don’t look like a bloodsucker at all.” Robin winced at her words, but I knew Liz hadn’t meant them to be mean. She just didn’t have a filter between her brain and her mouth. Liz strolled back into the closet with a swish of her hips and began searching through the racks of shoes.
“She didn’t mean it like that,” I said, searching Robin’s hurt expression. “I thought you looked more like an angel when I met you.” Her expression softened at my words.
“There are no such things as angels,” Robin replied with a smirk, the hurt look vanishing from her face.
“Maybe there is, and we just don’t know it yet.” Her face lit up with amusement like it had in the past whenever I said something completely ridiculous. “Are you packed?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Yes. We’re all ready to go.”
“Who’s we?”
“Dmitry and I.” She looked confused. “Didn’t you know he was coming?”
“No, it’s cool. I just didn’t think he’d want to, I guess.” I mean, I had killed his brother. Luka had it coming, but that didn’t change the fact that I had killed him. Plus, his parents were here. Did he really want to leave them behind?
“Why wouldn’t he want to?” Robin leaned over so she could look at my face. “Oh.” She sat back, having found everything in my expression that revealed my feelings. “He’s not mad at you.”
“He should be.” I sighed heavily, feeling the emotions tumbling into my stomach like rocks. I spied Louie across the room, playing with a hair tie he’d probably stolen from the bathroom. I snatched him up, and placed him on my lap to help keep me calm. For once, he didn’t mind being stolen away from one of his favorite toys and purred happily as I scratched his head.
“Don’t say that, Claire. We all know what really happened that night. He and I have even talked about it. He’s mad at Luka, not you. He’s mad at himself too,” she said sadly.
“Why would he be mad at himself?” I asked. Robin shook her head, wiping a tear away before standing up.
“What time do you want to go?”
“As soon as everyone is ready, I guess.” I was bummed that she had changed the subject, but it was probably for the best. Now wasn’t the time to talk about that. “I need to track down Arrick and see how long he needs to get a car ready for us.”
“Oh, he and Dmitry are doing that right now,” Robyn answered, sounding back to normal. She was really making an effort to hide her pain, I could feel it. I wanted to let her know that if she needed to vent, I was here, but if she needed to keep things bottled up, I understood that too. I was the queen of bottling things up.
“Who’s Dmitry?” Liz asked, applying lip gloss as she walked into the room. She’d done her long tresses half-up into a hair bow, and applied her usual smoky eye.
“He’s Claire’s…” Robin looked at me curiously. What exactly was Dmitry? My ex-boyfriend? We never really were official, even though he was my first official major crush. Things had ended between us as quickly as they had begun.
“He’s just a friend.” I knew Liz wouldn’t buy it, but I didn’t want to hash out the details again.
“Wait? Is he the guy you were telling me about?” My evasion had piqued her interest. “The vampire you made out with when you first moved here?”
My cheeks flashed red at her words. “It’s not like that anymore, Liz. We’re just friends now.” I didn’t know why I was so embarrassed, but talking about Dmitry like that didn’t feel right. Even recounting what had happened between us made me feel like I was cheating on Arrick.
“Is he as hot as that Arrick guy?”
“Liz!” I shouted at her, though it wasn’t in anger. More in shock. I might have been worried about the vampires taking advantage of her, but perhaps it was going to be more the other way around.
“What?” She smiled wickedly at us and began zipping up her suitcase. “Can’t a girl have a little fun?”
“Oh, I’m sure you will.” I laughed at the thought of all the trouble she’d probably get herself into in Naos. There was no shortage of attractive men there; vampire, or human.
Arrick had packed up a large suburban for our drive to Naos. We loaded up the rest of the luggage, and after introductions we were on our way.