Tracking the Tempest by Nicole Peeler Read Free Book Online

rude about his family heritage and began arduously stepping over the very top of the ornamental gate, setting my feet back into their little crevices on the opposite side so I was facing back out toward Boylston.
    “Go ahead and drop, Jane. I'll catch you.”
    I looked at the vampire beneath me. If I hadn't damn well known I'd be stuck clinging to the fence, I would have attempted to beam death rays at him through my eyes.
    “C'mon, baby. You can trust me.”
    I didn't remind him that the last time he'd said those words to me, I walked funny for two days. I just gathered courage, took a deep breath, and pushed myself away from the fence.
    Ryu caught me effortlessly, laughing.
    “I said
drop
down, Jane, not launch yourself like a rocket.”
    “I'll give you a rocket,” I mumbled.
    “Sorry?”
    “Nothing. Just put me down.”
    “No,” he murmured, cuddling me closer to his chest.
    I considered protesting but being in his arms felt good. So I let him carry me. When we got to the bridge that crossed the little lake where the swan boats were, he set me down on my feet.
    He waved a hand and the lights came on, illuminating the river and the boats and the bridge. Well, he didn't actually light
the
lights, he just made his own.
    I looked out over the dark water, feeling it murmur to me. Where my ocean roared, this man-made reservoir whispered. The lights of the city glittered off its surface, helping Ryu's own lights illuminate the graceful lines of the swan boats floating at their moorings, each tucked into its place like horses in a stable.
    “It's lovely, Ryu.”
    “I thought you'd like it,” he replied, resting back against the bridge's balustrade. “You said you remember it from your childhood?”
    I smiled. Only the second time he'd come to Rockabill, right after all the drama at the Alfar Compound so many months ago, I'd told Ryu about a family trip we'd taken years and years ago when my mother was still with us. A conversation Ryu had not only remembered but also included in his plans for my visit. It was unbelievably sweet, but part of me wanted to curse at such sensitivity. This was the kind of shit that made me want to fall in love with the vampire, and
that
was too complicated for words.
    “Yeah, I was only, like, five, so the memories aren't very clear. And maybe they're not even my memories, but just me remembering looking at the pictures. We came to Boston the year before my mom went away. I like to think I remember it.”
    I walked over to where he stood, leaning over the bridge to look out at the water and the pavilion where the boats sat moored.
    He watched me in silence as I tried to place myself, even shorter than I was now, on this same bridge, holding the hands of both a man and a woman. The woman would soon leave, and my life would never be the same, but for that moment I must have been happy.
    Ryu brushed my hair behind my ear, turning his body so that we were hip to hip, facing the same direction, looking out over the water.
    “Jane,” he said. “I want to ask you something. You don't have to answer now, and we don't have to do anything about it yet. It's just something I want you to think about.”
    I turned toward him, looking up into his face. I'd never seen him so serious.
    “It's just that I like us together. I like
us,
period. I like being with you, having you near me…” Ryu's voice trailed off nervously, and he reached up to fidget with the strap of my top. He ran his fingers down to trace my bicep. “You feel right. We feel right. I know you don't like to talk about this stuff…” His finger continued its featherlight trail down my forearm, but when he went to take my hand, Ryu accidentally hooked my bracelet in his finger. When he pulled down, it came off.
    “Shit, sorry,” he said, as we both bent down at the same time to pick it up and knocked noggins. We laughed ruefully, rubbing our foreheads.
    “I'll get it, hold on,” I said. The bracelet had been my mother's; I