Page 56 of Blood Vows
“From the first moment I scented your blood, I felt it…the pull.My darkness recognized you before I did. It quieted around you.” His voice softened to something almost reverent.
“You made it stop, Nessa. For the first time in decades, it wasn’t screaming for death or vengeance. It was…calm.”The words hit me with the force of a revelation, stealing the air from my lungs.He stopped just in front of me, close enough that the air between us seemed to hum.
“You ask if I’ve experienced it firsthand,” he said, his tone low and unsteady.
“I am living it now. You are the balance, the light my darkness was always fated to find.” I could barely form words.
“And what happens if the light leaves?”I dared to whisper.
His expression darkened, the shadow within him flickering in his eyes.
“Then the darkness wins.”
“Is that what happened to your father?” I asked, already knowing the answer from the pain flickering behind his gaze.
“He never found her, and in the end… the darkness devoured him whole, before he became unrecognizable,” Vas said softly.
“But that wouldn’t have happened had he found his fated?”
“The one soul capable of tempering the hunger that grew with that power. Greed feeds it. Cruelty fuels it. And blood…” He looked down at his hand, flexing it slowly, the veins darkening faintly beneath the surface.
“…blood makes it stronger still. But love… true love… that can tame it. Only that can silence the craving, can stop the darkness from consuming everything in its path.” I sat frozen, watching the shadow of the firelight crawl across his face, splitting the light and dark like two warring sides.
“But what about your mother, wasn’t she…?” I let that painful question linger in his mind, unable to continue to speak the words. His jaw clenched, his voice a low growl when he answered.
“No, she wasn’t his salvation. She became his prison. And when her love wasn’t enough to keep the darkness inside him at bay…” He trailed off, the rest of the sentence strangled by memory. My breath caught, the pieces beginning to form in my mind like shards of glass.
“He turned cruel…”I finished for him, and he gave a slow, heavy nod.
“The power consumed him. What began as a blessing for our House became its undoing. The same strength that had promised our rise burned us from within. His greed grew, his cruelty deeper, his hunger impossible to sate. He slaughtered without care, all to feed the darkness he carried. It changed him. Changed us all in the end as his destiny for destruction didn’t leave our bloodline.” He turned and walked back towards the fire, as if afraid to touch me during such a deep and painfully raw conversation.
“But the day I inherited that same darkness, I swore I would master it…or die trying.”
“And have you?” I asked softly.
For a moment, his gaze softened, tracing the line of my face. His voice dropped to something barely audible,
“I thought I had…until there was you.”The air in the room shifted again, thick with tension and something heavier. I could feel his confession hovering in the quiet, like the crackle of static before lightning.
“Because you think I am your fated.” I tested, needing him to be sure. Something that gave him reason enough for his intense gaze to find me once more.
“Because Iknowthat you’re my fated, and what I once believed would be my weakness has turned out to be my strength.” My eyes widened at this.
“But after everything you’ve told me, why did you think it would be your weakness?”
“Because I was foolish enough to believe that taming it would make it weaker and the person who wields such power, even more so.” He admitted, surprising me with his honesty.
But before he could say any more,
Another scream tore through the house, and this time…
I was determined to find out who it was.
22
A STORY OF REVENGE
Ascream.
