Chapter 6 Lily #2
Bumps formed over my skin when I felt his intention.
He didn’t outright ask to feed on me, but he suggested it in the hope I would invite him.
When I’d stayed with him in the cabin in the middle of the snow-covered trees, he’d promised he would never try to bite me.
He’d kept his word, but it didn’t seem like he wanted to.
“Are you asking to feed on me?”
He didn’t look at me, still focused on the fire. “Only if your answer is yes.”
A wave of guilt rushed through me because he’d sacrificed his position and his relationship with his brother for me.
Had traveled across the world and saved my father before I sacrificed him for everyone else.
I should do something for him. “When you described it in the past, you made it sound like it was…intimate.” Physical and sexual and possessive.
He said he only fed on women, mainly his lovers.
“Because it is,” he said simply. “A deadly plague swept through our lands, and my brother’s wife was the only one immune to the disease. He was obsessed with the power in her blood and hunted her until she was his. Became obsessed with her, just on that alone. It eventually grew to something more.”
I immediately became uncomfortable at the proposition because I fully understood he was asking for more than food to sustain his body.
He wanted to have me in the ideal way for a vampire.
“I will always be grateful to you for what you did. I should drop to my knees and give you whatever you want to show my gratitude. But I just can’t do that.
” My heart had been completely claimed by a man I would probably never really have.
He was just an idea, a forbidden lover who was more of a ghost than a man.
There was no disappointment or anger voiced. Neither seemed evident in his silence either. His muscles didn’t tighten, and he didn’t draw breath in frustration. Just stared at the fire with lidless eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said simply. “You owe me nothing.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
He fell silent.
To break the awkward silence, I moved to the fire and rotated the food so the side wouldn’t burn. I stared at the flames longer than I should, just to let time pass, let the breeze clear out the subject.
When I turned to move back to the fire, he stared at me again.
Stared at me like he’d give anything to touch me.
In a different time, I would have relished the attention from two gorgeous men with bodies made of stone. But now that I loved one of them with my whole heart, I felt like a traitor. I felt like I betrayed Callum just being in the same space with Viper…alone.
“My life has been filled with a long line of beautiful women. Some mean more to me than others. But despite their beauty and warm company, nothing substantial has ever stemmed from those relationships.”
I stopped when I heard him speak, stuck in place by his pointed stare.
“It’s strange to be on the other side of that,” he said with a weak smile. “To feel something deep for someone who feels nothing in return.”
“I wouldn’t say nothing…”
“Then what do you feel, Lily?” He left the log and rose to his feet, towering over me even when he kept his distance feet away.
He cocked his head slightly as he looked at me, examined me like he would hang on every word I spoke.
“If I was just hot sex in a winter chill, that’s fine.
Just tell me. You can cut me down with your words, but I’ll still regret nothing. ”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“It’s not complicated.” He raised his voice, but only slightly. “I can’t count the number of times I’ve told a woman it meant nothing to me. I was a man and looked her in the face and told her the truth. You have bigger balls than most men I know, and—”
“There’s somebody else, Viper.”
It was the first time he had a visceral reaction, a tightening of his chin and the cords down his neck.
A flash of surprise and irritation moved across his face before he swallowed it.
“I see.” He seemed to force out the words.
“So, this is recent. Because less than six months ago, you were in my bed—”
“It’s been a very short amount of time, but I’ve fallen in love with him.”
He gave no visible reaction this time, his experience as a general making him stoic once more. “I don’t recall seeing him in battle by land or sea. I don’t recall seeing him in your bedchambers when I came to visit you. So who is the man you deem worthy enough of your heart?”
“He…he wasn’t there.”
His eyebrows rose slightly. “He wasn’t there.” He repeated the words slowly, like it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever said. “What possible reason would a man have for abandoning the woman he loves as she fights for her life and her kingdom?”
“It’s complicated.”
He gave a slight shake of his head. “I don’t think it’s that complicated.
The way I see it, I was there and he wasn’t.
” His eyes flashed in ferocity. “I sailed with three hundred ships and defeated your enemy. If anyone is worthy of your heart, it’s me.
” His hand tightened into a fist, and he gently pressed it against his chest plate.
I had no way to explain this without telling him the truth.
I hadn’t expected to have to explain myself to anyone yet, especially Viper.
“When I left you behind, it was with a twinge of sadness in my heart. But shortly after I left your lands, I was blown off course and almost killed and lost my entire crew… So much happened. And then I met him, and that happened even faster…and I was in love. Maybe if none of that had happened, it would have been different between us, but it did happen.”
“I want to know who he is,” he said with icy coldness. “I need to know that he’s good enough for you.”
“I don’t need your approval, Viper.”
“If you love this man, then you shouldn’t hesitate to reveal his identity. You should be proud to say his name. But you continue to skirt my questions and dodge the truth—”
“His name is Callum,” I said. “But the rest of the world knows him as Wrath, God of the Underworld and King of the Dead.” I still felt power whenever I said his name, like the words alone could summon him to me.
Viper went silent, so silent it seemed like he wouldn’t speak again.
I held his stare, knowing that he finally understood the predicament.
“Perhaps it’s ignorant of me to say this, considering I’m a vampire and my brother is married to an elf granted with near immortality…and I’ve seen demons with my own eyes, but I assumed the gods were mere folklore.”
“Well, I can tell you with absolute certainty they aren’t.” But that belief started to fade with every passing day that I didn’t see Callum. He’d promised he wouldn’t leave me without a goodbye. He wouldn’t abandon me in battle. But all those horrors seemed to have come to pass.
Viper looked away as he considered everything I just said. “And he wasn’t there because gods can’t interfere with the living…”
“He would interfere for me,” I said with a hint of pride. “But I’m not sure why he wasn’t there. I haven’t seen him in over a week, and I’m starting to worry trouble has befallen him.”
“What kind of trouble could possibly delay a god?”
“I—I don’t know. But he would never turn his back on me.” He wouldn’t leave me out in the cold to freeze and die.
“Perhaps the relationship meant more to you than it did to him.”
“He loves me.” I said it with absolute certainty, knowing it was as true as the sky was blue. “He would be here if he could. He just couldn’t, and I don’t know why. I worry about him every day, and that worry has only intensified into an inferno of dread.”
His eyes dropped like he couldn’t bear to witness the emotion on my face.
“It’s probably not my place to say this, but I think a relationship with a vampire is far more likely to succeed than one with a god, a being that doesn’t even share this plane of existence, a person that no one can see except for you.
” His eyes lifted again, this time soft with genuine empathy.
“We’ll find a way.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, Viper. But I assure you, I’ll figure it out.” I would fight for Callum until my body was stripped of hope. Until I knew beyond a doubt there was no way to make it work.
He continued to stare me down, the pity still present.
“If I hadn’t gone to that dead island out to sea, it may have been different for us.
But I did go to that island, and I wouldn’t change it.
He’s the love of my life, the man I want as my husband, the father of my children.
” I didn’t want to hurt Viper by saying all of this, but I wanted him to understand the depth of my commitment.
That it was ironclad and unbreakable and eternal.
If those words hurt him, he hid it well from his expression.
“Then I hope it works out for you, Lily.” He held my gaze like his words were sincere rather than concessionary.
“But the god of the underworld is not only the king of the dead—but the undertaker of souls and a servant of demons. It could all be an elaborate ploy to harvest the most powerful soul he’s ever come across in the mortal world—”
“No.”
“Lily, I just ask you to be careful.”
“He would never take my soul.”
“But perhaps he would manipulate you to give it to him freely.”
“No.”
“I don’t say this to you as the man who wants you for himself.
I say this to you as the man who defied the orders of his king to sail all the way here to save you.
I say this as the man who would still take a blade for you even when another man’s name is on your lips.
I say this to you as a man who still doesn’t regret his actions, even as you tell me you love someone else.
I care for you deeply, Lily Rothschild.” He paused to take a breath, to stare me down with the same intensity. “I don’t want you to be deceived.”
I didn’t understand what I’d done to earn this man’s loyalty and love so effortlessly. How he continued to stand before me without a hint of resentment. “Viper, I appreciate your concern, but I share none of those worries. If you met him, you would know that your fears are misplaced.”
“But I haven’t met him, and I suspect no one else has either. So you’re bound in a relationship without the outside perspective of anyone who loves you—and that’s dangerous.”
“Viper, I hear you.”
“But I don’t think you hear me loud enough. Because when you needed him most, he wasn’t there for you. He abandoned you in your time of greatest need.”
“He didn’t completely abandon me. Because I still had the strength he granted to me, the strength of a god.”
A slow progression of understanding spread across his handsome face.
“That’s why you were able to defeat the Barbarians and the vampires on your own.
That’s why the smell of your blood drives me mad as we speak—because it’s the blood of a goddess.
” He took a step back, like he needed a break from the aroma that excited his nerves.
“Be that as it may, you should lead with your mind and not your heart, Lily. Because you’re risking everything for a man who can never wed you, father your children, or even live in this world with you. ”
It was the first seed of doubt that I felt, the first destruction of the barrier that protected my heart.
But I pictured Callum in my mind’s eye, remembered the way he told me he loved me, the way he’d shown me he loved me every day long before he’d said it.
While the world didn’t believe in what we had, didn’t believe in the goodness of Callum’s heart, I did.
And that was all that mattered. “I’ve heard your concerns, Viper.
I wish to speak of this no more.” I wished to carry the vigil of Callum in my heart in privacy.
He stared me down and let whatever words lay behind his eyes fade. “Neither do I.”
“I would understand if you didn’t want to escort me the rest of the way. I’m sure if you draw a map, I can figure it out.” I didn’t want to waste time with trouble and detours, but after I’d brutally rejected his love, I didn’t deserve his aid.
Both of his eyebrows furrowed like that was the most peculiar thing I’d ever said.
“I’m not a sore loser. I want your heart, your body, and your blood—but I will accept your friendship instead.
I lost my father recently and don’t want you to lose yours.
I already know it’s a type of wound that never heals. I want to help you, Lily.”
His words were the exact comfort I needed, and they instantly brought me into the past, when the two of us were cuddled in blankets in front of the fireplace.
He would trace the vein along my neck with one of his fingers before he dipped his head and pressed a kiss to it.
I never feared he would extend his fangs and bite me, not when he promised he never would without my consent.
I’d instantly trusted him, a creature of the night, dropped my guard in his presence, enjoyed his body as well as his mind.
There had been a closeness there that I’d forgotten shortly after I’d left because my life was stricken by tragedy…
and love. But if I’d stayed a bit longer, or the captain had just avoided the storm like I’d suggested, everything might be different. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”