Page 21 of Venomous Lies
CASSIUS
‘I know Julian... or I did. Before.’
Fuck. Why did that slip out?
Of all the things to discuss, he was a topic I shouldn’t have picked. It wasn’t the right starting point, but, hell, it was too late.
Isla whirled around to face the glass that was holding my manifestation. Her hazel eyes were wide, her surprise making her lips part as she inhaled sharply.
My heart twisted at the shock on her face. I knew it wasn’t surprise at the information but rather at me actually opening up to her at all.
“Before?” She stepped forward, her surprise quickly morphing into a calculating expression. “You know the vampire that works in the library?”
‘One and the same,’I responded. Squeezing my eyesshut, I recalled the aching longing that had hit me when I saw him through her eyes at the first assembly she had attended. It had nearly knocked me on my ass—or it would have if I had one—when the vampire had started talking to the students.
He looked the same as he had the last time I’d seen him, which wasn’t surprising, but there was a new weight and seriousness in his gaze that had been absent before.
Lines around his eyes that I hadn’t seen before.
He’d aged since my death. Knowing that and seeing it were two very different things.
“How?”
I opened my eyes and saw, on Isla’s tilted chin, a silent challenge. She wasn’t going to drop this, and if I was even a little bit honest with myself, this conversation was long overdue.
One of many, in fact… But that was too slippery a slope to contemplate now.
‘I knew him before I died,’I said gravely, after a few beats of silence.
Isla stumbled back a step and I let out a small puff of laughter.Guess I’m dropping more than one secret today.
“You died?!”
‘I’m a spirit, beastie. I had to come from somewhere.’
“But how?—?”
‘That I don’t know.’I held up my hands as I shook my head.‘I died, and then I wasthis.If I knew how it happened, I would have tried to separate myself from you during your younger years.’
“When you terrorized me?” she asked. Hands on her hips, she walked closer to me.
‘I’ve already apologized a million times–’
“Make it a million and one.”
‘I went from being my own person to becoming a figment in your mind,’I reminded her gently.‘Notmymind or body, but yours.’
Isla dropped her hands and sighed before nodding slowly.
“That does tell me something, even if it’s vague as hell… But that has nothing to do with Hellsing. Why are you avoiding talking about him?”
Hazel eyes studied me, so damn curious and cautiously hopeful.
It gutted me that she was that hesitant to trust me.Why wouldnowbe when she starts pushing me for answers?
Or maybe it was happening at just the right time given her new bond to the bone fae.
‘He was?—’
