7. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
Dacre
I wake up holding my crumpled-up blazer. What the fuck?
Emma’s scent, though faint, lingers on the fibers, and I chuck it across the room. Now I remember—I couldn’t sleep because her smell was in my room.
I kept waking up, almost believing she was there in my drunken, sleepless haze.
It’s just giving me a headache, along with the hangover that’s keeping me from moving more than an inch in any direction.
I decided drinking was the perfect opportunity to get a break from Emma’s scent for the night because ever since I smelled the freshness of her blood in the air, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her.
The feeling of her warm skin against mine and the drumming of her pulse are on constant repeat in my mind. It’s torture at this point to be in the same room as her. Impossible not to think about her.
My phone vibrates next to my head, and I jump. I know who is calling me without looking. 6 a.m. Wow.
“Yes?”
I barely open my eyes to greet my sister on the video call.
I’m not surprised she’s up this early. Rowing practice gives her all the incentive she needs to call me while she’s getting ready.
Florence has her phone propped up on something on her bed while she puts on her makeup.
In one hand is a mirror and in the other is mascara.
“You’re not in the kitchen.”
“No, I’m in Luxxia.”
“It’s a bit late to sleep in, isn’t it? I’m surprised.”
“You’re as bad as Grandfather.” I press my fingers to the bridge of my nose.
“Never say that to me again.”
“Why are you calling me?”
“You don’t remember the drunk text you sent me?”
“Oh, no.”
She clears her throat before reciting the words.
“‘Florence. Don’t worry about anything. Just focus on school and rowing, and everything will turn out okay. I promise I’ll never let anything happen to you. I’m taking care of things. I love you.’”
I have no recollection of that text. The cringe of it all is enough to make me hide my head in my pillow.
“Fuck.”
“I thought it was sweet. But too sweet for you. Who is she?”
“She?” I perk my head up.
“I’ve never seen you drunk. That means either you’re on a mental health spiral toward disaster or . . . there’s a girl.”
“There is no girl.”
“I know if there was a girl, you wouldn’t tell me.” She sighs. “But you could.”
Yes, because I’m totally going to talk to my little sister about girls. I roll my eyes.
“I have to go. I’m late, and you know how Grandfather gets.”
“I haven’t heard or seen anything unusual here, so I’ve been less worried. I love my new team.”
Rowing is the only thing she’s ever cared about for more than five minutes. I encourage it. It keeps her out of trouble.
“Good. I’m glad.”
She wants to talk about it more, but I don’t have it in me.
She’s always been the wild one. The youngest Everhart—well, I guess not now after the name change—but the youngest of our immediate family, which includes our two older brothers and me.
They always teased her that she was an accident, and when our parents died, well, there was no one around she could relate to. She threw tantrums, was defiant at every turn—Grandmother hated her.
So it was instinct to be there for her. To be the only one who would go after her when she’d scream and storm off, or be there to bring her the dinner that my grandmother tried to withhold as punishment.
“She’s not an Everhart,” Florence was told enough times by enough people that she started to believe it. She ran away at fifteen, and she’s been running since.
“You’d tell me if you knew something, right? If you overheard Clyde saying anything about me?” she asks.
“Of course, I would.”
She only needs to wait to get her trust fund when she turns eighteen. Then she can go and do whatever she wants. Until then, I’m the one looking after her.
Paying for boarding schools that she either gets kicked out of or leaves because she’s paranoid our grandfather planted someone to spy on her. This is the third time I’ve had to relocate her.
Unlike Florence, I’m not naive enough to think our grandfather doesn’t know where she is. He knows everything, even whether I’m late to a class or a meeting.
“Don’t take that as an invitation to get all buddy-buddy with him and keep secrets. Remember our deal?” she says.
How could I forget the words she screamed at me in the middle of the pouring rain? It was the night she ran, and I stayed up all night looking for her. Skipped classes, canceled meetings.
“If you become like him, I never want to see you again.”
How could she understand the pressure that I’m under? And how do you make a now sixteen-year-old understand that you can’t run away from a last name like ours and expect no one to come looking? Everything costs something.
“Promise me right now. You’re the only family I have.”
I said yes. Agreed. Wrapped her in a blanket and found her a good place to live. Somewhere where everything isn’t a competition and she can live without the constant scrutiny of not measuring up. She may never have to pay the cost, but I do.
“I won’t forget. Promise.”
“Good. You should get up and get dressed. You look terrible. Also, I’ll be expecting a name when you get back.”
“Sure, I’ll get right on that.” I hang up and dig my nails into my scalp as I push my hands through my hair.
Why did it have to be me? My older brothers were perfectly moldable to continue the family’s culinary legacy.
But only I was born with the talent. If I could go back in time and talk to that stupid, hopeful, cooking-obsessed kid who idolized his grandfather, I’d tell him to pick a different thing to love.
Don’t play into their games. Don’t show anyone your talent, because it only gets used against you.
If that little kid could see me now, hungover, staring at the ceiling, and dreading the thought of pulling on that white jacket, he’d never understand.
He’d probably blame me, say I didn’t want it enough.
At least I’ve outgrown that. At twenty-three, I have the sense to know that the real culprit of my own turmoil is Emma and that fucking smell. She’s the only one who’s ever stepped in the way of the path that I’ve been forging since I was a kid.
Somehow, I know deep down in my core that Emma is going to ruin everything.
I adjust in my chair and throw a quick glance behind me.
Emma is sitting with her sisters in the dining hall, chatting away, oblivious to the torture she’s inflicting on me.
Our eyes meet, and she shifts in her seat, crossing her legs under the table.
What might it be like to wrap those legs around my head?
I contemplate it for one minute, maybe two, then put an end to it when the thoughts turn to me sinking my teeth into her thigh.
Taking a bite of the peach sitting on my plate, I revert all my attention back to something productive. The sweet taste lingers on my lips, and I lick it off.
I always choose a seat facing the wall because if I don’t, my body instinctively listens for her.
Smells for her. Watches. Sometimes, my brain plots and schemes different ways to get a few inches closer to her.
My biology is betraying me, though I can’t help it, and I’ve tried every avenue to keep her away from me.
It’s even more bizarre that she wants to be in the culinary club.
What are the odds that my scent-match would be even remotely interested in the same things as me, to the point where I can’t get even a molecule of peace?
Further evidence that all my issues stem from this one woman.
Her sisters giggle and talk across the room while Parker hovers over them. They smell good too or, well, mostly—Olivia is mated to Parker now, which means his smell covers hers all the time.
Parker is always overpowering everything.
He has that effect on a lot of people, and last semester, his grab for a council seat left everyone in an uproar.
His recent near-death experience with Olivia is the only reason I’m being nice to him these days.
That, and he’s the golden boy of the entirety of Vviveren right now, and opposing him publicly is death to anyone’s social life.
Those two are the most famous people in Vviveren, and I’m tired of hearing about it.
There’s a whole dedicated tab to them on the forums. “What did Olivia eat for breakfast? Oh, an egg and cheese bagel again? That’s my favorite, too! No way! She’s such a visionary.”
I know better than to pick a fight with Doxlothia’s power couple.
Five other people on the university forum and I (a small, but dedicated group) talked shit about them all last semester and tried to debunk their little relationship charade.
That was until the linked mate news came out, and we were all proven wrong—an ego blow, to say the least. It was so obvious, seeing them together after.
I deleted my account and left the other trolls in the dungeon.
In my defense, linked mates are incredibly rare, and it’s not as if vampires even have mates, let alone mystically linked ones.
The closest we have are scent-matches, and I’m even skeptical of that despite living it.
Every day, when I wake up, I have this little hope that her smell will change, and I can forget it ever happened.
I straighten when Parker barrels into a seat next to Zant, his best friend, and they chatter back and forth like a couple of hens.
They’re two peas in a pod, though they look nothing alike.
Parker dwarfs him in most aspects. He’s an athlete, and Zant is an academic.
They must have been friends for a long time; they never shut up when they’re together.
Parker’s hands are empty—he never brings his fucking notebook or any of his shit to any of our council meetings.
“Late again, Owens?” I say.
“Sorry. Anyone got a pen I can borrow? And maybe . . . a piece of paper?”
“I’ve started bringing extra for you.” Zant hands him a pen, his eyes darting to me.
Darien, on my left, rips a piece of paper out of his notebook for him.