But it’s not like she cares, she’d much rather hear the sound of her own voice anyway, so she just forges ahead when she says, “I mean, on the one hand, he really has lost that exciting bad boy edge I loved so much—but on the other, I’m willing to bet he’s still got a good bit of it somewhere buried down deep. Really, really deep.” Her gaze gone sparkly and bright as it lands on me. “Because when something’s that ingrained, when something stretches all the way back through the centuries, well, it’s hard to shake it completely, if you know what I mean.”
Not only do I have no idea what she means, but no way of peeking into her mind to see for myself, since her shield is far too powerful for that. All I can do is just stand there and pretend not to care. Act as though her words aren’t causing the slightest bit of curiosity or interest, even though I’m ashamed to admit that they are.
She knows something. That much is clear. This isn’t just posturing on her part. She’s onto something about Damen—about his past—and she’s practically begging me to make her reveal it.
Which is exactly why I can’t.
“I mean, as you’ve probably already guessed, Roman told me some pretty sordid stuff. Some of which you probably already know so there’s no use going over it again, but then, just the other day, I was going through some of his belongings when I came across this whole stack of diaries.” She pauses, allowing plenty of time for her words to sink in. “I mean, you should’ve seen it—it was like—stacks and stacks of them—entire boxes full. Turns out, Roman documented everything. Kept hundreds, hell, maybe even thousands of journals—I totally lost count. But anyway, from what I can tell, they stretch all the way back through the centuries. He wasn’t just collecting antiques and artifacts—he was collecting history. His history. The immortals’ history. There are photos, painted portraits, cards, letters—the works. Unlike Damen, Roman kept in touch. He didn’t just move on with his life and leave the other orphans to fend for themselves, he looked after them. And after a hundred and fifty years passed and the elixir began to wear off, he made a new one—a better one. Then he tracked them all down and had them drink from it again. And he kept it up, through all those years, never once letting anyone down. Never once leaving anyone to flounder—or wither—or die, like Damen did. I mean, he may have had his issues with you guys, but then there’s no doubt that he had good reason—you were his only enemies. The only ones who saw him as this horrible, evil immortal who deserved what he got. To everyone else, he was a hero. He cared about them, offered them a better—eternal—life. Unlike the two of you, he believed in sharing the riches—and he did so freely—with those he deemed worthy.”
I narrow my gaze even further, nearing the end of my patience and needing her to know it. “So why didn’t he share it freely with you, then?” My gaze burns on hers. “Why the big game—why trick me into doing it?”
But Haven waves it away. “We’ve been over that, he was just having a little fun. I was never in any danger. He totally would’ve brought me back if he had to.” She rolls her eyes and shakes her head, clearly annoyed by the interruption. “Anyway,” she says, putting major emphasis on the word, “about the diaries and photos and stuff—let’s just say that some of it would be of great interest to you—” She pauses, obviously hoping I’ll take the opportunity to beg to hear more.
But it’s not gonna happen. Even though her words instantly remind me of something that both Roman and Jude alluded to when they hinted about some sordid secret in Damen’s past—even though I can’t help but think of yesterday in the pavilion when I stumbled upon the life Damen so desperately tried to keep hidden from me—I can’t ask for more. Can’t let her know that it’s working—that I care—that her words have crept right under my skin. Can’t let her win this one.
So, instead, I just lift my shoulders and sigh as though I’m bored beyond belief and couldn’t care less if she says another word.
Which causes her to frown and say, “Whatever. It’s not like you can fool me with all of your sighing and shoulder shrugging. I know you want to know, and I can’t say I blame you. Damen’s got secrets. Big, juicy, dark, and dirty secrets.” She turns toward the mirror, leaning toward it as she fluffs her hair and admires herself, entranced by the sight of her own reflection. “But—I’m perfectly fine with saving all that for another day. I mean, it’s not like I don’t get your point—the past is the past and all that. Until the day it comes back to bite you in the ass anyway. But, whatever. I mean, he’s just so tall, dark, and dreamy, who cares what atrocities he’s committed over the course of the last several hundred years, right?” She quirks a brow and looks at me, tilting her head to the side and allowing her glossy dark waves to spill down the front of her dress. Moving toward me, slowly, deliberately, twirling a lock of hair between her fingers, doing her best to put me on edge.
“The only thing you should be concerned about right now is your future. Since, as we both know, it may not be quite as long as you originally anticipated. I mean, surely you no longer believe I’ll let you hang around for infinity. Heck, you’ll be lucky if I let you make it to the end of the semester.” She stops just shy of me, her gaze taunting, gleaming, dangling the words before me like an apple before Eve—practically begging me to taste.
But I just swallow hard, making sure to keep my voice firm and steady when I say, “Damen and I have no secrets. And I know full well what Damen’s heart is like—and it’s good. So unless you have something more to say, I’m outta here—”
I make for the door, having every intention of leaving, of ending it before it can go any further, but before I can even reach it, she’s there.
Arms crossed, face grim, eyes like slits when she says, “You’re not going anywhere, Ever. I’m not even close to being done with you yet.”
seven
I stare into her eyes, her face, knowing I have only a handful of seconds to make the choice between pushing right past her, getting myself outside, and allowing us both some much needed time to cool off—or staying right here and trying to reason with her, or at the very least, allow her to think that she “won” this one.
My silence providing all the encouragement she needs to pick up right where she left off. “You honestly mean to tell me that you and Damen have no secrets?” Her tone a perfect match for the sneer on her face. “Seriously? None at all?” She throws her head back and laughs, exposing a milky white neck littered with jewels, and the faint and flashing trace of a colorful Ouroboros tattoo. Reminding me of the one Roman had, and Drina before him, only Haven’s is far smaller than theirs and easily hidden by her long mane of hair. Her confidence blown completely out of proportion, mistaking my stillness for apprehension and fear, when she says, “Please.” She flutters her lashes. “Don’t kid yourself, and don’t even try to kid me. Six hundred years is an awfully long time, Ever. So long it’s impossible for either of us to imagine. Though it is more than enough time to rack up a few dirty skeletons for the old metaphorical closet, right?”
She smiles, her eyes crazy, her energy so frenetic, so intense, so tightly wound, my only goal is to keep her in check. Keep her from starting something she’ll surely regret.
“None of that concerns me,” I say, careful to keep my voice low and steady. “Our past may shape us, but it doesn’t define us. So there’s really no point in lingering there any longer than necessary.”
Trying not to wince when she scrunches her brow and veers toward me, her face so close to mine I can feel the blast of her chilled breath on my cheek, can hear the chime of her swaying jeweled earrings, the long strands of stones chafing against each other.
“True.” Her eyes move over me. “But then again, some things never change. Some—appetites—just get bigger and bigger, if you know what I mean.”
I move back toward the sinks, leaning my hip against one as I glance at her and sigh. Wanting her to know just how boring I find this, but she’s not the least bit affected. She couldn’t care less. This is her stage, I am her audie
nce, and this particular show is far from over yet.
“I mean, doesn’t it ever worry you?” She moves toward me, closing the distance between us in a handful of steps. “That you’ll never be able to truly satisfy him in the way that he, well, that any guy for that matter, really and truly needs?”
I start to look away—want to look away—but something won’t let me. She won’t let me. Somehow she’s locking my gaze.
“Doesn’t it ever worry you that he’ll get bored with all the abstinence and angst until he has no choice but to sneak off somewhere for a little…er, relief, shall we say?”
I breathe, just look at her and breathe. Concentrating on the light residing within me, and doing my best not to panic at this sudden loss of control.
“Because if I were you, I’d be worried. Very worried. What you’re asking of him, well, it’s just…unnatural, now isn’t it?” She rubs her hands up and down her arms, shuddering as though it’s too awful, too unimaginable, as though it somehow affects her more than me. “Still, I wish you all the best on that, for as long as it lasts anyway.”
She releases me from her grip but continues to study me. Amused by the way I just involuntarily shook, the way I try not to let on just how much she’s disturbed me.
Her lip pulling up at the side as she looks me over and says, “What’s the matter, Ever? You look a little…upset.”
I concentrate on taking slow, deep breaths, once again weighing the choice between bolting and allowing her to carry this even further. Choosing to stay and hoping to put some sense back into her when I think: Seriously, this is it? You summoned me into the bathroom so you can express your concerns about Damen and my sex life? I sigh and shake my head as though I’m far too lazy to even summon the strength to say it out loud.
More like, lack-of-sex life. She laughs, meeting my gaze and rolling her eyes. “Trust me, Ever, as you well know, I’ve got much bigger things planned. And thanks to you, I have both the time and the power to see them through!” She cocks her head to the side and looks me over. “Remember what I said last time I saw you—the night you killed Roman?”
I start to refuse it but just as quickly force myself to stop. There’s no point in repeating it yet again. There’s no changing her mind. Despite Jude’s full-on confession, she still chooses to hold me equally responsible for that particular mess and there’s nothing I can do about it.
“Just because you didn’t deliver the blow doesn’t make you any less complicit. Doesn’t make you any less of an accessory.” She smiles, allowing for a flash of blinding white teeth, as she revisits her door-kicking routine. Her words punctuated with a series of loud, crashing slams and bangs and cracks as she says, “Isn’t that what you told your good friend Honor just a moment ago? Because the fact is, you were right there when he barged in and you did nothing to stop it. You just sat there and let it happen without making a single move to save him. And that makes you both complicit and an accessory. To use your own argument against you.”
She stops and turns, her gaze meeting mine, waiting for the words to sink in, wanting me to know that she’s not just keeping tabs on my conversations, but just might be capable of far more than that.
I lift my hands before me, palms facing her in a gesture of peace, hoping to defuse this before it’s too late. “We don’t have to do this.” I regard her carefully. “You don’t have to do this. There’s no reason we can’t just—coexist. No reason why you need to go through with this—”
But I can’t even finish before her voice overrides mine, eyes darkening, face hardening, as she says, “Don’t even bother. You won’t change my mind.”
She means every word of it. I can see it in her eyes. Still, the stakes are too serious, leaving me with no choice but to try. “Okay, fine. So you’re determined to make good on your threat, and you think I can’t stop you. Whatever. That remains to be seen. But before you do something you’ll no doubt regret, you need to know that you’re wasting your time. In case you don’t get it, I happen to feel just as badly about what happened to Roman as you do. And while I know that’s hard to believe, it’s true. But even though I can’t take it back, even though I was too late and too slow to stop Jude, I never meant for it to happen. I never wanted it to happen. In the end, I had a much better understanding of just who Roman really was, what made him tick, why he did the things he did. And because of it, I forgave him. That’s why I went to see him, so I could explain to him once and for all that I was done fighting, that I wanted us to call a truce. And I’d just convinced him of it, we’d just agreed to work together, when Jude came in, misread the whole thing—and—well, you know the rest. But, Haven, I never saw it coming. If I had, I definitely would’ve stopped him. I never would’ve let it go down like that. By the time I realized what was happening it was too late to do anything to stop it. It was a tragic misunderstanding, but that’s all it was. It wasn’t sinister, it wasn’t premeditated, it wasn’t anything like you assume.” I nod, not entirely convinced of that myself but still desperate to convince her.
Whether or not Jude really did misread the situation and was only trying to protect me—or if he had a much darker agenda in mind, stopping me from obtaining the antidote so that he could finally have a shot at me after hundreds of years of rejection, is something I’ve been mulling over and over since the night it all happened. And I still haven’t reached a conclusion.
“He assumed I was in danger, in over my head, and ruled by dark magick. He acted purely on instinct, nothing more, nothing less. Seriously, you can direct all the anger you want at me, but please leave Jude out of it, okay?”
But even though I try my best to convince her, my words have no effect. They just roll right off her like rain down a windowpane, leaving a faint trace behind but refusing to penetrate in any real way.
“You want to protect Jude—that’s your problem.” She shrugs, as though he’s as disposable as last year’s boy band. “But I think you should know, there’s only one way for you to accomplish that, and that’s by making him drink. Otherwise, it’s not a fair fight. He’ll never survive it. He’ll never survive me.” She turns to the doors again, kicking one after another in such quick succession it’s like a blur of speed and sound, while I shake my head and watch.
I have no intention of turning Jude or anyone else for that matter. But even if I can’t convince her to leave him alone, there’s still one last thing I can say. Something I’m sure she doesn’t know, something that’ll probably anger her even more, but still, she needs to hear it. Needs to know just what her so-called beloved Roman had planned.
“Here’s the thing,” I say, my gaze calm, even, wanting her to know I’m not the least bit impressed or intimidated by her door-kicking display. “The only reason I didn’t tell you this before is because I didn’t see the need, and I didn’t want to hurt you any more than you already had been. But the fact is, Roman was planning to leave.” My gaze bores into hers, seeing her flinch ever so slightly, but still enough for me to catch, enough to convince me to continue full speed. “He was headed back to London—jolly old England as he called it. Said this town was too slow, not enough action, and that there was no way he would miss it—or anything in it.”
She swallows hard and pushes her bangs out of her eyes. Two of her usual giveaways, proving she’s not so new and improved after all, that a good bit of all the old insecurities and doubts have managed to survive. But still putting forth a show of false bravado, she says, “Nice try, Ever. Pathetic, but certainly worth a shot, right? Desperate people do desperate things, isn’t that what they say? I figure if anyone should know for sure, it’s you.”
I lift my shoulders and clasp my hands before me as though we’re just two good friends enjoying a nice friendly chat. “You can deny it all you want, but it still doesn’t change the truth. He told me that night, told me all about it. He was feeling hemmed in, suffocated, said he needed to get away from it all. Go someplace bigger, more exciting—someplace where he could be free
from the store, Misa, Rafe, Marco, oh, and of course, you.”
She plants her hands on her hips, struggling to appear strong, tough, completely impenetrable, but her body tells otherwise, betraying her with the slightest bit of tremble.
“Oh, okay, sure.” She scowls, drumming her hips with her thumbs and rolling her eyes dramatically. “So I’m just supposed to believe that Roman would choose to confess all of that to you, and yet totally fail to mention it to me, the person he was sleeping with? I mean, seriously Ever, this is totally pathetic and ridiculous—even for you.”
But I just shrug, sure that it’s working, that my words are getting to her. Looking her over, studying her closely, knowing I may be overstating it, embellishing a few bits here and there, but the gist is the same. He was planning to ditch her, and yet she’s hell-bent on destroying Jude and me in his name.
“He knew you’d make a big scene if he told you, and you know how he hated that kind of thing. No one’s saying he didn’t like you, Haven, heck, I’m sure he liked you just fine. If nothing else, you were a pleasant enough way to pass the time. But make no mistake, Roman didn’t love you. He never loved you. You even said so yourself. You remember when you said how in every relationship there’s always one who loves more than the other—isn’t that what you claimed? And then you even went on to admit that in your case it was you. That you loved Roman and he didn’t love you. But it’s not like it’s your fault or anything. So don’t take it too hard, or beat yourself up. Because the thing is, Roman was completely incapable of loving anyone, having never experienced it for himself. The closest he ever came to it were his feelings for Drina. But even still, that wasn’t love. It was more like obsession. She was pretty much all he could think about. Remember his dark drags as you used to call them? The times when he’d lock himself in his room for hours on end? You know what he was doing? He was trying to reconnect with her soul, so he wouldn’t feel so alone in the world. She’s the only other person he ever really cared about in all of his six hundred years. Which, I’m sorry to say, pretty much reduces you to little more than yet another notch on his belt.”