Page 87 of Fall into Place

Tess looked down at him, scanning his face as if to discern whether he was lying. She pushed out of the chair and stood up—he did the same.

“And you didn’t want…” She spoke quietly and clasped her hands together, her knuckles were white. “I mean, if I drank your blood. It wasn’t to—to make me do things?”

“What?!” He felt a physical pain in his chest as realization thundered down on him. Her obvious terror when he tried to carry her into the forest, her fear of sharing a bed, the way she bolted tonight—all of it suddenly made the most horrible sense. It wasn’t only about whether she was afraid of him. It was about something that had happened to her.

“Tess, I’ve never done that. I would never do that,” he promised. “How could I do something like that to someone I care about?”

“I don’t know.” Tess was crying in earnest now. She felt the fog of her panic dissipating, the anxiety attack sparked by Nantale’s suggestion that Tess drink Callum’s blood was finally ending. Tess felt completely exhausted—not just from the last twenty minutes but the last three years of constantly being on guard, forever trying to discern whether any man she met might secretly be a monster. She looked at Callum—he looked so upset, so absolutely bereft by her obvious pain. He wasn’t Rick. His blood wasn’t that fucking whiskey laced with god knows what. She had a sudden urge to let Callum hold her, to cry in his arms, to finally feel, after all this time, like she didn’t have to carry this horrible burden alone.

She thought back to sitting across from Flora at Bar Between, the witch putting her hands over Tess’s. Don’t be ashamed to ask for what you need.

Callum stepped toward her—tentatively, not too fast, like she was a creature he didn’t want to spook. But she was done with questions—done running, done overthinking, done stopping herself from having a single thing she wanted because every last one caused too much pain.

“Callum,” she croaked, her voice hoarse from crying. She hurtled toward him and threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in his chest as he pulled her close. He was so strong, and it was such a fucking relief just to be in his arms, just to let herself believe that he might not wish her harm.

“You have to know I’ll always protect you,” he whispered into her hair. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Something did,” she said, her voice breaking.

He pulled back far enough so he could look at her, his face lined with concern. “At Columbia?”

She nodded, the tears coming back again. She leaned into him, and he held her softly. He moved his hands gently across her back, and she let the slow rhythm of his movements and his heartbeat lull her into something like calm.

She’d never told anyone about Rick—not Joni, not anyone at school, not her new friends at the hotel. After all the years of Rick infesting her brain, not talking about him felt like some kind of victory. Like she could make him go away by pretending he didn’t exist, by never telling anyone her secret.

No. Not her secret. His.

“I want to tell you,” she said, the need suddenly desperate.

“I want to hear anything you want to say,” he said softly. “Should we sit down?”

She nodded, and he led her to a comfortable brown leather chesterfield situated opposite a small fire burning in a stone hearth, which lit the room with an amber glow. Tess kicked off her boots and curled her legs beneath her, leaning against Callum. He rubbed her shoulder reassuringly.

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “It, um…It happened on Valentine’s Day, three years ago.”

“Stupid holiday, making people buy chocolate to honor some murdered priest,” Callum muttered, and Tess smiled through her nerves. “Go on.”

“I was in our department’s lounge with Joni—she was my best friend. And actually, we had just taken a quiz about Blood Feud.”

“Like trivia?”

“No.” Tess smiled. “A personality quiz. About which vampire would be your perfect valentine.”

“Really?” Callum looked at Tess with interest. “At least tell me you got me.”

Tess got exactly who she knew she would get, the same character she always got after taking dozens of variations of this exact quiz.

“Felix.” Tess breathed out the name with a little sigh.

“Ugh, of course you did.” Joni rolled her eyes. “Do you ever get bored of being a straight-girl-romance cliché?”

Tess hit Joni with one of the CompLit lounge couch’s microsuede pillows. “I want a man to touch my hair gently and read me a fucking sonnet, asshole.”

It was a long-standing joke that Tess was basic for having a literary crush on the romantic hero of the Blood Feud books when there were so many morally complex side characters, but she couldn’t help herself. Felix Hawthorn was gallant and brave, the polar opposite of every self-obsessed New York guy Tess had gone out with whose boundless interest in his own opinions made it impossible to sit through dinner, let alone form a lasting relationship. Of course Tess loved Felix. Who wouldn’t?

“Who’d you get?” Tess asked.

“Octavia!” Joni proclaimed in a loud singsong voice, like she was a horn at a medieval court.