She shrunk, her mouth simultaneously getting rounder and bigger; she hugged her knees, looking down. “David?”

“He just saw you as a human—nothing more.”

Emily slid her tongue between her lips, taking a breath that made her spine straighten. “Damn it.”

“What?”

“Damn David. I have a right to be mad. I want to be mad, but God dammit! I get that! I get why he didn’t help. It’s not fair. He always escapes me being mad at him.”

I laughed. “I know. He does it to me all the time.”

“God. Well, now I’m mad that I can’t be mad at him.”

Oh, I know that feeling too well. “So, how does that feel?” I said. “To wake up and just suddenly not care about us anymore—to lose all human compassion?”

She smiled to herself. “It was...relieving.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Until I saw Mike, and I’ve never, ever been in so much pain in all my human years. Jason’s bite, breaking up with boys—none of it hurt anywhere near as much as falling in love in that one moment; losing yourself completely and then having it all ripped away when he...when he...”

“When he refused to acknowledge your existence.”

She nodded, hugging her knees tighter. “I know now what David’s gone through—loving you. You should feel what I go through loving you, and I don’t even love you in that way.”

I laughed, rolling my head back.

“So many things have been fitting together since I found out David’s a vampire,” Emily said. “I had barely any time as a human to process it, but, I mean, all that weird behaviour; the popping up unexpected thing, the knowing what I was thinking.” She shook her head, smiling. “Do you know how many times he answered thoughts I hadn’t said?”

“He did it to me, too,” I said with wide eyes emphasising my frustration. “He told me he had to bite his tongue every time I’d have one of my, what he called silly thoughts about not being good enough for him. He said he nearly picked me up and shook me so many times.” We both laughed.

“Yeah. You were pretty silly.” Emily took my hand and traced my new engagement ring with her thumb. “That boy loved you from the minute he saw you—there was never any doubts about it.”

“Do you still love Jason now? Now that you know about him?”

“No.” She shook her head with certainty. “I did. Even while I was with Mike that first night. But now I know what he did to you—what he’s capable of…”

“I feel sorry for him.” I flicked the safety chain on Emily’s sliver padlock bracelet.

“Really?” She looked at me, her lip turning up in disgust. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I can’t say it’s rational. But he saved me. He hurt me, yes, but I understand what the monster in him is, and that the part of him that’s truly Jason...never wanted to do that.”

“Whoa, Ara,” Emily said. “How can you even say that?”

I rolled onto my back and rested my hands behind my head. “He’s David’s brother. I feel for him. Kind of...as if he was David, too—an extension of him. I don’t know, it’s like we have a connection.”

“A connection?” she said, but her tone screamed really freakin worried here!

“Don’t worry, Em. I’m not about to go be his friend or anything. I just find it hard to hate him.”

“So, you forgive him then?”

“I wouldn’t go as far as to say forgive—but understand?” I shrugged.

Emily’s eyes widened and she opened her mouth, her words stopping when Mike popped his head in the door. “Em, you coming for a run?”

She leaned down and kissed my forehead, suddenly standing in front of me. “Congratulations, Ara. I hope I get to be a bridesmaid again.”

“Definitely.” I grinned.

As she walked out of the room, I listened to the quiet hum of my little family talking and laughing by the front door. This is nice. Finally, after so much heartache and loneliness, I feel I truly have a place in the world.

Chapter 17

“So you told her anyway.” David leaned on the doorframe, breaking my reverie. “Even though we agreed you wouldn’t.”

“Yes. And you knew I would. Eventually.”

“She hates me now.” He appeared on the bed where Emily had been. “She won’t forgive me for making Jason leave her.”

“Wanna bet?” I raised a brow at him. “She’d forgive you if you were the one that turned her.” Besides, what’d you care?

“I know,” he said, obviously missing my thought. “I just feel bad, that’s all.”

“Hindsight.” I shrugged. “Twenty-twenty.”

“Shame about that. Things would be easier if I could predict the future.”

“Things would be easier if I could read minds, but—” I didn’t have anything to add, leaving the but as an end to my statement.

“Trust me, it’s not as fun as you’d think.” He folded his fingers into his lap, crossing his ankles at the foot of the bed.

“I think the bad is something I’d be willing to live with—to have the good.”

He smiled broadly. “Is that an undercurrent I hear in your sentence, Ara-Rose?”

“What, me—hinting on a greater meaning?” I scoffed. “Never.”

His ran his thumb down the tip of his nose, a human move reserved for awkward situations. “What is it, Ara? What’s eating you?”

“You mean aside from the obvious?” I smirked at his teeth.

“Yes, aside from me, what’s eating you?”

I stared him down, my lips twitching with internal dialogue—dialogue he couldn’t hear. “Will I want to kill you when I’m Lilithian?”

His lips pursed. “So that’s what you two were talking about.”

I nodded.

“No. You won’t, Ara. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Then what are you worried about—why don’t you want me to be Lilithian?”

“It’s not that, sweetheart.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s many things.” He sat tall and turned slightly to look at me. “I don’t want you to go through the pain of transformation. I don’t want you to struggle to find food, I don’t want you to feel the hunger, the lust for blood, and I don’t want your human innocence, your purity, to be destroyed because of me—a creature who has no real right to exist.”