Refuge(126)

The next time I awoke, it was morning and I was alone on the bed. I touched the spot beside me and the heat lingering there told me Nikolas had not been gone long.

“How are you feeling?”

I pushed back the quilt and found Jordan sitting by the window. My eyes felt swollen and gritty, and my voice was hoarse when I spoke. “Okay.” It was a lie, and we both knew it, but I could not put the truth into words.

“Shit, that was a terrible thing to ask. Sorry.” She came over to sit on the edge of my bed, and her tired eyes told me she hadn’t gotten much sleep either. “Nikolas had to take care of something, so I said I’d stay with you. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, I’m glad you’re here.” The last thing I wanted was to be alone.

“Good.” She fell silent for a long moment. “I’m really sorry about your uncle.”

“Thanks.” I pushed myself up to sit against the pillows. My hand rested on the quilt, and I traced the outline of a hummingbird sewn into one of the squares. My grandmother made the quilt to pass on to her children and grandchildren. Nate had never dated much or said anything about wanting children of his own, but he was still young and there’d been plenty of time for him to start a family. Now the Grey name was going to die with him. My throat tightened painfully, and I swallowed hard, fighting tears. How could there be any left to cry after last night?

“Are you hungry? I brought you some food because I figured you wouldn’t want to go down to breakfast.”

The last thing I wanted to think about was food, but I knew I had to eat. I nodded, and Jordan went to retrieve a covered tray. She laid it across my legs, and I picked up a piece of buttered toast to nibble.

“Here, this came for you.” She handed me a cream-colored envelope, and I knew immediately who had sent it. I opened it and read the short note written in Desmund’s elegant handwriting.

I am here for you. Desmund.

“It’s from Desmund Ashworth, isn’t it?” Jordan asked in a hushed tone. “I’ve heard of him – everyone has – but no one’s seen him in like a hundred years. He never comes out of his wing, and no one is stupid enough to go up there. I always heard he was insane and dangerous.”

I hated to hear her speak of Desmund that way, but I couldn’t fault her for it. Until recently, he had been exactly as she described him. But something told me he would not be going back into seclusion again.

“He was sick for a long time, but I think he’s better now.”

She helped herself to a strawberry from the fruit bowl on my tray. “You’ve been here less than a month, and yet you and he looked like old friends at dinner. How did that happen?”

There was no reason to hide my friendship with Desmund, so I told her how we met and how I began to visit him. I left out the parts about his illness and my efforts to heal him. “Everyone stayed away from him because of his reputation, only I didn’t know about it. I thought he was a rude person with a bad attitude.”

“Never a dull moment with you, is there?” she quipped. Her grin quickly faded. “I’m sorry – ”

“It’s okay, really.” My eyes traveled around the room, and I forced myself to look at the pictures of Nate. I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself and think about what he had lost. He was the victim here, not me. “Have you heard anything about . . . him?”

Jordan bit her lip like she was unsure how much to tell me. “They have him in a holding cell, and I heard Tristan spent half the night down there with him. They are pushing him hard for information about the vampire who changed him, but so far he’s not talking.”

I didn’t want to think about what methods they were using to get Nate to talk. I had to remind myself again it wasn’t really Nate in that cell, and Tristan was doing what was necessary to find the vampire who had done this.

Laying aside the tray, I pulled back the covers and got out of bed. I couldn’t stay in this room, surrounded by memories of Nate and wondering what was happening to him. I grabbed some clean clothes and went into the bathroom.

“Where are you going? Nikolas said to stay with you until he got back,” Jordan called through the bathroom door.

“I don’t think he meant for me to stay locked in my room.” I was a mess last night, so I didn’t blame Nikolas for thinking I shouldn’t be alone. But I needed to get outside, breathe fresh air, and clear my mind, or I would go mad.

Freshly showered and changed, I pulled on warm boots and a coat and headed out. “I’m going to the menagerie,” I told Jordan when she made to follow me. “Nikolas will know where to find me.”