Page 39 of Blood Brother Cursed

He nodded.

Astrid smiled at him. “Go ahead then. If you can take the pain away, I’m not going to say no.”

Gingerly, he put his hand on her chest, and his cheeks began to flush pink. Astrid watched him try to look anywhereelse as the warmth spread in her chest, not all of it because of the healing.

“Ah,” she murmured.

He looked at her. She noticed that the tips of his ears were reddish as he asked, “What?”

“Phoenix.”

She watched as red spots began to run up his neck, but he didn’t say anything in response.

Since he wasn’t talking, Astrid said, “I don’t know why I forgot that. Your name isn’t exactly common.”

“You were concussed, and that affected your brain. You remember now because your brain is now mostly healed.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“It should be, yes.” He looked away, the red still moving slowly up his neck.

Astrid reached up and put her hand over his. “What’s wrong, Phoenix?”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve… never mind.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Believe me, it’s best that I not open my mouth.”

“It’s been a long time since you what?”

“Nothing, Astrid. Don’t worry about it.”

“But I am worried about it.” Her heart beat a little faster, but not because of what had happened to her.

“It’s not something worth discussing.” He seemed to be unable to look at her.

Astrid thought back to her childhood, and while it was far from perfect, she always felt supported. “One time, I got in a fight with some kids after school. I had to go downtown to get stuff to help Dad since he wasn’t able to leave home by that point. I ran into some other high school kids, and you probably know how horrible they can be.”

He offered a weak smile.

Astrid began tapping a finger on his hand. “One of the guys dating one of the girls I was fighting decided to join in. He was abigguy, like 6-foot-5 big. He was a member of the football team, he was already guaranteed a place at Notre Dame, and he was on track to get into the NFL. His parents wanted him to get a degree, too; that way, he wouldn’t spend all of the family fortune once he took over his father’s company.”

“I think I understand the kind of guy you are talking about.”

“Yeah, well, you know how we are a lot stronger than humans, so I was really holding back while taking on four girls who decided to jump me. When it became clear they weren’t going to take me down, he decided to step in to ‘protect his woman.’

“The first punch to the side of my head took me by surprise, but I shook it off. At that point, I didn’t really see what everyone else was doing, and I think a couple of the guys were upset because I remember some people yelling at him. Of course, that could have been strangers since we were downtown. Well, I just reacted and did not hold back at all. He went down hard.

“He woke up a few days later in the hospital, and the story of what happened was circulating. But of course, it wasn’t the actual story, just one that wouldn’t damage his and his family’s pride. No cops were called because what guy like that would admit to being KO’d by a girl? It helped that no one was able to accept what they saw. Some people in the area had seen him punch me, so he couldn’t say that the attack was unprovoked.

“So, the story became that I reacted by turning around and scaring him by attacking with my fingernails.” She held up her nails, which were fairly short.

Phoenix smiled. “They look scary.”

“Yeah, well, I used to chew them, so they look better than they used to. Anyway, they all agreed that he was startled, stepped back, tripped over the curb, and then hit his head on it. That explained the huge bruise on the side of his face—although it was on the wrong side from where his head actually hit the pavement. His family paid for the things that the other kids broke in an effort to keep me from pressing charges—there were too many people who saw what had happened to claim I started anything.”

“Sounds like you had it rough growing up.”

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