Not pausing my long strides, I force my body to keep going and squeeze my jaw tight to fight back the crushing wave of emotion that washes over me. My makeup from last night is already smudged all over the place; I don’t need blood-tinged tears improving the mess.
“There’s a boy.” I say finally through gritted teeth. “Aman.”
“Ah.” There’s more rustling of fabric, and in my mind's eye I can see Laurence reclining back on one of the many dramatic daybeds he has scattered throughout his villa. “There usually is. Tell me about him.”
Like I’ve just beenwaitingfor the moment, it spills out of me. There’s no stopping it. Even if I wanted to.
“He’s from my clan. Not just from my clan. He was—heis—Aleksi’s little brother. I didn’t know he was here in town. And when I found out, I was worried, but then I realised it’s been two years, yeah? If we were going to run into each other, we would have. But then it turns out he’s friends with Kai’s boyfriend, Finn, and he knows I’m in town and he waslooking for me. I just… I didn’t know what to do. We ended up going out all together in a group, and I just fuckingpanicked. I don’t even know what was wrong. I was just scared all night. And I was a raging asshole to Finn, and then he and Kai had all these problems, and it just… it just brought everything back, and I, and I?—”
After all the words that just poured out of me, I don’t know how to finish. Laurence doesn’t have the same hesitation.
“And you decided to beat him to the punch? If you were going to be treated like the boy you used to be, you’d act like him? You felt vulnerable and fell into old habits because they were familiar and safe?”
I hate that he can see me so clearly, even whilst on a completely different continent. It’s how he lured me in in the beginning.
“Yeah. Something like that.”
Laurence waits. He waits and waits and waits. The kind of silence that gets really loud. The kind where one being is just waiting for the other to crack. And I do, like an egg.
“It’s just… It’s just I’ve worked hard—really, really hard—to draw the line between that life and this one. Egbert respects it. My parents respect it. Willan is a complication. What if he doesn’t respect the line? What if he makes it all blurry and then I have all of that life in this life and it all gets mixed up and?—”
“And what if he tells them all about why you were removed from the clan and they reject you too?”
“You know, Laurence.” I say with an eerie kind of calm, considering my heightened emotional state. “Calling someone out this effectively, this early in the evening, when they are standing in front of a ‘Grounds for Coffee’ is rude.”
Laurence’s indulgent chuckle tickles my ear, easing some of the pain from the way he’s just flayed me open.
“You’ll survive, Nikolo. You always do. Do you really think that your friends would reject you if they knew the behaviour from your past? Or do you think perhaps that they would find it admirable how much you’ve changed and grown? Would they be impressed by the man you’ve become despite the trials you endured?”
“I wouldn’t go that far, Laur, but no. I don’t think Kai, or Maddy, or Kroy, or anyone from Bloody Temptations would turn their backs on me because I used to be a shithead. Not really.”
“But the fear is hard to shake, I understand. You learnt the lesson hard, and you learnt it young. Maybe this is an opportunity tounlearn it. To rewrite the narrative of your life.”
“You say that like it’s easy.”
“I never said that it was easy. Nothing worthwhile ever really is. But is what you’re currently doing ‘easy’? Is it making you feel good? Improving the situation? Filling your spirit? Making you feel settled? Grounded? Are youenjoyingyour current behaviour?”
My jaw squeezes tight again, my fangs squeaking against my teeth with how hard I clamp my mouth shut. “No.”
“So why keep going?” It’s a rhetorical question, and he doesn’t wait for me to answer. “And while I’m on a roll, extolling my brilliant years of wisdom here, perhaps those explicitly defined boundaries are something else that you’ve outgrown. Or more particularly, something youshouldoutgrow.”
The sharp spike of panic that strikes me is evident in my voice when I ask what he means. Laurence is only too happy to continue ‘extolling his wisdom’.
“There is no need to completely disconnect yourself from every aspect of your old life. It may have served its purpose in the past, but now it may be time to have faith inyourselfand who you are now. You are allowed to enjoy things from your heritage. Your magic may have changed, but that doesn’t mean that it’s disappeared. Your life as a mage made you the man that you are today. You don’t have to turn your back on it entirely.”
“I know, but?—”
“No. You don’t know. Youthinkyou know. Too many vampires take to this way of thinking, and it only does them and our entire community harm. They think that turning is death and new birth. It’s only transmutation. What once was, still is. It’s justdifferent. If you still want to partake in mage rituals or even try something completely different,you can. It’s onlyyoustopping you. Stop fighting it, whatever it is. Whether it’s this boy or just reconnecting with your past. You have a very, very long life ahead of you, darling Nikolo. Don’t start cutting off paths now, or you’ll end up on a very narrow road.”
“Ya done?” I sass to cover up the way he’s so successfully hauled me over the coals.
Laurence takes no heed of my attitude. In truth, he loves it. Usually it means he gets to give me another lecture, which is one of his true passions in life. Knowing that he’s got his point across, he gives me the out I desperately need, chuckling affectionately.
“Don’t you talk to me like that, boy-o, or I’ll cut you out of my will.”
“You’d never. I’m your favourite child.”
“You like to think so.”
