How to Kiss a Vampire novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Kitchen Floor

I came back to the iron bed with a gasp.

Torsten was off me in half a second.

He was kneeling on the mattress with his hands out, afraid to touch me, and his eyes were wet.

"What did you see?"

"My kitchen floor."

"Hanne."

"There was snow on the window." My voice shook. "I was on my knees on the tile. You were holding my face."

He didn't say anything.

He knelt there with his big shoulders bowed, and he took it.

"It's true," I said.

"Yes."

"Say it. Say it in order, the way you'd put a clock back together."

He sat back on his heels.

"October thirtieth," he said. "Four years ago. It snowed early that year."

"I remember."

"Ragnar's people had seen you at my door with the baby. They had known for weeks that you knew what I was."

"Because you told me."

"Because I told you. In May."

His jaw worked.

"I trusted you more than anyone in a hundred years. I told you in the shop with the sunrise coming."

"And you just said, 'Okay, then be careful with the sun.'"

I laughed, and it broke in my chest.

"I'd say that."

"You did."

"Go on."

"Ragnar came to the shop at ten that night with four of his people."

"He told us the law. He said you could die, or you could forget."

"And I chose."

"No," he said sharply. "You did not choose between those. He gave you a third thing."

"What was the third thing?"

Torsten looked at his own scarred hand.

"He said the House had the right to take a child born to a human who knew."

"That the boy would be raised in the House, where he could be watched."

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