Page 46 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 1

I saw the lightning-fast flicker of his smile. “One of my housemates always has to have her nails perfectly done,” he said. “She and her husband like to make sure that they match, and she usually has me paint her nails to match his outfit or eyes. He tried to do it once, but he knocked an entire bottle of acetone onto an antique silk velvet dress, so now he’s been banned.”

I wasn’t used to hearing Gabriel sound so affectionate. I shifted a little, moving my hand, and he made a disapproving noise. I went still again.

“They sound like a cute couple,” I said.

“They are,” he agreed. “Lissa and Vic love each other very much. And often very loudly. I had to have their room soundproofed.”

I huffed out a laugh, earning another there-and-gone smile from Gabriel.

“It was a bit of a scandal,” he said. “Vic was supposed to be married off. His parents bought in a facilitator to assess each of the potential matches before they made the final arrangements and picked a spouse for him.”

I recognized the pattern of someone repeating a story they’d told more times than they could count, until retelling it was something that didn’t actually require any conscious thought. “Sounds like there’s a ‘but’ coming,” I said.

“There is indeed a ‘but’ coming,” Gabriel said. “The facilitator was Lissa. Depending on which version of the story they tell, they either fell madly in love at first sight, or couldn’t stand each other but fell into bed immediately, and eventually fell in love. Either way, between the two of them, they found a reason to turn down every possible suitor, and then Lissa presented her own suit to Vic’s clan heads. When they laughed her out of the hall, the two of them ran off together.”

“Okay, that is pretty scandalous,” I said. “And pretty romantic, too.”

Something about Gabriel was a little off. My investigative instincts were screaming at me to push just a little to see if I could find out what was up. I figured that I probably shouldn’t poke too much, but the two glasses of twist-top rosé I’d had disagreed.

“Do vampires still do a lot of arranged marriages? I thought that was way less popular these days,” I said casually.

Gabriel’s hand twitched, almost smudging the stroke of nail polish he was working on.

Bingo.

“It’s much less common than it used to be,” he said. “But the practice definitely hasn’t died out. It’s still considered standard for the more powerful vampires to find a suitable match for their heirs. Other hand, please.”

I put my other hand on his knee. “Have your parents picked out a future Mrs. De Montclair?” I asked. Suddenly, I felt kind of sick. Maybe I’d overdone it with the spicy noodles.

“Not officially,” Gabriel said tiredly. “They’ve had someone in mind for a long time, but neither she nor I actually want to get married to each other. So far, we’ve managed to distract them every time it’s come up, but it’s only a matter of time.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, squeezing his knee gently. “That’s really shitty.”

“It’s just the way things are,” he said. His voice had gone flat. “I’ve always known romantic love wouldn’t be in the cards for me.”

“Gabriel,” I said firmly. “Hey. Look at me, okay?”

Gabriel hesitated, but he looked up from the bottle of nail polish and met my eyes. He looked tired, resigned, but there was a wariness hiding behind it.

“Just because it’s the way things are doesn’t mean that it’s not bullshit,” I said, quiet and intense. “You shouldn’t have to marry someone just for political bullshit reasons. You should get to marry someone who makes you feel amazing. Someone who makes you feel safe and excited at the same time.”

Gabriel looked almost startled. For a moment, he appeared so much younger than his actual age that I could almost pretend we were just a pair of regular twenty-somethings.

“Evangeline, I…” Something in his face closed off. He huffed out a sad little laugh and shook his head. “Thank you,” he said finally.

“I mean it,” I told him.

“I know. I don’t suppose there’s any more of that wine, is there?”

“Oh, don’t worry. I got a second bottle. Hang on, I’ll grab it.”

I carefully wiggled out from under the blanket, trying to use my hands as little as possible so I wouldn’t smudge my nails.

“Do you want more synth-blood?” I asked over my shoulder as I headed to the kitchen counter. “I grabbed a four-pack. The only single cans they had were flavored, and lemon-lime blood just sounds weird.”

“Evangeline,” Gabriel said. His voice sounded all wrong, hollow, and shocked.

I turned back.

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