Waiting for what, I’m not entirely sure. Until we’re older? Until we feel a little more ready?
I am not eager for this fate, but I’d hate how I’d feel if I was left with no choice at all.
“Who made you a vampire?” I ask at last.
“I don’t think that it is your turn to ask a question,” he replies, morphing before my eyes back into the arrogant boy I always knew him to be.
I roll my eyes. I’m not entirely sure if that is the case, but I lost track, and it is getting too late to argue. “Fine then. Ask your question and then answer mine.”
“Why are you not afraid of me?” he demands. “Most people would turn against me if they knew what I was but you…”
I shrug slightly. “I’m not afraid to become a vampire, I don’t think you’d attack me, and even if you did, you couldn’t kill me even if you tried for a thousand years.”
He guffaws and I roll my eyes. “Now are you going to answer my question?”
All humor dies off Wilder’s face. “This was… my father’s doing. He hasplans.” I open my mouth to ask, but he cuts me off by holding his hand up “I will not delve into that. You are in enough trouble with what you know and now Morozov thinks that we are a couple.”
“And whose doing was that exactly?” I ask, planting my hands on my hips.
Wilder groans as he paces away, walking to the edge of the balcony and leaning out over it. “Morozov is a dangerous man, Eel, you should not be taking this matter so lightly. If he finds out that we lied…”
“So, we make certain that he doesn’t find out.”
He turns toward me, his sneer evident in the moonlight. “We despise each other, it isn’t exactly as if we will pass for lovers.”
I find myself nodding. “You’re right—”
“Oh, gods help us, that’s exactly what we need to do,” Wilder says with a groan throwing back his head. “We have to be in love.”
“What?”
“He will kill you if we don’t at least look the part, and there’s no knowing what he will do to me if he finds out I lied to him.” He shakes his head, holding his hand up. “That’s it, we need to pretend to be engaged.”
“For how long?” I choke out. How long exactly does he think that we can keep this up, because this conversation is perhaps the most civil we have ever been to each other and even this is a strain on civility.
“As long as it takes for me to figure out what to do,” he says, jabbing a finger in my face. “And I’ll hear no arguments from you. After all, I’m the one attempting to save your life.”
I jut my chin out. I hope he isn’t expecting me to declare my undying gratitude over it. “You just won’t say from what. Only that Morozov is dangerous.”
“He is not the sort of man you double cross, I can tell you that much. He isn’t the type of man you want to cross paths with at all.”
I exhale a breath moving back a few steps as I lean on the wall. “And how exactly do you expect to convinceanyonethat we’re engaged, let alone keep the ruse up?”
Wilder reaches up, rubbing at the back of his neck as he looks at me. “Oh, I will do my part to sell the lie, never you worry. The question is, Eel, how good are you at pretending?”
Chapter Thirteen
Wilder
Ifeel like I’m coming away from our little tryst with more questions than answers and only a half-baked plan on what to do with the problem that is Bronwyn.
But I also know with utmost certainty that if I had stayed there much longer that I would have spilled my heart to her. And I don’t even want to think of what I would have done if she had caressed my face again.
I would have made an utter fool of myself, past the point of any conceivable redemption, and all for a girl named Eel.
I find myself shuddering as I race down the stairs.
“Wait!” I hear Bronwyn call at the top of the stairs. “Wilder!”
