His lips twitched in a tiny grin. “Good,” he said, brushing his hand over my hair. “You look beautiful. Did I tell you that?”
“No, but thanks.”
“Come here,” he said, pulling me to him for a hug. “I love you, Ridley.”
I was stunned by both his display of affection as well as his admission. Our family didn’t act like this anymore, hadn’t since Izzy died. I felt stiff in his arms. It had been so long since either of them had shown me affection this way, especially sober, that I wasn’t quite sure how to be comfortable with it now. I wanted to melt into his arms, to enjoy the comfort that I’d missed for so long, but I just couldn’t. It felt strange and forced and bitter. I ended up patting his back mechanically, wishing for the moment to be over.
“I love you, too, Dad.”
When he let me go, I tried to smile as I turned to walk to my bedroom, but I felt like it was glaringly obvious that I was off kilter.
Once in my room, I rushed to the window and threw it open and raised the screen. I stuck my head out and heard a rustling in the bush to the left. Bo stepped out from behind it and I backed up so he could climb through. He did it with such speed and ease, it looked as if he was outside one minute and inside the next. No transition, no movement, no distance between point A and point B.
I thought of my attacker and how I didn’t stand a chance against someone like that—a vampire— who wanted to hurt me. There would be no keeping her out, no escaping her if she got in. If a vampire wanted to hurt me, there was little I could do to prevent it.
“I need to change. Do you mind?” I asked as I walked to my dresser to get out some pajamas.
Bo stepped over to stand behind me, in front of the mirror that sat on top of the shiny mahogany surface. I watched his reflection as he raised his hand and pushed my hair back from one side of my neck and bent his head to place a kiss right at the curve of my shoulder.
“I don’t mind,” he said beside my ear. “In fact, I could be convinced to lend a hand if you need help getting out of this dress.”
One hand brushed down my back and his fingers settled at the top of my zipper. Though goose bumps erupted all over my chest and shoulders, my mind was running over a thousand worrisome things, not the least of which was that it was high time Bo and I talked. Even his intoxicating presence, his alluring scent, his arousing heat couldn’t compete with the heaviness of my heart.
“I think I can handle this one on my own,” I said, watching his reaction in the mirror.
Bo raised his head and his eyes met mine in the mirror. I stared at him, and he stared back. For a moment, all I could think about was how he was so perfect it hurt. But in that brief wordless exchange, Bo came to understand that something was wrong. I saw the weight settle over him like an invisible iron blanket. I recognized it, knew it well; it was dread.
He nodded and stepped back to let me move on to the bathroom, where I quickly changed into my pajamas and then went back out to my closet to hang up my dress.
Bo was lounging on the bed, but he looked anything but relaxed. There was a tightness about him, a readiness that reminded me of a coiled spring.
I sat on the bed in front of Bo, facing him, and curled my feet up under me.
“I got a call tonight.”
“I heard. Ms. Bowman, right?”
I nodded.
“So ,what’s the problem?”
“I don’t have a teacher by the name of Bowman.”
Bo shrugged. “Maybe it was just a teacher, not your teacher, calling to check on the kids from the dance.”
“Bo, there isn’t a teacher in the entire school with the last name of Bowman.
And did you hear her first name?”
“Hea—” he began, but then stopped suddenly, sitting up. “The Heather?”
“I don’t know, but I would imagine so.”
Bo leapt off the bed, a movement so fast it didn’t even shake the bed. He began to pace my bedroom floor like a caged animal.
“These past weeks, I haven’t been able to find out anything about her. Why would she call you? What did she say?”
“Just that she was calling to check on me, see if I was at home. She wanted to make sure I was ‘out of harm’s way’.”
“That means she’s close.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Just trust me. She’s close. Now if I could just find her…”
“Bo, there’s something else that you need to know about Heather.”
He stopped his pacing, looking at me expectantly, his eyes full of that anxiety that says I don’t want to know, but I have to find out.
“While it’s true that she was probably the one who had something to do with orchestrating your father’s death, I think… we think…that it might be much bigger than that.”
“We?”
“Me and Lucius.”
Bo’s eyes narrowed on me. “What is it that you think is going on?”
“Bo, Lucius has kept some things from you because he wasn’t quite sure what to make of…you. I’m sure you’ve wondered how you survived the poisoning.”
Bo nodded. “I figured the stories were wrong. I thought since it had never been done before, that it was just assumed that it would be deadly, that no one really knew for sure. Why? What do you know about that?”
“There’s a legend, one I don’t really know that much about, but it tells of a boy who can’t be killed.”
Easily reaching the obvious conclusion, Bo said, “And you think that person is me?”
“Well, it certainly looks like it could be.”
“Just because the poison didn’t kill me? That’s hardly enough—”
“That’s not all.”
“Alright,” he said slowly, uneasily. “What else?”
“This boy, he’s special. It’s only him that can’t be killed because his destiny in life is to kill his father, the first of the vampires.”
“Well, I know my father wasn’t a vampire, so I don’t see how this could have anything to do with me.”
“Unless that wasn’t your real father.”
Bo’s gaze sharpened, his nostrils flaring in agitation.
“Of course he was my father.”
“Bo, do you remember telling me that Lucius found you, that you’d made your way to his cabin after the vampires attacked you and your father?”
“Yeah. Why?”