Page 39 of Radiant

He nodded again. “You told your dad you want to start something that is just you and me. I really didn’t mean to eavesdrop on your private conversations, Ethan.”

“I know, I know. I don’t mind. I mean, I know you have super hearing. I didn’t talk it through with you first, and it’s not great to do it now, after the fact. Are you okay with that though?”

He reached for my hand, cupping it against the mug. “That’s fine. We’ll do what you want, I told you that.” He paused. “I should’ve made more of an effort to build something that is ours.” He encompassed the café and the entire museum beyond with a gesture. “Like this. Building memories that are special and belong only to you and me. I forgot about that. Thank you for reminding me.”

I bit my lip, feeling the color rise to my cold cheeks. “Hey, this isn’t me criticizing you. I love being with you.”

His nostrils flared. “Say more things like that, and I might drop my entrancement on everyone here without meaning too.”

I huffed. “That from the vampire who once entranced an entire seaside restaurant just to impress a guy.”

He reached out and pushed a strand of my hair back behind my ear. “But it was worth it. The guy stayed for dessert. And so much more.”

“Yeah. Dessert was good, but if I remember correctly, the real dessert part happened later, in the woods. Now, send everyone home who doesn’t need to be here and let’s go on this date.”

He did. We left our jackets hanging over the massive banister of one of the big staircases that dominated the foyer. I had my camera at the ready as we set off to wander.

There was no aim to our exploration. I enjoyed the building as much as the slices of history, had fun reading the info on my phone when things really intrigued me, and of course, I had a vampire with me who tried explaining what the past had been like. Mostly, there’d been less running water and more royalty in positions of power.

“You made them dim the lights,” I said. We were walking through prehistory and new shadows.

“I did.” He looked at a trilobite. “I thought this would be romantic, but maybe not.”

I kept my camera in its bag so we could walk hand in hand along the one-time beaches of a fossilized ocean.

“I think I owe you a kiss, as payment,” I said, somewhere beyond that ocean, past glass cases and decorative ceilings, and across the red carpet on the stairs, though not too far from the mammoth. I pulled Auris toward me, wound my arms around his neck, and waited for him to close the distance.

He never did. The shift in Auris’s mood was acute, and therefore, it pulled me right out of the romantic mindset. His head jerked up, and his arms around me tightened. He walked me backward and pushed me down behind a bench between two glass cases.

I looked around. I wouldn’t stand out much here, not with the lights down, and it wasn’t lost on me that this was a hiding spot, the shadows of the large display cases making the bench vanish into the background, and me with it.

I dared no more than the smallest whisper. “Auris⁠—”

“I hear them. This will be fine. Just stay here until I come for you. I need to know you’re safe while I deal with this. Do not move.”

I nodded once, and he left me there. I’m not sure how long it took him to come back to me. I didn’t want to pull out my phone and give my hiding spot away, and I didn’t want to call out for the same reason.

Waiting was the worst. My imagination went right back to Jonathan, the vampire from the crypt. I had no doubt at all that this was more priests, that they had found us, tracked us somehow after the episode at the ossuary. After all, they’d have known someone had found them out and stolen their vampire skeleton. We’d have to check on Charlie in case they were after him too.

My mind pulled me deeper into twisted memories. A rough cross mounted in a torture chamber in the basement, a dark green toolbox sitting on a workbench, bones laid out. They’d cut off his head. Back at the church, they’d meant to do this to Auris. I almost laughed out loud. There were bones all around me—prehistoric ones, but bones were bones. What if they took Auris and I was left to search for him, only to end like Charlie, crying at the sight of a charred skull?

I spotted a moving shadow on my left, but the shadow was soundless.

“Auris!” I jumped to my feet.

“No need to worry, my sweet. Come here.”

He didn’t have to tell me. I was already throwing my arms around his neck.

“What the fuck?”

He pulled away from me, although he didn’t let me go. “That is indeed the question. Come, you will find this interesting. I certainly do.”

“Who? Who’s here? You’re okay, right?”

He brushed back a strand of my hair. “I’m fine. I’m sorry I worried you.”

I was trembling, and this time, it wasn’t from the cold. “It’s fine. As long as you’re okay, I don’t mind.”