Page 117 of Eternal Devotion

“If you say so.”

“Can I ask you something?”

Wariness surfaced, but he nodded.

“You said your uncle showed up at your house one day. He was already changed, but this was years before you joined a campaign and fought beside him, right?”

“Yes.”

“You said your family never suspected.”

“No. He was clever.”

“So, in essence, he merged with humans and lived a humanesque life despite his affliction.”

“With caveats. He rarely came around while the sun was at its apex. Early evenings on occasion. The hours before sunset are when he taught me to shoot. When he cultivated a relationship with me under false pretenses. Otherwise, he arrived after dinner and stayed long into the night, talking with Father.”

I took that in and considered what it meant.

“Is it possible, if your family had still been alive after your transformation, that you could have returned home and lived a relatively normal life without them knowing differently?”

“No.”

“Why not? Didn’t Iulian prove it was possible?”

“My family would have wondered why I didn’t eat. They would have questioned my pallor and summoned a physician. From there, it would only have been a matter of time before someone discovered my heart didn’t beat. In my time, it was widely believed that illness was a result of an imbalance in the four humors. Do you know what they prescribed as a cure?”

“Bleeding.”

“Yes, and you saw the substance that I excrete. It would have raised the alarm.”

“You still could have visited. Told them you lived elsewhere. Stuck to a schedule like your uncle did.”

“It would not have been feasible, Ensley. Besides, why are you asking this? It was never an option. My family was gone by the time I returned. Grampy, Nan, Mother, and Father.”

“But you returned.”

“Years later. To see them, not interact with them. I was lonely and angry and scared. Do you know what I found? Gravestones. A long line of gravestones. More than when I left. I don’t know who placed them. The plague ripped through the countryside. I assume the neighbor. Mother and Father knew them well.

“It was a shock, but more so was seeing my name carved into the one beside Abeta. Word traveled that I didn’t survive the battle in France, and my parents placed a stone in my honor. Had they lived. Had the plague not come and taken all I had left, I still could never have returned. I was already written out of history, don’t you see? Dead so far as anyone understood.”

“Okay, but if circumstances were different—”

“They weren’t, Ensley. Stop. Where is this coming from? Why are you suddenly—” His eyes widened, and he pushed himself to an elbow. “No! You eject that thought from your mind right now. What did I tell you?”

“I just don’t see how it’s as bad as you say. I get it. You weren’t given a choice, but—”

“This conversation is over.”

Mordecai rolled out of bed and was down the ladder before I could find the words to stop him. In seconds, I heard the door close and knew he was gone. No matter how fast I moved, I would never be able to chase him down.

Parlor tricks my ass.

I never should have danced around the subject. Mordecai was four hundred years smarter than me. I should have known he’d see right through my curiosity.

28

Mordecai