Page 60 of Just for a Taste

“Well-done. Tell me four things you can hear.”

“A water fountain. Crickets. Your voice. My breath.”

“Three things you can feel now.”

“Water on my face. Warmth. A finger rubbing my cheek.”

“Good. Two things you can smell.”

“Your cologne. Night air.”

“One thing you can taste.”

“Blood?”

I shifted slowly, finally out of it. My heart was still racing, hands still trembling, but the feeling of dying was gone. I was now curled up in Zeno’s arms on a stone bench outside of the ballroom.

The vampire stared down at me with a complicated array of emotions across his features: sorrow, fear, peacefulness. But behind it all, blazing within: wrath.

I pulled away from him, and something fell to the ground. A handkerchief covered in blood. Zeno grabbed my chin and pulled me close to him. My entire body burned at our proximity, at the soft feeling of his breath on my lips. He tilted my head slightly. Just as I couldn’t take it any longer, he released me. “Good. I was afraid you’d need stitches.”

“Oh.” For an entirely different reason than before, my heart was racing. I grabbed the fabric on my lap and fidgeted with it. “Um, where did you learn those things? Box breathing and five-four-three-two-one?”

Zeno leaned forward so his arms were resting on his legs, and he looked at me sideways. “I read about them. After that time in the church, I read about panic disorder.”

Why? I almost asked, but even before the word left my lips, I knew there was no need, not when he had already told the world. He just hadn’t told me to my face.

“Hey, Zeno?” I tried to speak casually and hide how much my heart raced as I dusted off my dress and pulled confetti from my hair.

“Yes?”

“Did you really mean that? About there only being me?”

Zeno was about to answer calmly, it seemed, but as some sort of recognition hit him, he froze, eyes opening so wide I could see the reflection of the crescent moon in them. He took a staggered breath, then a slightly deeper one, and ran his fingers through his hair. I wondered if Noor would have been able to hear his heartbeat without a stethoscope.

To force Zeno to respond when I knew the answer seemed cruel, so I spared him whatever horror he seemed to be going through.

“Zeno, I still want to have aritus sanguinous,” I said once it became clear he wouldn’t be able to reply. Despite what Serafina and Basilio had said, despite wanting to finish my thesis, I needed to stay with him and be his.

I would figure out how to make everything turn out well.

The fear on his face was replaced by relief, which was, in turn, replaced by confusion. How strange it was that Zeno had seemed so unemotional earlier tonight, when now every single emotion was so transparent to me.

“I don’t understand,” he scoffed. “You want to go back in there? After all that? I can’t allow—”

I shook my head quickly. “Of course not.”

Zeno loosened his tie and sat forward, expression grave. “It isn’tritus sanguinouswithout an audience.”

“We have an audience. All the stars are out for us tonight. Do we need anyone else?”

I think he saw the sky for the first time in that moment. It was cloudless, with the blues and purples of distant galaxies mottled together. Every constellation was bright and visible, as though straight from a textbook. It was one of those night skies that made the earth seem small, one of those nights that made the events that had transpired feel insignificant. Just like that night we’d shared before, where I spoke with him candidly for one of the first times.Oursky.

Yet when I looked over at him again, his face was the antithesis of my expectation.

Zeno’s brow was furrowed heavily. His mouth quivered in a way I had never seen before, and his eyes darted around the ground. He blinked several times, each one clearly punctuating every rapid thought. Zeno’s lips parted, letting out the soft, guttural creak of words on the verge of being spoken. Then, with no more than a resigned exhale, they closed once more. He gave one final, small breath, then his gaze slowly traveled up to meet mine, burning into my soul.

“I’m sorry, Cora,” he whispered hoarsely. “We shouldn’t do that. We shouldn’t do any of this.”

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