Page 59 of Thorn Evermore
“Good. We’ll go to my place and order something. We need to be alone for what I’m going to tell you.”
“Because it’s good, right?”
Thorn pulls me closer, pressing my hand to his chest. “So good. I can’t wait to tell you everything.”
Staring into his eyes is an experience all its own. I almost forget we’re standing in a public place. “I’m ready then.”
“By the gods, I hope so.”
Chapter 18
THORN
There’s a foreign unsettled feeling in my chest as I guide Kyson to my apartment. I know what it is, but after being alive as long as I have, it’s beyond weird to feel actual nerves. Anxiety. Even… fear. I’m not sure what I’ll do if he rejects me.
He’s not much better off than I am. His energy is swirling with conflicting emotions—happiness, fear, anticipation, anxiety. At this point I can only hope he’s open to what I’m going to tell him.
“Your workplace is interesting,” I muse as Kyson removes his shoes in my foyer. “The energy there is strong. Perhaps from all the antiques.”
“What do you mean? How does it feel to you?”
“It’s as if the memories of the past whisper to me, but they’re drowned out by the present.”
“Are you, like, a psychic or something?”
I chuckle. “No darling. Just sensitive. Come. Let’s pick a meal for you.”
“We can wait a bit. I think I’m too keyed up to eat. I want to know…” He shrugs. “Everything.”
I nod. “A drink then?”
“Just water.”
“Please get comfortable in the living room. I’ll be right there.”
“Okay.”
I watch him walk away, inhaling his lingering scent. I should have known based on my reaction to that. No other person’s scent has ever wrapped itself around me the way his does.
I fill a glass with cool water and walk it back, slowly thinking over my plan of attack. Do I start with ‘we’re mates’ or ‘I’m an assassin’ or ‘I’m a damn vampire?’ Should probably go easiest to hardest. I blow out a deep breath, straighten my shoulders, and walk into the living room.
Two hundred years ago, I had a very bad habit of casually dropping my dark nature on my lovers, until one turned on us and we had to kill him and three other mortals who came to stake us. Yves’s disappointment in me was enough to get me on the right path, and I’ve only uttered it now to those whose lives I’m about to end. Saying the words out loud to a lover again has me all messed up.
When I enter the living room, Kyson is perched on the edge of the couch with a book on his lap. He carefully turns the page, dragging his fingers lightly over the yellowed pages.
“It’s a diary,” I say softly, joining him on the couch. “From a woman who witnessed the Salem Witch Trials panic.”
“It’s original?”
“Oh yes.” I leave out the part where the elderly granddaughter of the woman who wrote it gave it to me after I helped her get it printed.
“This should be climate controlled. Eventually the pages will crumble away.”
“It’s been treated.” With a potion by Vivienne, but I leave that part out too.
“It’s amazing,” he whispers. “It must be worth so much, and you just have it on a coffee table.”
“Perhaps, but I would never sell it, and it’s quite safe there. As you can see, I keep my collections visible. What is the point otherwise?”