He forked the first lot into his mouth, and with a sigh I stabbed a piece of meat and lifted it. As my lips closed around the fork I sighed again. The flavors burst across my tongue, and for a moment I might have died and gone to heaven.
“This is amazing, Louis. I’m impressed that you took the time to cook for me,” I said around bites. It was taking all of my coordination to stuff my face, breathe and talk. But I nailed it.
“You’re welcome. It has been fun.”
I could see he didn’t have a lot of that in his life.
“Aren’t you lonely out here, isolated all the time? Why don’t you move into town?” More tactless questions.
He examined his plate for a few moments and I wondered if he was going to ignore my questions, but he didn’t.
“When you live for a long time … well, there’s plenty of tragedy to live through. I made a decision many years ago that I was done with the constant pain, and to prevent any more heartache I removed myself from the world, stopped caring so much.” His voice lowered. “Problem being that to have no love in my world only demonstrated to me how little I was actually living. The pain was gone, but so were the joys.”
I swallowed. “Sort of like without the lows you can’t appreciate the highs.” I had so much happiness and love in my life, and in part it was thanks to Louis. If he hadn’t spelled my marks…
I locked my eyes on his face. There was something that had to be said. “I need to thank you. I’ve had a wonderful life and I might have been stuck in the prison if my marks had been discovered as a baby.” I was pretty impressed with my ability to multitask. I got to express my gratitude and at the same time lay the groundwork to investigate his possible involvement in the Compass’ imprisonment.
He blinked at me a few times. “What makes you think the dragon marked are in the supernatural prison system? Jonathon was sure that you both would be killed.”
I shrugged. “The Compasses said that the prisoners are rife with rumors of breakouts of dragon marked, and that there are some in Vanguard. Brax even met a little boy in there named Nash. He’s trying to find the prison again to free him.”
My words were kind of muddled and slurring. The wine was going straight to my head, and the food was not helping with the sobering.
“Did you know there were marked in Vanguard?” Eh, crap, did I just say that out loud?
“I should stop drinking,” I muttered as I stared at my empty glass. Empty again? “Hey, who drank my drink?” I was sure I’d had a quarter left.
Louis reached across the table and captured my hands in his.
“Calm down, no one drank your drink. Well, actually, you drank it all not one minute ago.” His even voice did help my frazzled nerves, and drunk ass. “I had no idea about the marked. I believed, as do most of Stratford, that the marked are killed.” He freed his right hand and pushed back blond hair that had fallen across his forehead. “I don’t understand how this has been kept a secret.”
I didn’t understand either. Clearly council members were not aware. Dad would definitely have told me. Was it just up to the hunters if they killed or captured? Was there another secret council that was higher ranked to make these decisions? I just had so many questions. But for right now there was a more pressing issue. I needed to use the restroom. I pushed back my chair and stood. The room spun and I reached out and gripped the side of the table.
“Are you okay?” Louis was around my side in seconds, his arms lifting under me and helping me stand.
“Yeah, just drunk,” I said. The room was still spinning and I needed air and to go home before I made a fool of myself. “I need Braxton. Can you get him to carry me home?”
Louis face hardened then. His purple eyes turned stormy and gray. “I can take you.”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t want you to see me like this. You were so nice making me dinner and … I might spew on your shoes.”
He rubbed his eyes, and was definitely hiding a grin. “I don’t like that you’re running straight to the Compasses, but I get it. You don’t do intense, and frankly, I’m not ready for that either.” He whipped out his phone and hit a few buttons. Wow, all-powerful sorcerer knew how to text. “This was a nice start,” I heard him murmur.
“Do you want my number?” I asked. “You can text me whenever you’re lonely. I, like, never have my phone, but I’ll check it once a day and reply.”
I didn’t want him to feel alone anymore.
He kissed my cheek. “I already have your number, and when you get home, mine will be in your contacts.”