“This, I don’t know.” For once, he looked taken aback. This hadn’t been the direction he’d expected our little chat to take.
“You don’t know,” I repeated flatly. But there was something in his eyes. Something distracted that told me he might have some idea. “You must know something. If not about Emma, then how about the other girls. You know, the ones who disappear all the time. You’re a vampire. You say you’re not one of them—”
“I’m not one of Alcántara’s lackeys,” he interrupted with a growl.
“Fine. Still, you must have some clue.”
A heavy silence hung between us for a moment. “Your anger is misdirected. Trust me on this. Trust me, too, when I say I cannot tell you what occurs inside their keep.”
“So you do know.” Suddenly I was so tired. So sick of all these secrets. “Why won’t you tell me more?”
“For your own safety.” His answer was quick and sharp. “I know not what happened to your friend. Do I think she’s dead? Yes. Do I know of dark doings at Alcántara’s hand? Aye, this island is full of darkness. Would you have me secret you inside the castle, tour you around, introduce you to the one truth? I cannot, because there isn’t one. There is no lone truth, no single secret revelation. Will I tell you more than this? Can I risk telling you everything? Take the risk that Alcántara might one day perceive the knowledge in your eyes? Can I give him any suspicions of any kind? No, and no, and no again.”
“Sorry, Carden, but that’s just ridiculous. It’s dangerous enough just being here. Wouldn’t knowing the Directorate’s secrets be a good thing? Like, forewarned is forearmed?”
“There is some knowledge that is difficult even for me to bear. I would guard you against it. Against them.” He had such a pained look on his face as he said it, like he truly did want to protect me, from everything, even the bad thoughts. “If there was one truth to share that would help you, one thing I could say that would safeguard you, believe me, I would enlighten you. I wouldn’t hesitate; I would risk my existence to arm you with that knowledge. But there are only secrets and horrors in that castle, and I beg you to stay away.”
“Then why don’t you leave?”
“I’m bound to you,” he said with a quick smile. But then he paused and looked blindly into the distance. “Aye, we could flee this island together, but…other things hold me here. Other allegiances. Too dangerous for you,” he added before I could interrupt. “And there is no running from those. Some truths you cannot escape.”
I understood a little something about allegiances. And he was right. Alcántara and his cronies were powerful—there would be no disappearing where they were concerned, only death. “I guess we could run, but we’ll never be able to hide, huh?”
His eyes met mine again, and their light had returned once more. “Something like that.”
He was so old-fashioned. I believed he truly did earnestly wish to guard me. It made it hard to be angry. I studied him for a moment, my seventeenth-century sort-of boyfriend. “Protecting me from the bad guys—is that you being chivalrous?”
A grin threatened along the hard line of his mouth. I’d surprised him. “That is one word for it.”
I smiled then. “And I’d thought chivalry was dead.”
“You cannot blame me if I wish to keep you safe,” he said, growing serious again. “When I can.”
“You do realize I’ve done a pretty decent job of protecting myself, right?”
“Call it my weakness, but the need to defend you is strong.” Then he quickly added, “As you need it, of course.” His expression grew panicked, scrambling to express his true thoughts to the modern girl. “That is, if you allow it.”
His fear of making a conversational gaffe with me was the most endearing thing I’d ever seen. I leaned in to him, nudging him with my shoulder as we walked. “You’re such an antique.”
He laughed then, loudly, and his burst of good humor was irresistible. It broke the tension for good. “A man could do worse than to be your knight.”
It was full dark, and I looked up, studying his strong profile. The white moonlight etched a line along his jaw, and his smile seemed to glow in the darkness. He was all-powerful and yet he was there, with me, walking me back to my dorm, ever the gentleman, while he could’ve been…what? Ravaging helpless villagers? Drinking the blood of innocents? Who knew what they did in the keep. All I knew was that Carden McCloud wasn’t in there doing it with them.
So who was he really? I fantasized about taking down the Vampire Directorate, but maybe he did, too. “Why aren’t you like them?”
“To be Vampire…it should not demand that one be evil.”
Evil. Was it possible to require blood to survive and not be evil? I couldn’t help but think of myself. Me, who now craved the blood of vampires.
It stayed on my mind all night and all through the next afternoon. I was still contemplating the meaning of it all, sitting there on the beach, waiting for Ronan’s arrival.
I checked the time on my watch—it was a fugly digital model well suited to geeks and Navy SEALs everywhere. Thursday. 13:47. Getting close to Primitive Skills time…aka Ronan’s wilderness camp.
Unlike the academic subjects, many of these survival classes were girls only. I supposed it was because the guys were going Vampire, and if you were a vamp, why learn to survive off the land when you could survive off the landowners, right?
Shudder.
How would Ronan act when he saw me? I’d headed over early, wanting to get our initial interaction over with before the other girls showed up. He’d been so kind the other night in the dining hall. The fact that I might’ve looked so sad, so raw, as to make Ronan feel sorry for me made me feel pathetic. And, frankly, a little embarrassed, too.
I wanted him to think I was okay. I wanted to say hi, to exchange a meaningful look that said I’m cool; it’s all good before the start of his class. Usually he showed up early to prepare, but he still hadn’t arrived.
Unfortunately, many of my classmates had. They trickled in, wearing parkas and boots over their navy blue catsuits, managing to look like they were slinking down a catwalk instead of simply walking across the cold, damp sand.
Did I look like that? Was I that graceful and just didn’t realize it? I’d had a year of brutal physical training by now. It was possible.
“Imagine that you’re alone,” Ronan said, startling me from behind. He’d strolled up and was diving right in to his lecture. So much for my meaningful look. “You find yourself on a beach such as this. You’re hungry. Growing weaker.” He walked to the water’s edge, and we hopped into step behind him. The waves were calm today, a rhythmic crash and whoosh along the shore. “What do you eat? How do you quench your burning thirst?”
One girl volunteered, “I’d have water in my pack.”
He brushed that off. “Your water is long gone.”
An auburn-haired Initiate named Isabella rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that why we’re taking this class? So you can tell us what to do?”
“Nice,” I muttered, giving her a critical eye. She’d never survive her first mission.
It made me want to do better. To excel. I forgot Yasuo and the nature of evil, and for the moment, I even forgot Carden. I wanted to be the one with the answers. “There are shells,” I said. “For food, I mean.”
Isabella chuffed a bitchy little laugh. “A little crunchy, don’t you think?”
I gave her my best side-eye. “Where there’re shells, there’re shellfish.”
“Very good,” Ronan said with a firm nod. He gave me a pleased look, and Isabella looked like her head might explode. “Acari Drew is absolutely correct.”
He walked to the water’s edge. The tide pulsed and swirled around his combat boots, slowly soaking the cuffs of his black cargo pants. Even though it couldn’t have been much past two thirty, the sky was a flat gray, the sun already threatening to dip below the horizon. A cloud shifted, shooting a beam of weak sunlight wavering and glimmering along the packed sand. Ronan squatted, peering closer.
“The light will fade quickly now.” His voice was low, making him sound deep in his own thoughts. He raked his fingers along the wet sand, and for a moment, I lost myself to the image of it. That hand was strong, a man’s hand, with close-clipped nails and skin that was lightly tanned from his time outside, doing things like surfing and teaching us how to survive. He traced his fingers along the shoreline, and it was a slow, languorous movement, almost dreamy, like he was stroking the long hair of a woman.
I gave a sharp shake to my head. What the hell had that thought been? I reminded myself it was that very hand and its hypnotic touch that’d tricked me onto this island in the first place.
“Simply use your senses,” he said. “Even in the moonlight, you can find shells. You can see, and if you can’t see, you can feel the irregularities in the sand. See there.” He pointed to a spot I hadn’t noticed before, where the sand dimpled. He used his fingers to dig a well around it, revealing the tip of a shell. “Razor shells are common in this part of the world. If you had salt, you could sprinkle it and the shell would pop right up. But”—he dug deeper, till he could snag it with his fingertips and jiggle it free—“you’re clever girls. You need only to pry it up.”
He held up the shell. It looked like a long, golden-brown fingernail. “There’s meat in here. Not much. But I know from experience—if you’re hungry, it’ll seem a meal, right enough.” He whipped it back into the water, lobbing it past the breakers, where it landed with a hollow plunk.
He wandered again, scanning the shoreline. Each wave left behind a delicate ruffle of foam and a patchwork of shells and rocks and seaweed. “There is also the limpet,” he said, and it took him no time to find and pluck one of the bumpy gray shells from the sand. “These are even more plentiful. You can’t take two steps on these beaches without stepping on one.”