Page 81 of Blood Vows
“What happens now? You can’t just keep me here forever, Vas, you can’t…” His hands came up suddenly, framing my face, gentle but firm.
“Slow down,” he murmured, his thumbs brushing the corners of my mouth as if to quiet the storm spilling from it. His touch was tender, his voice low and calm in a way that made my pulse trip.
“I know you have questions, and I will answer them.” I swallowed hard, the world still spinning too fast.
“When?” He huffed a faint laugh, leaning close enough that his breath brushed my skin.
“Soon, just not when you're sitting on the cold surface of my bathroom sink.” He said with a small grin, and despite everything, the fear, the blood, the chaos, I couldn’t help but mirror the emotion. Or the small, shaky laugh that escaped me. The absurdity of it all hit me at once, tangled with exhaustion and the heavy ache of wanting to believe him.
He smiled then, faint, crooked, but real, before resting his forehead against mine once more.
“Let’s get you somewhere warm,”he whispered.
“Then we will talk. I promise.”
And though part of me knew promises were dangerous things in his world, the way he said it, soft and steady, like a vow spoken from the ashes of everything he had lost, made me believe him anyway.
He didn’t give me time to argue. Before I could protest further, his arms slid beneath me. He put one around my back and the other behind my knees, before I was up in his arms in one smooth motion. Then he lifted me from the countertop as though I weighed nothing at all.
“You know, last time I checked, my feet were fine.” I started, half laughing, half exasperated. His mouth curved into a faint smirk as he adjusted his grip, holding me closer against his chest.
“Are you sure?” he murmured, the teasing warmth in his tone making my pulse skip. I rolled my eyes, but the sound that left me came out softer than I intended, almost breathless.
“Completely sure,” I said, though I didn’t miss the way his fingers flexed slightly, tightening around me, as if daring me to challenge him again.
“Then humor my need to hold you a little longer,” he replied quietly, and there was something about the way he said it that made any protest fade before it could form.
I felt the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath my palm, the warmth of him, the faint scent of rain and something unknown clinging to his skin. He looked ahead, eyes dark and unreadable, his expression caught somewhere between control and something far more fragile.
My eyes instantly went to his bed again, the one that dominated the space with all its carved dark oak and its sheets black as the night sky. It was masculine, powerful, but strangely comforting too, as though the room itself had been shaped by the man who now carried me into it.
“Vas, really, I can walk,” I tried again, though my voice was softer this time, my body already melting into the warmth of his hold.
“I know,” he said, his gaze flicking down to meet mine.
“But I’m not ready to let you go yet.” Something about the way he said it made my heart twist. There was no arrogance in it, no playful command, just quiet truth. He reached the bed and lowered me onto it with careful hands, his movements slow, as if afraid that too much gentleness might break the moment, but too little might break me. My laughter, the playful protest that had been forming on my lips, died the second his hands left my body.
The mattress dipped beneath his weight as he sat beside me. The teasing warmth that had danced between us only moments ago vanished, replaced by something heavier, something significant.
The flicker of the firelight caught his profile, and I realised then that I had never seen him look more human, or more dangerous.
For a long while, neither of us spoke, the silence thick and trembling, broken only by the soft crackle of the fire. I could feel his eyes on me, heavy with thought, and I knew the moment had come.
“Vas, please, I need to understand. You told me your mother died that night. How can she still be here?” I whispered, my fingers clutching at the blanket.
His body tensed beside me, the movement subtle but unmistakable. He looked away, the flickering light throwing sharp shadows across his jaw. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and rough, like the words were made of gravel.
“In a way, she did die that night, but not in the way you think,” he said quietly. I turned to face him, my heart pounding. He stared into the fire, its reflection burning in his dark eyes.
“When my father fell, I thought she had too. I didn’t remember much, not after my brothers tried to end my life. I just know that she was the one who came to our family crypt, she found me and dug me up. I always wondered if my brothers questioned why my body hadn’t turned to ash like our father’s. Perhaps they believed the curse still lingered. Kept my body whole. Either way, my mother had been the one to pull me back from death.” His jaw tightened, the muscles in his throat working as he swallowed.
My breath caught, disbelief warring with dread.
“She saved you?” He nodded, his expression hollow, haunted.
“I remember the sound of her voice, soft but wrong, like something had broken inside it. I thought I was dreaming, that I had finally gone mad. But then she touched me, and I realised she wasn’t gone. Not truly. She begged me to take her away, to hide her from the world, from the memories, from them.”
He glanced at me then, and I saw something flicker behind his eyes. Grief, guilt, love, all tangled into something that looked like torment.
