He used her and turned her and eventually killed her, and still that wasn’t enough? He controlled her life here, too?
My memories of every single one of our meetings begin flashing before my eyes.
Kyra wasn’t clipped and careless with our short time together. She was trained, and afraid to speak. To anyone. He took everything about her away.
Who was he?
Pavel? Rival? Aston? A member of Creature Control?
Who?!
I close the book for a moment, and I find myself holding it to my chest.
The same way I wish I would have held Kyra. I should have reassured her more. I should have tried harder. I should have told her she was loved and missed and…
“Are you all right?” A gentle voice asks just as a hand slips over my ankle and I realize I’ve pulled my legs up to my chest and basically used Aston as a footrest while I all but kicked him off his lounge.
“Oh,” I try to move away, but he pulls back at my leg slowly.
My lips close softly as he brings my feet onto his lap and just looks at me with so much concern in his big, shining eyes.
“You can feel every single thing I feel, can’t you?” I ask slowly as I understand why he’s so good at knowing what I need.
Aston nods.
“Why does everyone hate you if you’re so…” I lift my hands, but I can’t think of the right phrasing. “Good at reading people?”
His smile is slow to creep across his face.
“Because human emotions are unstilted. Even the ones who try, they aren’t very good at concealing their guilt, or rage, or their happiness. Whereas vampires won’t give up those emotions so easily, I have to pry it out of them. Antagonize it out of them sometimes. Enrage it out of them if I need to.” He smirks at those words, but I sense that it bothers him more than he would ever admit.
I nod, and he’s absolutely right. I’m terrible at hiding myself here among these predators. Even the sweet ones like Aston. Which is why I need to be alone when I read the rest of these pages.
I slide my legs out from beneath his hands and stand up. “I’m going to finish this up in my room for tonight.” He’s nodding before I’ve fully explained, and I don’t know why I’m smiling at him like a total drunken idiot.
“Can I show you why I think Kyra chose the smallest room the council had to offer?”
My brow lifts.
I hadn’t really thought about it. I just assumed it was assigned to her or something.
“Shechosethat room upstairs?”
He stands, carefully pulling the needle from his record before slipping it into its dustjacket and back on the shelf in its proper place. He turns on his sneakers and an addicting happy go lucky energy seems to sway off of him. So much so that I follow behind him like a lovesick, record collecting groupie.
Jesus, what is wrong with me? The guy plays one little movie soundtrack and suddenly my panties are begging to be tossed at his feet?
I shake my head and try to clear my messy mind as we travel down the hall and up the short stairwell once more. This time, he opens Kyra’s door and joins me inside the small space.
“I used to spot her at night sometimes.” He grunts out those words as he leans over her small desk and shoves the window open. Cold air breezes in, twirling my hair back from my face as I watch the strange man. “She’d be up here,” he says as he climbs up, squats low on the table top and then leans out her window.
He stands up fully on the reading desk, his legs are still pushing off the edge of the white frame before… disappearing entirely. My gawking reaches a new level as the silence presses on, and still I’m just staring out the newly empty window.
“Are you coming?” Aston asks, his voice sounds far off, but I know exactly where the undead lunatic is.
“On the roof!?” I scream at him in a whisper. “No! No I’m not coming, Aston,” I quietly screech. “Not all of us have an unbreakable nervous system. If I fall, I won’t just bounce back up like your offensively durable ass would.”
“Offensively durable ass!It is a rather nice ass, isn’t it?”
