A Shade of Vampire 28: A Touch of Truth by Bella Forrest

myself breathing as I watched her disappear into the sky. My new responsibilities would feel a lot heavier without her presence. My bed would feel a lot colder. I would no longer hear her laughter in the evenings, have her sweet kisses waking me in the mornings. Breathe in her scent as she followed me around during the day. I would be alone now… though, I reminded myself, I was not actually alone. I had Cecil, and a whole pack of wolves who were loyal to me and my family. It would be ungrateful to feel that I was alone. I couldn’t take what I had for granted when only a short while ago I had been without food or shelter, fleeing for not only my life, but my sanity.
    Victoria had mentioned to me that her stay in my home had felt like a dream to her, and that was exactly the way it had felt to me too. A dream that had now faded. A dream that I couldn’t be sure would ever return.
    I had been uncomfortable about Victoria coming to The Woodlands from the very start, as soon as she had proposed the idea. I had given in because… well, she had wanted it, and I had wanted it, too. I had been too selfish, too greedy for her, to hold my ground and insist that she stay in The Shade. Now her father had come to do what I should’ve done: lead her back to safety.
    I tore my eyes away from the empty sky and turned around, heading slowly and heavily back to the castle.
    As I reached the entrance, I reminded myself of the assurance I had given Victoria—that we would see each other again. We will, I told myself firmly. Sooner or later, we will. We had managed to reunite before against all odds. There was no reason why we couldn’t now, when the odds were far, far less…
    We just had to be patient and wait. I felt a little more cheerful as I passed through the entrance hall. Victoria was certainly a woman I was willing to wait for.
    I had tried to hide it, but those nights she had spent with me in my bed had been torture. More times than I would like to admit, I’d had to fight the urge to claim her as mine… completely. One of my weaknesses was my impulsiveness, the force of my emotions. It was truly a wonder to me that I had managed to control myself and allowed her to leave The Woodlands as she had come—with her virtue intact. In werewolf culture, it wasn’t tradition for men and women to share a bed until they had committed themselves to each other in marriage. But with Victoria being a human, her and my relationship had been anything but traditional until now.
    “Bastien,” Cecil addressed me, spying me in the corridor. “Back so soon? Where is Victoria?”
    “She is gone,” I said resolutely, “at least for now. Her father came to collect her.”
    I attempted to turn my mind to other things now—specifically to the journey that lay ahead of me. We could leave sooner now that Victoria was gone.
    Traveling would help me take my mind off of her… and hopefully make the days pass more quickly.

Grace
    A fter Orlando had agreed to talk to his sister about escaping with me to The Shade, we left the roof and returned to the dry loft. Maura appeared to be sleeping by now; her chest heaved gently as she lay beneath her blankets on the mattress. Orlando and I took it in turns to use the bathroom in preparation for bed. He provided me with a pair of snowflake pajamas that were brand-new—still in their plastic packaging. I guessed that they had foraged for these in a store or something downtown. I changed into them and disposed of my old clothes in the trashcan.
    There were only two mattresses in the loft, though they had an impressive stock of pillows and blankets in their cupboard. Orlando laid two blankets one on top of the other in a relatively empty corner of the loft. He gave me a third blanket to cover myself with, and a pillow.
    I sank into the makeshift bed and turned on my side. I gazed at the tall, sickly Orlando on the opposite end of the room and experienced an uncanny wave of déjà vu as I thought of