Page 68 of The Vampire Castle in the Sky

“I don’t care about the bloody oath!Icare aboutyou!”

Silence. Bleak, unfillable silence blanketed the room.

Again we’d given each other wounds, and now… What was going to happen to us now? In the stories I’d read, people always kissed and made up. In the stories he’d read, someone always died. I did not think the middle was possible for us.

He didn’t say anything for so long I began to fear he’d open the door and leave me here to stare at his absence.

But then the faintest murmur, “I know you do.”

“Do you?” I snapped. “Is that why you sent me away?”

“What was I supposed to do?”

“Anything butthis. You told me not to listen to destiny. You told me to never let other people decide for me. And then you went ahead and stole my choice.”

He surged forward, narrowing the distance between us. “And what a great choice that would have been.”

“It was not up to you to decide!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he mocked, “I didn’t realize you wanted to see me beaten to a pulp so much.”

“What I wanted was to stand by your side!”

“And then what? Do you honestly think they would have let you go had I died tonight?”

“They wouldn’t break the treaty just to harm me!”

“They already have! They poisoned you!” he broke out, clutching at his heaving chest. “I didn’t ask Arawn to take you away to diminish you. All I wanted was to keep you safe, and youwould understand this if you weren’t so—” His jaw clenched as though he was biting down the words.

“What?” I prodded, throwing back my head. “I’mwhat, Hector?”

“Stubborn and prideful—”

“I’mprideful?”

“A nuisance at best.”

“You certainly go to great lengths to protect someone you find so vexing,” I bit out, furiously trying to move past him. His hand closed around my arm and pulled me back. I hissed. I wanted to wrench myself free, but my body refused to do anything but stay in his hold.

“Yes,” he muttered, his voice lower now, measured. “Yes, you are vexing. Sometimes. And other times…”

He never finished that sentence. He drew nearer, and I found myself retreating, step by step, until my back hit one of the bedposts. His hand grabbed the pole above my head, his face slanting over mine. Even like this, bloodied and haggard and maddeningly exasperating, he managed to steal the breath from my lungs, quicken the beat in my veins.

“Do you remember what you wished me on my sixteenth birthday?” I asked, much more composed than I felt. “Be difficult in everything you do, you said.Do not make anyone’s life easy but your own.Now you’re mad at me for it?”

“I’m not mad,” he whispered. I had never heard his voice so soft. “Not in the way you think, at least.”

His eyes fell to my lips. My pulse leapt to them.

We were so close that the only thing separating us was a lonely ray of sunlight streaming through the window. Under it, I could see each tiny golden speck in his eyes. I could feel the living warmth of his body enveloping mine. I could smell the blood on his skin, the metallic scent as overwhelming and dizzying as the force of our proximity.

I felt myself lift to my toes, ready to swallow the sunlight, the fragment of space between us, but Hector pulled back, blinking like he was waking up from a long, confusing dream.

“I’m covered in blood,” he rasped. “I should…” Vaguely, he gestured toward the bathroom.

I forced myself to nod, my cheeks blazing. “Right.”

He lingered by the door, a shadow carving out his cheekbones. “I don’t think Kaladin will try something again, and the sun is out, but…” He tangled his fingers in his hair, heaving a sigh. “Don’t go far from me.”

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