Page 44 of Veradel
I groan at Vivian’s smirk. She’s probably going to remind me about my earlier heartfelt declaration for the rest of our goddamn lives. And honestly, as long as Saskia comes back, I don’t care. But she needs to comeback.
“You need to come back,” I reiterate, ignoring Vivian again as my eyes slam into Saskia’s.
She steps up to me and cups my face with soothing palms, the world shrinking into a cocoon around us until it’s only me and her. “I escaped as a weak little human,” she whispers. “I think I have an even better chance of escaping now that I’m… like this.”
Her eyes flicker down to assess her body again, but I extend a single claw and use it to tilt her chin back up. Back to me. “You’ve never been weak, little nightmare.”
But my weakness is her, so I’m a trembling mess when I fit my lips against hers, slowly this time, savoring the feel of something I wish I could stow away and hoard forever.
Us.
All too soon, though, a cacophony erupts from the distance, and we break apart. The rest of the pack members on the northern side of the Wall fling their howls at the moon at the same time for the first time in any human’s memory. Hopefully scaring the shit out of the Guardians and the sentries who are so loyal to them.
“It’s time.” Vivian wrings her hands, all traces of her earlier humor gone. She glances at Saskia’s leathers and knives. “Remember, if anyone sees you, they’ll know you don’t belong.”
“So I won’t let myself get seen, then.” Saskia flashes her fangs in a dazzling smile.
My entire body quivers with the effort it takes to restrain myself from holding her back as she turns to face the Wall again. A sharp inhale singes my throat when she raises a hand toward the thing that has caused me so much pain over the last few hundred years.
Will it hurt her, too, now that my blood pumps through her?
As soon as her palm lays flat against it, I track the shiver that makes its way up her body.
“What’s wrong?”
She jolts at my tone. Shakes her head. “Nothing. Just thinking about how this used to be wood. How once upon a time, you could have burneditinstead of the other way around.”
I dip my chin in understanding. “Get that centrifuge and come back to me, little nightmare, and then wewillburn it. Together.” I lift one of my fingers in a gesture she’s no doubt never seen before. “And if you get the chance, throw the Guardians one of these for me.”
She nods before reaching up, digging her fingernails into the imperceptible grooves of the Wall, and launching herself upward with a strength and speed that makes me dizzy.
But this time, instead of watching her fall, I watch her climb.
Every point of contact with the Wall sends faint echoes of pain through my body.
But I don’t slow. Don’t stop, as I pull myself up and up and up, knowing that it’s only Lucan’s blood in my system, reacting to the vampire venom in the Wall. I’m sure his pain is usually a hundred times worse, so I can’t reveal so much as a flicker of discomfort.
Or I have no doubt he’ll leap up and drag me away.
Finally, I break through the mist above my head, higher than the treetops now. I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but being a vampire is fun—everything almosteasy. As if I’m as nimble as a spider.
Besides, it’s funny how the Guardians never anticipated that any of their cattle would actually become one. Arad doesn’t know it, but he gave me the power to do this.
Within minutes, I pull myself up onto the top of the Wall between spikes. With my newly sharpened sight, I’m still able to make out Lucan’sdark shadow as it shifts beneath the mist down below, his presence swelling in my veins.
See you when you get back,he tells me.And remember, I love you.
Then he throws up the mental block around my mind, leaving me alone with myself in order for me to focus.
Instantly, regret slams through me at the echoing silence. I should have said it back—in case Idodie. In case I don’t ever get the chance to say it at all. But I don’t want the first time I tell him to be mind-to-mind.
Swallowing down my stupidity, I turn and crouch, analyzing the twisting of streets down below, calculating how far I’ll have to jump to land in the shadows.
With a deep breath, I spring upward and fly.
Itfeelslike flying, at least. Because when I land stealthily on my feet, the impact barely reverberates through my body. But I have no time to process the exhilaration of freefall without fear.
Dozens of sentries line the nearest street, more than I’ve ever seen out all at once, their heads all cranked in the opposite direction as Lucan’s pack howls and howls until even my own ears are ringing.
