Chapter Eleven
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Tessa
Something’s wrong with me.
The realization hits the moment I wake up, and it’s not the exhaustion pulling at my bones or the dull ache in my wrist where Vex’s fangs broke skin. It’s something deeper. Something other.
The room is too bright.
Not the light coming through the window, that’s normal afternoon sun, muted by curtains.
But I can see everything with a clarity that shouldn’t be possible.
Every dust mote floating in the air. Every thread in the fabric of Vex’s sheets.
The grain of wood in the doorframe across the room looks like I’m standing inches away instead of lying in bed.
And the sounds.
Oh god, the sounds.
Downstairs, someone’s walking with heavy footsteps I recognize as Blade’s from the gait alone.
In the kitchen, water runs through pipes in the walls, and I can hear every gurgle, every shift of pressure.
Further away, bikes rumble in the garage, and I can distinguish between them, Hollywood’s Harley has a slightly lower pitch than Scout’s.
It’s too much. All of it is too much.
I sit up, and the world tilts. My stomach lurches, and I have to close my eyes against the onslaught of sensory input. But closing my eyes doesn’t help because now I can smell everything.
Leather and motor oil from the clubhouse. Bacon frying somewhere downstairs. The faint scent of Prophet’s incense from his room. And underneath it all, Vex’s scent, cold nights and something darker, something that makes my mouth water and my pulse quicken.
“Breathe.” His voice cuts through the chaos, and I open my eyes to find him standing in the doorway.
He’s changed clothes, black jeans and a dark grey henley that hugs his frame, and his eyes are fixed on me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle.
“Slow breaths. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”
I try. I really do. But the air tastes different now. Richer. Like I can taste individual molecules, and it’s overwhelming and terrifying and—
“Tessa.” He’s across the room in a heartbeat, moving faster than my new senses can track, and suddenly his hands are on my face, cool fingers grounding me. “Look at me. Only me. Block everything else out and focus on me.”
His eyes are dark, not white. Human. Safe. I lock onto them like a lifeline and force myself to breathe the way he’s telling me to. Slow. Measured. In and out.
Gradually, the world stops spinning.
“What’s happening to me?” My voice comes out shaky, small. “Why can I—everything’s so loud and bright and I can smell things I shouldn’t be able to smell and—”
“The bond.” He pulls back slightly but keeps his hands on my shoulders. “When you offered me your blood, when I drank from you willingly given... we created a connection. A blood bond. It’s changing you.”
“Changing me how?” Panic spikes through me. “Am I turning into a vampire? Is that why—”
“No.” His grip tightens, reassuring. “You’re not turning. That’s not how it works. But the bond... it’s tethering you to me in ways that matter. Some of my senses are bleeding into yours. You’re experiencing a fraction of what I experience every day.”
I stare at him, trying to process. “A fraction?”
“You’ll learn to control it. To filter out what you don’t need. It just takes time.” His thumb strokes my cheekbone, and the gentleness of the gesture is at odds with the concern in his eyes. “How do you feel? Besides the sensory overload?”
How do I feel?
Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Terrified.
And underneath all of that—connected. Like there’s a thread tied around my heart that extends across the room to where Vex is crouched in front of me, and I can feel him at the other end of it. His worry. His guilt. His fierce, possessive need to protect me.
“I can feel you,” I whisper. “Your emotions. They’re... they’re in my head.”
His jaw tightens. “I know. I can feel you too.”
The admission hangs between us, heavy with implication. Because if he can feel my emotions, then he knows exactly how I feel about him. The attraction. The fear. The growing, terrifying certainty that I’m falling for a monster who could kill me without meaning to.
“Tessa—”
A knock on the door interrupts whatever he was about to say. Prophet’s voice comes through, calm and measured. “May I come in?”
Vex looks at me, waiting for permission. I nod, and he stands, moving to open the door.
Prophet steps inside, and the first thing I notice is his aura.
Not metaphorically. Actually. There’s a faint golden light surrounding him that wasn’t there before or maybe it was, and I couldn’t see it. It pulses gently, warm and soothing, and just being near it makes some of the chaos in my head quiet down.
“How are you feeling?” Prophet asks, moving to sit in the chair near the bed. His eyes scan me, assessing, and I get the sense he’s seeing far more than just my physical state.
“Like my brain is on fire and every sense I have is cranked to eleven.” I try to smile, but it comes out more like a grimace. “Vex says it’s the bond.”
“It is.” Prophet leans forward, elbows on his knees. “When a vampire feeds from a willing donor, especially one whose blood carries power like yours does, it creates a connection. Not a full bond, not yet. But a tether. You’re sharing pieces of each other now.”
“Why didn’t anyone warn me?” The question comes out sharper than I intend. “Before I shoved my wrist in his face, maybe someone could have mentioned ‘hey, by the way, this is going to fundamentally change you’?”
“Would you have done it differently?” Prophet’s voice is gentle but pointed. “If you’d known, would you have let Vex die instead?”
No. The answer is immediate and certain. Even if I’d known what would happen, I would have made the same choice. Because the alternative, watching Vex freeze from the inside out, watching ancient frost kill him, was unthinkable.
“That’s what I thought.” Prophet’s smile is sad. “Love makes us do foolish things. Brave things. Sometimes both at once.”
“I don’t—” I start to protest, but Prophet holds up a hand.
“Don’t lie to me, Tessa. I’m an angel. I can literally see the truth.” His eyes flick to Vex, who’s standing rigid by the window. “Both of you are broadcasting your feelings loud enough that even the humans downstairs can probably sense it.”
Silence stretches between us, uncomfortable and charged.
Then Vex speaks, his voice low. “What does the bond mean for her? Long term?”
Prophet’s expression turns serious. “It depends on several factors. How often Vex feeds from you. How strong their emotional connection becomes. How much of her warden bloodline power gets tied up in the bond.” He pauses, choosing his words carefully.
“In the best case scenario, Tessa lives a normal human lifespan with slightly enhanced senses and an emotional tether to Vex. In the worst case...”
“She dies,” Vex finishes, his voice flat. “Like Catherine. The bond drains her slowly until there’s nothing left.”
Catherine. The name hits me like a slap. I don’t know who she is or was, but I can feel Vex’s grief through the bond. Old grief. Deep grief. The kind that shapes a person.
“Who’s Catherine?” I ask quietly.
Vex’s hands clench into fists. “Someone I killed by loving her.”
The words land heavy in the room. Prophet stands, moving toward the door.
“I’ll give you two some privacy. But Tessa, one more thing, your warden bloodline isn’t just about sealing the Khorvath.
Your ancestors made a covenant with heaven centuries ago.
Your blood carries angelic protection, which is why it was powerful enough to heal Vex and forge a bond in the first place.
That power is both a gift and a burden.”
“What kind of burden?”
“The kind that means your choices have consequences beyond just yourself.” He pauses at the door.
“The club is divided about you. Some see you as our best chance at winning this war. Others think you’re a ticking bomb that’s going to detonate and take us all with you.
Disobeying Blade and following us, isn’t sitting well with the bomb squad. What you do next matters.”
Then he’s gone, leaving me alone with Vex and a thousand questions I’m not sure I want answers to.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks.
Then Vex turns from the window, and the look on his face is devastated. “You shouldn’t have done it.”
“Followed you?”
“Yes and offered me your blood. Created this bond. Tied yourself to me.” His voice is raw. “You had no idea what you were risking, and now—”
“Now I’m connected to you.” I push off the bed, my legs shaky but holding. “And you’re connected to me. And according to Prophet, it might actually help us survive whatever’s coming.”
“Or it might kill you.” He crosses the room in three strides, grabbing my shoulders.
Not hard, but firm enough that I can feel the barely leashed strength in his hands.
“Don’t you understand? Every time I feed from you, the bond gets stronger.
Every time we touch, it deepens. Eventually, I won’t be able to stop myself from taking too much, and you’ll—”
“Die like Catherine did.” I finish for him. “I heard. Now tell me about her.”
“No.”
“Yes.” I meet his eyes. “If I’m going to die because of this bond, I at least deserve to know what happened to the last woman you loved.”
Pain flashes across his face, so intense I feel it echo through the connection. “I didn’t love her. Not the way I—” He stops himself, jaw clenching. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to know if you blame yourself for something you couldn’t control, or if you’re actually dangerous.” I reach up, placing my hand over his where it rests on my shoulder. “Tell me what happened.”
He stares at me for a long moment, conflict warring in his expression. Then, slowly, he starts talking.