Chapter 19 - Glory
Glory
XIX
I couldn’t get my heartbeat under control. The taste of Cammon’s blood lingered on my tongue, teasing me with its richness. My body craved more of him, and not only what ran through his veins. The kiss we’d shared after I’d bitten him had woken something in me that begged to be explored.
The mere thought of begging him for anything made my skin flush hotter, and I fingered the divot at the bottom of my throat in an effort to distract myself.
Along with my physical desire was an emotional tug I hadn’t quite figured out yet.
The way he’d promised to keep my secret—his adamant vow that it was safe with him—made me want to believe him, a dangerous temptation.
For twenty-five years, I’d clung to the idea that if anyone discovered the truth about me, I would be killed either on sight or shortly after.
To have revealed myself to Cammon only for him to not react with horror or threats…
it was anticlimactic in the best possible way.
Yet despite his seeming acceptance of what I was, all he had to do was open his mouth one time.
One slip, and the king’s executioner would come for my neck.
The risk to my life had grown with my choice to save myself, and time would tell if I should have opened my arms to a quicker ending.
My foot caught in a dip in the road—the exact type of pitfall we’d aimed to avoid by setting up camp for the night—and Cammon caught me before I could fall.
His firm grip stayed around my waist until he was sure I was steady, and I grew lightheaded when his fingers slipped up my side, just skirting my breast before he pulled away.
Our eyes met in the slowly dawning light, and the red I expected to see was gone, washed out by that inky blackness. It seemed I wasn’t the only one affected by our proximity.
How easy it would be to rise on tiptoe and press my lips to his.
How simple to pull him towards me and lead us to the grass on the side of the road.
At this time of morning there would be no one here to see us.
Not that there had been anything more than the occasional merchant cart or king’s guard patrol on these roads at any time of day.
We could lose ourselves in each other and finally indulge in the primal curiosity that had been growing in me since I’d first seen those wings burst out from along his spine.
But my rational self held me back. He’d saved me from the shifter attack, but we were on a mission that would keep me safe in far greater ways. We didn’t have time to pause our journey for some irresponsible, hormone-driven corporeal adventuring.
Maybe when we got home…
No, I couldn’t afford to consider those kinds of thoughts. I’d promised Cammon I wouldn’t take advantage of the bond between us, and sleeping with him would cross that line.
At the reminder that whatever desire he felt for me might not actually be real, the heat washed out of me, leaving an empty chill in its wake.
I stepped away from him and continued down the road.
I thought I heard him growl but didn’t glance back to confirm it.
If I looked, I’d be lost to whatever I found staring at me.
What I needed right now was to test the waters and make sure he was okay to travel with me for the next few weeks given the change in our dynamic.
We had more than half a journey to complete, and I would hate it if we spent the entire time awkwardly avoiding each other.
Especially if underneath the bond, regardless of what he claimed, he resented or distrusted me because of what I’d done. What I was.
Either possibility created a stone in my gut, and in a feeble attempt to start a conversation, I said, “At least the weather’s been good. It would have been awful to fight those shifters in the rain. All that mud.”
I shuddered at the idea of tackling the drake while slipping around in the muck. There was no way I would have escaped.
“Does no one else know? Truly?” he asked, ignoring my statement and reverting to the admittedly more relevant topic.
I debated not answering, not wanting to give him more ammunition to use against me and my small circle later.
But the demon had saved my life, putting his own at risk in the process.
The least I could do was give him a few nameless answers.
“Other than my parents, you’re the second person to find out. ”
“Oh?” At the rough edge of his voice, the hint of steel-lined jealousy, my heart gave an inappropriate flutter.
“My best friend knows. She’s the only person I trusted enough to tell straight-out, and that was when I was twelve and probably should have known better.”
“How did she handle it?”
I shrugged. “She’s always been the levelheaded type. She’s an earth mage, so I guess it makes sense. They tend to be pretty grounded.”
I snuck a glance at Cammon to see if he’d caught the pun, and by the roll of his eyes, he had. “Tersey was an earth mage too,” he reminded me. “And so far, nothing about him has been grounded.”
“Yes, well, he was also hundreds of years old. I think we can make allowances for some eccentricities.”
He raised an eyebrow, and I flashed him a smile that soon petered out.
“Three people in the world know what I am,” I emphasized, pointedly leaving out the potential file with my name on it hidden somewhere in Matthew Segrew’s office. “You are now one of the few who have the power to destroy me if you wanted to.”
“I don’t.”
My breath caught in my throat, that aggravating attraction wheedling its way deeper into my blood.
His eyes were crimson once more, but swirls of black danced around the edges. “It turns out this mission is far more interesting with you beside me. Makes me wonder what other trouble we might get into.”
My cheeks flushed, and I didn’t know how to reply.
If he had said any of this before the bite, I would have disregarded the comment as an attempt to get a meal out of me, but now I felt as though I walked on eggshells—a single sentence away from manipulating him into acting contrary to his true wishes.
So I swallowed any potential answer and directed my attention to the ground, watching for other rocks or holes that might attempt to trip me.
“What would happen?” he asked after the silence had stretched on for a while.
I frowned and looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“If you were to bite me again.”
My mouth fell open, but I caught myself before I transformed into a fish. “The first bite initiates the bond. The second completes it.”
“And what does a completed bond entail?”
I assessed his tone, peeling back every syllable for a trace of twisted, bond-driven interest, but found only curiosity. The thread of anger I’d detected between us earlier was still there, but it hadn’t grown. This was the question of an explorer unveiling some new site.
“A complete bond is permanent. Most vampires don’t take things that far unless they’re mating because the connection digs deeper into both parties. The desire to protect, the awareness of the other’s emotions. It’s a vow of forever. Beautiful when it’s consensual. Terrifying otherwise.”
Cammon shuddered. “You’re not kidding. Sounds the same as the demon mating ritual, except for us, one bite does the trick.
Though with our bond, it’s more than an emotional connection or compulsion to protect.
Shared lives. Shared power.” He nudged my shoulder.
“Guess that means we’re a third of the way to being stuck together forever. ”
My laugh stuck halfway through my airway and came out more as a cough.
Another stretch of silence ensued. My spine began to curve under the weight of my pack, and my eyelids grew heavy.
Cammon’s blood had worked wonders to heal me and the rush of the fight had kept me going this long, but as nighttime waned, my injuries reminded me they still existed.
We had a long way to go, but all I could think about was closing my eyes and lying down. Just for a few hours.
Once again, Cammon was the one to break the quiet. “You speak of the bond with a note of reverence. You’ve witnessed a success story?”
This time, my smile came easily, without the smallest hint of embarrassment.
I didn’t know why he was asking—to learn more about me or to provide himself with more fuel to betray me—but I answered before I could think better of it.
“My parents. My mum is a mage, my father is—was—a vampire. Their love for each other was purer than any relationship I’ve seen since.
They made me think it was possible that one day…
” I shrugged. “It didn’t take me long to accept how unlikely that was, or to realize how important it would be for me to solidify my place in society. ”
I flinched as I heard myself. So whiny and downtrodden. Everything I strove not to be. My nature wasn’t something I could control. It was who I was, and if anyone had an issue with it, that was on them, not me. It was nothing to be ashamed of or depressed over.
But no matter how many times I told myself that was the case, as I’d done millions of times over the years, my loneliness bore down on me. I pressed my lips together and turned my face away, hoping Cammon wouldn’t notice.
“What changed your mind?” There was no pity in his question or in the emotions I now sensed from him—I might have died for good this time if there had been—but his voice was softer, as though he knew it might be a painful subject.