She nodded, wrapping my robe around her more tightly.
“I’ll light another fire.” She was starting to shiver. Without the bird for warmth, I didn’t know what else I could do to keep the ice flames at bay.
Once I’d lit a fire, smaller than the last as we’d used up most of the dry branches already, I came and sat down next to her.
“How are you feeling?” I asked, studying her body to see if it was still shaking.
“Better.” She smiled back at me through chattering teeth.
Putting my arms around her waist, I dragged her over to sit in front of me. It was far more intimate than I could bear, but the best way to share whatever meager body heat I had with her. She leant her head back against my chest, so small that I could basically envelop her entirely in my limbs.
“That’s better.” She sighed contentedly. “You’re warmer than a vampire.”
“Thanks.”
She laughed at that, and I smiled involuntarily at the sound of it echoing across the forest.
“Will you eventually…become one?” I asked, trying to sound offhand.
“A vampire?”
“Yes, a vampire.”
“I suppose so. When the time’s right, I guess. I want to be able to join GASP when I’m ready, and to do that I’d need to become a supernatural. Plus, there are some seriously badass vamp qualities that I’d like to inherit.”
“Like?” I prompted, assuming by her tone that ‘badass’ was a good thing.
“Amazing vision. Strength. Speed. Immortality…”
“You wish to live forever?” I asked quietly.
She shrugged.
“As long as everyone I love does, then it won’t ever get lonely.”
“That’s quite a condition.”
I didn’t understand the desire for immortality. I had hardly hit the halfway mark of this existence, and already it wore me down. Why would anyone want to continue their lifetime past its expected term?
“Well, my parents are already vampires,” she replied, “as are my grandparents and a lot of my other friends and family. I love my life in The Shade—it’s so beautiful there, and we all live together, a tight-knit community…it’s something I don’t ever want to lose.”
I gritted my teeth. Her honest answer, a careless truth to her, brought me physical pain. Clearly she desired for nothing more than the life she had been promised. Had there even been a slight hesitation, an inkling of her wanting more than what she already had, I would have taken it—clung onto it like a lifeline.
A silence stretched out between us. It grew uncomfortable, and I felt Hazel tense beneath me, as if she wanted to say something, but didn’t know how to get the words out. Eventually the quiet broke her, and she spoke.
“Tejus, you said before that I should stay away from you—that nothing would ever happen between us. Are you ever going to tell me why?”
I laughed softly, impressed with her candor, but knowing that now more than ever I didn’t want to give her the choice of staying here. Hazel imagined that she loved me. It wasn’t enough—not when the time came for her to choose between her home and a place she despised, and the possibility that she would have to become a sentry in order to be with me if my enquiries into how I might manipulate the marriage ceremony led nowhere.
“No, I will not,” I replied, as gently as I could.
“No?”
“You should really just take my word for it.”
She looked up at me, smiling.
“You don’t know me very well,” she replied. “I’m not going to take your vague answers seriously—you know how I feel about you. I’m embarrassed about it, but there’s obviously no point in hiding it. And I know you feel things for me too…so I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
“So you’re not going to trust me?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Even if I tell you that sometimes, love just isn’t enough?”
Her expression changed from one of light-hearted teasing to solemnity.
“No, Tejus. I don’t believe that for a second.”
All of a sudden, I was unaccountably angry with her. How was I supposed to keep my honor, to do the right thing, when she was being so open with her feelings? Didn’t she understand that this was pure torture for me? Knowing that I could return her sentiments, happily, but if I did so I would be condemning her to a life that she didn’t want.
Of course she didn’t understand.
How could she? If I wanted to protect Hazel, then I was the one who would have to shoulder this alone—to prevent her from having to make a choice that she would find impossible.