Page 16 of Unholy Gambit: Checkmate in Blood
Once again, her logical brain figured it out, crashed the rook wall, and seized the motherfucking truth.
“Yes. We now know of my demon blood, but…” He shrugged. “By the time DNA could figure it out, I’d been alive long enough to successfully argue I’m not a danger. At the time, it was assumed what had made me so ruthless as a human had given me control as a vampire, which was accurate, but not the entire story.”
He had questions for her, as well. “You have an undergrad degree in psychology, and a graduate law degree, but you aren’t using either one.”
“Business law, corporate. My dad brings me documents to look over sometimes, or emails them to me. For now, my parentswant me to focus on chess. If that doesn’t turn into the kind of career I hope it does, I can always go to work for the family business.”
“But why the undergrad degree in psychology?”
“To understand my own mind. I needed a degree to get into law school. My advisors tried to push me to a dual degree, law and medicine, but I wasn’t interested in becoming a doctor. I only wanted enough knowledge to try to figure out my own warped psyche.”
“And what did you figure out?”
“That everything Dr. Woods helped teenage-me uncover was real,that my fear-based choices and reactions truly are a result of childhood trauma rewiring my brain and not just pretty words. All those classes confirmed what I already knew, which helped me learn to live with and befriend the rewired me, but there weren’t any earth-shattering revelations.”
She took a breath and plunged forward, coming back to the present day. “The dreams had mostly faded, until I guess my knee surgery brought everything back.”
“You and Ruby both attended Vandy together.” He said it as a statement. He’d been inside Ruby’s social media accounts for years. He knew a great deal about his Aurélie’s best friend.
She nodded. “Ruby focused on politics for her undergrad degree, but then we were in a lot of the same classes once we hit our post-grad years.”
“You both graduated extremely early.”
“We had nearly three years of college credits by the time we finished high school, and Ruby’s dad managed to get us into some of the post-grad classes before we had our degrees.”
She’d been allowed to use an electric scooter to move between classes, he knew, but there seemed no reason to bring it up. Ithad made her different, and she was ready to stop being seen as… a cripple? He hated to see that word in her mind.
“Why not choose a college with a strong chess team?”
“I was already well known in the chess world. It worked better for me to remain an individual, rather than being part of a team.” She rolled her eyes. “And Ruby and I wanted to go to the same college. We were both looking at a law degree, and Vandy is near the top. Her dad is alumni, and he made thingssomuch easier for both of us.”
The server brought her meal — a Monte Cristo sandwich with a side of cheese sticks, and some steamed broccoli with a small container she dipped her broccoli into.
He peeked into her memory to see that she’d ordered blue cheese dressing along with her broccoli, and he filed the information away.
He knew she wasn’t seeing anyone, but he wanted to talk to her about the single boyfriend she’d had, so he asked, “I don’t see any recent dating activity?”
She put the sandwich down and met his gaze. “I’ve been waiting for you. I had one boyfriend throughout my last two-and-a-half years of high school, but it was a long-distance thing. Mostly, I kept him around so I could say I was dating someone. He was a great friend, we texted and talked all the time, but we so rarely saw each other, it couldn’t get… you know… intimate.”
“You were so certain I’d arrive once you were ready for me?”
She met his gaze. “When were you planning to come?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure you’re ready to hear that, and I promised not to lie to you.”
He’d wanted her to be sexually experienced before he arrived, because she’d never again have the opportunity to explore from that point forward.
Which was fucked up, because he’d have ripped the head from whoever had despoiled her.
And now? She was a virgin, which pleased him, but it meant she would only,ever, have sex with him. No other experiences.
“When I hit some kind of milestone?” she asked. “Or was there a certain age?”
“One of those, yes.”
She shook her head at him. “No one else interested me. Not with you in my dreams.”
“But I’d faded from them, yes? Until your knee replacement surgery?”
