Page 126 of Claimed By Blood

“I’ll wake Gid,” he mutters at last. “Wait for me.”

The ghoul disappears into the manor for a second, returning wearing a leather jacket and with my coat slung over his arm. He passes me mine wordlessly and I accept it with a small smile.

“It’s going to get cold tonight,” he warns.

“In August?” I snort, beginning the walk.

He lifts one shoulder, as if daring me to disbelieve him. “The ghouls never lie.”

And because I used to hunt them, I understand. Ghouls can’t go out in the sun, but they also hate cold weather, so they typically seek out warm, dark, sheltered spaces.

“Does that make it harder to control them?” I ask curiously.

He nods. “Sometimes. I’ve got most of them in a dormant state for now, so it doesn’t matter so much.”

I bite my lip, because centuries of experience with the venomous creatures still makes me uneasy. My dislike of being surrounded by a small army of ghouls is not going to go away just because Frost is one. Especially when he openly admits his hold on them is tenuous.

He must sense my apprehension, because he loops an arm around my shoulders and offers me a wink. “Don’t worry, Eve. I’ll keep the monsters away.”

There’s a long pause. “Do you… do you remember this place?”

Do you hate it?Is what I really want to ask, but I’m not sure I’m brave enough.

“This random part of the forest in particular?” He raises a single thick brow. “No. Should I?”

A smirk plays at the edge of his mouth, and I mock punch him when I realise he’s being deliberately obtuse. “Stop teasing.”

Those grey eyes go deadly serious. “I remember every second we spent together. I spent decades reliving those memories to stay sane.”

Even though I asked, his answer leaves me lost for words. “Do you regret it? If we hadn’t… you’d still be human.”

“I’d be dead.” he shrugs.

“You wanted that once,” I remind him. “You told me death was preferable to immortality.”

He sighs. “This is too deep a conversation for this time in the evening,” he complains, but continues. “I’d only ever seen immortals like Cain and the ghouls. Gideon and his pack changed my perspective.”

“I suppose I wasn’t the greatest ambassador for immortality,” I mutter.

He gives me a wry smile. “You did follow your sire’s every order,” he admits. “An eternity ofthatwould’ve driven me insane. Then the bond broke, and I realised I should’ve taken it.”

That makes me snort. “I don’t know what I was thinking. You wouldn’t have lasted five seconds before Cain staked you out for the sun to fry.”

“You’re probably right.” He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “After all, he found out about my part in the resistance easily enough, if you could even call what we were doing a resistance back then. It was more of a bunch of grieving peasants than an actual resistance…”

“But look what it became,” I protest. “It must have grown significantly if you can just call in a van full of tech to any airstrip.”

“Cain has a lot of enemies. Some of them have money.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal. “There are even a few vampires happy to help us out—fuck knows why.”

“Boredom,” I explain. “After a while, purposeless days meld together. The old ones will do anything to feel a hint of risk, or shake up the system, just to break the monotony of immortality.”

“I like to think that most of them have nobler motives,” Frost hedges, “But you might be right about the rest.”

The conversation dries up as the forest drops away, revealing the main street and the humans still scurrying up and down it.

Heads snap up as soon as we take another step. The people here seem to have developed the same constant sense of alertness that you’d find in prey animals. Not surprising given how they’ve been treated.

I expect them to do the same thing they do every single day: scurry into their homes and bolt the doors.

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