By the time they were finished eating, the tiny furrows between Astra’s brows were gone and her jaw was no longer tight.
The bottle of wine was empty, and they’d moved on to drinking sparkling water with the cheesecake he bought.
He hated to bring up anything that might upset her, but he did have some questions.
“Is your sister going to cause problems for you with your family?” he asked. “Because of me?”
Astra put her glass down and picked up her cheesecake. “No, she’s not. She thinks that I’m trying to be the perfect daughter and that the façade has finally cracked.”
“But that’s not what happening?”
She laughed. “No. I told you, I love my life. I like working with my parents. And if I push myself hard, it’s becauseIwant to. For some reason, Sylvie has a difficult time believing that.” Astra shook her head. “I won’t deny that my parents have expectations of all of us and that my ambitions aligned with theirs. But Sylvie has always taken a different path. My sisters and I understood, even when my parents didn’t. And even if they didn’t understand, Sylvie’s happiness was always more important to them than anything else. They suggested things and sometimes even pushed her because she wouldn’t ever come out and say what she wanted, but in the end, they backed off because they could see it was making her unhappy.”
“Your parents sound great,” Rune muttered. “Too bad they don’t like vampires.”
Astra sighed and put down her plate, leaving her hands empty. She laced her fingers together in her lap, her knuckles white. “It’s not that they won’t like you because you’re a vampire. They’ll just give you a ton of shit.” She sighed. “I used to think they intentionally tried to run my dates off, but I figured out that they consider it a trial by fire. If you really care about me, they assume you’ll put up with it.”
“Come again?”
The ghost of a smile tugged at her mouth. “What I mean is they always expected me to settle down with a demigod, fae, or demi-fae. Or a Viking. Even then, they gave them a hard time. My older two sisters did exactly that, and both they and my mother have been shovingsuitablemales at me for the last ten or fifteen years. But after the last one, I knew I had to do something because…”
Astra trailed off, that furrow returning to her brow.
“Because what?” Rune prompted, reaching for her hands. He curled his fingers over hers. He could sense that she was upset.
“Because the last male that my mother chose for me said that I wasn’t even female. That I would never find a mate because I’m cold and unfeeling. And that any male worth having would never want someone like me.”
Rune forced himself to take a deep breath because his first instinct was to ask the male’s name, track him down, and then rip him apart for putting that look in her eye.
“I signed up for Mystical Matchmakers,” Astra continued, unaware of his rage. “Hoping that maybe someone outside of our family could see what my mother and sisters couldn’t. But the men were the same. They either expected me to be one of the guys or they couldn’t handle the idea that I had thoughts and opinions of my own and didn’t need them to help me make decisions.” Her eyes lifted to his. “Until I met you.”
Rune forced his fingers to remain gentle as he squeezed her hand.
“You’re the first male I’ve dated in a long, long time who’s treated me like a woman but hasn’t expected me to cater to your ego. You’re courteous, kind, intelligent, and funny.” She paused. “And you don’t seem the least bit intimidated by the fact that I’m strong and sometimes aggressive.”
“Why would that intimidate me?” he asked. Then, he winced. “Never mind. I grew up in the early twentieth century. I know why.”
She laughed, the taut line of her jaw relaxing once again. “See what I mean? You understand, even though we’re different. And that’s why.”
“Why what?”
Astra leaned forward, removing her hands from beneath his so she could reach for his face. “That’s why I don’t care what my parents think. They’ll either get used to it or they will push me away. And after watching them with Sylvie the past few years, I’m confident that their response will be the first rather than the latter.”
“Why?”
“Because they want me to be happy, too.”
With that, her lips touched his. This kiss wasn’t tentative, nor was it fiery.
It was acceptance.
Acceptance of who and what he was. Acceptance of whatever might follow today or next week. Or next year.
Astra’s fingers were warm and soft against his cheek, but her lips were softer.
Rune reached out and cupped the back of her head in his hands, tilting his head to slant his mouth over hers. While his vampire senses were much stronger than a human’s, in that moment, he was aware only of the scent of her skin, the taste of wine and rich dessert on her lips, and the touch of her hand on his face.
Astra pulled away just enough for him to look in those changeable gold and green eyes. In all his years, he’d never seen another person with eyes like that. With each shift in her thoughts, in her moods, their color seemed to shift and shimmer.
