Chapter 19
FELORé
It was a dream I was having. The kind of dream where I knew it wasn’t real, but then wasn’t it? Weren’t parts of it real? Like the water.
Freezing, mountain snowmelt—just like when I was a child—rushed over my feet where I sat riverside next to Alek upon the only sunny patch of grass beneath a dense covering of trees.
Alek. Of course, he was grinning. Nothing but cheerful grins while a breeze licked his thick hair and the water rushed past his ankles.
The only suspect thing about it was how healthy he looked. He wasn’t coughing. He was smiling, his teeth scraping his lower lip like he was biting back some delectable secret. He leaned in close to my neck, and the warmth of his breath scattered gooseflesh down my arms.
“You,” I whispered, nuzzling against him. “I don’t fucking trust you.”
“You shouldn’t trust me,” he said, his long tongue snaking from his mouth to lick the shell of my ear. “I’ll hurt you, darling.”
I shook my head, but his tongue was so wet, and I wanted to feel it wrapped around my ear.
“I’ll hurt you,” he repeated. “But I promise to make it good.”
I didn’t know why I was letting him touch me so much, or why we were this close, but my body was igniting.
“Can I tell you a secret?” he asked, his hands pulling me tighter as he pressed his lips against my ear.
I nodded.
What he said next was not a language I’d ever heard. It was more like a beautifully timed musical score—too delicate to be Vultaen, too poetic to be Novithish, and old. I could nearly see an arrangement of symbols pressed into the side of some relic.
“I love it,” I whispered, squirming in tighter, whimpering from his tongue on my neck. “But I don’t know what it means.”
“Yes, you do.” He splayed his long fingertips over my neck and jaw. “Think, darling.”
A trickle of something warm dribbled onto my shoulder.
“I don’t know,” I breathed, cutting my eyes to my shoulder and the bright red dots that had fallen there.
“I’ll bleed for you,” he whispered and pressed a kiss atop my shoulder. “I’ll fucking bleed for you, human.”
I finally twisted to him, and I gasped.
I hadn’t noticed it before. The red staining his lips.
“Alek.” My eyes grew large when I smoothed my thumb over his lips, and blood smeared across his cheek. “Y-you’re bleeding.”
Something was so horrifying about his smile. It was stretched wide across his face, but his teeth were stained a jarring red. Then blood. So much blood began to pour from his mouth, trickling in streaks of dark crimson down his chin, soaking his white shirt.
I screamed his name, but he wasn’t trying to fight it. He was doing nothing but continuing to smile as blood gushed past his lips.
No one answered my screams. No one came to help us, and I couldn’t even get him to stand. He was unmoving and unfazed as I pulled at his clothes in useless yanks.
“Shh, darling,” he whispered, pulling me to the ground where I stumbled onto my back, and he smiled as he crawled on top of me, spilling blood over my chest. “You cannot say a word.”
Everything was suddenly too bright, too burning, like the sun was closing in on us. I could barely even see him.
He leaned into my ear and whispered, “It is a secret.”
I startled awake, clawing my fingertips into something firm—a chest, muscled and dense. The cotton swill of fabric.
My vision came into focus the same time he grunted, and I realized too late that I was pulling Alek into me by fistfuls of his shirt.
On top of me in his bed.
His body was muscled and so heavy, even as he held himself up to not crush me. I parted my lips to speak, but the words snagged in my throat—Alek, You’re alive. You’re ALIVE.
He blinked down at me with his eyes bright and captivated, and for one far-too-long second, I couldn’t budge. Neither could he.
Then my senses rushed back into focus. A virgin was on top of me.
“Get off!” I shouted and kneed him in the ribs.
He clutched his side, his face crumbling in pain as I scurried backward until I collided with the headboard. Oh, no, no, no, no. His stab wound. The streaks of red. The infection.
“Fuck,” he wheezed, collapsing onto the bed each time he tried to sit up, teeth clenched tight.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I breathed. “Alek, I didn’t mean—what were you doing? Why were you on top of me?”
He muttered a string of colorful language as he gripped his side, finally able to push himself up. His words were weak and wretched as he said, “I wasn’t ‘doing’ anything. I was trying to wake you. You were screaming in your sleep.”
I blinked for a long time. “Screaming what?”
His gaze darted to mine. The last time I saw him, he’d been red-eyed and filled with fury. This morning, the red had receded from his irises, returning them to their sparkling golden copper.
“You know, it was the strangest thing,” he said, his lips curling in a grin. “You were screaming my name.”
I gulped.
“Tell me, love,” he said, peering at the cigarette in his fingers that had nearly gotten snuffed out in our little tussle. “Was I hurting you in your dreams? Or was I just that good?”
I shot him a look. Because of that, but also because his health was so clearly worse this morning, from the hollows of his cheeks to the pallid grey of his lips to the setting creases on his forehead.
He was still epically handsome—that would likely never change—but he looked sick beyond measure. And he was fucking smoking.
“Let me see your side,” I said, tossing the covers from my legs. “Come on. Lift your shirt.”
One of his eyebrows arched as he exhaled smoke. “You want to see it, do you? So that you might find a home for your other knee?”
“You deserved that,” I said, venom in my tone. “Consider that my way of thanking you for putting your ghost hands all over me last night.”
His gorgeous smile only spread as he stretched across the bed, propping himself up on an elbow. “My apologies, Snow Fox. I did not realize they were ‘all over you’.”
I sucked my lower lip into my mouth. Do not get heated at the memory. Do not get heated at the memory.
“I thought they were just wrapped around your delicate neck.”
My heartbeat betrayed me, and I hated that he could hear it, but he could, so there was no use in trying to hide it. It was why his pretty (and satisfied) gaze wandered down to my chest.
“Lift your stupid fucking shirt,” I said, “and let me see your side.”
His brows dipped. “Bossy human—”
“Now, Alek.”
He sucked on his herbs, humor dancing in his expression even as he eyed me cautiously. Then he lifted his shirt, and I was certain my face lost a full shade of color.
The sprawling veins had darkened to a blackened red and spiraled higher up into his ribcage. If he were a human, this would be the thing that lay him on his deathbed.
What I was about to say was stupid. Or stubborn. I could never quite tell those two things apart. I steeled myself with a breath and asked, “Have you read A Magnificent Constitution?”
He squinted, either at the question or the smoke curling into his eyes. “That a book?”
“Yes. A manual, rather. They call it the bible of vultae anatomy, and it teaches things like how to please one of you and what to expect in bed. It is the only reason whores are taught to read. I’ve read it three times front to back.”
He slanted his head, watchful as he exhaled smoke, like, And?
“And,” I continued, “there is a section that addresses how to heal a stubborn wound.”
I’d not seen a spark of hope in his eyes before, if that was even what this was. But his attention was instantly gripped. Even his tone changed as he asked, “And what does it say?”
I found myself suddenly without all the words I needed. Or at least without the most fitting words. The words that would make this sound less insane. “A human’s blood applied directly to the wound can quicken the healing process.”
He searched my expression, his eyes narrowing. “Blood?”
I swallowed. “Blood.”
“How much?” he asked, sitting up a little taller. “Some dangerous amount?”
I shook my head. “The loss of blood is not where the danger lies.”
He blinked.
“You see, the human has to be in a state of arousal for it to work.”
His expression didn’t falter. Didn’t give way to his thoughts.
“A heightened state. Extremely aroused. Nearing the point of…climax.”
His chuckle was mostly breath as he brought the cigarette to his lips. “I see. And why wouldn’t that be the precise caveat?”
“I don’t know,” I said somberly, “but we’ll do it tonight. That way we have plenty of time to rest afterwards.”
He scrunched his face tight, rubbing his eyes. Then he said, “No.”
The muscles of my face fell as I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“As generous as that is, human.” He grunted in pain as he pushed himself from the bed. “I will have to decline—with regret, of course. Do not take it personally.”
I watched him with wide, disbelieving eyes as he stretched his neck on his stroll toward the window nook. “But that makes no sense. Why do you decline? I don’t understand.”
“Because, darling, I am vultae. I will heal on my own with time. There is no need for you to do all that effort.”
“You will not heal from this, Prince. You are already sick with fever. This will kill you.”
“Well, in that case,” he said, winking back over his shoulder, “feel free to keep the shirt.”
I pushed myself from the bed to circle it. “You know, last night, you reprimanded me for having a death wish, but it is you with the death wish. You.”
His chuckle was so fucking casual. “I promise you, my dear, I have no such thing.”
“Then why not let me help you?”
“Because I have no need for your help, Feloré. As sweet as it may be, my love, and it is. It is so fucking sweet,” he said, pressing his palms together, as if in prayer. “I have no need. I feel just fine.”
I sucked my cheeks, staring at him as he twisted to face the window. There was a dangerous disconnect. A seam that had loosened in the stitches of his reality, distorting the picture so much that he thought the holes were just part of the design.
Either that, or this delusional facade was exactly that—not real. Not really him.
“You want to know what my dream was about?” I asked. “You want to know why I was screaming your name?”
He spun around. “The more detail, the better, sweetheart.”
“Because you were smiling.”
He cut his eyes to the side. “And that is worrisome?”
“It was a slow, horrifying death you were dying, and not only did you refuse to let me help you, but you were fucking smiling about it.”
It was almost poetic watching the smile he wore now falter around the edges.
“Look, I do not pretend to know your secrets, Prince, even if I’m certain you have many. But how could someone who cares so deeply about protecting the life of a human chained to their room not care about protecting his own?”
He stilled, looking like he had so much spinning around his mind, but all he said was, “I do care.”
“You just don’t want help. But if you let me help you, then our score will be settled. We’ll be even.”
His eyes danced as he slid his long tongue over his teeth. “Darling, I don’t give a shit about some score. I don’t need payment in the form of blood because I kept someone from taking a knife to your chest when you shouldn’t be here in the first place.”
“See.” I pointed at him. “That is precisely what I’m talking about. You care about injustices. Which is why you must let me help you. Do it for me.”
His chuckle was immediate and dark. “Take your blood for you? What sense does that make?”
“It doesn’t have to make sense. Do it because I’m asking.”
His head slowly cocked to one side, and there was something so endlessly thoughtful in his expression. “Why? Why are you asking, human?”
I’d asked the same thing of his possession last night. Why? Why?
Saying the truth was more difficult than I thought it’d be, because it was opening a door that could not be shut. It was inviting him inside these murky gray waters with me where nothing could be fully seen, and the boundaries were too easily blurred.
But the truth was also the truth. Nothing else could compare to when it was spoken.
“Because I don’t believe you deserve to suffer.”
His molten copper eyes warmed brilliantly, a stark contrast with how sick he looked. How sick he was. “How can you be so sure, Snow Fox? Am I not still the demon of your nightmares?”
You wouldn’t trust the darkness of a nightmare, and you shouldn’t trust me.
“You are,” I said. “But I think you might be something else, too, Alek. Something more dangerous.”
“Oh?” he asked, one eyebrow lifting as his voice dripped in intrigue. “And what’s that?”
I took a breath. “A reason to hope.”