Free Blood, Milk & Chocolate - Part 1 (The Grimm Diaries Book 3) by Cameron Jace Page A

graceful bow.
    "Don't
stare at my daughter for too long." My father patted him jokingly, but
underneath the joke lay a silent warning. "He is a sweet talker." My
father turned to me. "Sweet as the Blood Apples he trades. Still,
sometimes they are plagued with worms." My father winked.
    Angel
seemed to detest my father's joke, but my father didn't notice. He laughed out
of courtesy. Our eyes locked briefly again, and I wanted to make sure I let him
know I liked him. I didn't know to show a boy I liked him. I had no idea how.
Was I supposed to just smile, or maybe throw him a seductive look? How did a
seductive look look on me? Or should I have just thrown myself blatantly
in his arms?
    I ended up
staring like a loon for a few seconds with dilated eyes. Then when I still
wasn't sure if he'd get the message, I tiptoed, my body slightly stooping
forward.
    Angel's
eyes skewed down to my feet. I blushed and he smiled.
    However,
Angel couldn't say more. Nor could I. My father excused him from my company and
urged him to go discuss business, leaving me undone, not knowing if I'd ever
see Angel again.
    All Angel
did was look back at me one more time, sneaking a peek over my father's
shoulder as the two men walked far away from me.
    For a
single heartbeat, something told me it was better that way. It was better that
I never see him again. It was an absurd and illogical moment, and I hated it. I
didn't care much for what people said about love at first sight. I didn't give
a damn. This wasn't first sight; this wasn't teenage impulsiveness. This was
destiny. He was my soul mate, in all the wrong ways. I felt like I had known
him before. In another lifetime, maybe. Most important
of all, the way Angel Hassenpflug looked at me made me feel better than a
thousand mirrors.

 
 

 
    14

 
    Although I
didn't see Angel for some time after, all I could do was think about him: the
way he looked at me, the way he saw me, the way he made me curious about what I
looked like. What in the world made him look at me that way? What in the world
made him look so deeply into my eyes?
    I had
never felt the urge to break the rules and run to the nearest pond outside our
castle to get a glimpse of my features. Not even when I had gone crazy on my
mother.
    This
feeling, this need, with Angel—it was different.
    It was
euphoric, enchanting, and ecstatic. There is some kind of a beautiful surrender
when we are looked upon by someone like him . Someone like an angel.
    Who named
their son Angel?
    Not that I
didn't like it. I adored his name, and I couldn't imagine what his parents had
expected of their son when they honored him with it. As a Karnstein, supposedly
destined to fight the devilish vampires, Angel's name, let alone his manly
beauty, had me captured for many sleepless nights. Angel made me look forward
to life and its infinite possibilities—I know you might be skeptical,
thinking I was head over heels too soon, but I was a friendless girl, deprived
of looking into a mirror. Angel was, in many ways, my mirror.
    Then
again, Angel as a mirror wasn't quite enough. It only made me want to see
myself in a real mirror even more. I needed to see what Angel saw in me that
caught his attention so much. I pondered all night if I should go to the Pond
of Pearls, but couldn't bring myself to it.
    The next
morning, I walked to the fields with the peasants to collect apples from the
trees. A lame excuse to occupy my mind. Suddenly, the
apples I hated looked sweet and attractive. Love for life surpassed all fears,
I supposed. I felt like a real girl for the first time in a long time, wearing
my white dress, smiling, and collecting apples into a small basket.
    The
peasants always demanded I take a bite from the first apple they collected.
They considered it good luck for them and the land. They showed me how to cut
an apple from the middle and examine it. They taught me how each apple had a
five-star shape on the inside if cut horizontally in two halves. A