Very short penultimate chapter. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: Consider it disclaimed. I never claimed it but if I had I would be unclaiming it right now.
Bertrand had come through for her, thankfully, just glad to see Vlad freed from the arranged marriage he'd hated the thought of so much. Erin had listened to the practice run of his argument with Vlad – all about diplomacy and smoothing things over and not offending Ramanga's clan – and then she'd let him disappear alone to try it for real. In the end, less than an hour passed between Erin knocking on Adze's door and Vlad doing the same thing to offer her a coffin room and a blood supply for as long as she cared to stay.
Ramanga was furious, of course, but the beauty of getting Bertrand to do the asking was that Vlad really, truly believed that refusing to keep the older vampire from his clan and duties for any longer was polite. Faced with such a generous gesture, Ramanga had been left with no option but to pack up his own possessions and return home without his daughter.
Erin found herself, a few weeks later, standing with Vlad on the balcony he'd nearly fried saving her from, gazing up at the night sky.
"I really am sorry." She raised an eyebrow at him. "I was an idiot. Worse, I was horrible – to you, to Adze... Jonno, I suppose. Even Bertrand. I… yeah, I totally get why you broke up with me."
"It's alright. I didn't really cut you much slack, with all the stress you were under…" They stood in companionable silence for a few more minutes.
"Look, Erin, I know that thing with you and Adze turned out to be a misunderstanding. But I just wanted you to know I won't be upset if you do move on with someone. We weren't good for each other, at the end, and… well, it just-"
"You want to know if it's alright for you to move on too." He frowned, turning away to stare up at the stars again. It was a while before he spoke.
"Maybe. I mean… how do you know when a friend becomes, well, more than that?"
Erin frowned.
"I suppose… if they're the most important thing to you, and they're there for you, and you want to make them happy when they're not… and something just changes. You just…" Her eyes widened. "Know. I have somewhere to be, sorry Vlad." She left him there confused and hurried back into the school.