Chapter Fourteen
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Vex
The cabin is silent.
Not the comfortable silence of a place at peace, but the kind that makes every supernatural instinct I have prickle with unease. Two days since the last attack. Two days of nothing but waiting, watching, and feeling Tessa’s restlessness through the bond we share.
Blade thought distance would help. Sent us here to a safe-house forty miles from town, nestled in a valley where the cell signal is shit and the nearest neighbor is a moose.
The place is small but well-stocked. There is a single bedroom, a kitchen that smells like cedar and old coffee, and windows that look out onto nothing but snow and pine trees stretching to the horizon.
I stand at those windows now, arms crossed, watching the twilight paint everything in shades of blue and purple. Behind me, I can hear Tessa moving around the kitchen, the soft clink of mugs, the hiss of the kettle. Domestic sounds that shouldn’t make my chest tight but do anyway.
Through the bond, I feel her nervous energy. The way she’s trying to keep busy, keep her hands occupied, keep her mind from spinning out into the dark places where fear lives.
“Tea?” she asks, her voice carefully casual.
Turning, I find her standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living area, two mugs in her hands.
She’s wearing jeans and one of my hoodies, the one she stole from my room three days ago, and the sight of her drowning in black fabric with Kings of Alaska MC emblazoned across the chest does something dangerous to my control.
“I don’t drink tea,” I say.
“I know.” She walks over anyway, pressing one of the mugs into my hands. “But I made you one anyway. It’s chamomile. Very... calming.”
The corner of my mouth twitches despite myself. “You think I need calming?”
“I think we both do.” She sinks onto the worn leather couch, curling her legs under her, both hands wrapped around her mug as though it’s a lifeline. “This waiting is driving me insane.”
“Me too.”
I join her on the couch, keeping a careful distance between us. Not because I don’t want to be close—God, I always want to be close—but because every time we touch, every time I breathe in her scent, the monster in me wakes up hungry.
For a while, we just sit there, the only sound the whisper of Tessa breathing. Outside, the last of the daylight bleeds away, and the temperature drops another ten degrees. I can feel the cold pressing against the windows, can sense the vastness of the wilderness surrounding us.
We’re alone out here. Truly alone.
It’s both the best and worst thing Blade could have done.
“Vex?” Tessa’s voice is soft, hesitant. “Can I ask you something?”
“Always.”
She takes a breath, her fingers tightening around her mug. “Tell me the truth about your past. About the worst things you’ve done.”
I wasn’t expecting that.
My first instinct is to deflect, to give her some sanitized version that won’t send her running. But when I look at her, I see determination in those eyes. She’s not asking out of idle curiosity. She’s asking because she needs to know who I really am.
Monster and all.
“Why?” I ask instead.
“Because I need to know if I’m making a mistake.” She meets my gaze steadily. “I need to know what I’m choosing when I choose you.”
The words hit me like a blow. Not if she chooses me. When.
I set my untouched tea on the coffee table and lean back, staring at the exposed beams in the ceiling. Where do I even start? Five hundred years of mistakes, of hunger, of blood?
“I’ve killed people,” I say finally. “A lot of people. Some deserved it, there were slavers, murderers, predators. But others...” I close my eyes. “Others were just in the wrong place at the wrong time when the hunger was too strong and my control too weak.”
Silence. I wait for her heartbeat to spike with fear, for her to edge away from me on the couch.
She doesn’t move.
“The worst was Catherine,” I continue, the name tasting like ash.
“1867, San Francisco. I thought I could control it. Thought I could feed just a little, keep her safe while still being close to her.” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it.
“I was wrong. The bond deepened every time I fed, and eventually, it killed her. Drained her life force until there was nothing left.”
“You loved her.”
It’s not a question.
“I did.” The admission hurts. “And it wasn’t enough. Love doesn’t stop a vampire from consuming what they claim. If anything, it makes it worse because you can’t stay away.”
I expect her to recoil now. To see the truth of what I am—a monster who destroys everything he touches.
Instead, Tessa sets down her mug and shifts closer. Not away. Closer.
“I’m not her,” she says quietly.
“I know.”
“And you’re not the same vampire you were in 1867.”
“That’s what Prophet keeps telling me.”
“He’s right.” She reaches out, her fingers finding mine.
The contact sends electricity racing up my arm.
“You think I haven’t seen the way you hold yourself back?
The way you stop yourself from touching me even when you’re shaking with the need to?
You’re not some mindless predator, Vex. You have more control than you give yourself credit for. ”
“Control has limits. And you—” I turn my hand over, lacing our fingers together. “You push every single one of mine.”
“Good.”
I look at her sharply. “Tessa—”
“I’m not some fragile thing that needs protecting from you,” she says, her voice gaining strength. “I’m scared, yes. Terrified, actually. But not of you. Not anymore.” She takes a breath. “You want to know my worst secrets? My biggest mistakes?”
Now it’s my turn to listen.
“I left everyone behind,” Tessa blurts out as the words tumble out fast and raw.
“After the fire, Sarah’s family took me in.
They gave me a home, stability... everything, for years.
But I kept feeling this pull, this need to come to Alaska.
As though something was calling me, dragging me here, and I couldn’t ignore it. ”
The pain in her voice hits me harder than I expect. My fingers flex where they rest on her knee, fighting the urge to pull her into my chest and never let her go.
“I left them. The only people who stayed when my world fell apart. Packed up and drove thousands of miles because of a feeling I couldn’t even explain.”
“Tessa—”
“I felt so guilty. Still do.” She wipes at her eyes, and the sight of her tears makes something cold and vicious coil in me. I hate seeing her hurt. I hate I wasn’t there to stop it. “They deserved better than me just... leaving. But I had to go. I had to figure myself out.”
Her voice fades, and she finally looks at me.
“And then I met you. First day I hit town, I knew it was the right decision. That whatever pulled me here was worth it. Not until...”
“Until what?” My voice is low, rough. If she hears the edge of desperation in it, she doesn’t mention it.
She takes a shaky breath. “Until you.”
The words slam into me. My chest tightens, my fangs press against my gums, responding before I can stop them. I curl my hand around hers, thumb brushing the inside of her wrist where her pulse jumps under my touch. She must feel the way my body goes still.
“Until all of this,” she whispers. “The club, the mark, the danger. It made me live again. Made me fight. Made me want.” Her hand tightens around mine. “Made me want someone.”
A growl slips up my throat, not loud, not threatening, just instinctive. Possessive. I lift her hand to my mouth, pressing my lips to her knuckles, breathing her in because I need the grounding.
“You wanted me,” I murmur against her skin, the truth pulling something dark and fierce through me. “Tessa, I—”
I stop myself before the words break loose, but it’s too late. She’s already in every part of me.
She looks up at me, and the vulnerability in her expression nearly undoes me.
“Until you,” she whispers. “Until all of this. The club, the mark, the danger—it forced me to actually live again. To fight for something. To want something.” Her hand tightens on mine. “To want someone.”
The confession hangs in the air between us, heavy with possibility.
“You should want someone who isn’t a monster,” I say roughly.
“Maybe. But I don’t.” She shifts closer, and I can smell the chamomile on her breath, can hear the way her heartbeat quickens.
“I want you. Monster and all. Every dark corner, every dangerous instinct, every terrible thing you’ve ever done.
” She brings her free hand up to my face, her palm warm against my cheek. “I want all of it.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“Yes, I do.” Her thumb traces the line of my jaw. “I’m asking you to stop holding back. To trust I’m strong enough. To trust us.”
Something in me breaks.
Or maybe it doesn’t break. Maybe it finally, finally, lets go.
I close the distance between us in a heartbeat, my mouth finding hers, and this kiss is different from the others. No hesitation, no restraint, no voice in the back of my head screaming to stop. Just her and me and seven hundred years of loneliness dissolving in the heat between us.
Tessa melts into me, her hands fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer. I can feel every emotion through the bond, want, need, fear, love, all of it tangled together and amplified until I don’t know where she ends and I begin.
“Bedroom,” she gasps against my mouth.
I don’t need to be told twice.
I lift her easily, and she wraps her legs around my waist as I carry her through the cabin. The bedroom is small, barely big enough for the queen-sized bed and a dresser, but I don’t care about the surroundings. All I care about is getting her horizontal.
I lay her down gently, following her onto the mattress, caging her beneath me. For a moment, I look at her, flushed cheeks, swollen lips, eyes dark with desire, and commit every detail to memory.
“You’re sure?” I ask again, giving her one more out. One more chance to step back from the edge.