My eyes wandered around the room as I tried to visualize what it would have been like during one of those Christmases. My heart pinched, realizing how those days could never return for them. At last, my gaze landed on the guy sitting across the table. I had learned so much about him tonight. He was not the snotty Pure Royal who majored in asshattery that I had once thought him to be. I started to see him in a new light . . . and it terrified the hell out of me.

This afternoon when Kris had asked me if I had feelings for her brother, I had told her that I didn’t know. Because only a few days ago, there was one person in this entire universe I was sure I would never fall in love with: Vladimir Ambrosia. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

Chapter Seventeen

When I closed my eyes at night I usually drifted in and out of sleep, but tonight I was afraid I would fall into a sleep so deep that I’d never wake.

Everything was dark except for the torch at the end of a long, narrow hallway. I grabbed it from the hard, stone wall. I stumbled to the ground a few times but kept getting up. A figure walked toward me as my knees buckled once more, and I leaned against the damp wall to keep from dropping to the ground again. With each step the person took, my heart beat faster.

Only when I could see a familiar face did my heart beat steadily again. Bryan. I smiled, forcing myself to walk toward him. As soon as I was close to him, I realized that he was not alone. There was a taller, more muscular figure behind him.

“Carlo.”

The two people I had lost were right in front of me, and the feeling was overwhelming. There were so many things that I wanted to tell them—things that I wished I had told them before they were gone. “Bryan.” I continued to move toward him. When he was within reach, I hugged him tightly. “I’m so sorry. I know I didn’t get a chance to say it before, but I do love you. I just wish we could’ve had the time to figure everything out. Maybe things would’ve been different.”

He looked exactly like I remembered him. My cheeks were wet, and wiping the tears with the back of my hand, I continued, “I miss you so much. I’ve been so lost without you here. We would be on our way to New York, away from all this mess.” I thought about all the nights we spent planning our escape from our first Gathering—tallying our savings and mapping out our options. All the good memories kept him alive in my heart. Being here suddenly felt like a betrayal. “I’m sorry, Bryan. You know me—I guess curiosity got the better of me.”