Anathema (Causal Enchantment #1)(23)

I frowned, looking at her childish face. She’s not a day over sixteen, is she?

She clapped her hands together in small, quick taps, a mischievous grin on her face. “Oh, goody! You don’t believe me! How old do you think I am?”

I blinked. “I don’t know … nineteen?”

“Nope! Guess again!” Amelie exclaimed, her face bright with amusement.

“Okay … um, twenty?”

She shook her head, giggling wildly.

This didn’t seem like much of a game. “I give up!”

“Well … I’m not exactly sure. But, if we’ve been keeping accurate track of time, I’d say I’m about 752, give or take a decade.”

I frowned, biting my lower lip. “I don’t get it.”

“We’re sorry, Evangeline. This isn’t as much fun for you as it is for Amelie,” Fiona apologized, her face softening with a sympathetic smile.

“Humans never did find this game fun,” Amelie said with a pout, her springy curls bobbing.

Humans? I stared blankly at her.

“Haven’t you figured it out yet? What we are?” she asked.

I glanced at the others’ solemn expressions. If they aren’t humans, what could they be? It hit me then. I started laughing. “Of course! You’re vampires!” Viggo’s twisted adaptation was still fresh in my mind, and now in my dreams.

“We won’t hurt you, I promise!” Amelie said earnestly, dropping to her knees in front of me to hold my hands. “We just want to be friends.” Her eyes darted to Caden, who was watching me with a concerned expression. I noticed Bishop beside him; he must have snuck back in at some point.

“Of course! You are,” I was on my feet now, replaying Viggo’s conversation, “beautiful, emotional creatures. Misunderstood.” I paced around the fire. “And you want to be friends, right? With quiet, meek Evangeline, who has no friends. People don’t even notice me. But you—” my arm swept around the circle in rare dramatic flair “—all you want to do is protect me.” I paused. “So this is how things manifest into dreams,” I mused, more to myself. The events from the day were merging with my … what? Deep inner fears of loneliness, perhaps? Forcing them to the surface in this fantasy of super–powered beings.

I stopped pacing in front of Caden. “And you.” I walked up to him. “Of course you’re in my dream. No guy has ever even so much as blinked in my direction. And here you are, so perfect, and beautiful, and sweet …” Caden’s eyes widened in surprise. “When I see you, I want to …” I didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

Luckily I didn’t have to, as Rachel suddenly appeared out of thin air to wrap possessive arms around Caden’s waist. His arm quickly found its place around her shoulder, albeit stiffly.

A vile bitterness bubbled up in me. “And of course you’re dating the gorgeous but trashy girlfriend that I could never compete with. Typical. Is this what you like?” I blurted at Caden, gesturing callously at Rachel. “She’s not a very nice person, you know.”

Bishop’s head fell back and he barked laughter.

“Clearly I’ve missed an interesting conversation,” Rachel said, smiling haughtily at me. Her voice didn’t carry the same hostility as the previous night. It was sickly sweet and therefore no more pleasant. “And I would love to hear the rest of this tirade of yours. However, we have visitors that I wasn’t able to deter. Eight of them.”

“Great! Invite them in!” I said, throwing my hands up in the air. “Another one of those monsters, maybe? Is that supposed to represent my ugly inner demon?”

Rachel turned to Caden, grimacing. “Has she lost it?”

“Let’s play it cool,” Caden suggested, ignoring both of us.

“And maybe we should get her out of here,” Fiona added, eyeing me warily.

Caden’s hand—silky smooth and on the cool side—latched onto mine, sending a frisson through my body. He tugged me after him, running toward one of the tunnels and pulling me with him into the blackness.

I ran blindly, unable to see in the darkness, until my foot snagged on something hard and I stumbled, smashing my shoulder against the wall. I yelped in pain.

“Quiet!” Caden hissed, but followed that with an apology.

“How can you see?” I grated through my teeth, rubbing at the burning pain in my shoulder.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he hoisted me up by one arm and continued running. My pain instantly vanished, as if his closeness had injected me with a shot of morphine.

Finally he stopped running and set me down gently. He shoved something soft into my hands. “Put those on,” Caden instructed in a whisper.

“Put what on?”

He mumbled something incoherent. Seconds later a flickering torch illuminated a tiny, low–ceilinged cave. “Change, please,” he whispered urgently, turning to face the exit. I could sense the apprehension in his voice. It was all too familiar from the other night.

I looked down at my hands, which held a ratty pair of pants and a shirt similar to what Amelie and Fiona wore. They’re disguising me. Okay, I’ll play along. I pulled on the pants. Unclasping my dress’s neck strap, I let the dress drop noiselessly to the ground, wishing it had allowed for a bra.