This scene appears in a book I unpublished a couple of years ago so I could prep it for a big
revision and re-release, titled Augury. It got delayed by life, but it’s still on the docket. I work on it when I’m between my current top priority projects, but it’s going to be top priority before too long. Really, it is. Anyway, I thought I’d share it now in honor of the announcement that Stephanie Meyer is releasing Midnight Sun this August. Since Luceam’s a vampire, it just seemed right.
Enjoy!
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Cyvin knew that look. And it didn’t bode well for him.
Luceam sat there with a stunned expression in response to his question, like she was trying to come up with something to say. Some excuse why she couldn’t see him again. Her pale blue eyes were wide, her fine, arched brows high above them.
He went to tell her it was okay–that she didn’t have to come up with a reason–but she interrupted him before he could.
“Yes. I would like to see you again but… I’m not sure when I’ll be able to come back to the city.”
The ridiculous thrill of glee that welled in his chest with her yes response was quickly overshadowed by the rest of her statement. “What do you mean?”
“It’s rather hard to explain,” she replied with a sigh. “But, perhaps next week I could get out again. If not that, then in a fortnight should be doable.”
He laughed. “And what in the hell, may I ask, is a fortnight?”
She gave him a look that was unreasonably cute, all the more so for the fact she wasn’t trying to be cute at all. “A fortnight measures fourteen days.”
“Ah, well then. So next week, or, if not, the week after that.” Why hadn’t she just said that? He laughed under his breath again.
“You keep laughing,” she pointed out, not sharply, but with purpose.
He did, didn’t he. “I’m sorry.” He smoothed his expression. It was actually sort of hard not to smile around her, he realized. But he didn’t want her to think he was laughing at her–he wasn’t. “You just talk really different, that’s all.”
“Oh.” She smiled, seeming relieved. “Well, I believe Zackery is to blame for that.”
Cyvin saw her catch herself and his heart sank. “Who’s Zackery?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but then he couldn’t just not ask either.
Luceam took a breath, tucking her feet beneath her and drawing her knees together, folding herself up to make a package impossibly smaller than she already was. “Zackery is…he is like my father,” she began, but then revised herself. “But he’s not–not my father, I mean to say. He watches over me.”
“Like a foster dad?”
“…perhaps?”
She had no idea what a foster dad was, Cyvin realized.
“Anyway, he is very old fashioned, I think,” she went on with a tilt of her head. “He likes things a certain way. I’ve lived with him nearly all my life, so… I’m sure I must be old fashioned too, by now.”
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