Page 56 of To Vanquish Darkness

“To lose hope.”

Amalie tensed. “I haven’t lost hope.”

“And yet you sit up here as a willing sacrifice.”

She ground her teeth. “I only needed air.”

Theo huffed a laugh and scrubbed his hand over his jaw. "I didn't plan it this way.”

“What was your plan, then? How did you intend to lightly break it to me that my entire life has been a lie?”

Theo’s face was a mask. “I didn’t want it to hurt. I doubt there's much I can say to convince you of my intentions."

"Considering you stabbed your fangs into my neck, that’s true enough." Amalie turned to rest her arms on the wall, allowing the morning sun to kiss her cheeks.

Theo stepped up next to her, and Amalie’s nerves stood at attention. His scent was intoxicating in the sunlight. A swirl of toasted bread and lemon jam.

"I'd like to try."

Amalie blinked. It took her a minute to remember what they’d been talking about. When she did, she nearly laughed out loud, then bit the inside of her cheek. None of this was remotely funny, but the fact that Theo was working to change his image was almost ridiculous enough to be a joke.

Theo ran his hand over the stone, and the sound made her shiver. "I told you vampires hunt your blood. It’s been like that since the beginning. Guardian blood is most desirable, and since your kind went underground, vampires have longed for it. When I had proof it existed, I needed to keep it safe. I knew what would happen if your secret got out."

When I knew it existed.Amalie's chest tightened.It. That’s all she was to them. A resource they wanted to deplete. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did.

The flashes she’d seen in her mind’s eye showed that she’d been a captive before. Was that why guardians left? Were they sick of being kept like birds in cages?

Amalie wanted to dig intohowexactly Theo knew she existed. He said he’d scented her blood, but he’d been watching before then. Waiting. Had the death of her mother been the cost of that discovery?

It was then that a thought hit her like the gong of a church bell.

"She couldn't die." Amalie spun to Theo, wincing at the rising sun. "If you bit her and fed, she wouldn't have died because she has guardian blood." But she'd seen her mother's lifeless body. She'd pressed her fingers to her colorless cheeks.

"She couldn’t have died by feeding alone."

"Then how?”

Theo’s face hardened as he watched the sea. “I don’t have the answers you seek.”

He was there. He’d been there as her mother died. He had to know something. “Why are you doing this? Why when I ask questions do you close off? Have I not shown that I’m working to find this relic? Have I not proven?—”

“There’s nothing to prove.” Theo pushed back from the wall and motioned to the door leading to the stairs.

Amalie glared at him, her whole body beginning to shake. She’d seen him there—memorized the planes of his face. How could he say that this was the end of it? “I saw you there when she died. Did you know her? Did you meet with her at night? My uncle said she was breaking the rules, and I need to know?—”

“I made sure you were safe. I made a promise, and I fulfilled it to the best of my ability.”

“She wasn’t safe!” Amalie growled in frustration, turning away from him and blinking back tears. She’d lost her mother when she was barely old enough to remember her. Theo had watched her. Had seen her going about her daily life while Amalie had been distracted by childhood.

Her death was a tragedy. Her mother had been happy. She'd laughed and played with them in the stream that summer. She'd worked in the gardens and sat with them at the dinner table. She'd saved enough money for them to start fresh in the city after harvest, and . . .

She was in love.

Rachel had plucked flowers from the garden one evening after Amalie and Bethany helped pick blackberries. Amalie's arms stung where thorns scratched her skin as she'd reached between the canes for the berries, but she hadn't wanted to interrupt her mother's humming. That night, as Amalie and Bethany were tucked into bed, her mother whispered,"There's someone I want you two to meet. This Sunday. At sunset by the water. Something to look forward to."Then she'd kissed them on the cheek.

Her mother died that Sunday afternoon.

At the edge of the woods.

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