Jack removed his hand from hers and rose. William continued to study her nervously but he relented to Jack's hand on his shoulder as Jack pulled him away. She couldn't hear the words they exchanged but William nodded. "I really am sorry," he said to her before leaving the room again.
She liked William, but she was glad to be left alone with Jack again. He closed the door before returning to the chair. "He's a good person," Jack said.
"I can tell."
Jack folded his arms across his chest as he sat back. "Lucas is like you, it's obvious that your uncle is the same as Saul, but what about Ellen?" Hannah had never revealed anyone's defects to an outsider before. Everyone in town knew what was wrong with everyone else, but when outsiders arrived they tried to keep their weaknesses hidden if it was possible. "If you would like to know more about me, then you'll have to reveal more about you," he told her.
"That's not about me though," she pointed out.
He quirked an eyebrow but gave a brief nod. "Ok, fair enough, but she is your friend and I would like to know more about you and your friends. I won't hurt her."
"It's not that, it's just that we've always been private about our defects!" she blurted.
"It's not a defect," he told her.
"It's not normal."
He frowned at her as his arms dropped down to his sides. "What is normal supposed to be?" he demanded. "I'm most certainly not normal and who would want to be anyway?"
"My whole life all I dreamed of being was normal," she told him. "To know what it was like to walk in the sun, to feel the heat from it on my skin without being harmed by it. I've always hated the weakness that my reaction to the sun created within me. Always resented that I had to hide from it. I've always dreamed about traveling and seeing the land, to stand in the ocean, and take in the glimmering palace that everyone whispers about. I would love to not be scared that my children will inherit this defect. I worry that every normal human or vampire will reject me. It's happened before, a vampire named Bruce, when he discovered what I was..."
She broke off as his hands fisted and his jaw clenched. "He what?" Jack grated.
The lethal look in his eyes made her hesitant to continue, but she had to give him more about herself if she was going to get more from him. "The things he said to me were awful. It's what I'd always been told would happen but I still hadn't been prepared for it. I want to be normal but I know that's something I will never be. Over the years I've come to accept that."
"I can understand that." Hannah's fingers curled into her pillow as she continued to watch him. "But I don't find it to be a defect Hannah, it is simply who you are and that makes you normal, for you."
She didn't know what to say to that. She'd never expected such open acceptance of her abnormality from someone outside of this town. "Ellen has no vampire strength or speed. Other than drinking human blood, her superior eyesight, and hearing, she is more human than many of the rest of us."
"I see," he said thoughtfully. "I can't believe I'd never heard of this town before."
"We tried to keep it a secret from the outside world. You have no idea what it's like to not fit in anywhere but here."
"Oh, I have a pretty good idea of what that is like."
"You didn't feel like you belonged in the palace?" she inquired.
"I didn't belong in the palace then, I'm not sure I do now either."
"Do you not get along with your brother, the king?"
"Braith and I get along just fine," he assured her. "He's an upstanding man and he'll continue to do noble things as the king, but that's his place. I have yet to find mine in this world."
"You will."
She didn't know how she knew it, but she was certain that one day he would find his place and though he may not be a king, he would do great things in this world. She thought he would pursue her line of conversation but she should have known better.
"What became of your parents, Hannah?"
That memory was worse than the burn on her back and though she tried to shy away from it, it was impossible to avoid once the scab was picked. "They died in a fire, when I was sixteen, Lucas's mother was in the house with them," she told him in a choked voice. "Lucas and I were here when it happened."
"I'm sorry."
"It was years ago."
"But it still hurts."
"Yeah," she admitted. "It does."
"What caused it?"
"A lightning strike. It happened so fast that they weren't able to escape in time."
"I see."
"So?" she asked as he changed the towels on her back again. "How did you and William meet?"
"Well that my dear is quite a long, interesting story."
"I'm not going anywhere for awhile."
He released a small chuckle. "No, I suppose you're not."
CHAPTER 11
Jack continued to change the towels on her back as he told her about how he had come to live with the rebels in the forest. Astonishment filtered over her features, he was relieved to see her finally start to look at him like what he truly was, a man. A flawed man, but a man all the same, and not just a prince. She began to look at him not as someone who had been spoiled and coddled, but the vampire that he actually was.
"It all sounds so strange, so different," she whispered.
"It was."
"You enjoyed it though?"
"More than anything," he told her honestly. "I found a family amongst the rebels, and acceptance."