Keystone (Crossbreed #1)(103)
I leaned over, my voice a loud whisper. “I’m part Mage.”
“Ah. So I can trust you partway.”
“Bingo.” My eyes hooded when the breeze skated across my skin. “Viktor didn’t leave me with a choice, but it doesn’t matter. I can deal with Christian.”
“You’ll be the first then. He keeps to himself most of the time. It hasn’t been an easy adjustment for the group, but maybe you’ll bring him out of his shell.”
“What am I, the turtle whisperer?”
Christian being the hermit of the house struck me as comical given his personality, but Vampires weren’t exactly notorious for forming close relationships with people.
“Niko, can you keep this a secret? Me coming up here, that is. It’s where I like to be alone.”
He snickered. “The roof?”
“When I was a kid, I used to climb on top of our trailer and just lie there, looking up at the stars. I still remember the sound of the train in the distance, the horn blowing in long intervals. I used to dream about running away and jumping onto one of those trains. It seems silly to think about it because they probably just went through small towns, but I craved adventure. I wanted to discover the world and be someone.”
“That is what all children dream.” He scooted his feet up, his legs bent at the knee.
I focused on a distant star and yawned. “Then we grow up and see the real world for what it is, and it’s not as magical as we first imagined. It’s dark and full of pain.”
He turned to face me. “So why do you still look up?”
Niko’s question spiked me through the heart, and I pushed myself to a sitting position.
He sat up and put his hand on my shoulder. “What did I say? Your light changed.”
After another gulp of wine, I lowered my voice, as if someone might actually hear me. “Do you think I’m evil?”
“Why would you ask me that?”
I pulled up my knees and hugged them. “All those men I’ve killed. Not as many as I first thought, now that I know how Vampires die, but still. I don’t feel any remorse for what I’ve done. They didn’t provoke the attack; I sought them out to punish them for their crimes.”
“They weren’t innocent,” he pointed out.
“No, but what makes me any different from them? I’ve been thinking a lot about it—good and evil. Is it based on our actions, reasons, or how we feel afterward? Is killing only wrong when the victim is innocent?”
The question hung in the air for what seemed like a stretch of eternity.
Niko glanced upward, the moonlight illuminating his face. “I don’t know, Raven. Maybe there is no good and evil.”
“So what makes us different?”
He gazed pensively into the darkness ahead. “We’re all sinners. Maybe what makes us different is that we’re willing to change.”
“I barely change clothes.”
“You’re here,” he said, tapping on the roof. “Same sky, different way of looking at it. Right?”
I’d felt disconnected for a long time. So much so that I didn’t even recognize my face in the mirror anymore. Keystone offered me a glimmer of hope that I might be a part of something greater, but I wondered if that was just a lie I was telling myself.
“Just be careful, Raven. This isn’t the end of your journey; it’s the beginning. You would be a fool to believe you’ve figured out your destiny. You are so young, and life will test you in more ways than you can imagine. Someday you’ll look back on this time and wonder who this person was. Just when you think you’ve figured out who you are, the fates have a way of testing you.” Niko stood up and carefully walked by me. “I’m full of spirits this evening.” He gripped the top edge of the window and turned his head. “Are you coming?”
“Nah. I think I’m going to watch the sunrise. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched one, and it looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day.”
“As you wish.”
When he stepped inside, I glimpsed a dark shadow moving swiftly over the roof to my right. I could have sworn it was Christian, but the wine was probably playing tricks on my eyes.
I leaned back and gazed up at my future.
“Starlight, star bright…”