As I rolled it back and forth in my palm, my mind wandered back to Gabriel, and how he had considered it while I recovered after I had been shot. When he kissed me and held me in the cottage, this very ring had caused him to seize up.
What did this ring actually represent?
As I pondered that, I slid my hand under my T-shirt and touched my navel, now unmarked. When Gabriel had filled me with light it had healed, not leaving even the faintest of reminders that anything had ever perforated my skin. I could almost hear the faint sound of his breath blowing gently, skimming my midriff as he stitched me up—quite a contrast to the noise that had filled the room when I had been shot. Why hadn’t he just breathed this magical light of his across my shoulder that night?
I needed answers and so I decided to leave my lonesome fortress and text him. Okay, it was a cop-out, I should call, but leaving your fortress and jumping off the top of the castle were two entirely different things.
YOU HEALED ME WITH YOUR LIGHT WHEN YOU FOUND ME IN THE COTTAGE, WHY DIDN’T YOU DO THAT WHEN I WAS SHOT? WHY DID YOU STITCH ME UP INSTEAD? DO YOU KNOW WHERE MY RING CAME FROM? DID YOU GIVE IT TO ME?
I hit send before I had a chance to change my mind. I stayed nervously on the floor, waiting for his reply. A few minutes later my phone started to ring. I hadn’t considered that he might call. I nearly let the voice mail pick it up, but I answered at the last second.
“Delete that message from your phone.” Gabriel’s words were hurried.
“What? Why?”
“Because it’s dangerous.”
“What do you mean? Why is it dangerous?”
He paused and I heard him breathing heavily down the line, which was crackling.
I shifted the phone away from my ear, long enough to realize that my reception wasn’t very good in the basement.
“The light, the energy I released, doesn’t heal humans or anything of this world. If one of the others reads your messages, they will know you are not what I have said you are.”
“I don’t get it, who does it heal?”
I was quick; his reply was not. Finally it came. “Angels.”
Now it was my turn to be quiet.
“This isn’t a conversation I want to have with you over the phone, it’s not safe. When I find Malachi he may know.”
“When did you start to think I was…?” I stuttered.
He paused. “The day we left Creigiau. I don’t understand how that could be, but I will find out. Please delete that message.”
I gulped, hard. “And what about my ring? Did you give it to me?”
The line crackled, but his answer came through. “I didn’t give it to you, Lai, your fiancé did.”
Then the line went dead.
My initial shock was followed by a wave of embarrassment that made me cringe. Stupid, stupid girl! Why would you ask that? Why in the world would Gabriel propose marriage? But if it wasn’t him who had been my fiancé, then who was it, and what had happened to him?
Picking myself up off the cold floor, I began circling the room, my mind revving like a car with a fresh tank of gas.
Gabriel thinks I am an … Angel. He healed me with his light, a light which I know can end Second Generation Vampires because they are created from darkness. But Eligio tried to take me through a rift into the third dimension. There would be no point if my soul was light, I would simply disappear.
Jonah said my blood was different and it made him impossibly strong. He suspects I’m not human. But Vampires feed off dark souls, not light ones. I weighed these facts, but nothing made sense. And then to add even more confusion, that girl—my protector—shrouded in shadow. Ruadhan had seen her with his own eyes, and said she was a Pureblood Vampire. But then why would she be following me? Why would she destroy Second Generation Vampires to keep me alive? How was it that I could never recall what it was she did? I remembered her arrival, but then everything else that followed turned into a black spot. Did she wipe my memory somehow? But why would she bother?
Then there was Gabriel. He found me in my first life, when I was some form of human. I died and he left, but where did he go? How had I met my end and then been resurrected into whatever I was now?
No closer to working anything out, I decided to venture up the staircase and find the others. The gaps between the boards were far apart so I used the rickety banister to help me up.
I found myself on the ground level of the property; an open-plan-lounge-cum-kitchen/dining room presented itself to me, with a glass panel that ran the length of the far wall, overlooking a garden. The design was a strange mixture of a hundred-year-old barn converted and mixed together with contemporary fixtures and fittings. I rather enjoyed walking over the uneven, sloping wooden floorboards that ran throughout the property.
The exposed beams above, and half-plastered, half-brick walls took me back to a simpler time. A retiring sun was setting on the horizon; only the brightness of the solar lights outside and the lit lamps in the house gave me the opportunity to appreciate my surroundings.
Past the kitchen lay four bedrooms, a family bathroom that was void of any windows, and a study that was crammed to the ceiling with books. I slowly made my way up another staircase, which lacked any form of railing. This gave me access to an attic room that was short on head height, but had two laptops set up, with desks and a craft table. Three large loft windows slanted downward and as I peered up at the graying sky, safe behind the glass seal, I marveled at the clarity of the night’s backdrop. The twinkle of a thousand stars waking up and coming into focus against the dark navy was beautiful. I half wished I were up there with them.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,” I whispered, unmoving, keeping my eyes locked on the stars.
The faintest creak of a floorboard had given him away. Jonah placed his hands on my shoulders and squeezed them. “Sleeping Beauty finally wakes.”
“How long have I been out for?”
“Oh, just a couple of days.”
“My phone woke me up.” I shrugged.
“Gabriel?” he inquired, but he already knew the answer to that.
I twisted around to address him properly, though no amount of familiarity ever seemed to stop the surprise on my face as he stood out against the blackness. He was magnificent. “Hmm, yeah. Listen, I can’t thank you enough for your help. Well, for coming to my rescue.” I shifted my weight a little awkwardly. “But I have a lot of, well, issues I need to work through. I need a friend right now, more than I need anything else. Think you can help me out with that?”