Page 43 of Can't Bite This Feeling
His hand jerks again. Curls around mine.
His eyes open and lock onto mine, no longer red but the beautiful silver gray they were when we met.
“Drusilla,” he breathes.
I sob his name as I cradle his face in trembling hands. “You came back.”
He nods faintly, like it takes everything he has. “For you,” he rasps. “Always for you.”
Tears spill down my cheeks. I don’t bother wiping them away. I press my forehead to his, anchoring us both. His breath is shallow, but it’s real. Warm.
“You died,” I whisper.
“I remember.” His voice is rough, frayed at the edges. A shudder rolls through him. I slide my hand over his chest above the nearly sealed wound. His heartbeat flutters against my palm, growing stronger with each beat. My tears fall faster.
“I thought I lost you. I thought—” My throat closes. “You chose me. It was enough.” I lean in, my lips brushing his.
“No more running,” he vows, cupping the back of my neck. “No more bargains. No more dying. I choose you. Not power. Not eternity. Not even vengeance. Just you.”
We collapse into each other. Broken, rebuilt, reborn. The temple trembles around us, its purpose burned out, its curse undone.
But I don’t look at it.
I look only at him.
The vampire I died for centuries ago.
The mortal-ish man I live for today.
The beautiful soul I’ll love for all my tomorrows.
Epilogue
Rapha
I never thought I’d be a brunch person.
And yet here I am, sitting under a vine-draped pergola behind the Spellbound Bookshelf, sipping coffee laced with enough cinnamon to make Lucifer twitch, while Verity snuggles a newborn on her lap.
Little Felix, with his moon-round cheeks and very suspicious eyes. Drusilla’s been helping with the night feeds, and I’ve been carved into godfather duties like some sort of ancient vampire au pair. And somehow, I don’t hate it.
Strange, the things you come to crave when you stop feeding on blood and souls.
Screaming Woods was supposed to be temporary. A waystation. But it’s sticky here. In the way honey clings to your fingers. In the way family sneaks up on you when you're not looking. One day you’re a soul-sucking demon, and the next, you’re helping Gordy repaint the bookshop shutters because he says, “black absorbs too much mood.”
He’s not wrong. The gloomwasstarting to ferment.
Drusilla arrives late to brunch, per usual, glittering with magic and something that smells like a summer thunderstorm. Alice trails behind her, smug as a sprite on espresso.
“I’m so proud. She summoned a storm,” Alice announces, plopping down beside me and stealing the last scone. “With herfeelings. It was very broody. Very Byronic.”
Drusilla kisses me like she didn’t just almost drown the western quadrant of town. Her lips are cold from spellwork, and her magic hums under her skin like champagne fizz.
“Apologies for the weather,” she murmurs. “I was feeling… poetic.”
“Your poetic phase nearly electrocuted Gordy and Alice’s cat.”
“She started it,” Dru says, with a pointed look at the tabby curled nearby. “She peed on my grimoire.”
