18. Vasile
Chapter eighteen
Vasile
Deacon falls asleep after our next round, though he does his best to take care of me first, cleaning us both up and tucking me into his side. I let him, feeling indulgent in a way I’ve never experienced with another person.
He’s right. I know he is. We’ve both changed, him more than me, but that is the way of a vampire, after all. The true curse is not immortality in and of itself, though many would like to believe so. It is a fact of life, to see loved ones die. To spend time alone.
To be a vampire is to be stagnant. Physically, we do not change from the moment we are turned, and the older we become, the harder it is to change mentally, too. Emotions are… difficult. Distant.
I brush my lips against his collarbone and tip my head back, looking my fill. Humans are so alive, in contrast, but their lives are fleeting. Wolves are different still. All the forward-thinking of a creature that knows it will live far longer than it should, with all the impulsive recklessness one would expect from people who know they are hard to kill.
Did I ever appreciate Deacon this way before? I always thought him enchanting. I always thought—
I always thought he would be there. That he would remain, no matter what I did. He never asked about my life before him, just took the scraps of information I deigned to toss his way as though they were enough.
And I always thought, too, that we would last forever. That we would be fine , forever. That Tamesis was gone and would leave us alone, and we would get to have the life I knew Deacon truly wanted.
The life I wanted.
I shuffle closer, though there is really no distance between us at all, and as though sensing my distress, Deacon’s arms tighten around me, and he nuzzles his face into my hair. He is still sleeping, but even in sleep, his first action is to comfort me.
It is early for me to sleep—hardly past midnight at all—but still, I feel it pulling at me. The last thought I have before it drags me under is that I thought I could always be strong enough for both of us.
When I wake, I can feel the sun has not yet risen, but I do not open my eyes. Deacon shifts again beside me, and I cling to him, pressing my face against his chest. Hair tickles my lips and I whine, trying to move closer.
Deacon chuckles. His hand slides down my back and over my arse, squeezing gently. “I’m not going anywhere, love. Go back to sleep.”
Now that I’m awake, I can’t. I think I dreamt of Tamesis last night. No, I did. I dreamt of dirt and blood and screams and a shadow falling over me and pain—
“Vas…” Deacon pulls me tighter against him. “Are you okay? You—”
I kiss him before he can finish the sentence. He moulds his lips to mine, effortlessly taking what I want to give him, but when I groan and bite his lower lip, he rolls on top of me and slows it.
He’s heartbreakingly gentle with me, pulling back only to press his lips to mine again and again. I don’t know how he can be. Even if I hand myself over, Tamesis won’t stop, and the only reason he has Deacon in his sights at all is because of me. He never cared about wolves—never bothered their packs because he considered them beneath him.
But Tamesis blames him for turning my head. For turning me from what he considered to be the true path for a vampire.
“What’s going on?” Deacon whispers against my mouth. The room is dark, but I know he can see me about as well as I can see him. “Tell me what happened, Vas.”
“He’s going to hurt you. He’s going to hurt you because of me.”
“We’re not going to let that happen.”
“We can’t stop it.”
“Fine.” He sighs. “But we’ll do our best to, right? I’ll protect you. You protect me. Like we did before.”
Did we? Deacon protected me . He went back to his pack day after day, night after night, defending the mating bond he was forming with a vampire no one could trust. And I…
Failed.
“Tell me about Tamesis.”
I stare up at Deacon for long enough that he sits up, moving back before he flicks on the lamp. I scramble to sit up myself, the sheet he pulled over us a scant few hours ago pooling around my waist.
“No. Why would you—Here, now…”
“He’s your sire, Vas. If nothing else, that would make him important. But you never spoke about him, and I never asked. Tell me.”
“I wanted to spare you that.”
“I wanted to know every part of you. I still do. Even the bad.” He reaches out and puts his hand on my knee under the sheet. His thumb rubs over my skin, and he lets out a sigh. “I ran wild after I left you. That day—I woke up, and you were there, sure, but I couldn’t feel our bond and you weren’t moving, and I thought—”
He cuts himself off, eyes shining, and I reach for his hand, gripping it tightly. “You thought?”
“I honestly thought I’d killed you.” He shakes his head. “I realised I hadn’t, and I remembered what had happened, and I knew I couldn’t face you. So I left.”
“You left all the windows open. Everything.”
“I couldn’t have you follow me. I already knew—my wolf almost forced the shift there in the bedroom. So I ran, and I made sure you wouldn’t, and I didn’t come back for almost twenty years.”
“That long?”
His smile is rueful. “I wanted to be alone. Be free. And for a while, I was, and it was…” He trails off with a shake of his head, and when he meets my eyes again, his own are shining. “Glorious. Incredible, even though I knew the entire time I was missing the best part of myself.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“Vas.”
“I—But you came back.”
“Yeah. Chaya found me. They knew the alpha was going to die soon, and there was no one else to unite the packs. Or so she said. She convinced me to shift back, and Orion helped bring me back to myself while she got everything ready for my return.”
My heart thuds painfully against my ribs. I wish Deacon had never left, but I am happy he has Chaya and Orion by his side. They’ve stepped up for him in ways I could not. Did not.
“I should have found you.”
Deacon cups the side of my face. “I’d have run you off if you had.”
“Liar.”
He shrugs easily. “Probably. It’s okay, though. Coming back for them… It was easier, somehow. I didn’t have to think about us.”
“Until you found out I was crai.”
His smile is stunning, genuine adoration streaming from every pore. “I didn’t know until I came back to the city. And I panicked, but I knew, too, that they couldn’t have picked anyone better.”
“Anyone else would have been better.”
Deacon simply shakes his head, and I sigh, leaning in closer.
“I met Tamesis so long ago.”
“Do you remember it all?”
“It’s the only thing from that long ago I truly do remember. The rest is… hazy. I know the facts of my life, but it’s hard to feel them.”
“Tell me.”
“I was in battle. All the farmers where I lived had been conscripted, and I’d left my family behind and joined the battlefield. It was a slaughter. I remember that. So much blood, the ground soaked in it, and every so often you’d sink to your knees, and—” I shake my head. The emotions are distant enough that the memories feel like some film I watched long ago, but the scents, they are inescapable. “And I died there. I was run through.”
Deacon’s hand slides up my thigh, over my hip, and to the scar on one side of my stomach. It is silver, more healed than it would be had I survived and remained human, but still there.
“This?”
I put my hand over his, his fingers pressing into my skin. “Yes. My healing dealt with the worst of it once I was turned but not enough to be rid of it completely.”
“He found you there?”
I nod. “He always has liked a battlefield. Easy to gorge and so much fear… I think he planned to drain me, but he dragged my head back and when he looked into my face, something gave him pause. I knew I was dead. I could feel it, and I did not welcome it exactly, but it was inevitable, and so there was little point in fighting.
“He dragged me out of the dirt and told me he could save me. Told me he would only do it if I followed him. We were in this strange, quiet space. I’d killed many of the men who surrounded us, and when I told Tamesis no, he just looked at me and I realised I was looking at someone who was not human at all.”
“He knew that you knew?”
“Yes.” I don’t move my hand from where it is resting over Deacon’s. “He wanted me to know. He didn’t scare me then, fool that I was. How could he? I was certain I was about to die.”
“And he turned you.”
“He told me I would be his greatest warrior, and then he turned me, yes.”
Deacon’s breath shakes, and his fingers tremble against my skin.
“He kept me close, but he didn’t nurture me the way we do our fledglings. Why would he? He wanted a monster, someone who would act on their bloodlust and run wild. He took me back to the village I’d come from, back to the farm, and I—”
“Vasile.”
“I didn’t kill all of them. I came back to myself when I realised I was in my family house. My parents, my wife… My children .” I shake my head. “I left, I swear it, and they were alive when I did.”
“He went back, didn’t he?”
“I suspect so.” My next breath shudders out of me, pain splintering in my chest. “I gave in after that. What else was I to do? I knew better than to fight him. And he had proven he would destroy anything I cared for, so it was important I showed no interest in anyone—any thing —but him.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Vas.”
“All we left behind us was death and blood. And some of it was my fault, Deacon. I should have died on that battlefield, and I could have made sure I could never hurt anyone again at any point along the way.”
Deacon surges forward, pushing me back down onto the bed and resting his entire form over mine. I welcome the weight and heat of him, pressing my forehead to his shoulder before I look up into his face.
“I’m not letting you go, Vas. And I hope—I hope that doesn’t make me like him, but I can’t—”
I kiss him. He melts into it, body lax against mine as I tease at his lips and enjoy the simple closeness of him.
“You are nothing like him,” I say when we part. “You never could be. You are a better man than he could ever hope to be.”
“Why did he leave?”
“He would do that from time to time. He found others who held his interest for a while, and I comforted myself by saying that he might stay away… Or that he would always return to me.” I flush, dropping my eyes in shame. “I’d never been to England, so when he said he was heading to Siberia, I came here. I found you.”
Deacon grins and nips my lower lip. “I found you .”
“You did.”
“I’ve always known you were mine. That hasn’t changed.”
“Circumstances have.”
“There’s never been a better time for us.” Deacon catches my cutting look and rolls his eyes. “You know. This whole thing with Tamesis aside.”
“I’m still crai.”
“This isn’t a Romeo and Juliet situation.”
“No. But we have responsibilities. Very little free time.”
Deacon hums. He lowers his face to my neck, licking and sucking at sensitive skin, and I gasp, arching up against him. “We’re lucky, then, that I have two more than capable betas who need more responsibility but absolutely refuse to head up their own packs. Gives them something to do.”
“I—” I gasp when his teeth dig in. Not enough to leave a mating mark, but enough to make me feel it.
“Is that what you want, Vas?”
It’s hard to think about the downsides with Deacon moving against me the way he is. Why would I ever want to leave this bed? Why would I not want to remain here and catch up on one hundred years I’ve missed? Of course I’ve kept up to date with what Deacon’s been doing as alpha of the packs—it’s necessary as crai for me to do so—but I have no idea what his life has been like.
I wrap my leg around his hip and roll us so he’s the one on his back. He grins up at me and I kiss the smile from his mouth, rocking against him. “We need to survive this first.”
“We will.”
“No.” I lean down on my elbows, one on either side of his head because I need him to understand the truth of this. “No. Do not underestimate him. Do not think that, just because we know he is wrong, we can win. Or he will .”
Deacon nods, eyes serious as he takes in my expression. “I’ll follow your lead, Vas. But yes. We’ll take him seriously.”
“He has no mercy. No limits. That’s why I thought I had to deal with him alone. I thought I could keep you safe that way.”
“You didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t.”
My fingers play with strands of Deacon’s hair as we’re silent for a moment.
“When we get through this,” he says eventually, eyes a little sly, “we’re both taking a week off.”
“An entire week?”
“Ten days, maybe? We’ll go away somewhere—I know some packs who’ll let us stay and leave us alone—and stay in bed the entire time.”
I hum, leaning down to brush my lips over his. “Oh? I suppose we will have a lot of sleep to catch up on.”
Deacon huffs a laugh against my mouth. “I’ll mate you outside under a full moon,” he says, and the words are heavy with promise. “We’ll never be apart again.”
The idea of it sinks into me, and though instinctual fear grips me, I remember that in this fantasy—this fantasy that feels so tangible I can almost taste it—Tamesis is gone. Our troubles are gone.
I kiss him greedily and Deacon grips my sides, rocking his hips against mine again. I wonder if he’ll fuck me again. Probably.
“I’ll hunt you first, lupul meu,” I say, and he shivers, eyes dark and hazy with lust. “And then you can hunt me back.”
Deacon grins into our next kiss, and I don’t need words to know what he’s thinking.
It sounds perfect.