Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
“Can you blame her?” I bat my lashes. “I am quite likable.”
He pulls me back down to him. “You have no idea how incredible you are, Wren.”
“Some days I’ll agree with you.”
“But today?”
“I’m tired,” I tell him and let out a sign. “I’m really, really tired.”
“Sleep. That’s why we’re here. The last time you spent the night resting in a hotel proved quite enjoyable for us both.”
“You just want to get laid.” I hook my leg over him.
“I do.”
“I do too,” I tell him, though right now, all snuggled up next to Xavier, I could fall asleep.
“Rest first,” he tells me. “I am impressed with your stamina.”
“It’s all the working out I do.” I wiggle closer and he covers both of us with the blankets. I close my eyes, thinking there’s no way I’ll easily drift off given everything that’s running through my mind. This time, I am so glad to be wrong, and I drift to sleep only moments later.
Chapter
Seventeen
The sun will be setting soon, and Xavier and I have successfully spent the day rotting in bed again. We finished another season of the show we started in Connecticut. I slept on and off throughout the day, ate my weight in junk food, and of course, had sex several times throughout the day.
This hotel doesn’t have metal blinds covering the window during the day, but instead has thick, velvet curtains that block out all the light. Xavier is standing next to them, slowly pulling one back to allow a little bit of golden light into the room. It’s not directly shining on him, and I watch him looking at the little sunbeam, expression neutral.
“That doesn’t hurt?” I ask, sitting cross-legged on the bed.
“Not in small doses,” he tells me. “And not at my age.”
“So a newer vampire is more sensitive?”
“Yes, and having this amount of sunlight in the room for long would weaken even me.”
Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I stick my hand out, fingers passing through the beam of light. “Do you miss the sun?”
“Not anymore,” he tells me and lets the curtain fall shut. “When I was first turned, the world of vampirism was too new and exciting to miss much of my old life.”
“Do you remember much?” I ask. “Of your human life. It’s been so long.”
“I do.” He sits next to me on the bed. “My human life wasn’t glorious. There’s not much to want to remember.”
“Right. You lived during the plague. And almost died by it.” I slowly shake my head. “It’s almost hard to comprehend. You’ve lived through so much.”
“Nearly seven hundred years,” he says, staring forward, vision unfocused as his mind goes to the past. “Much has changed over the course of time, but much has stayed the same.”
“What do you mean?”
“Humanity.” He tips his head down to me. “When you live in the shadows, you get to see people in their truest form. What has driven humanity hasn’t changed over the years. Greed. Money. Power. I’ve seen governments rise and fall. I’ve seen politicians turn on their citizens and citizens turn on their politicians. I’ve witnessed countless human wars and acts of horrific violence humans inflict on each other. And then sat back and watched humans call us the real monsters just because we are better than them.”
“I always struggled with that,” I tell him. “Leo too. And we’d get in trouble for it if we ever brought up how human-on-human violence far outnumbered monster-on-human violence. And there are monsters that are bad, for sure. They are only here to kill, and demons only come from Hell to bring back souls. That’s always been pretty black and white.” I twist my engagement ring around my finger as I talk. “It took me a while to see that the real monsters aren’t creatures. The real monsters are systems.”
“Like the one that killed your family.”
Shaking my head, I look away. Xavier has been trying to get me to talk about it all day, and I’ve evaded the conversation each time. I don’t think I’m getting out of it now. Deep down, I know repressing this forever is going to come back and bite me in the ass, but I also don’t see the point of making myself think about it.
My parents are dead.
The Order killed them.
I was kidnapped so the Order could try and make super soldiers they could control.
It didn’t work.
The end.
But it’s not the end, and I can’t quiet the little voice in the back of my mind that’s saying, “it didn’t work with me, but there’s nothing stopping them from trying with another kid”. What would I even do to stop this? There’s no way I can take down the entire Order.
“It really sucks what happened,” I make myself say. My tone is flat and I don’t sound convincing at all.