel like it is with you? You can barely even look at me.”
Terror seized me. I’d barely even heard the words he said, and I refused to let them sink in. “When I look at you, all I want is us back. I can’t have that so it’s better if I don’t even look at you. It’s painful, Christian. It’s like a knife twisting in my gut. Every time the phone rang was like another reminder of what I had, but couldn’t really have. I turned it off. I didn’t need the temptation. Don’t you think you guys are going to be looked at more closely now? They were already asking you guys such awful questions, especially Stephan. I will not see that look on his face again when he has to explain why he bothered to save me.”
Christian shook his head and took a step back. “You thought that was bad? You should’ve seen the look in his eyes when we found out you were there when the guard was killed. You should see the deadness to him when he tries to call you, and you don’t pick up. You should see the fear, the loss, the mourning, Ariana. This is nothing like it was at The Council meeting. It’s ten times worse.”
Panic clawed at my throat. Stephan, no. He was already hurting too much. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. “I thought you would all understand.”
“There are other ways,” he gritted out. He turned around abruptly and ran his fingers through his hair. “You’re exactly like Nicolai said. I just want to shake you!”
Tears tracked down my face. It wasn’t so much his words, it was his recount of Stephan and the similar lost look to his own eyes. I’d noticed it earlier when he walked across campus to head to the Rajyvik main house. He was different, and I’d done that to him. “I’m sorry.”
Maybe it was the tremor in my voice or the telltale squeak, but he immediately turned. All appearances of anger were gone, and he moved toward me again. “Are you still in this with us, Ariana? Are we still fighting for something?” His gray eyes searched mine.
“More than ever,” I said, pulling my hand up to wipe away at my face. “I just thought it would be easier without the constant reminder of something we couldn’t have. I thought if we stayed away from one another, we’d be more apt to see this through, to not get caught in our web of lies. I was trying to do it for us, Christian. You have to believe me. I’ve been hurting, too.”
He looked down, his face pulling into a frown. “You’ve lost weight. It was the first thing I noticed when I walked into that classroom. Damn if I didn’t just want to pull you to me right there in front of everybody.”
“It’s the training.”
“It’s not just the training. You’ve overtraining and you’re not eating enough.”
I rubbed my cheek. “How do you know? You’ve not even been around.”
“I just know. I can recount every inch of you. I can tell you’ve been working out because your muscles are showing through more, so you haven’t totally given that up, but you’re also not eating enough because there’s no way there would be such a difference in so short amount of time.”
I shrugged his contemplative gaze away. I hated it when he used it on me. I loved it any other time, but when he delved deep into me, I was worried about what he would find. “I’ve been trying to keep myself busy.”
“Come here.” He dragged me into his arms and I crumpled there like I’d been trying to hold up too much weight and just couldn’t do it anymore. “Shh,” he said, his hands making slow passes over my back. He picked me up, my feet dangling as he moved me to the couch. I clutched at his shirt, breathing him in. It was all Christian as he laid me down and snuggled in next to me. He just held me there against his chest as the familiarity rolled though me again. It took me a few minutes to get used to him. I’d tried to block out all the sensations I usually felt around my princes, but they were all coming back to me with a vengeance. Eventually, I softened around him as one-by-one he toppled my barriers. “There you are,” he said, pulling me even closer and sinking his head into the crook of my neck. “I’d wondered where you’d gone.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. Real ones this time. Real ones with the gravity of everything I’d tried to dismiss for the last few days. How could I ever think I could put the princes out of my head? I was delusional, completely and utterly in need of a psych ward. In an instant, I saw it all in front of me. How I’d deluded myself into thinking I was focusing on the right things when all I’d done was put myself in danger. Any time I’d thought of them, I pushed it out of my head. I wouldn’t let myself obsess over them, but by doing that, I’d lost myself. “I’m sorry,” I said, the words coming out much tighter and higher than they did when I said them the first time. “Oh God, Christian, what have I done? I just kept thinking about you guys losing Jake, and your parents and how they would feel if something happened to you guys, and it would be all my fault. I didn’t want that to happen to you. I tried so hard to forget so I wouldn’t be the reason for your suffering, but—”
“Instead you broke yourself?”
I swallowed, my lips thinning. “Yeah, I kind of did.” I pulled away, my hands still clutched at his t-shirt. “Is everyone okay? Please tell them I really did think I was doing something right. I just didn’t realize how far I would take it.”
“Shh,” he said, his hand covering my cheek. “They’re all fine. They all understand… Well, maybe not Nicolai. He’s—”
“Furious?”
My gut clenched as Christian nodded. “To say the least. We practically had to restrain him to get him out of the house. We were all fighting with mother, but he was the worst. I’d never seen him so angry.”
“I told Isabelle to keep you from me.”
He tracked my lips with the pad of his thumb. “We know. I think it’s one of the most selfless things, Ariana. I’m in awe of you. I don’t fault you for that, but baby, we’ve been trying to get a hold of you. There are other concerns; other ways to go about this besides radio silence. It doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing right now. We can still be
smart and stay connected.”
“Is that why you’re here?” My fingers tightened in his shirt as if he was going to pull away from me at any moment. I wasn’t going to give him the chance. At this point, I’d have a hard time being convinced to go back to my room at The Fort tonight. What a stupid, fragile creature I’d been.
“Yes and no. I’m here because of something else that happened, mainly, but of course, I have my other reason that is laying down right next to me now.”
He pulled me closer even though there was no space between us to cross. I let him, understanding the need to still check to see if he was there.
He kissed the side of my head above my ear. “Samuel asked one of us to take over for the vamp-human politics class for his sister, Natalie. We all knew she wasn’t going to be able to do it; the only issue was who was going to take it over. With everything that happened, Samuel thought it should be one of us. He wanted a Ravana there to show the guards that we weren’t all that bad.”
“A political move?”
A grimace crossed his face. “I hate to call it that, but sort of? It’s not only that though. It’s the rogue clan, too.”
My brows furrowed. “T-the rogue clan? What do they have to do with anything here?”
Christian reached up and started to stroke my hair. It immediately made me ease back into him. “We’ve been tracking them. They’ve made their way from our estate, down through southern New York and through Pennsylvania. The last time we checked, they were a few hundred miles away.”
“From here? You think they’re coming here?”
He nodded wordlessly.
The conversation, or what I could hear of it, between T.J. and Christian worked its way into my brain. T.J. thanked Christian for being there. It couldn’t all be a coincidence. “That’s why T.J.’s here, too, isn’t it? Because of the rogue clan?”
“Yes. He’s the best stake handler there is, so it’s obvious to put him in the stake instructor role, but really, he’s working closely with Samuel on the defenses of The Fort…in case.”
“But why would they come here? We’re just trainees. We’re nothing better than peons at this point. What would attacking The Fort prove?”
“I don’t think they just want to attack The Fort, Ariana. I think they want to obliterate it.”
24
One week passed, and we were in a holding pattern. Nicolai tried his damndest to talk his father and everyone else into coming to The Fort, but others felt it was just too risky. He was also ordered to ‘stay put’ by Gregor, which resulted in a long conversation with yours truly riddled with a rant the likes I’d never heard before. I was in pacify mode. I told him I’d be safe, and smart, and that when we finally did get to see one another again, we could have a whole hour of alone time. The way he made me promise that specifically had my stomach pulling tight in yearning. Unsaid words lingered between us, my mind immediately remembering what he’d whispered to me the morning we woke up tangled in one another at the Ravana Estate.
Christian was every bit as intense as Nicolai. He didn’t attempt at absconding me again, but he did try his hardest to make sure I wasn’t fed any information about the rogue vampires. He told me there was nothing new to report; that they had gone silent. There were no new attacks; no attempts at contact with us. The last they’d tracked them was two hours away. It was only a short car ride, too close for my comfort. I agreed with Nic all the way on this. I didn’t like the sit and wait approach. Being proactive would make the hours, the days, go by quicker without all the stress of just not knowing, or worse, waiting for something that might not even happen. I agreed that something should be done; I just didn’t know exactly what.
Still, Christian stuck with his plan so much so that I barely even saw him. Only in class or in passing would I see his perfectly coiffed dirty blond hair as he made his way from the large main building where he taught classes to the Rajyvik main house where he stayed. I could kick myself for not taking advantage of the time I did have with him, for not prolonging it as much as I could. In the class with him, it was hard to concentrate. He was charming without even trying, but it wasn’t just for my benefit, it was for all the other trainees too. I was jealous, which was a hard thing to admit because I knew the other guards weren’t his priority. I knew he was here for me, for his father, and for Samuel to help protect what his father had built. When he spoke, myself and all the others just listened at the powerful force behind his words. The powerful force that made him up, that made him speak the way he did, that made him passionate about the world he lived in. I could so clearly see him standing in front of The Council in the years to come. Without a shadow of a doubt, he’d be a great leader.
Today, as he stood in front of the class, my leg kept bobbing up and down. I was anxious. Anxious to hear what was happening. Anxious to spend time with him and the others again. I hated being out of the loop. I hated the fact that my body always seemed to be searching for something, like reaching out, but finding only air. There was only so much a phone could do. Sure, it kept us in contact, but it didn’t cuddle me, it didn’t tell me I did a great job that day, and it sure as hell wasn’t telling me everything it knew. Class was close to ending when I’d made up my mind to stay behind and talk to him. It wouldn’t be that out of place, would it? I was training to be his guard after all. I could stay back and talk to him, ask him how things were going without pulling suspicion down on us. Especially if no one saw what I was doing. At least, that was what I had talked myself into.
A low voice pierced my internal struggle. It was Rick again. He’d been let back into stake class, but T.J. watched him like a hawk. Christian did the same while we were in this class though he was less obvious about it. I looked up to find Christian studying the back row. Rick sat back there, the last seat in my row, the kind of seat I would’ve coveted except for the fact that Christian was up here and I wanted to be next to him.
“It’s a simple question,” Rick said, almost laughing. My body immediately tensed, consumed with not just apprehension at Rick’s condescending demeanor, but also anger. Where did he get off speaking to a Ravana Prince like that? “Do you think guards should have a seat on The Council or not?”
Rick didn’t know it, but Christian wasn’t ignoring his question, he was thinking about it. That was what Christian did. He thought about his precise words so he could give as clear an answer as the person deserved. Even now, I could see the slight turn in Christian’s eyes as he internalized the question, flipping it over in his mind this way and that, making sure he understood it right down to the marrow before he could even formulate an articulate answer.
Rick scoffed behind me and my back bowed like I had hackles and animal predatory instincts. Apparently, I was a full-on mama bear because I acted before thinking, not even close to Christian’s natural demeanor. “Jesus, give him a second to think,” I snapped. My fingers curled into the desk and if it wasn’t for a tremendous amount of willpower I never knew I had, I would’ve been sending Rick a scathing glare behind me.
Yeah, I was taking this time apart well.
Christian’s eyes darted to me uncertainly. I never spoke in class. Hell, I barely even breathed in this one. Even when Christian wanted to start deep and meaningful conversations, I never contributed.
“What’s the matter, Ariana?” Rick called out from the back. The very tone in his voice had me turning around. I could feel the hesitation pouring off Christian and the slight step toward me as I turned to face the troublemaker. I first noticed that he was genuinely curious. He didn’t have that elevated air, none of this ‘he was trying to say something without saying it’ nonsense. “I would’ve thought you’d be the first in line to feel the same way I do. The way the vampires treated you at the last Council meeting was unacceptable. I mean, you have to agree with that. They hauled you in there just to prove the point that vampires shouldn’t be hanging out with us because it’s terrible for them, yet, you’re what? Defending The Council right now?
Their decision to separate us even more?”
Adrenaline coursed through my body as all eyes turned on me. Fear thumped in my throat, and I wished I hadn’t spoken up. This is why you don’t speak up, I reminded myself. This wasn’t something I wanted to discuss in front of the whole class, let alone with Rick who obviously had major Council issues, and possibly even major vampire issues. “Just forget it,” I said, before making a move to turn around again.
Rick sat up straighter in his chair, his lips thinning. “Tell us,” he said, his voice more commanding. “You haven’t talked about it with barely anybody.” He motioned toward Evan who sat next to me, and Shannon and Liv, who sat next to him. I looked at them like traitors and they all turtled inside themselves, Evan the most.
Christian’s presence caught me off guard. He was close, standing right near my desk. I wanted to sit back, ease into him to feel his warmth, his encouragement, but that was just entirely impossible, wasn’t it? At least it was for now.
Rick either didn’t notice my internal struggle, or didn’t care. “You told me The Council asked the Ravanas why they saved you. How can you be okay with that? You certainly didn’t sound okay with it the other day, and yet, here we are trying to have a conversation and you never give your opinion.”
My arms bristled as Christian’s tension rose. Everyone was studying me, most of all Christian. He knew how I felt about the meeting, but did I really need to tell everyone sitting in this room how I felt? Was it any of their business? I didn’t owe them…
Yes, and no. I could see both sides. They weren’t entitled to my business with the Ravanas, but there was a larger issue than that, wasn’t there? And that affected everyone.
It was Christian’s strong, encouraging voice that pushed me over the edge. “Go ahead, Ariana. Let us hear your thoughts.”
My throat felt thick as I tried to gather the thoughts I did have and push them out. I had this overwhelming feeling of being caught in the middle. Could something I say be used against Gregor? But I also didn’t want to sugarcoat anything for the rest of the trainees either. “Listen,” I said, finally just having enough with it all. My fingers curled around the back of my chair as I faced down the entire classroom. “No, I hate The Council’s decision. I think some of them are misinformed and making decisions based on fear. Honestly though, we’re humans, we have no idea what it’s like to be a vampire any more than they know what it’s like to be human. Our species will continue to live just for the sheer fact of numbers. I can’t imagine being almost extinct.”