*Lena*
The next day passed without much to talk about. I lounged in bed, feeling sorry for myself. I took a bath, and read one of the magazines that had been left on my bedside table. I slept, and slept so more, until my body was more rested than it had been in years.
Bethany provided so respite from my boredom by coming into the village to have dinner with Xander and at the hotel.
It was the first ti I’d been out of our room all day. Xander had been out most of the night, creeping into our room soti in the early morning and leaving again before I had even risen from bed around 9:00. We hadn’t spoken since our fight at the estate, and the distance was beginning to wear on .
“What’ll you do when you graduate?” Bethany asked over the rim of her glass of red wine.
“I haven’t given it much thought,” Xander replied, cutting another piece of pri rib and forking it into his mouth. “Travel, maybe.”
“What about you, Lena?” she asked, giving Xander an incredulous look before turning her gaze to .
“I hoped to work in a small town sowhere north, actually, hopefully in Findali. Valoria is very tropolitan.”
“What about you, Beth?” Xander poured himself another glass of wine from the decanter, arching his brow at Bethany.
“I like my cottage,” she said, but then looked a little morose. “I don’t want Henry to co back to an empty...”
“We’ll throw him a party,” Xander grinned, his voice nothing but comforting. It loosened the grudge I was holding against him just a touch, especially as he t my eye.
“And he’ll hate it,” I teased, and the look of warmth flashing behind Xander’s eyes made the knot in my stomach loosen a touch.
“He’d hide from us,” Bethany added with a smirk. I hadn’t seen her smile in a very long ti.
“You have to be a certain type of person to hide your true identity,” Xander began, taking what would be his third helping of pri rib from the platter in the center of the table. “It’s a full-ti job.”
“Are you saying you’re not who you say you are?” Bethany quipped.
Xander arched his brow at her in a teasing fashion. “You’d never know, because I’m very good at it. Tell , what do you know about my childhood or pack? Nothing, because I deflect. I am a man of mystery.”
I made a ntal note that red wine made Xander talkative and playful, and it brought a ruddy color to his cheeks. I sipped from my own wine, but Xander had his eyes on mine again, peering at with mirth dancing behind his nearly black irises.
“Lena thinks she’s good at it,” he added, narrowing his eyes at .
I felt heat rush into my cheeks, and not from the wine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about–”
Xander shot a look that sent a shiver down my spine, and I quickly drained my wine while Bethany cleared her throat and toyed with her napkin.
“I need to get going before it gets dark,” she said, glancing between us and smiling softly to herself. She rose to take her leave, and I felt a blanket of tension flood our table.
Xander stood and followed her to the foyer, and I watched with interest as he leaned in to speak into her ear. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Bethany gave him a shocked look as he placed a small piece of paper in the palm of her hand.
“What did you give her?” I asked as he sat back down.
He narrowed his eyes at , then grabbed the decanter and poured a second glass of wine, purposefully filling it to the rim. I scowled at him as I tried to balance the wine glass without spilling it on the tablecloth while bringing it to my lips.
“I’ll tell you if you tell what was in the envelope the ambassador of the east gave you,” he smirked.
I stiffened, then drank deeply from the excessively full wine glass. “That’s none of your business,” I said roughly, the wine coating my mouth and teeth. It was entirely too dry for my liking, but I choked it down nonetheless.
“And what I gave Bethany is none of your businesss,” he replied curtly, forking another piece of pri rib into his mouth.
I gave him a dirty look, and he gave one of his own right back. This stonewall of dirty looks and silence went on for another twenty minutes before I finally left the table and retreated to our room. We had one more day in Crimson Creek. That was it. I could make it one more day.
But I hadn’t even taken off the thick cardigan I was wearing over my sweatshirt before Xander stepped into the room, roughly closing the door behind him. Fire was blazing behind his eyes as he looked at , and I narrowed my gaze at him in return.
“What?” I snapped, taking off my cardigan and tossing it on my bed.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked sharply, crossing the room and sitting on the edge of his bed to remove his shoes.
“You couldn’t have gotten us separate rooms?” I began, looking for anything to fight with him about.
He gave a wry, sowhat playful smile, which further infuriated . “You were fine with sharing a room yesterday–”
“What did you give Bethany?!”
“Why does it matter? You have your secrets. Am I not entitled to mine?” He placed his shoes next to his bed, then leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Secrets?”
“Don’t play coy, Lena–”
“You were right about what you said at dinner,” I hissed, taking a step in his direction and pointing an accusing finger at him. “I know nothing about you. I don’t know where you’re from. I know virtually nothing about what’s been happening on the estate. You are the one keeping secrets, Xander. I don’t know who you are!”
“It would change everything if you did,” he said, cocking his head to the side. He was trying to get a rise out of . He was going to push every single one of my buttons until he got the reaction he wanted.
I felt heat prickling in my fingertips and wished I’d kept my cardigan on so I could stuff my hands in my pockets, but I clenched them into fists instead.
“Tell –”
“You go first. What did George give you before we left the estate? An invitation to the royal wedding?”
“Why do you think he’d give an invitation–”
“Did he?”
I pursed my lips into a tight line. “I don’t know, I didn’t open it.”
“See,” he sighed, leaning forward, “that wasn’t so hard.”
“What did you give–”
“I gave her a way to find again, if she wanted to leave Crimson Creek and start sowhere new. I offered to help her make that happen.”
I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks as the tension left my body, replaced by a swell of sha.
“What did you think it was, Lena, a love note? spilling my deepest desires to her?”
“No–”
“Then what is your problem?”
“I–I don’t know–” I closed my eyes, trying to get a handle on the emotions beginning to well and overwhelm .
“Are you alright?”
“No,” I breathed, shaking my head. “I need to get out of here. I need to leave this town and never look back.”
“Well, you’re getting your–” Xander stopped talking abruptly, and I opened my eyes to him standing, his body rigid as he looked over at . He tilted his head to the side, watching closely. I lowered my gaze to the floor, knowing exactly what he saw, and what I’d been trying to hide. “You can shift, can’t you?”
“I can’t–”
“But your eyes?” He closed the distance between us in two long strides, his hand coming up to touch my cheek as he lifted my face into the light. I felt the surge of power ebb away, and knew the strange highlight around my irises would have faded as quickly as it ca on. At least grass wasn’t sprouting through the floorboards, I thought grimly.
“How often does this happen?”
“More often now that you’re around,” I said as I shoved against him. He took a step away from , looking up and down before retreating back to his bed.
He didn’t sit down, though. He continued to stare. I felt utterly exposed as I backed away and sat on my own bed, facing him.
“What else can you do?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Lena?”
“I don’t know. I buried that part of myself a long ti ago.”
“You’re twenty,” he said, narrowing his eyes at . “How long–”
“I’ve always been an overachiever,” I tried to joke, but the words ca out flat and useless to lift the mood.
“What else can you do?”
“Hurt people. The people I love,” I replied honestly, tearing my gaze away from him and settling it on the far wall.
“That’s why–”
“Why, what? Why I focus solely on my studies? Why I only care about graduating, and starting a career sowhere far, far away? Do you really want to know, Xander? Really?”
“Yes,” he said, and it was a command.
His tone sent a chill up my spine. I hesitated for a mont, then swallowed back my fear. I’d never talked to anyone about this.
“I hurt my mom by accident,” I whispered, the tears already beginning to well in the corners of my eyes. “I was just being... I was thirteen, and arrogant. I thought I knew everything, you know, and I told her as such. I don’t even rember what we were fighting about. She wasn’t even fighting with . She was just standing there, trying to reason with . She told she... she loved . And I just...” I took a shallow breath, closing my eyes against the mory I’d fought so hard to shutter. “I still don’t know what I did to her. I didn’t even touch her. But my anger... my emotions just.... She almost died. I could have killed her.”
“You didn’t touch her?”
“Not at all.”
“Then how–”
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I’ve always been a little different. I knew if I kept myself on a certain path, I’d have control. So that’s what I did, even if it makes seem cold and selfish. I don’t have a choice.”
“I understand,” Xander said so softly I almost didn’t hear him. “Completely.”
“How could you possibly–”
“We’re alike, you know. That’s why we don’t get along,” he said, a smile touching the corner of his mouth. “Bad things happen to us, don’t they? Like we’re magnets for darkness.”
“I’ve never thought of it that way,” I replied, but he shook his head.
“We can’t just go back to campus, Lena, and pretend like all of this didn’t happen. You can’t keep hiding–”
“I’m not hiding,” I retorted, but my mouth went dry around the words as his eyes locked with mine.
“You’re hiding from a part of yourself you don’t know how to control–”
“What are you hiding from?” I asked, interrupting him.
He sat down on his bed, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. A long mont of silence passed between us.
Finally, he straightened his back, giving an intense look.
“Just one thing,” he said, then stood, crossing the room and kissing so deeply I thought my heart would burst.
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