She managed half the toast and most of the broth before exhaustion pulled at her again. Zander took the tray away, set it aside, and when he returned to the bed, he brought a hairbrush.
“May I?” he asked.
Emmy nodded, not trusting her voice, and turned so her back was to him.
Zander’s hands were gentle, careful, working through the tangles with patient precision. Emmy’s eyes drifted closed, the sensation soothing in a way she hadn’t expected. When he finished, he gathered her hair and began braiding it with practiced efficiency.
“Not the first time you’ve done that,” Emmy noted.
“Believe it or not, I first learned it as a human, braiding horse tails. It cut down on grooming time.”
“You fixed my braids a few times when I was little,” Emmy said, the memories snapping back all at once. “I think maybe the first time you found me in the cave. God I can’t have been more than three or four the first time I snuck out.”
“One would think a security expert would be able to keep his small children in the house,” Zander said. “And yes,I tried to make you as presentable as I could before your mother saw you.”
“Thanks for that. And you know, now that I know more about who you really are, it’s kind of adorable, this uber-powerful Master Vampire braiding a preschooler’s hair.”
He chuckled. “Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to maintain.” But there was warmth in his voice, and when he finished the braid, he secured it with a tie from the nightstand and turned her to face him.
They were close now, closer than they’d been in months, and Emmy could see every fleck of color in those impossibly blue eyes.
The silence stretched between them, an electric charge that made her pulse quicken.
“You liked me when I was little. What did I do to make you dislike me as an adult?” The words burst out before she could stop them.
Zander went very still. “I don’t—”
“Bullshit.” Before, she’d have probably let him convince her she was wrong, but she’d almost died, and she was done pretending things didn’t hurt. “You’ve avoided me formonths. You act like being in the same room with me is some kind of punishment. I’ve followed every rule, done everything asked of me, kept my grades up, and you still treat me like I’m…” She sighed. “An obligation you can’t wait to be rid of.”
“Emerald—”
“I get that I was a brat who completely blew a good thing and got her trust fund revoked. I do. But I’vetried. I workedso hard to prove I’m not that person anymore, and you wouldn’t evenlookat me.” She shook her head, voice cracking despite her best efforts to keep it steady. “And I get that you’re being nice now because I almost died, but that can’t last, so either tell me what I did wrong, or tell me you just don’t like me so I can stop trying to—”
“I’ve been attracted to you since you arrived in Anchorage.” The words came out flat, emotionless, like he was confessing to a crime. “I avoided you because you are my best friend’s daughter, and one does not fuck their best friend’s daughter.”
Emmy’s brain short-circuited. “What?”
Zander’s jaw clenched, and for the first time since she’d known him — child or adult — he looked genuinely uncomfortable. “I assured your mother I would look after you, and that did not include bringing you to my bed. I was supposed to protect you, mentor you, continue to be youruncle.” The word came out bitter. “I was not supposed to look at you and feel…” He shook his head. “Lust.”
“You’ve been avoiding me because you’re—” Emmy couldn’t even finish the sentence, her mind reeling.
“Because I’m millennia old and you were barely an adult when you arrived — clearly unable to make good decisions,” he said flatly. “Because Sophia was calling me weekly for updates. Because my oldest true friend trusts me, and I value his friendship more than I can say.
“I was betraying that trust just bythinkingabout you the way I was. Am.” His eyes stayed focused on hers, ice-blue and raw. “So yes, I took great pains to keep from being in thesame room with you while I … wanted things I had no right to want.”
Emmy stared at him, heart hammering. “You gave me room to become my own person.”
He just stared at her, so she kept going, working it through as she talked. “The truth is, I probablydidneed a few months to get settled in. I’d mostly learned what I needed to learn before I arrived. I knew I needed to actually get my degree this time, so I can get the kind of job I want.” She shrugged. “It’s kind of a pisser to admit, but avoiding me at first was probably the right call. I needed to prove I could make decisions, first. I get that.”
She looked into his eyes and considered what else needed to be said. “I’m not a child, and you’re not betraying my father by seeing me as an adult capable of making my own choices.”
“You don’t understand—”
“When I was little,” Emmy interrupted, “I adored you because you were safe and kind. And you were just … around, right? Uncle Abbott. But that was a child’s adoration. THIS—” she gestured between them “—this is adult attraction. I want you as a partner, not a protector. As an equal, not a father figure. It’s completely different, and you know it.”
Zander was quiet for a long moment, his thumb tracing circles on the back of her hand. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough. “Your father is one of the few people on the planet capable of killing me, and he’s going to do his damnedest to do so.”
“My father doesn’t get a vote in who I sleep with. It annoys him beyond reason, but you’d think he’d be used to it by now.” Emmy’s mouth curved into a slight smile. “Though I appreciate that you’re more afraid of him than of me.”
