Page 111 of Eternal Craving

“You’re going to wait until I fall asleep.” Benjamin’s face contorted in fear. “Then you’re going to kill me.”

“A moment ago, I was taking you back to the count.” There would be no rest today. The last thing I needed was to fall asleep while trapped with a crazed teenager.

I retraced my steps through London, rethought my strategy for finding Jacob. With nothing to distract me, my mind raced. I liked to stay busy, the only way to keep my inner ghosts at bay. I glanced over at Benjamin. His deranged stare was all I needed to look away.

Hours passed uneventfully.

I tried to convey that I was in the cathedral to Sunaria, though she’d probably be asleep by now. My gaze wandered over to the exit.

“You can’t go out, either?” Benjamin broke the silence. “You have what we have?”

I loosened my shirt collar.

“How do I know,” he heaved the deepest sigh, “that we can trust you?”

I stared at the wall.

“Well?” he asked.

“My actions.”

Benjamin fell quiet. Rachel’s fevered dreams caused her to sob.

“How come she has red hair, and you don’t?” I studied him.

“Don’t know.”

The ceiling’s paint was peeling off. The painter had done a shoddy job trying to cover up the cracks. Probably, like me, he’d not wanted to linger here any longer than necessary.

Benjamin’s sense of melancholy reminded me of my own at his age. Occasionally, he tended to his sister, unable to bear to see her fading. He didn’t stay beside her for long. At one point, I caught him sucking on the back of his hand.

I remembered that feeling.

The drip, drip, drip that broke the silence really pissed me off. Despite my better judgment, I dozed off.

I jolted awake. Benjamin’s face loomed over me. I eased him away.

“Is it true that we can live forever?” he asked.

“The count told you that?”

“Yes.”

“So you have some idea of what happened to you, then?”

“Is it true?”

I shrugged.

He frowned. “You don’t trust me.”

“Don’t take it personally.”

“The count told me he was over six hundred years old.”

“Interesting.”

Whoever had turned Benjamin had left him for dead, though Sunaria insisted that this taught a newly turned vampire how to survive. I’d take my protégés under my wing and nurture them. The perfect patriarch honored the responsibly from their first night and stayed with them until they’d adjusted.