“What?” she gasped.
“That’s just how it is. They conscript strongblood women from other houses to have a baby with a strongblood man from our house, and then at the end of it, we get the baby.”
“That’s awful. You never knew your mother?”
“Well, I heard stuff about her. From what I gather, she’s not the nicest person.”
“What about your dad?” she asked.
“He was a very respected warrior.”
She raised her shoulders, moving her arms like a robot, and mimicking his voice. “He was a very respected warrior – no, Rey, I mean, how was he? Like what memories do you have together?”
He shrugged again. “He taught me how to shoot a bow – that was a lot of fun.”
She gave him a small smile. “That sounds nice.”
He scowled, looking down at the ground. “We don’t really do memories.”
“We?”
“Strongbloods. Memories, feelings, all that. It’s not really in our wheelhouse.”
“I disagree,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I think it’s in your wheelhouse, but you push it away, because it’s easier.”
“Easier?”
“If you have happy memories, and love and all that, it’s just another thing for the vampires to hold over you,” she whispered, looking away, towards the sun.
He nodded slowly. “You’re not wrong.”
After another silence, she drew in a breath and continued the game. “So, my name would be Chloe, and I think I’d own a horse ranch in Wyoming.”
This caused Reykon to erupt in a fit of laughter, and he had to lean over to catch his breath. “A horse ranch?”
“Yes.”
“In Wyoming?”
“Yes!” Robin hit him again, and he clung to the feeling of her hand on his. He dug deep into his imagination and decided to play along.
“Alright, alright,” he said. “Finnigan would be an airplane pilot. A private airplane pilot.”
“Do you know how to fly?” she asked with an excited smile.
“Just the basics, but not much,” he said. “Vampires don’t like planes, or helicopters.”
“Why not?”
“They don’t like human-made machines that go fast or fly. They just don’t trust them. It took decades to convince them to ride a train.”
“God,” she balked. “Okay, so Finnigan is a pilot. What does he do for fun?”
Reykon thought about it and then gave a crooked smile. “Finnigan spends his spare time bar tending. Fancy drinks, the kind with orange shavings and tall spoons.”
“A bartending pilot?” she laughed, grinning widely. “Alright then.”
“That’s how we play the game, right?” he asked, a little self-conscious.
Robin grinned at him, her eyes sparkling brilliantly in the sun. “That’s exactly how we play the game. Chloe likes to paint in her free time. Landscapes.”
“Ah,” he said. “An artist. I’m not surprised.”
She nodded. “And she has a private gala in town.”
Reykon shook his head in joking disbelief. “I don’t know how Chloe has all this free time, taking care of her horse ranch and running a private gala. She sounds like quite an impressive woman.”
“She has help,” Robin said. “Her husband helps out with the ranch. And she has two kids. A boy and a girl. They do the chores.”
“Really?” Reykon asked.
She nodded. “I’ve always wanted a big family. Not super big, but enough to have fun at Christmas. What about you?”
Reykon searched the water for a moment and shook his head. “I can’t have children. Unless…” he trailed off.
Robin scooted closer to him, so that their knees were touching. “It’s a game. We can pretend to be anything we want. No vampires. No masters. Just us.”
He looked into her eyes and gave a soft smile. “Then, yes. One boy, named Reed. He favors his mother.”
“Only one?”
He nodded. “I don’t know if I could handle more than that. And no girls. I think I’d rip my hair out if I had a daughter.”
Robin gave a wide smile at this, and it made Reykon’s heart jump.
“Why Reed?” she asked quietly.
“He was an old friend,” Reykon said, nostalgia from his early days flooding in.
“Ah,” she said with a nod. “So, what’s Reed’s mother like?”
Reykon searched her face, and felt a rush of heat on his own, looking away quickly at the sound of a squawking seagull, flying low.
“I think…” he said, slowly turning back to her. “This game would be more fun with alcohol, too.”
She smiled and nodded, letting her hand slip off his leg.
Reykon rose, and walked away, looking for a bottle of anything, and trying to clear his mind of the persistent image. But no matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, the only person he imagined when he thought of Reed’s mother was sitting on the edge of the boat, sparkling in brilliant sunlight.
And he was bringing her to a monster.
Lucidia
Lucidia was nearing the city of Lafayette, where, nestled in some sleepy suburb, there was a house that had a tunnel that would take them to another house with a tunnel, or something like that. The bottom line was that eventually, they’d end up inside of House Demonte.
She looked at the sky, which had begun to darken with cloud cover. She had the windows down and felt the oppressive humidity; there seemed to be a storm on the air, thick and foreboding.
A nagging emotion had picked at her brain for the last fifty miles: fear.
She could die tonight, inside of an enemy vampire house, on the run from her own house.
But it wasn’t fear of that death – the truth was much more uncomfortable for her to admit.
It was fear that she’d die, and the last thing she’d said to Clay was something of utter rage and hatred.
What was he thinking right now?
He probably hates you, she thought bitterly. But even as she thought the words, she knew they weren’t true.
Even as she’d screamed the words at him, even as her firsts had cracked into him, she knew that she didn’t hate him.
She had anger issues; it was something that she hated to admit, and felt silly even saying, but something that she’d have to face
