I stared at her, shocked at the cruelty of her words.
My first instinct was to run. Leave the tower and Sunny in it until I’d cooled off enough to think clearly.
Fuck first instincts.
“I just had a conversation with him. Titus is not a good guy. He’s not a vampire with a dark past trying to make up for it now.”
“I know that, Eden.”
“Well, why the fuck is that OK to you?”
“Why shouldn’t it be?”
I stood, shouting now. “Jesus, Sunny, I shouldn’t have to spell out that murdering humans and dipping them in gold—”
“That was hundreds of years ago.”
“Fine. What about the wolves? It wasn’t that long ago that he kept wolves locked in their shifted forms and trapped in his woods.”
Sunny nodded. “I’ll admit, that’s not his finest moment. But here’s the thing, Eden. Julian would go to the ends of the earth for you. Right whatever wrong and fight whatever bad guy needed fighting.”
“Yes. Titus would for you too, but that’s hardly—”
“No, Eden. He wouldn’t. Titus would destroy the world for me. And being loved like that. Being cherished and worshipped in that way… there’s no comparison.”
Yeah, I didn’t have a rebuttal for that.
“Promise me you’ll keep him in check? That you won’t let his darkness change you.”
Sunny smiled. “Eden, I marked his dick. Just like I said I would. He’d do anything for me, including flying straight.”
I grinned. Sunny had given me all the reassurance I needed. “That’s all I wanted to hear,” I said and sat back down, attention fully on the book in front of me.
“What are we looking for again, Eeds?” Sunny asked after twenty minutes of us turning pages and sighing.
I sat back and stretched and answered her honestly. “We were looking for my confidence,” I said softly.
She gave me a puzzled look. “And did we find it?”
I shrugged. “Maybe? I don’t know. I think I was trying to make up for being made. I was trying to cover it up with knowledge. But whatever I was doing, it doesn’t seem as important anymore.”
It also helped that Julian had been an open book last I saw him. Knowing I could ask him things and get a real answer now helped me feel like I didn’t have to find everything out on my own.
“So, what does that mean?” She asked.
I gazed around the room, eyes finally settling on Sunny’s emerald stare. “I’m really gonna miss that cloud chair.”
She smiled. “I’ll get you the name of the manufacturer and you can put one in your mate suite.”
I nodded and began closing and restocking the books.
I had been looking for my own confidence in their pages. And it seemed, I didn’t need to any longer.
“Should I call you a car?” Sunny asked.
“That’s OK. I drove myself.”
“You made it through the barrier without an escort from the city?”