Page 42 of Roses & Ruin

A heavy clatter of brass has me facing the front of the church, where Hayden is lighting the large white candles atop the altar. His hand twitches, and the burgundy altar cloth is swept cleanly from beneath the weighty brass candle holders and solid gold cross.

“I couldn’t find any robes or blankets,” he says. Hayden’s suddenly kneeling in front of me, as if by magic, wrapping the thin linen around my shoulders. “If you’re still cold, I can think of something else.” I gaze into his deep violet eyes, blinking in soft awe.

“You thirsty? You need some water?” he says quietly.

“I need answers,” I plead. “You’ve saved me three times now.”

Hayden looks up at me. A crack splinters in his mask, and I catch a peek at a pain and grief so vast, I flinch. He gets up and turns his back to me.

“If only it were enough.”

It’s so low, there’s no question he’s talking to himself. But I need him to talk to me. I stand up, pad across the stone floor in my bare feet. I reach up, touch his cheek. He closes his eyes.

“So, you’re a vampire,” I say.

He blinks, gazes down at me. But there’s something in the way Hayden is looking at me now—careful, searching, almost wary—that makes my stomach twist. I have the sudden sense that there’s more he’s not telling me. There’s another layer beyond this one, something heavier he’s bracing himself to drop.

“Do you feel better, by the way? Now that we’re in here?” Hayden asks. He sounds odd. Almost dreamy. “You used to like thunderstorms. Said it felt like the earth giving you permission to be yourself.”

I frown, feeling a little dizzy. That’s exactly how I feel. But…

“I’ve never said that to you.”

Hayden steps out of my reach, pinning me with grave, dark eyes.

“No,” he says. “Not in this life.”

“What?” I breathe. “What does that mean?”

Hayden is quiet for a long beat. Thunder rolls, low and distant around us. When he finally speaks, his voice is stripped bare.

“This isn’t the first life I’ve known you in, Rose.”

The words land wrong, tilt the world on its axis.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“You come back,” he continues softly. “Again and again. You live, you grow, you love. Then you die. And eventually, you return, and I find you again.”

The world tilts a little, my vision going hazy. I shake my head.

“Breathe, Rose,” Hayden says. My knees are aching on the cold ground. I don’t remember falling. Hayden’s kneeling in front of me. I grab his arm, sucking in a harsh breath.

“When did we meet?” I gasp. “The first time, when did we meet?”

Hayden swallows hard, his eyes boring into mine.

“Two hundred—” he says in a slow rasp.

“Two hundred?” I cry out, and Hayden cuts me off.

“I wasn’t finished. Two hundred and six years, twenty-nine days, eight hours, and three minutes ago.”

“That’s the moment you first saw me?” I ask, blinking very hard. I feel like I’m fighting not to faint.

“No,” Hayden says, soft as I’ve ever heard him. “No, that’s when you first told me your name.”

Something goes quiet inside me. I lift my eyes to him.