A Spell of Time (A Shade of Vampire #10)(22)

Annora wouldn’t want to risk losing more of her vampires. If this type of ambushing was going to become a more regular occurrence, we needed The Shade’s humans more than ever.

Chapter 18: Rose

The whole island was shaken by what had almost happened to my parents. It just reinforced how dependent on Mona we were now. In the face of Annora’s cunning, it seemed that only Mona could protect us. Goosebumps ran along my skin to think what would have happened if Mona hadn’t figured it out in time.

I remembered asking Caleb what happened to vampires bound by Annora’s curse who stayed away longer than seven days. He had refused to tell me.

Caleb. The memory of him disappearing with Mona, not even looking up to say goodbye, still haunted me.

I supposed I should have been thankful to him. He’d made the break quick, clinical. I understood why he’d done it. There was no way that we could be together now.

I put thoughts of Caleb aside as I approached the foot of Zinnia and Gavin’s tree. I went up in the elevator and walked onto their balcony, knocking on the front door.

Griffin opened the door and smiled.

“Hey, Rose. How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Do you want to come in?”

“No,” I said, “I wanted to talk to you, Griff. Could we go for a walk along the beach?”

I couldn’t miss the excitement in his eyes as he grabbed a sweater from the back of the door and pulled it on.

“I’m going out,” he called into the apartment before stepping out onto the balcony with me and shutting the door. We descended in the elevator and it wasn’t until we had hit the forest floor that I felt comfortable enough to begin.

I caught Griff’s hand and squeezed it, looking up at him in the eye.

“I owe you an answer,” I said. Griff stared at me intently, barely breathing, even though I could tell he was trying to be cool. “I’m just going to be honest with you, okay?”

“I wouldn’t expect you to be anything but,” he said.

I held Griff’s hand tighter. “I love you, Griff. And I hate to say but, but there is a but. I think my love for you is strongest as my friend.”

I looked up at him. His eyes were on the forest ground. He was quite expressionless. He nodded slowly. But didn’t answer.

We walked the rest of the way in awkward silence as we reached the beach.

“Are you all right?”

This time he looked directly at me. “Of course I am,” he said, smiling. “Having you love me as a friend is enough.”

I squeezed his hand tighter. “But things won’t be awkward? Now I know what you really feel about me…”

He sighed. “I can’t pretend that I haven’t wished we had more than friendship, but things don’t have to be awkward.”

“But I feel awkward about it,” I said. In a way I wished he’d never told me.

“Well, don’t,” he said, stopping in his tracks.

We continued walking, but I wasn’t convinced.

“I guess you just have to see the situation for what it is,” Griff said, “I won’t feel awkward around you, I promise. And neither should you.”

I draped my arms over his shoulders, lifting myself up and planting a gentle kiss on his cheek. His face flushed red, almost matching his hair color.

“But if you go doing that too often, it might get awkward,” he said, grinning.

I reached for his arm again, looping mine through it, as we continued our walk along the beach.

“Okay. Thanks, Griff.”

We began chatting about other things, like Mona, Kiev and my parents almost dying. After about a mile, we caught sight of Ben and Abby walking toward us from the opposite direction.

I raised my eyebrows on seeing the two of them together. Even when Abby was round our house, she barely talked to Ben. It was a shock to see them both strolling alone together like this, Abby bunching up the hem of her dress in the waves, holding Ben’s arm.

“Hey,” I called, as we neared within ten feet of each other. “What’s up?”

“We were just taking a walk with—” Before Ben could finish his sentence, there was a heavy pounding against wet sand and Shadow came into view, hurtling toward us. He carried in his mouth a thick tree branch. He halted at the last minute and dropped the branch in front of Abby.

I leaned over and stroked Shadow’s head. Then regretted it instantly. He tried to leap up on me. He would have flattened me—albeit affectionately—had Abby not grabbed his collar and hauled him away. He continued to thrash about, straining to lavish his slimy affections on me.

“Whoa, boy,” Abby said. As a vampire, she was the only one powerful enough to control him. Shadow’s strength still scared me, even though I knew I owed my life to him for carrying my mother out of The Blood Keep.

Griff and I decided to keep walking along with Ben and Abby, who were now headed back toward the direction of the Port. As we were approaching, Abby stopped short. Shadow’s ears pricked up. They both turned their eyes toward the ocean.

“What?” Ben asked.

“Listen,” Abby said, placing a finger to her lips. “Someone is calling for help.”

We all strained our ears once more, and finally I heard it. Abby was right. Far in the distance, someone was yelling for help.