Chapter 9 Cedar
Cedar
Ishould have known it was a bad idea to follow Vesper to some random vampire sex house after she came to, spouting nonsense about our princess.
But I couldn’t blame her. Not when Aurelia was sitting on that chaise with a sinful dark red dress with a deep V that went straight to her belly button and the sides slit, giving us a glimpse of her tempting legs.
She was like a forbidden treat just waiting for someone to take a bite of.
Vesper? She was the rabid dog.
She lunged forward before I could stop her, but instead of burying her teeth into Aurelia, she stopped when the princess reached out and cupped the newborn vampire’s face.
Such a simple move, but it rendered her powerless.
Even I could hear Vesper’s shuddered breath. My heart ached, seeing her lean into Aurelia while the princess ran her hand through Vesper’s white hair in a soothing gesture.
They look so perfect together. That was how it always felt when I was looking in, watching them.
It was torture having them away from me for so long, but for them? Their bond must have made it excruciating.
My heart twinged. I felt more like an outsider than ever before. They seemed to fall back into their roles so easily, but me? There was still something gnawing at my chest, a violent emotion that had me banging at the cage around my heart.
“Poor Little Mouse,” Aurelia murmured, her voice full of mock pity.
Anger rose inside me, and my body moved of its own accord. I marched forward, ready to grab her by the hair and show her what it meant to leave us, but Vesper’s broken voice stopped me in my tracks.
“You abandoned us,” she whispered.
I could tell how hard that hit by the look in her eyes. For a minute, the mask dropped, and I saw the princess I knew.
“Without a word,” I added. “I only figured it out when Atlas’s people came to drag me back, saying you had left.”
When she looked at me, I saw a flash of… shame?
“I am doing what I need to do,” she said. As she slowly rose, Vesper grabbed her.
“You bonded him.”
Aurelia refused to look at Vesper, but that meant she had to meet my gaze. I was shocked to see the pain there.
“That’s what we do at vampire weddings.” There was zero remorse in her tone.
A hot, cutting emotion licked at my chest.
She bonded him. The random vampire. And now she was going to go off and do gods know what with him.
She got away from Vesper and stalked forward, stopping right in front of me, her hand reaching out to brush mine. Electricity zapped.
“You’ll see soon. Trust me.”
She walked past me. I turned in a panic, my hand reaching out to grab her, but she dodged me with ease, and I froze when I saw who was waiting for her in the doorframe.
Her new husband.
Caspian stood there, looking at us with an unamused expression. My gaze lingered on his bloodied mouth and clothes.
“Are they bothering you?” he asked. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the anger was back. I stepped forward, but Vesper’s hand took mine, stopping me.
“You know they aren’t,“ Aurelia hissed. “Let’s go before we really cause a scene.”
She left us without another glance, and just like that, I was cast aside again. We. But somehow it felt more targeted at me. She let Vesper touch her. She soothed her.
But me?
She barely had anything to say to me, and when I tried to reach out, she sidestepped me.
I don’t understand.
Before Vesper was taken, I thought we were together. The three of us. But maybe I was wrong.
“Why’d you stop me?” I asked as Vesper came to stand at my side.
“The seer came to me in my dream,” she replied.
“What?”
She nodded, her face strained.
“But first, I need blood, or I might actually kill someone.”
Her arms wrapped around me, and I tilted my head to the side.
“Good witch.” Her deep timbre had shivers going up my spine.
In a flash, her fangs were buried deep inside me. Intense fire ran through my neck and shoulders before being quelled by the venom.
I didn’t fight the reaction it pulled from me.
I wanted to lose myself in it. Wanted to lose myself in her if it meant forgetting the betrayal for just a moment longer.
I let her back me up to the chaise Aurelia had been sitting on. With her fangs still in my neck, she hastily laid me down, moving on top of me. I held on to her, pulling her closer as the pleasure coursed through me and pulled me under a wave of warmth.
But all I could think of was Aurelia and the painful expression she left me with.
I couldn't take it anymore. I started trying to unbutton Vesper’s clothes. I needed her closer.
She pulled her fangs from me, and I had to stop myself from begging her to put them back in. The hit from her venom was too much. My core was clenching, and I was unbelievably wet for her.
“I need you,” I whispered. But the moment she met my eyes, it was like cold water splashed through me. “But…”
I swallowed the knot in my throat. I was aching for her to touch me. My cunt was begging for her to fuck me hard enough to seal away these unwanted feelings.
But Vesper, even in her bloodlust haze, saw something in me and paused, waiting.
“But I want her here too,” I admitted, my voice wavering.
Shit. Pull it together.
I couldn’t. I could feel the tears breaking in my eyes. I blinked rapidly and looked up at the ceiling.
And then Vesper wrapped her arms around me and laid her head on my chest.
“Soon,” she vowed. “We will get her back.”
I pushed my palms into my eyes, trying to stop the tears that were coming. I couldn't fully understand why it hurt so bad. Couldn't understand the reaction I was having.
How had this vampire princess gone from being the biggest annoyance I’d ever met to one of the two most important people in my life?
It was in that moment that, for the second time in my life, I prayed to my gods for someone other than myself.
The dreams always started the same.
I was back in the coven. A young child watching as two people were burned alive with magic in front of her.
The same dream over and over again. It happened almost every single night. When I closed my eyes, the first thing I would see was the pain on my parents’ faces.
I learned that if I concentrated hard enough, I could close my eyes. I could try to drown out the screams. I could pretend like they weren't dying right before my eyes.
I had blocked it out for so long and I wanted to keep it that way. But there was something—or should I say someone—forcing me to come to terms with it.
“You have to face it,” the seer, Max, said from somewhere in the room, his voice louder than the screams.
“Stop showing me this,” I asked, my voice hoarse from the effort it took to keep my screams inside me.
“The answers to your future are in your past. If you push this away—”
“I don't care!”
But it was a mistake because the moment I yelled, my eyes popped open, and I was met with the bodies of my parents engulfed by flames. It hit me like a ton of bricks. My chest twisted, my gut turned, and I felt like I was going to vomit.
My coven leader was right by my side, his hand on my shoulder.
For the first time, Max showed himself in front of me, blocking most of the bodies. Seeing him in his child form brought me back to myself, making me realize that this was a dream. That it couldn't hurt me.
No matter how much I didn't want to look at it, at least it wasn't happening right now.
And that's when I noticed something I hadn’t before.
The runes.
I couldn't make them out, but I could tell that they were different from the ones we originally had on the cathedral floor. And they weren’t just near my parents—they were everywhere, their magic shining just as bright as the flames.
“The coven will burn.“
Max met me with a smile, but it looked twisted, and suddenly his face started morphing. It changed into the face of my coven leader. Then Aurelia’s father. Then her brother, who lunged at me, and—
I sat up with a gasp, my breathing coming heavy. Sweat dripped down my face, and my heart raced in my chest. There were hands on me, and I quickly tried to push them off.
Fear ate at me as I scrambled to get away from the hands. It felt like they were chasing me, forcing me down.
“Cedar!”
Vesper's voice brought me back. I blinked once, twice, three times. The room started to come into view. It was the same room she and I, and once, Aurelia, had occupied in Atlas’s clan. Familiar territory that calmed my heart.
Vesper’s eyes were turning red as they looked at me, but her expression was pained.
“It was just a dream,” she said in a soothing voice. “I tried to wake you, but I couldn’t.”
I let out a sigh and let my head hang while she rubbed soothing circles over my back.
I tried to push away the images of my parents. But I couldn't. So I kept my mouth shut, unable to tell if the dream I had was the seer trying to get in touch with me or just my fucked-up trauma.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
There was silence and then the shifting of the bedsheets as she got closer.
“They happen almost every night.”
I looked up at her, shocked.
“You can tell?”
I thought I had been handling them well, waking up and turning away from her. As a vampire, she didn't need to sleep, but she still kept me company at night. Being able to wake up and have someone there helped with the nightmares.
They were worse when she wasn’t there.
Vesper gave me a small smile.
“Your heart rate increases. You know, vampire hearing and all that.”
I swallowed thickly and nodded.
“Ever since Max showed me the vision of my parents, that's all I can see. But I'm tired. Let me just—”
She pushed me back down onto the bed and wrapped her arms around me.
“Sleep, witch. I’ll protect you from those bad dreams.”
I managed a small laugh, but inside a feeling of dread came over me because I wasn't sure if she could save me from them.
“I’m sticky and sweaty,” I said and pushed myself away from her. “I’ll shower quickly and come back.”
I sweetened my words with a kiss to her lips, and she smiled.
“You have ten minutes, then I’m coming after you.”
Wishing I could tell her I’d be waiting for that, that I could be that carefree because I was just taking a random shower, I nodded before practically running to the bathroom.
I turned on every faucet to the max, hoping to drown out the sound in my head, then the shower to as hot as it would go.
I stripped, and only as the steam started to coat the mirror did I allow myself to turn and look at the scars that ran across my back.
Angry. Red. Pulsing.
My stomach twisted at seeing them. I could still feel a part of his magic running through me. Normally, the scars were barely there, but it was like my dreams called forth his magic, allowing it to show through my skin.
Jumping into the scalding hot water, I grabbed the nearest rag and started scrubbing my back as hard as I could in an attempt to rid myself of the dirty feeling.
Wishing Vesper would barge in here like she promised while knowing there was nothing she could do to help me.