“It’s perfect,” I say.
“No, you stay back,” Kasha yells.
“We just want to see,” Owen says.
Footsteps draw closer, but Kasha shoos them away.
“You can’t see her until the ball,” Kasha screams at the men. As soon as they’ve left, Kasha knocks on my door. “Can I come in and see?”
I open the door and she gasps. “You look like a queen.” She turns me around and lets out a low whistle at the backless gown. “Yes, a queen indeed. This is the one. Get dressed.” She’s very demanding with her Romanian accent.
I change back into my jeans and BU tee as Kasha slips the dress into a garment bag. Once I’m presentable, I exit the dressing room and head back into the store to find Draven.
“Ready?” he asks, standing there like a man who jumped off the cover of a GQ magazine.
“I am.”
We say our goodbyes to Kasha and Owen, thanking them for everything.
Once we’re in the soft leather seats of the car and driving away from the shop, Draven says, “I want to show you something.”
“Is it Bran Castle?”
He gives me a feigned look of offense, and it’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. “No, it’s not Bran Castle.”
“Ok, good, because I’m married to a vampire.”
He pulls onto a road that leads into the mountains and speeds up. “That’s always a good thing.” He grabs my hand, bringing my knuckles to his lips. He kisses my skin softly. “I’m taking you to where I grew up.”
My heart skips a beat that he’s sharing something personal with me. “Oh, I can’t picture you as a child.” I try to imagine what it would have been like for Draven to be young in the 18th century. “I bet you got into a lot of trouble.”
Draven shoots me a smile, and it’s the exact smile I would imagine got him into plenty of trouble growing up. He continues down the road, and I don’t dare move or breathe for fear he’ll drop my hand. It gives me a sense of belonging I don’t think I’ve ever felt before in my life. I sit back, looking out the window at the passing scenery, trying to imagine what it was like when Draven was a child. How crazy it must be to watch everything change before your eyes. “I bet it was a lot different back then.”
“It was a different world back then. You don’t realize time passing until you take a moment to stop living and look around. It’s then you realize time slipped by and you weren’t paying attention.” He stares out the windshield, winding up the curvy mountain pass. “It’s then when you get sentimental.”
I squeeze his hand. “I couldn’t imagine living over a century. All that history you’ve seen. You’ve been a part of so much.” My voice raises a bit, getting excited at the thought of seeing all that history first hand.
“At the time it’s happening, you don’t think about how future generations will look back on this moment and try to imagine what it was like.”
I twist in my seat. “What was the Revolutionary War like? Wait, no, the Civil War? Oh, what was it like when we went into space for the first time?”
Draven laughs at my overactive mind. “I love history just as much as you. During the World Wars, Viggo, Simon, and I were running our own missions, fighting alongside everyone else. Doing what we thought was right.” He drops my hand so he can focus on making a turn up ahead. “I wanted to be a part of history. To leave my mark.”
“Wow. I would love that.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” He pulls the car into a field of wildflowers with a crumbling stone wall surrounding a worn-down house. The roof is missing, along with half of the walls, but it’s easy to picture it whole again.
He parks the car and opens his door. I wait as he corners the front of the Bentley and reaches my door, opening it to let me out.
“This is where you grew up?”
He nods, pointing to the decaying home. “I was born in that house.” We move closer, walking through the field of flowers. “My father owned all this land.” He waves his hand, showing off all the land for as far as my eyes can see. In the distance, two mountains meet with a valley between, and it looks like something right out of a painting. “I bought the land when they wanted to sell it at the turn of the century.”
I turn my attention back to Draven, who stands in the field, hands in his pockets, staring at the house with a melancholy smile. “You wouldn’t love living through over two centuries of history because it can be overwhelming.” He steps toward the house, and I follow.
“Why?”
We reach a fence and Draven opens it slowly. “Everyone you’ve ever known always ends up leaving you. Everyone you meet. You watch them grow old. You watch them die. You can’t join them.”