Page 55 of Little Wing
“He showed up and I…” Lotus chewed her bottom lip, pain-filled words still lodged in her throat.
Fuck it. I reached out and pulled Lotus into me. Her tears already streaked down her cheeks as she pressed her face against my shoulder. Her arms hung limp at her sides, but I just held her firmly yet gently. I wanted to be her safety net, the one she trusted to protect her. Waves of the torment she felt reverberated in my bones. Bloodlust—it had to have been it. For a vampire to go without blood for more than a day was painful, but nearly a month? More? I couldn’t imagine the pain she felt.
“I killed him,” she whimpered softly against the now damp fabric of my shirt.
“Oh, Lotus,” I groaned, rubbing circles on her back when she finally moved to wrap her arms around me, clutching my shirt in her small fists. I was going to fucking kill Luca. No, I was going to lock him up and torment him the way he did Lotus. How could someone do that? How could he do that to his own sister? Not only as her brother, but her maker?
“I had never consumed human blood until Wesley. I fed off him and I could not stop. I could not stop even after his heart stopped beating…” Lotus pulled away and looked at me. Her ruby eyes, while tear-stained, shimmered. If only those orbs could pull me into her past. I wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever I’d be required to in order to save her from this suffering.
Without saying a word, I allowed her confession to settle between us. What happened was dark and often carried by many vampires as our greatest shame. But as she cried, I had to bring my hand to her cheek, feeling her soft skin against my calloused hands and sighing quietly when she leaned into my touch.
“So, I too have taken a human life, Silas.” Her eyes closed and more tears wet my hand. “If Luca is captured and he tells everyone of my own sins, then…”
“No,” I growled.
“Silas, if he is punished, what would keep them from doing the same to me?”
I shook my head and placed both hands on either side of her face. “What you did is nothing like what he did, okay?”
“But…”
“You were put in an impossible position, Lo. Luca abused you, starved you.”
Lotus’s eyes fluttered open. “But I took a life…”
“And he committed an unforgivable crime against his kin.”
My fingers stroked her tear-stained skin as I looked at her closely. Lotus might have committed the act, but she had no choice. Bloodlust made vampires lose all control they normally had. It was an autonomous drive for survival. The fact that she held on as long as she did without any blood was unthinkable. She simply did what she needed to in order to survive. Wesley was unfortunately in the wrong placeat the wrong time. Though I knew Lotus felt the guilt eating away at her, I sent a quiet thanks into the void—wherever Wesley ended up. His loss was what helped the woman crying in my arms survive.
We stared at each other for a long time. I observed the way her body fit so comfortably against mine. How was it that even after so much pain and loss that she suffered, Lotus managed to brighten my day each time she smiled. Damn it, I missed that smile now. It had me wishing I could destroy anything and anyone that kept her light from shining. When my thumb brushed over her lower lip, I couldn’t help but smile when she pursed her lips and pressed a chaste kiss to my fingertips.
“I won’t let anything happen to you, Lotus,” I promised and pulled her back into me, to hold her securely in my arms. We sat together, embraced, and quiet, letting the new knowledge between us settle.
The seed of doubt that Luca attempted to sow withered. And though I vowed to protect Lotus, there was some truth to what she said. If Luca was going to be captured, then it wouldn’t be long before the vampire mob could pull Lotus into the middle of this mess. Despite being a victim, they would try to pin her name to his crimes. That was the unfortunate side effect of being tethered to a maker.
I ran my hands up and down Lotus’s back, feeling her raspy breathing settle into a quiet hum.
“Thank you,” I whispered into her hair. “Thank you for trusting me with this.”
I could not begin to imagine the weight that she carried all these years. At least now I hoped she knew that she didn’t need to carry it all alone. I wasn’t going to leave her side, not when so much of my being called out for her. Not when the love I felt for her only grew deeper, even more so after Lotusconfided in me.
Luca could try whatever he wanted, but I would not let his mistakes take Lotus away from me, not when I had just begun to see her smile again.
Silas rocked us back and forth on the couch as he pressed his lips against the side of my head. The room felt small in the aftermath of my confession. I had nothing else to hide from him. Everything that I needed him to know spilled from me with the intensity of a cracked dam, and yet he was still there, holding onto me like I would slip away again at any moment.
I had nowhere else I wanted to be than in the comforting embrace of the man I loved. At last, when he pulled away to look at me, I brought my hands to his face and leaned in to kiss him on the lips. I put myself at his mercy by coming to his home and though fire kindled between us as he returned my kiss, I forced myself to peel away.
“I…” I uttered, my breathing ragged and itching for the next touch. “I hated not telling you everything about myself.”
Silas nodded and tucked his hand under my chin, guiding my face back to his. Rather than kissing me, his calloused fingers traced along my bottom lip. His lips turned upward, but still, he did not speak.
“I have nothing else to hide from you,” I whispered against his skin before pursing my lips to kiss his finger. “If you still want me the same way, I am yours.”
Silas watched me for a moment as the weight of my offering registered. I wanted to share everything with him. I wanted to stop thinking and filtering and censoring my responses when my heart cried out for him. I wanted to speak my mind and share my past without fear or scrutiny.
Even if Luca would come for me and finally destroy me, I would go out having been honest with my family and with the man who proved to me that I was still worth being cared about. Tears welled in my eyes once more not from sadness, but relief as Silas’s touch remained sweet on my skin. After everything I already revealed to him, I couldn’t stop my mind from yearning to speak the words that hung on the tip of my tongue. Words that perhaps I should’ve held back. But when I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, how could I wait another day, or hour, or even a second.
“I’m in love with you,” I blurted out, my eyes growing wide realizing what I just confessed. I gasped, relief filling my lungs with air so sweet I couldn’t help looking at him for any hint of a changed expression. “I love you,” I said again and again, and each time the words left my lips, I felt lighter and happier, because it was the truth. What a gift it was to be sitting, still embraced, by the man I loved.
