A Shade of Vampire 80 A Veil of Dark - Bella Forrest Page 0,4

incident persisted, though. There were things I couldn’t remember, things I felt were important, perhaps even crucial to the bigger picture of that night.

“What happened after you came in? You know, after Zoltan cut me.”

He frowned. “You still don’t remember,” he said, and I shook my head. For a moment, I could swear relief had just loosened his broad but stiff frame. Kalon cleared his throat and brushed his fingers up my forearm. “You were pale… paler than your usual self. I thought I might lose you, and I was already hyped up.”

My skin tingled, his touch leaving fiery traces all over.

“You fought Zoltan, didn’t you?” I asked, my throat dry.

“I tried. But he was no match for me, and he knew it.”

“Especially in your weird Aeternae beast-mode, right?” I giggled, looking for some humor to take the edge off each of the sensations that his mere touch inflicted on my being.

“When I heard you cry out, even before I reached that room… I don’t know, Esme. I lost it. The thought of you hurt or worse… it brought out the most dangerous part of me,” he said. “I was ready to tear Zoltan’s head off, right then and there, but he was quick to get away. By the time he was gone, I realized that getting you to safety was more important than anything else.”

Taking deep breaths, I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to go through the fuzziness surrounding those last minutes before the blackout. I’d done this before, but with no result. Maybe Kalon’s presence might trigger something—or at least I hoped it would.

“You tore into them, didn’t you?” I asked.

“The Darklings? Yes.” His voice echoed through, as I distanced myself from reality and treaded deeper into my memories of that night.

“And Trev… He left, right?”

“Yes. It’s why I’m—”

“There was a Darkling. A ginger-haired girl,” I said, gripping that one loose thread I had yet to tie into my account of those events. “Was she alive when you found us?”

Opening my eyes, I found Kalon looking away, his gaze fixed on a nearby wall. “No. You must’ve torn her heart out.”

Chills ran through me. I didn’t remember that. I remembered the frenzy, my struggle to survive. I remembered Trev and me, fighting tooth and nail, tearing and slashing and kicking and punching… but I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember that particular moment, and it wasn’t in my nature to forget such things. Killing someone was always a big deal for me, personally. I carried all the people I’d killed with me, forever, and the ginger felt… wrong.

“I don’t think so,” I mumbled. “I would’ve remembered it.”

“Esme, you were hurt. Badly. You couldn’t even stand anymore when I got to you. The adrenaline must’ve kept you going for so long that by the time I reached you… I don’t know, it must’ve fizzled out.”

I searched his face, looking for some sign of deception, but there was nothing. His heartbeat was steady. He sat up straight, almost defiantly, and not at all as though he was holding something back. I simply had no reason to distrust Kalon at this stage in our relationship. He’d saved me.

“She would’ve been useful, I think,” I said after a while.

“Who?”

“The ginger Aeternae. She would’ve been useful.”

Kalon sighed. “Esme, the memory is a fickle thing. What happened to you that night was obviously extremely intense. Downright traumatic, even. I doubt you have any control over what you can remember and what you cannot,” he said. “Perhaps we should help you focus on something else, to give your mind some time to recover.”

“What the heck am I going to focus on? I’m in bed all day.”

A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Are you really going to stay in bed another day? Frankly, I could use your help in tracking Trev down.”

“Trev? I thought you’d be waiting for him to reach out to you first.”

“I wanted to, until I remembered that the Darklings have been one step ahead of us this whole time,” Kalon replied. “I worry Trev is in grave danger, no matter where he goes. The Darklings knew he was infiltrating them, so the odds are that they know more about him than he thinks.”

“Including where he might be hiding, right?”

He nodded again. “I need to make sure he’s okay. My family has a few remote properties across the continent, most of them unknown or inaccessible to the common people. I can give him the keys to one