When Bo answered, his voice was low, uncertain. “I have no idea.”
A satisfied grin twitched at the corners of Annika’s pouty mouth before she brought it under control, careful y schooling her features into a politely blank mask.
It was when her gaze darted to me that I knew my fears were very real. Our eyes met for only a fraction of a second, but that’s al it took for me to see that Annika had come to find Bo for one reason and one reason alone—to get him back. She was in love with him.
“Wel , what do you remember?” she prompted.
“Just my life as it has been since a little over three years ago. Other than that, occasional y I have dreams that feel so real they’re like memories, but I have no real memories.”
“And yet you recognized me,” she added meaningful y.
“I might remember a lot more if I could see the places I’ve been, people I’ve known, things I’ve seen. Where did you say you’re from?”
“Lindersberg, Sweden.”
That’s when I realized the origin of the lilt in her voice.
She was Swedish.
“Sweden. Sweden,” Bo said, nodding slowly and repeating the word as if testing the feel of it on his tongue.
“Tel me about it.”
“About what?”
“Where I’m from.”
It was easy to see that Annika relished having al eyes on her, but more than that, she basked in Bo’s undivided attention. She reveled in the opportunity to paint the picture of their life together—their life before me.
Annika spoke in great detail about Lindersberg, several times eliciting a response from Bo. He was able to recal the orphanage where they met, though not in as much detail as she.
“Yes, you walked in like a confident rogue and I thought I must have died and gone to heaven. Even after you told me of your thirst, I knew that there was no other life for me. I was so glad when you agreed to turn me.”
Shocked, Bo sat forward in his seat just as the bottom dropped out of my world.
“Turned you? What?”
Annika smiled widely.
“The day you agreed to make me a vampire was the greatest day of my life. I’m just sorry you don’t remember it.
It was...”
Annika trailed off, casting her eyes toward the floor and glancing up at Bo from beneath her lashes. She was so coy I wanted to drop kick her.
"It was what?” Bo asked in that completely oblivious, masculine way.
“It was incredible,” she said quietly, her voice a husky whisper.
“Oh,” Bo murmured, almost dazed. He slid his fathomless eyes to me, the misery on his face reflected in their endless depths. “What kind of a person was I?”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re not that person anymore. You don’t know how much of an influence Sebastian had on you back then.”
Although Bo looked marginal y encouraged by my words, the worry carved into his features was plain to see, much like drawings of great burden etched into ancient stone.
“Do you remember Scabs?” Annika asked. She seemed as anxious as everyone else to move past the sudden tension.
Bo’s head jerked up and a smile drifted slowly into place.
It was like a fog lifting gently from the moors.
“Ohmigod, yeah! Scabs. Whatever happened to him?”
“It turns out that he was an English duke. He was kidnapped as a child. His parents final y found him years later. They identified him by a birthmark on his right cheek.”
“With al those scabs and acne scars, how could they even see a birthmark?”
“Not that right cheek,” Annika replied.
“Ah,” Bo breathed, chuckling. “So he was royalty?
Scabs?”
“Yes. He ended up marrying the beautiful daughter of some other royal family.”
“Scabs?” Bo repeated disbelievingly.
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
Bo just shook his head, mystified. “Tel me what happened to everyone else?”
And so Annika launched into an animated history of al the orphaned and vagrant friends they’d once shared. As they laughed and reminisced, quite a few facts returned to Bo. Al it took was Annika reminding him of certain details.
Bo tried to include me by explaining little tidbits that he could remember about each person they discussed, but his efforts were for naught. Cade and I were outsiders to their reunion and I had a feeling that that was exactly how Annika wanted it.
It seemed like hours had passed when my phone rang, and, in fact, they had. The day had come and gone, and evening was upon us. The instant I heard the voice on the other end of the line, however, time stood stil .
The screen on my phone had identified the cal er as my mother so I excused myself to take the cal in another room. I had just scooted up onto the countertop in the kitchen and settled in for a long argument when the familiar voice froze my muscles like only a sub-zero blast of terror can. The voice, though familiar, did not belong to my mother.
“Hey, Ridley. Long time, no see.”
It was Trinity.
I was speechless as my mind scrambled to make sense of the incongruity—Mom’s phone, Trinity’s voice. Mom’s phone. Trinity’s voice.
Trinity had my mother’s cel phone.
I rocked between fury and terror like a sailboat being tossed to and fro by a hurricane. I was so caught up in the furor of it that I nearly missed her next words.
“I’m not going to hurt her. I just want to talk to you. Alone.
At your house. If you bring anyone with you, you won’t like what happens next.”
Without hesitation, I hopped off the counter and ran to the door.
“I’l be there in two minutes.”
Flipping the phone shut, I flung open the door, ready to blow through town like the wind. It was Bo that stopped me.
“Ridley, what are you doing?” He was standing just behind me.
Overwhelmed by emotion and concern for my mother’s safety, I struggled to make sense of his question. It seemed as though my mind could only wrap itself around one crisis at a time. My focus was complete, just as it was when I was hungry.
Until I met Bo’s eyes.
As if I’d been weightless, drifting off into oblivion, Bo was like gravity, pul ing me back down to earth, anchoring me.
“Bo, she’s got my mother.”
“Who?” he demanded, gripping my upper arms urgently.
“Trinity.”
“Let’s go,” he said, pushing me out the door and pul ing it shut behind him.
“No, wait. You can’t come. She wants to see me alone.