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He sets his papers down and looks at me impatiently.
"Whatever are you talking about?" he asks.
"You know exactly what I'm talking about. You've been ignoring me for days."
He stands up, cutting a formidable figure behind his desk.
"Ignoring you or giving you the space you obviously desperately want, Eva," he says, anger finally dripping into his voice.
His words make me take a step back.
"What do you mean?" I ask, my voice calmer.
"You made pretty clear how little you are willing to try in this relationship the morning after the ball," he answers.
"Oh, you mean the relationship you never asked me if I wanted?" I say sarcastically.
His anger is replaced by hurt and I immediately regret my words.
"That didn't come out right. I just mean that we seem to be on unequal grounds right now. You say that you want to know the new me, but you're still carrying the ghosts of whatever happened between you and the old me," I say softly. "I think everything feels so strange to me because I feel like you're keeping things from me, things about our relationship. If you could just open up…"
He interrupts me. "I'm not hiding anything. I have been trying to get to know the new you, but you fight me at every turn. You can't have it both ways. You can't have me talk about her…about the old you, but also have me move on from those memories."
His words make sense, but I'm at a loss of what to say. He gives a sigh and then suddenly walks towards me, wrapping me up in his enormous arms.
"I've missed you," he admits into my hair where he's buried his face.
"I've missed you too," I admit. I pull back from him, determined to remedy this situation. I hold out a hand to him. He looks at me quizzically.
"What are you…?"
"I'm Eva," I tell him, still holding out my hand.
He is now looking at me like I'm crazy.
"I'm new here. What's your name?" I ask him with a grin.
He finally catches on and smiles back at me.
"I'm Aiden. It's a pleasure to meet you," he answers.
We spend the rest of the afternoon curled up on his office couch, asking all those get to know you questions that we kind of skipped when I arrived here so abruptly. He seems intrigued by this fresh start I'm proposing, intrigued and cautious at the same time.
I learn that his favorite color is black (big surprise), and he learns that I hate the taste of bananas. The time spent is just what we needed and despite my misgivings after the ball when he was kissing me, I feel again like we could have a chance.
I'm laughing about a story he's telling me about Gwenny when I hear a faint, unfamiliar noise outside of the office door that kind of sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Aiden had been in the midst of laughing at something I said but he stops when he notices the perplexed look on my face. The sound builds in volume until I finally have to cover my ears.
Aiden gets off the couch suddenly and goes behind his desk to get a long broadsword, a sword that for some reason looks familiar to me. I'm up off the couch now, his actions, along with the intensely worried look on his face now worrying me.
"What is it?" I ask, having to talk loud to be heard over the shrieking that sounds like it's getting even closer. Aiden holds up a hand to silence me as he puts his ear to the door. He jumps back in surprise when the door starts shaking. Something, or a bunch of somethings, start pounding all over the door.
Aiden comes to stand in front of me now, the sword outstretched, never taking his eyes off of the door. The door gives one last shudder before it crashes open and what seems like a million creatures, the size of giant rats, come streaming through the door.
They begin to fill the room, so numerous that they look like one entity as they get nearer to us. Aiden is still standing in front of me. He has one of my hands in his hand behind his back, and he's squeezing it tightly.
"Any ideas?" I yell at him, the screeching of the creatures so loud that it's hard to hear anything over it. I wonder where Nicolas, Romulus, and Madoc are. Since I've been here my bodyguards have never been farther away from me than the next room unless instructed otherwise by Aiden. But the squall of these creatures was so loud that it would have alerted people in the next village, and yet they are nowhere to be found. A little shiver of dread passes over me thinking that these creatures have already done something to them.
"You haven't mentioned these creatures," I yell out over the din, trying to bring some levity to the situation. It must work because Aiden gives me a wry grin that quickly turns serious after a particularly loud screech from one of the creatures.
