Page 68 of Fanged Embrace
I pried my eyes open again, desperate to explain myself but simultaneously terrified to be so vulnerable. “I get by now, by just… pushing it down. All those feelings, all those memories I can’t bear to bring up. I push them down and I keep moving.” I heaved in a breath, picking up speed as I struggled to explain myself. “I keep moving and I keep moving because if I don’t—if I let my guard down… all those bad feelings catch up to me.”
A sob rocked through my body then and I curled myselfsmaller, still clinging onto her hand, tight enough to crush her fingers had she been human. My forehead bumped her chest and River edged closer, curling her body around my own.
“I have to keep moving. It's the only way I know how to get by—it’s why I push myself too far every single time.” I hiccupped as another sob broke my words in two. “Because if I stop, even for a second… If I let myself rest—if I stop to take a breath—just once… I’ll never get up again.”
River listened like I was reciting scripture, until I had nothing left to say but this: “I feel like a failure.” I whispered the words, hot tears tracing a path down my cheeks. “I can’t get up. I let myself relax and now I can’t get up. I wasted a whole day, all because I failed the very first step. I couldn’t just—get up.”
Then she shook her head, and I felt the motion against mine. Her words were quiet in my ear, not chiding or stern, but gentle. “You’re not a failure, Laurie. You may not have gotten out of bed, but you still made it through the day.”
I lifted my head, scorn being my first reaction to that statement, but River lifted two fingers and pressed them over my lips before I could utter a single contrary remark. “You made it through the day,” she repeated, ochre eyes boring into mine. “That’s more than enough.”
I looked at her—really looked at her. At the gentle curve of her lips, the faint flecks of gold in her eyes. The dark circles underneath that hadn’t been there before.
The question was out of my mouth before I could register the hypocrisy in my words. “Have you been sleeping well lately? You look like you could use a break.”
River’s lips turned up at the corners and she raised a single brow. “That’s rich coming from you.”
She had a point but… I frowned, noting the fine lines of fatigue crinkling the corners of her eyes. “Answer the question.”
But River only released my hand and ruffled my hair—ruffled my hair?!
I had no time to form a scowl and slap her away, before that same hand rested gently on my cheek, cupping my face with the same kind of delicacy you’d afford to fragile porcelain. “I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”
Her hand on my cheek threw me for a loop, and I couldn’t say what I wanted to say. I couldn’t tell her that Ididworry. That I… cared. Deeply. More than I was supposed to.
I could only stare back at her, skin tingling where the pads of her fingers touched my face, wiping away the tears drying there. She was so close—those gleaming, golden eyes looking into mine, shining a light on every dark crevice inside my head.
I was vaguely aware of a warmth in my chest, blossoming to a fiery burn when I counted the points of contact between us. My bent knees poking into her stomach, her hand on my cheek, the tips of our elbows. I lifted my own hand—unsure of exactly what I intended to do with it now that I had it hovering in the air—and then placed it over hers. Holding her hand there, on my face, wallowing in the warmth it offered.
I had no idea why I did that, but it was too late to back out. Too late to wonder if it looked pitiful to her—my desperate yearning for contact and comfort. I could feel myself turning red. From the tips of my ears to the column of my neck, the hot flush crept across my skin—and it was embarrassing to say the least.
But she was close, so close. And she was… “Beautiful.”
It took a beat, and then another, and then a flicker of surprise in River’s eyes for me to realize I’d said that last part aloud.
Mortification had me blushing an even deeper shade of red, and I snatched my hand away, jerking backward and rolling to the far end of the bed with frantic urgency. River’s laughter waslight and teasing, muffled when I promptly shoved my head under a pillow to hide my burning shame.
But I heard her next words loud and clear—and what they did to my heart, what they ignited in my stomach—that was something I could not bear to acknowledge. Not unless I wanted to dive deep into my own psyche and explore some part of me I hadn’t even known existed until she walked into my life.
“Right back at you, Beautiful.”
33
River
Arlon, as it turned out, was a pain in the ass. The main reason being that he clearly had a crush on Laurie and was doing very little in the way of hiding it.
We stood in Jordan’s office at Leyore headquarters—well, I stood, the other two sat opposite one another while Laurie tried to fill in the gaps in Arlon’s knowledge of the supernatural. I kept my arms tightly folded where I leaned in the doorway while Laurie ran her fingers through her hair.
She’d finally managed to climb out of bed that morning, but her breakfast had gone down slow and stilted. I’d kept one eye on her from the moment she slithered out from under the covers until now, and she still didn’t fully look like herself. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and her voice rang flat and monotone, but she’d been determined to speak with Arlon so I allowed her to tag along.
“All right, Arlon. From the top.” She leaned back in her seat, listing points of interest on one hand. “The organization we’ve been hunting is led by vampires. The guy you were trackingwas also a vampire, and River over there—” she hiked a thumb over her shoulder at me and Arlon’s gaze slid my way. I offered a wide grin full of fang in response to his bug-eyed stare. “She’s a vampire too.”
“Yeah, I got all that.” Arlon rubbed a hand over his face, wincing when he disturbed the layers of gauze wrapped around his forehead. The poor guy was rocking a pretty rough head injury, courtesy of the Doctor, but I still couldn’t dredge up a shred of sympathy for him.
Which was odd. I prided myself on having patience in abundance, and very rarely felt irritated with anyone—not even Maxine could grind my gears unless she was really committed to it.
But looking at Arlon… No, more specifically, looking at Arlon and analyzing the way he was looking at Laurie, had my hackles rising for reasons I could not fathom. He liked her, I got that. But why the hell was it pissing me off so much?
