Free Bloodchild by Kallysten Page B

make her allies. “You can try to find
someone, but I want the right to reject them if I don’t like them. Also, I want
to spend some time alone with Brad. And that’s not up for—”
    “No. My apologies, Dame Vivien.
You may reject whatever guard I ask you to consider. But I cannot allow Bradan
to be alone with you. It’s too much of a risk.”
    “A risk?” she repeated, her voice
rising. She stood, incensed, and looked down at Aedan as he sat at her feet.
“He’d never hurt me. He loves me. Do you even understand the meaning of that
word?”
    He blinked up at her twice, his
eyes gleaming with a trace of blue amid the silver, then stood. His voice
remained quiet, but his eyes betrayed his anger.
    “What I understand is what Bradan
has become. I understand it quite well. Just like I understand his hunger. I’m
afraid you don’t. You can’t understand that.”
    Standing at her full height, she
crossed her arms and raised her chin.
    “You can’t tell me what to do.”
    He inclined his head.
    “That’s true. But I can forbid
Bradan to seek you on his own. And I will.”
    She was about to accuse him of
using Brad’s vampirism as an excuse. From the start, he’d been against her
relationship with Brad. But just then, quiet rustling sounds drew her gaze to
the woods, and she watched Brad appear at the edge. She smiled instinctively
when she first saw him, but as he came closer, something tightened inside her
chest.
    It was Brad who was coming to her,
the shy, quiet man she’d had a crush on for months before she’d had the chance
to truly know who he was and fall in love with him. But for the first time, she
could also see that it was… someone else, too. There was a spot of blood at the
corner of his lips, but what shook her was the glint in his eyes. It wasn’t the
silver gleam she was growing used to, or at least not entirely. Instead, it was
how cold that glint was, how… alien.
    He blinked when he reached her,
and the glint disappeared when he smiled at her and asked if she was ready to
go home. She nodded, not trusting herself to say a word, and took his arm. They
walked back to the castle, Aedan following a step behind.
    Vivien didn’t ask to be alone with
him again and went to bed on her own, wondering if Aedan’s words were getting
to her or if she’d truly seen something in Brad that hadn’t been there before.
Wondering if she was afraid of her own boyfriend when he’d done nothing to
deserve her fear.

 
     
    CHAPTER EIGHT
    Apologies
     
     
    Bradan couldn’t sleep.
    He’d barely done anything today,
and his run with Vivien and Aedan had not been enough to tire him. He felt full
of energy, ready to take on the world for Vivien, ready to do anything.
Anything but sleep as Aedan had suggested.
    Aedan, of course, was not in his
own bed, and Bradan had no trouble figuring out where he was: guarding Vivien’s
door, and never mind that she was safe, having put Elver through the same
lie-detection process she’d used on Doril. With the shields set over the
castle, no one could get in unnoticed.
    The thought of the shields struck
him like an unexpected blow. He wouldn’t be able to maintain them anymore. He’d
have to show Vivien—no, not show, he couldn’t show her anything. He’d have to
explain to her how to channel at the shields every so often to renew and
reinforce them. Something else to rest on her shoulders; how much more could
she take before she cracked? He hoped he never had to find out.
    Giving up on trying to rest, he
slipped out of bed and back into his clothes. A few days ago, he’d have
channeled a ball of light to guide him through the dark corridors of the
palace. Now, he didn’t even notice the darkness.
    “You should be sleeping,” Aedan
said as soon as Bradan reached Vivien’s hallway. “Keeping human hours helps.”
    Crossing his arms, Bradan leaned back
against the wall next to his brother.
    “How does it help?” he asked. “You
barely get any sleep at