Page 86 of Blood Vows
I looked back at the bed, stepping closer, as if the pull back to Vas was fighting the one that wanted to lure me back to where the necklace lay. The whisper brushed against the edges of my consciousness, soft and pleading.
‘Nessa… come back.’
The words were faint but unmistakable, slipping through the cracks in my mind like smoke. I pressed a trembling hand to my chest, my breath catching as the air around me seemed to shift, thickening with that same unnatural weight I’d felt the night she attacked me.
It’s the necklace.
It has to be the key to learning more.
The thought came sharp and clear. I didn’t know how I knew, only that the feeling in my chest, the strange rhythm pulsing through me, matched the faint throb I’d felt from that crimson stone as if our heartbeats had somehow aligned.
Vas was still, his breathing deep and uneven, a faint crease between his brows as if even in sleep his mind was fighting something unseen. I reached out then, brushing a stray lock of hair from his forehead, the movement tender as if I could reach him in his sleep.
“I’ll be right back,”I whispered, even though I wasn’t sure he could hear me, hoping it wasn’t enough to wake him.
The floor was cool beneath my bare feet as I crossed the room, every board creaking softly beneath my weight. When I reached the door, I looked back once more.
The sight of him there, half in shadow, half in the dim glow of the dying fire, made my chest ache. The idea of leaving him, even for a moment, felt wrong. Yet something inside me was no longer mine to control.
I opened the door, slow and silent.
The corridor beyond was cloaked in darkness, the kind that felt alive, pressing close against my skin as I stepped into it. The air was heavy with the scent of rain and old stone, faintly metallic, as if the house itself was bleeding memories.
My pulse quickened. Every instinct told me to turn back, to close the door and crawl back into the warmth of his bed. But the whisper urged me on.
Each step I took echoed softly against the polished wood, my shadow stretching long and thin across the floor from the few lamps that still held light. By the time I reached the corridor that led to my room, the air had grown colder. The manor was silent except for the faint sound of the wild weather beyond the windows, the rain still whispering against the glass.
And yet, beneath it all, I could hear something else.
A heartbeat.
It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t Vas’s. It was faint, rhythmic, and steady. Coming from behind my bedroom door. I froze, my hand hovering over the latch. The sound vibrated through the wood in perfect time with the throbbing that now pulsed beneath my skin.
For one fleeting second, fear almost won. I almost turned back. But then, as if sensing my hesitation, the whisper came again, soft, coaxing, feminine.
‘Don’t be afraid…’
My breath trembled as I pushed the door open.
The room was exactly as I had left it, except for one thing.
The faint glow beneath the bed. It was red, pulsing like the beat of a living heart. I stepped inside, drawn toward it despite the warning bells screaming in the back of my mind. My fingers trembled as I knelt on the cold floor, the air thick with the scent of rain and iron. I reached under the bed, my skin brushing against the dusty wood and the cold edge of metal.
And then I touched it.
The world shifted.
A sharp heat rushed through my hand, searing, alive, and yet I couldn’t let go. The stone throbbed beneath my fingers, its glow flaring brighter as something unseen… something ancient, seemed to wake within it.
My breath caught. The room tilted. The whisper filled my mind again, louder this time, no longer soft but commanding.
‘Nessa… Finally… home’
I gasped, stumbling back, the necklace clutched in my hand. The voice wasn’t in my head anymore. It was in the room!
The air around me trembled.
It began as a low hum, then swelled until it filled every corner of the room, vibrating in the very bones of the manor. The glow from the necklace pulsed against my palm, a crimson heartbeat that no longer felt like mine. The whisper was no longer a whisper. It had a voice now.
