Chapter 42
‘Sorry,’ Evie mumbled as they walked down the stairs.
‘About last night or about giving my mum the wrong idea?’
Evie didn’t answer. He turned to look at her over his shoulder, smiling what he hoped was a rueful but charming smile. He wasn’t going to let on to her how pissed he actually was about last night.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
She couldn’t look him in the eye. ‘OK,’ she mumbled, ‘tired.’
He pushed open the door to the bookstore and let her pass, his gaze falling naturally to the long, bare length of her legs. Man, did she look hot in just his sweater. He wondered if she was still wearing the paper underwear or if she was going commando.
He pushed the thought away. Now was not the time. The café was starting to fill up with early morning customers. Evie darted between them, self-consciously tugging at the bottom of the sweater, trying futilely to get it to cover more than just the tops of her thighs.
‘Cyrus!’
He pulled up sharply, wincing.
‘Darcy,’ he said, turning around slowly to confront that waitress girl from before.
She was looking at him almost as accusingly as his mother. ‘You didn’t call,’ she pouted.
Was she going to cry? Oh god. He wasn’t sure he could deal with that. ‘Yeah, um,’ he stuttered, ‘you know. I’ve been kind of busy.’
Darcy’s eyes went wide at that point. She was staring at something over his shoulder. He turned to see what she was looking at. Evie was standing by the door, waiting for him. Her hair was mussed up. Her lips were chapped and the colour of crushed rose petals. She was, of course, wearing only his sweater. She looked like she had been fully and completely ravished. Which she had. Only Darcy didn’t know it hadn’t been by him, or at least not so completely by him, but by a thousand-year-old bloodsucker. He turned slowly back to Darcy, the waitress.
‘I can see just how busy you’ve been,’ Darcy said, before he could say anything. She slapped on a fake bright smile, then spun on her heel and headed back to the cash desk.
Cyrus sighed. Was anyone going to cut him a break today? He turned back to the door. Evie smiled quickly, apologetically at him. He ignored her, and walked out onto the street to hail a cab.
‘I need to go to Flic’s. I need a change of clothes.’ Evie said as they settled inside the cab, both of them squeezed against opposing doors, the faux leather of the seats practically igniting with the tension.
She leant forward and gave the driver the address.
‘I lost my blade,’ she said when she sat back. ‘Do you know what happened to it?’
He shook his head. ‘Victor might have taken it.’
He could tell by the way Evie was staring out of the window, shooting death stares at the street, that she was pissed off. It was OK. If Victor refused to part with it, he’d make him.
After a few minutes of awkward silence she cleared her throat. ‘Have you heard from the others? Are they OK?’
Cyrus studied her, not sure whether she was ready to hear the news about RJ. She had bruise-coloured shadows under her eyes that on anyone else would have looked awful but on her only managed to accentuate the blue of her eyes. The bandage on her throat made her look more vulnerable than he knew she was. He had a sudden flashback to the night before, when his fingers had traced up her throat, had felt the silky warm skin at the base of her neck and the smooth flat of her stomach.
‘They’re fine,’ he said, his voice hoarse.
‘You never did tell me, by the way, how you managed to break us out of the hospital.’
He smiled to himself, ‘I told them that Victor had just bared all.’
‘That he what?’
‘Exposed himself, gave you an eyeful of his magic wand.’
Evie searched his face for evidence he was joking. ‘Are you serious?’
He shrugged in answer. Evie suddenly burst out laughing. It was such an unexpected sound that he couldn’t help but stare at her. It was the first time he’d actually ever seen her laugh – look relaxed and not like she had the burdens of the realms weighing on her shoulders. His heart practically burst in his chest at the sight.
But then it was back. The haunted, hollowed-out expression she usually wore, as though she didn’t really believe life would ever deal her anything other than a bad hand. Her eyes lost their shine. And he wanted nothing more than to reach over to her in that instant, pull her against his side and tell her that everything was going to be OK – that he was going to make it so.