Page 52 of The Child of Rue Royale
I place my hand in his, and he kisses the top of it and squeezes me tightly. I look at his perfectly cut chin, the skin of his shoulders, bronzed and smooth, his fucking mouth, and my stomach clenches.
He must sense the hitch in my breath, the slow movement my hips make from the tension because his finger finds itself running along my panty line.
In a perfect world, we could shut ourselves off from everything. Make love all night and sleep all day. But our son is in the next room, we’re parents now, and the stressors from all the danger that lies ahead weigh heavily on our hearts.
“Soon,” I groan, like we have an unspoken language, our bodies talking for us. Chantal is here all the time, the baby is awake, and we can’t just make love like we used to. “We’ll find a minute somewhere.”
“I’m going to need a lot more than a minute.” He laughs but then nods.
“Soon,” he agrees then moves his hand away from my skin, just to be safe.
Bastian spends the rest of the day taking on the daddy duties that he could manage, while also catching up on reading the journal I wrote for him.
I order groceries since Bastian has to eat actual food and decide to make him a steak dinner in preparation for asking him about my grandma and what she whispered in his ear.
“Guys like steak, right?” I had asked Chantal, and she raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms.
“Oh, yeah. Dudes love steak.”
Once it’s been prepared, she takes Aven into her bedroom, giving me a ‘good luck’ wink before she exits.
“Honey, you cooked,” Bastian teases when we sit at the table. Is it possible to choke on your own spit? I suddenly feel like I can’t breathe, trying to be Susie Homemaker when I’m really in a panic. Yet he sat down and stared at the meal with appreciation.
“Yeah, I think I still like things very rare.” He laughs, knife slicing through the red meat. “And, in case you were worried or wondering. I want nothing to do with alcohol,” he says, eyes turning earnest.
“Oh, I…I hadn’t thought about that. But that’s wonderful.”
He looks relieved once he’s said it and I wonder what else is plaguing him beneath those lovely eyes.
“Okay,” he says, chewing. “I guess you can cook. But let me guess, you used extra butter like I taught you.” There’s an uneasiness inside him, and I know it’s from the unexpected transformation, yet he still smiles. Bastian loved the sun but enjoyed being a vampire.
“Perhaps,” I say, drinking my water, my heart racing. I don’t want to hold out for too long. I need to rip off the Band-Aid. “Bastian, I…I need to ask you something.” I stand, grabbing Cassius’s journal from the mantel, and slide it in front of him.
His fingers graze the worn leather, recognition blossoming in his eyes from the initial monogrammed on the front. “Is this my brother’s?” he asks, eyeing me quizzically.
“Yes. I asked him if you ever kept a journal. I wanted it to help with your resurrection. And he told me you didn’t, but that he had begun writing bits and pieces of an autobiography, and he gave it to me. And I read something in it, something I couldn’t believe.”
His mouth ceases chewing.
“There was a conversation between my grandmother and you. Do you remember it?”
“Wait. A conversation between your grandma and me?”The fork and knife freeze in his fingers.
I nod, chewing on my lower lip. “My grandmother whispered in your ear one night in Pirate’s Alley.”
Placing the knife and fork on the table, his eyes meet mine, eyebrows creased with wonder. “What did she whisper?”
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. I don’t know what I expected, but I’m sure it wasn’t that.
“Well…” I sigh, a wisp of hope sinking through my stomach. “I was going to ask you that.”
His fingers tap the table, eyes squinting at me. “Aster. That was a long time ago.”
I clasp my fingers tightly, a wave of worry slamming into my core because I hoped so badly that he would have an answer. I pick up the journal and open it to the page I have bookmarked.
“Do you remember meeting her? In Pirate’s Alley? You had just been turned, and Cassius was with you. You consumed a drunk man’s blood, so you were very drunk. My grandma saw you in the alley and whispered something in your ear that Cassius didn’t hear. Before that, she said out loud that you would change everything. And Bastian. You have. Because of you, my coven has a male witch.”
Pressing his fingers into his forehead, he closes his eyes tightly. “Pirate’s Alley?”
