A small crease formed between her eyes. “No, my father was a vampire.”
“I’m aware. I knew your father.”
The confusion left her face as a spark bloomed in her exquisite green eyes. “You did?”
“Yes. He was an amazing strategist.”
“I didn’t know that,” she murmured and glanced at the door again. “He didn’t talk about the war much.”
Of course, he wouldn’t talk about the war with her. He recalled Del saying she was young, but even if she was a couple of centuries old, an air of innocence surrounded her, and Del would seek to protect that.
“I spent a lot of time with him,” Cole said. “We fought together often, and I considered him a friend.”
“Were you….” She paused to swallow as tears briefly glistened in her eyes. “Were you there when he died?”
“Yes.”
Her shoulders slumped a little before they went back again and she looked to the doorway. He sensed her urge to bolt as she folded her hands before her and shifted from foot to foot, but she didn’t try to leave.
“Was it…? Did he… did he suffer?” she whispered.
Cole recalled watching Del go down beneath the crush of bodies. He didn’t know if the man suffered or not, as that was the last time he saw him. By the time they were able to hunt for the bodies of their fallen, the sun was already up and Del was nothing more than ash, but he couldn’t tell her that.
“No,” he said.
A single tear slid free before she wiped it away. Tears had never moved him before, and he never felt sympathy for anyone outside his family, but he found himself wanting to comfort her.
Over the years, he’d probably caused hundreds of tears to fall in his lifetime, and not once had they swayed him to compassion. But he hated the sight of her tears.
“Good,” she said. “I should go.”
At the same time, he asked, “Was your mother a lycan?”
She frowned at him. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I never met my mother, but she was human.”
“I see,” he murmured as he glanced at the flowers still tilted toward her. “The luna flowers are from the lycan realm. I’ve only ever seen them respond to lycans, such as myself.”
He found himself entranced by her as she studied the flowers again.
“I didn’t know the lycans had flowers.”
“The luna flowers grow in their land. They only bloom when the rays of the moon are shining down on them.”
“Amazing,” she whispered.
“They’re reacting to you like you’re a lycan.”
When she laughed, the sound made him blink. He’d never heard a sound so clear and sweet before. It reminded him of the joy he experienced as a child when he’d run through the fields with his arms open and the full moon shining down on him.
It was a time before the death of his mother and centuries before the war. A time when he was still innocent too. It was a time so long ago that he’d forgotten about it… until now.
Elexiandra’s eyes twinkled when she looked at the flowers again, and her laughter trailed away.
“I hate to disappoint them, but I am a vampire,” she said.
As she spoke, he saw the tips of her small fangs again. They would extend when she fed, but no vampire could ever completely hide them like a lycan could.
“I can see that,” he murmured.
Her head bowed as a blush crept up her neck and spread across her cheeks. It was so endearing his fingers itched to brush the hair back from her face, but he kept himself restrained.
He didn’t know why; he’d always gone for and almost always gotten what he wanted. But though he longed to touch her, he simply stood and watched as she stretched a hand toward one of the flowers before pulling it back.
When Cole clasped one of the flowers, some of the vines slid down to brush his arms as he moved. The flower’s petals were as smooth as silk and just as soft as he ran his finger across it before bringing it toward her.
Her fingers inched toward the flower, and when they landed on it, a smile lit her face. In response to her touch, the petals closed around her hand. She jumped and started to pull away but kept it there instead.
“It tickles!” She laughed.
Cole was stunned to realize he was grinning while watching the interaction between her and the flower. Its petals moved over her hand before it released her. Cole carefully returned the plant; it lifted its petals to the moon before twisting toward her again.
“They’re amazing!” she breathed.
There was something far more amazing to him inside this room.
“This was my mother’s room,” he told her. “My father had it built for her so that no matter where she stood in it, she could see at least a piece of a moon.”
A wistful smile played across her full lips as she gazed around the room. “It’s beautiful. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here. I was trying to find the room I was assigned to and got lost.”
“That can happen in this place. Sometimes, it changes around you.”
“Really?”
When he grinned at her, Cole realized he couldn’t recall the last time he genuinely smiled at anyone, but she made it easy to do.
“No, but it’s something my father used to tell me when I was a child. I think he was teasing me because I always got lost in this place.”