Free Demon Day by Penelope Fletcher

succeed. I was dragged into situations
kicking and screaming like a child. Lochlann himself had said I
bawled like one. I flushed at the memory. Why had I not been ready
to fight and avenge my friend? It should not have been Conall
exacting payment for Lex’s life it should have been me. So now, to
make myself feel better I was attaching myself to Conall’s heels as
he chased Devlin across the region, using the Tribe’s need for the
grimoire as an excuse to out run my real responsibilities. How
shameful and self absorbed. Worse, I still could not find it in my
heart to feel bad about feeling and thinking in such a
way.
    “ Is that is why you saved
him?”
    “ Say-say?” I asked trying
to pick up the conversational thread I’d dropped.
    Breandan watched me with a curios
expression. “You saved the vampire because you think his destiny is
entwined with yours?” He no longer sounded angry or disgusted,
merely confused, suspicious even.
    I titled my head slightly, my hair
falling over my shoulder and into my eyes. “I saved him because I
care about him.” I thought hard on how I felt, what I felt. “He
feels different to you.” I faint shudder rippled through me. “I
won’t lie, he does scare me. He is … dangerous, I think. But there
is something that I can’t help but like about him. Even if my
nature shivers at what he is, who he is appeals to me in a way you
can’t.” I looked guiltily down at my lap. The honesty was good, but
it was embarrassing.
    “ The darkness,” Breandan
said matter of fact. “Compulsion.”
    I pushed at my hair and blew out a
short breath through my nose. “It doesn’t work on us.” I was firm
in this conviction. “He can’t manipulate me that way.”
    “ The blood tie makes you
vulnerable to him in a way none of our kind has been to one of his.
I cannot assure you what you feel is genuine. Only the gods know
how he can bend or invade your mind.” His lips twisted. “Even if I
could lie to make you feel better I wouldn’t.”
    “ Does feeling drawn to his
darkness make me bad,” I asked quietly, terrified of his answer. “I
mean, Devlin is evil, but I’m not evil just for wanting to be close
to the dark. I’m not evil.” There was that heavy silence again. “Am
I?”
    Breandan said nothing.
    I jerked up out of his hold, and
marched away from him. Pacing a small circle, I yanked at my hair a
few times. What? Had I expected him to cuddle me, and tell me I was
perfect, and as innocent as newborn babe? Of course, he would not
say anything. He could not lie. And why should he comfort or give
confidence for me to explore the blood tie. What self-respecting
male would?
    I stopped my pacing and stood over
him. He shifted up and crossed his legs, resting his arms loosely
on his knees.
    Instead of conceding that he was
within his right to fight for me I said, “I wish you could
lie.”
    “ No,” he replied. “You wish
you could lie to yourself.”
    “ Can’t you say something to
make me feel better?” I brushed my hands over my arms, as if wiping
dirt. “Cleaner?”
    “ It is my purpose to keep
order. I won’t encourage a delusion, even if it pains me not to do
so.”
    “ I’m not a bad person,” I
said crossly. “I deserve to have you make me feel better when I’m
feeling insecure. I’ve lost my best friend. Can’t you bend a
little?”
    He sighed. “What could I possibly say
that would make you feel better after what happened to your
friend?”
    I looked down at my hands, fisted on
my knees. “You should know what to say. Then again, that is not the
real problem, is it? The truth is you don’t know me well enough to
know what to say to make me feel better.” I frowned. “And I know
nothing about you. Not really.”
    How could you feel such emotion toward
a person you knew nothing of? I had met him two days ago, and I
could not look forward and not see him. If I looked back there was
nothing before him. In my mind’s eye the world was surrounded