House of Royals(14)

“Ian will educate you as you start training,” Rath says. He snaps his fingers and attendants flood into the room to begin clearing breakfast. “But for now, we both feel it best that you stay away from the Conrath Estate until you are ready. You will be going to stay with Ian.”

My head whips to look at him, and I’m sure a sour expression dominates my face. “You’re kidding, right? We’ve already established how he tried to kill me, and you want to send me off to live with him?”

“Mr. Ward will bring you no harm,” Rath says as he stands. Ian and I do at the same time, as well. “He didn’t know the circumstances at the time, and he did what he thought best. Trust me, no one will be more skilled in keeping you safe until you are ready to make your own decisions.”

“Decisions about what?” I demand. I back toward the door. I don’t know what I’m going to do: run, hide, head back to Colorado—but I don’t like feeling like I do.

“The decision about whether you want to join the House or not,” Ian says impatiently. He walks around the table and grabs the bag from the floor. “Can you just take my promise that I won’t hurt you and get going? We really don’t have a whole lot of time. It’s already uncomfortably far into the afternoon.”

I look at the clock hanging on the far wall and realize that despite having just eaten “breakfast,” it is four in the afternoon. Rath really was going to let me sleep all day.

My eyes flick between Ian and Rath and back again.

I don’t know what to do.

I barely know these men. I don’t know whom to trust.

But there’s an echo in the back of my head saying that this is what my father would have wanted. And even though I didn’t know him at all, I feel like I would have wanted to.

“You’re not really giving me a choice, are you?” I ask, feeling the fight seep out of me.

“Not when you don’t understand the big picture yet.” Ian’s eyes are begging me to trust him. And there’s something there in the purse of his lips, in the tenseness of his shoulders, in the readiness of his stance that makes me think I can.

“Let me go get dressed,” I say resentfully.

Stranger danger is screaming at me the whole time I’m getting ready. But it’s a tiny thing pushed into the corner by an attack last night and a very big story told over breakfast. So I slide into shorts and a t-shirt, and knot my hair on top of my head. Lastly, I slide the unopened letter from my father into my back pocket.

“We should get going,” Ian says as I come down the stairs. He’s already waiting by the front door, keys in hand, my bag in the other.

I nod and turn to Rath.

“I’m putting a lot of trust in you,” I say. My eyes are begging for him to say I can stay, to take everything from the past twenty-four hours back. Somehow I feel like he should have that power. Even though that’s stupid.

“I know,” he says. And to my surprise, he wraps his arms around me in a brief hug. “This is for the best.”

When I let go of him, I don’t meet his eyes. I turn for the door, open it, and walk straight out.

Ian’s van is one of those utility kinds with no windows in the back. It’s black and covered in mud and grime. I’d wager it’s got traces of blood on it somewhere—likely some of my own.

I open the passenger door and climb in.

Ian throws my bag into the back where, only last night, I had lain bloody and muddy and climbs into the driver’s seat. Without a word, he turns around and starts down the drive.

When we pop out onto the main road, we take a left instead of a right into town. Ian slips out his phone and dials someone.

“Hey, Phil, it’s Ian,” he says as he takes a right and we’re heading south. “Yeah, I’m not feeling so hot today so I’m going to need someone to cover my shift tonight. Yeah, I know this is the second time this month, but what can I say? You get around a lot of sickness, you tend to get sick. Yeah. Gotcha. ‘K, thanks.”

He hangs up and slides the phone back into his pocket.

“You have a job outside of vampire hunting?” I ask skeptically.

“Of course I have a job,” he says, giving me an offended look. “You think it pays the bills to keep vamps off the streets of Silent Bend? I gotta’ eat, just like all the other ignorant people.”

“Sorry,” I say, holding my hands up in surrender. “It’s just…mundane, hearing that someone like you has a job. What do you do?”

“I’m an EMT,” he says as he looks out the front window. The trees get thicker and heavier around the road. I have the feeling we’re not too far from the swamps I so pleasantly got to visit last night.