“They said it’ll be about an hour’s drive. Do you feel like they’re taking us off to murder us?” Claude asks.
“Maybe. Sounds fun.”
Claude snickers. “Of course you think it does.” He’s quiet for a moment as he stares at me.
“What?”
“So… did you find someone then to spend time with after everything that happened? You know… with the hunter stuff.”
“My horse.”
“Your horse?”
“Yes, she was the only one that’d been there for me through it all. My father bred and raised horses. He had this bloodline that he called the Belikov bloodline, but basically it was his own specific breeding. He said his family dedicated their lives to making a horse with a sound mind, swift legs, and body sturdy enough to carry them into war. People used to come from all around to buy the horses. I fell in love with a filly he had. She was stubborn and he said that she was too smart for her own good and had decided to sell her. But I got my way and my father let me keep her and train her. She was a horse that needed to love and connect to you before she’d do anything for you. And once she did, she would literally do anything for you. When my father went to fight, he used her some, which devastated me, but I knew I couldn’t be selfish when she was the best choice.
“Then after I lost my family, I sold everything besides her and joined the hunters. There, she took me through so many fights, but she was so goddamn steady. She never flinched or shied or bolted. She was all brain, that horse. And then even after I turned into a vampire, I attacked her and still she forgave me unlike everyone else in my life who left me. So, for many years it was just her and me and that’s all I needed. She was the only thing that stayed beside me for her entire life. I owe that horse so much after all I put her through.”
Claude smiles at me. “She sounds like quite the horse.”
“She was. Her foals were just as smart as her… god, I miss that horse. Too bad we can’t have vampire horses.”
Claude snorts. “Can you imagine? Horses just running around suckling on the blood of others. My brother bought me a horse when we were younger, and that thing was mean. He got two horses, one for him that was beautiful and grand, and he got me this evil little thing. That monster would bite me every chance he’d get and Marcus would just laugh and laugh.”
I don’t know why that makes me grin. “When you talk about your brother it never matches with the opinion I used to have of him. In my eyes, he was stoic and a dick but not pure evil.”
“In real life, he’s just evil and a dick,” Claude says. “But I still love him. And I think he loves me. Sometimes…”
I smile because I think he does in some weird and strange way.
When the car in front of us pulls over and I park behind it, Claude looks over at me.
“I just want to tell you that if they’ve led us out to this desolate area to murder us, I really do like you,” Claude says.
I stare at him while questioning 1) why he likes me and 2) why I kind of like him back. “Don’t say shit like that.”
“Which part?”
“I know how to fight just fine. I will murder them first,” I assure him.
“How romantic,” he says with a smile as he gets out of the car to meet with the others. I follow after them to where Adrik is waiting with a woman. We’d briefly seen her through the car window, but not enough to actually greet her.
She smiles at us. “Hi, there, I’m Imani,” she says as she holds out a hand for us to shake.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Claude,” he purrs which makes her snicker. Whether it’s because she thinks he’s hot or ridiculous, I can’t tell.
“Karsyn,” I say shortly, prepared to continue this business exchange and move on. We’re on the edge of the woods she claims they’re hiding out in, but it makes my nose wrinkle because the weeds growing along the road are quite fragrant.
“So, after the hunters killed my maker, I pinpointed their location, but I’m far too ill-equipped to take them down. My specialties don’t revolve around