The Abandoned Vampire Bride Walked Away novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Ten Minutes

Darian Verrin's helicopter lifts Rosalind out of her parents' rose bed, and he names his price: one dance and one favor. It lands on the Crowhurst terrace in front of her whole party.

The helicopter set down on my mother's rose bed and flattened every bush she owned.

My mother screamed from the porch and then ran out into the downdraft with her apron over her head.

"Rosalind! Whose is that? Get out of the flowerbed!"

The side door slid open from inside.

The cabin was dark, with black glass on every window and black leather on every seat.

A man sat in the shadow of it with one long leg crossed over the other.

He did not step into the sun.

"Miss Merrow," Darian Verrin said, and held out one gloved hand.

I picked up my bag and walked across my mother's ruined roses.

"Rosalind, you stop right there," my father shouted from the porch step. "Alaric will hear about this!"

"Good," I said. "Tell him."

I took the gloved hand and climbed in.

The door shut and the noise of the rotors dropped to a thick hum.

Through the glass I watched my parents standing in the wreck of the garden with their mouths open.

My mother picked up a broken rose and held it against her chest.

Neither of them looked worried about me.

They looked worried about what the Crowhurst family would say.

"Sit," Darian said. "Straps first."

He leaned across me and pulled the harness over my shoulders himself.

His fingers were cool through the glove, and they stopped for a moment on my collarbone while he settled the buckle.

My breath caught, and I hoped he didn't hear it.

He clicked it shut and sat back.

His eyes were so dark I couldn't tell where the pupils ended.

Up close he looked about thirty-eight, with black hair combed straight back, and a face that gave away nothing.

"You called," he said.

"You gave me your card."

"A month ago. You said you weren't the type."

"I wasn't."

The helicopter lifted.

My parents' house shrank into a gray square, and then the whole of Port Harrow opened underneath us, harbor and boatyard and the white spires of the Crowhurst chapel.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Where were you going when you were told to wait?"

"The Crowhurst manor. My birthday party is there." My voice caught on the word *birthday*, and I hated it.

Darian didn't comment on that.

He took a small black case out of his coat and opened it on his knee.

Inside was a pair of black leather gloves, my size.

I looked at them, and then at him.

"The air is cold up here, and you left your coat on a porch," he said. "Wear them."

They fit.

I put them on and noticed that my left glove sat tight over the silver band on my ring finger.

Darian noticed too.

"That ring has been on you for three years," he said. "Why?"

"Because he asked me to wait for him," I said. "Every year, for something. His family needed him to stay with the House first. Then his father was ill. Then Genevieve's husband died, and he had to help her."

"And you said yes."

"I always said yes."

He nodded slowly, and he did not look surprised.

"Then I have a price," he said.

I had been expecting one.

"One dance," Darian said. "At the party, in front of every guest. And one favor, which I will name when I need it."

"What kind of favor?"

"Not one you will mind."

"That isn't an answer."

"It is the only one I have."

I thought about my brothers' faces in the rear window.

I thought about a fork lifted to a little girl's mouth, loaded with my cake.

"Done," I said.

Darian looked at me for a long moment.

"One more thing, Miss Merrow."

"Rosalind."

"One more thing, Rosalind." He said my name carefully. "When you give back that ring, give it back where everyone can see."

"Why does it matter how?"

"A ring returned quietly is returned quietly. A ring returned in public cannot be taken back by a smile and a present."

He seemed to know exactly how Alaric apologized.

Maybe everyone did, and my face went hot.

"Public," I said. "I can do public."

The sea slid by under us, gray with white lines on it.

After a while, a long cliff came into view with a white house standing on top of it, and a green lawn running down toward the water.

White tents stood on the grass.

Guests in pale clothes carried glasses between them.

Servants in black were setting out a long table, and I could see the banner from the video, bright gold, flapping across the sunroom windows.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROSALIND.

Darian turned his face from the glass.

"I cannot go out in this light," he said. "You will walk down the lawn alone."

"I know how to walk."

"I know you do." He nodded to the pilot. "Put her down on the terrace."

We came down fast, with the rotors scattering napkins and flower petals across the grass.

People ran for cover, and hats flew off, and a tray of glasses crashed on the flagstones.

Through the window I saw the terrace, and Alaric standing at the rail in his dark glasses with a fork still in his hand.

Beside him stood Genevieve, holding her daughter's hand, her mouth open in a perfect circle.

The skids touched stone.

Darian reached across me once more and unlatched the harness.

"Go on," he said. "Show them what the girl who always waits looks like when she stops."

I pushed open the door and stepped out into the light.

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