Page 65 of Flirting with Darkness

His hand fell over mine as his voice faded. He cleared his throat a little. “But you’ll have help.”

I took this in for a long moment.

He asked quietly, “Do you regret it?”

Regret it?

I felt… different. So wildly different than I always had in every way, shedding not only my humanity but the ever-present looming threat of time.

Even through my illness, I felt the strength lying in wait, ready to be seized. This body wouldn’t wither. It would thrive.

But I couldn’t care less about that.

The prospect that overwhelmed me was the thought oftime.

Time. So much of it. Time to collect knowledge. Time to see the world. I didn’t know what I might do with so much of it.

I felt strange, yes. I could already tell Vale was right that it would take me a long time to adjust to this new existence.

But regret?

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

Vale’s shoulders lowered slightly, as if in relief. He avoided my gaze, rolling my fingers gently through his. My senses were so heightened, I could feel every wrinkle and texture of his skin.

“You… you came back,” I said.

“I know it wasn’t what you wanted me to do. But I was a general because I was better at giving orders than following them.”

Not true. I wanted it more than anything. For him to come back. Even if I didn’t know it at the time.

“Why?” I asked.

“You were right. The roses were special.”

I smiled a little. “You finally noticed.”

“They never died.”

They look exactly the same as they always have,he’d said, so irritated, like I’d tricked him. I’d thought it was funny at the time. Of course a vampire wouldn’t notice the absence of decay, the absence of time, when they lived beyond it themselves.

“When I was preparing to leave,” he said, “I was gathering the roses. And I noticed, when I held them, that one of them had begun to wither—just a little. I’ve held god-touched objects before. And when I was touching them, I—I felt it. It feels strange, for us to touch an object touched by the White Pantheon.”

Us.

Him and I. Vampires.

But that struck me less than the image of what he was describing. That Vale, when packing up his belongings, had not only taken the roses with him, but had sat there holding them. For a moment I could picture it so vividly, him cradling those roses, and it made my chest tighten.

His thumb rubbed the back of my hand.

“It was foolish that I didn’t realize you were god-touched, too. You strange creature.” A wry smile tugged at his lips. “Different from any human or any vampire I had ever encountered.”

Gods, the way he looked at me—a strange feeling shivered in my heart.

But then my brow furrowed.

“But how did youknow?” I said.

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