All Just Glass - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [47]
“You put all of SingleEarth in a flurry,” she said. “I had three appointments cancel this morning.” From someone else, the words might have sounded like an accusation, but from her they were as casual as a remark about the weather.
“Sorry,” he said anyway.
“Never apologize to me for doing what you have to do, and being what you have to be,” she replied, tilting his head up so he met her dark gaze squarely. She slid down from the back of the couch to lean against his side. “You should get some sleep, darling.” She ran a hand up his chest, then hooked one finger under the chain barely visible at his throat, fishing the necklace out so she could see it. The pendant was also Olivia’s work; she claimed that it was one of her first experiments with silver.
“I can’t go home.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Stay here. I’ll have homemade beef stew ready when you wake. You need to get your blood pressure back up. You’re much too pale.” Before he could comment on her ability to read him so well, she remarked, “I probably know you better than you know yourself.”
“Do you know how I’m going to make it through this hunt?”
She paused and kissed his cheek before saying, “I don’t care how. I just hope you do.”
As she returned to the kitchen, he stretched out on the couch. He tried to watch her start the stew she had promised, but his eyelids began to droop. He knew it was a lie, an illusion, but he felt safe, and his body responded accordingly, pulling him down into a deep, peaceful sleep.
CHAPTER 15
SATURDAY, 4:37 P.M.
AS DUSK FELL, Sarah opened her eyes.
She had been dreaming—or remembering.…
There had been a girl, a beautiful lady, with honey blond hair and dove white skin. She stood beside a sable horse, one hand on the leather of the saddle, and one hand out like a queen giving a serf permission to rise.
Then a different image. Nikolas, averting his eyes, turning his face away and asking in a very small voice, “Do you forgive me?”
Sarah shoved herself to her feet. Once again, it took too long for her to remember where she was. Who she was. She was Sarah Vida, and she was in Nikolas’s house, and those dreams hadn’t been her past.
She nearly ran into Kristopher as she stumbled into the hallway. He caught her arm to steady her.
Those were his memories. She had healed him but had not had any energy left to shield her mind before they had fallen asleep in rooms divided only by a single wall.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
She meant to say, Fine. She meant to say anything except for what she said. “Was Christine really so beautiful?”
She wasn’t talking about the bloodbond who lived with them now, but the girl of the same name who the twins had loved when they were younger. Kristopher had pursued her despite the difference in their stations, and in the end she had rejected and publicly humiliated him. Nikolas, in a fury, had struck her and killed her.
They had both been human then. More than a hundred years later, the mere mention of Christine still had the power to affect both brothers strongly; just sharing the dead girl’s name had contributed to the modern-day Christine’s situation.
Kristopher’s eyes widened and she felt him try futilely to shield his thoughts from her. “She … you …” Though she tried to turn her mind away, Sarah couldn’t help feeling his distress. Of all the memories he had, the ones of that girl were the last thing he wanted to share. A century and a half later, his feelings about her were still ambivalent. He had loved her; he hadn’t really known her. And in the end it had killed her.
“Yes.” The answer came from Nikolas, who approached from the stairwell. He must have felt Sarah wake. Perhaps he even knew what she had dreamed, and had chosen to intervene.
“At least, she seemed to be. It’s hard to know what she would have looked like through different eyes.”
“Do you regret what happened?”
This time, Nikolas looked horrified. “Christine Brunswick was used to having everything she wanted, and she was thrilled to have