Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
FLYNN
We spend the following days wiping the mansion clean even after I told Talulla I could do it on my own.
She’s keeping her chin up high, but I know she’s not having a good moment.
The weight that’s lifted from her shoulders—Emil’s control, his obsession, his twisted vision of what she should be—it’s gone, yes.
But the cost of that freedom is written all over her face in the quiet moments when she thinks I’m not watching.
She had hope. I saw it in her eyes when we were in that basement, a fragile, desperate hope that her father might understand. That blood might mean something to him beyond power and legacy. That she might matter more than his ambitions.
That hope died when he pulled the trigger.
Emil wanted her dead. The thought still makes something primal rise in my chest, a rage so consuming I have to consciously keep my fangs from extending.
He looked at his own daughter, his blood, and saw only a failed experiment, a disappointment, an obstacle to his grand design.
He was willing to erase her from existence rather than accept that she’d chosen a different path.
And that ripped something out of her that I’m terrified won’t ever fully come back.
I watch her move through the mansion, methodically cleaning away the evidence of what happened here. Every surface she touches, every stain she removes—it’s like she’s trying to erase the memory itself. As if scrubbing hard enough will make the betrayal hurt less.
It won’t.
But I’ll be here. Every single day, for as long as it takes, I’ll remind her that she is not what Emil saw.
She is not an object, not an opportunity, not a failed experiment.
She is extraordinary. She is worthy. She is mine, and I will spend eternity convincing her of her own value if that’s what it takes.
We’re going to go back to our jobs, live something resembling a normal life.
Finally. The thought should worry me, five hundred and ninety-five years of solitude, and now I’m supposed to navigate the mundane world alongside a woman who makes me feel everything at once.
But it doesn’t terrify me. It feels like coming home.
And Nora’s acceptance is already helping. I can see it in the way Talulla’s shoulders relax slightly when her mother looks at us together without judgment. When Nora sees not a vampire and a hunter, but two people who’ve chosen each other despite every reason not to.
She might not fully understand it, but we just work.
There’s no logic to it. No reason why an ancient vampire and a hunter raised to despise my kind should fit together like we do. But we do. Perfectly. Inevitably. Like we were always meant to find each other in the dark.
“Talulla, it’s time for me to go,” Nora calls, and I watch as my red ruby practically flies into her mother’s arms. “Take care of yourself and always remember that I’m so proud of you,” Nora says, and I see Talulla’s eyes glisten.
“Are you sure you want to go home? You can stay with us, it would be easier to keep you safe,” Talulla suggests, and there’s a vulnerability in her voice that makes my chest ache.
Nora shakes her head gently. “Yes, I’ve already stayed long enough. You two need your own space.” She winks at her daughter. “Come visit me as much as possible.”
“I will. We will.”
Then Nora turns to me, and I feel the weight of her gaze—a mother’s assessment, a hunter’s calculation. “I’m giving you a lot of trust, Flynn Lancaster. Don’t break it.”
The corners of my mouth lift. I mean every word. “I won’t.”
“Good, because my husband might have been the head of the operation, but I was the neck.” There’s steel in her voice, and I understand immediately where Talulla gets her strength.
I chuckle at her choice of words. “Understood.”
But Nora isn’t finished. She steps closer, and there’s something almost predatory in her stance—a mother who would burn the world down to protect her child. “I can kill you with my eyes closed, Flynn.”
I meet her gaze steadily, and I mean every word of this too. “If I ever hurt your daughter, I would offer you the stake and beg you to end my life in the most painful way possible.”
Nora’s mouth curls into a smirk. “I like that. I might prepare a list.”
“Please, send me an email,” I say, and I can’t help the slight amusement in my tone. “I’d love to see where Talulla gets her creativity.”
“I absolutely will,” she adds, brushing her hand on my arm affectionately. It’s a small gesture, but it means everything. Acceptance. Trust. The blessing of the woman who raised the person I love most in this world.
Talulla clears her throat, making both her mother and me turn toward her. “Well, that was lovely. Now, can we stop talking about the many ways of Flynn’s imminent death?”
Nora shakes her head, amused. “Goodbye, my child, be safe.”
“You too. Call me as soon as you land.”
Nora opens the front door and walks toward the cab waiting to take her to the airport. As she reaches it, she calls back, “Tal, come here for a second.”
I don’t follow, letting them have their moment. I watch from the doorway as Nora whispers something in Talulla’s ear, and my little hunter’s face transforms—a genuine smile spreading across her features, her eyes lighting up with something I haven’t seen since before Emil’s betrayal.
Whatever her mother said, it’s exactly what she needed to hear.
Talulla skips back to me, and I can’t help but smile at the sight. That’s my girl. That’s the Talulla who challenges me, who makes me laugh, who makes me feel alive in a way I haven’t in centuries.
“What is it?” I ask, pulling her close.
“Oh nothing, just a very interesting fact about something.”
I shake my head. “You won’t tell me, will you?”
“Not right now, it’s not the right vibe.”
“Vibe?”
“Vibe.”
I nod, understanding that she’ll share it when she’s ready. She will tell me when she wants to, and I can’t force her. That’s part of loving her—respecting the parts of herself she keeps close, trusting that she’ll open them to me in time. “Okay, vibe.”
The cab pulls away, and suddenly we’re alone.
Truly alone for the first time since this nightmare began.
My arms wrap around her waist, and I lose myself in her essence—the scent of her skin, the warmth of her body against mine, the simple fact of her presence.
“There’s nothing left for us here. Let’s go home. ”
Talulla nods, and in complete silence and serenity we get in our car and drive toward a new start. No obstacles. No setbacks, just Talulla and me.
I park in the driveway, the quietness growing into something else. I breathe her in, knowing exactly what she wants.
“It’s finally just us.” Talulla’s voice is low, almost a purr, and I can already smell her desire rising.
I know exactly where this is going, and every cell in my body is ready for it. “Time to crush my skull between your legs?”
Her tongue licks my lips in a torturous caress. “I thought you forgot for a moment.”
Forgot? The very idea is laughable. She’s become my obsession, my addiction, my reason for existing.
“I think about tasting you every second of the day,” I say, lifting her up and slowly lowering her down to our bed. “I could never forget about anything you say.”
Talulla’s pants come off in a second, and she’s looking at me with those eyes that see straight through to my soul.
“You’re missing a part of that promise,” she says.
I can’t help but smirk at her. Then I bring my wrist to my mouth and sink my fangs deep. “Here you go, my red ruby.”
Talulla closes her mouth around the wound and starts sucking, and fuck, I could come in my pants just from seeing her in this euphoric state.
Her eyes roll back, her body trembles, and I realize with stunning clarity that this—this—is what I was made for.
Not the centuries of solitude, not the endless nights of emptiness. This. Her. Us.
My blood is doing this to her. I’m doing this to her.
And it would be so fucking intense if the bite would be reciprocated. If I would sink my fangs into her and drink, creating that perfect circle of exchange, that ultimate intimacy where we’re literally part of each other. An exchange of souls.
Heaven. It would be actual heaven.
But that’s not for today. That’s a conversation for another time, when she’s ready, when the weight of everything hasn’t crushed her quite so thoroughly. For now, I’ll give her this—my blood, my body, my complete and utter devotion.
Talulla’s moans bring me back to reality, and I gently make her unlatch from my arm. “Relax, my love, it’s time for dinner,” I say, nestling my head between her legs.
I waste no time and part her folds with my tongue, pushing deep inside. I can feel her quivering around me as her legs wrap tight around my neck. The pressure of her thighs compressing my temples is sending me to places I didn’t know existed—a sweet suffocation, a beautiful drowning.
I can’t breathe, and at the same time, I can’t stop.
I suck her clit and hear her sweet melodies moaning my name, and it’s the most perfect sound in the world.
“Flynn, oh my god,” Talulla screams as I continue to play with my tongue, and I’m lost in her completely.
“You get to come over and over again, my love, for as long as you’ll let me,” I say, taking a moment to look up at her flushed face. “You get everything I have. Everything I can give you.” I flick my tongue on her bundle of nerves again. “It’s yours,” I whisper against her clit. “I’m yours.”
Then I continue my feast, and she comes apart on my lips with a cry that echoes through the room.
Talulla collapses as I come up for air, slowly leaving a trail of kisses on every inch of her skin before lying beside her. Her head rests on my chest as I caress her head, and for a moment, we’re just breathing together in the quiet aftermath.
This is what I want. This. Forever.
“If I could take a cure and become human again, I would live a regular life with you, Talulla,” I say, the words spilling out before I can stop them.
“And after that, I would live my next life with you, and then the next one, and the one after that.” I brush my lips on her temples.
“I would always pick you. In every single life. In every single existence.”
I crush my lips to hers, pouring everything I feel into the kiss—centuries of loneliness, the moment I first saw her, every second since then, and every moment I hope to have with her in the future.
Talulla’s eyes water as she stares at me, and the corners of her lips lift into a smile that breaks and remakes my heart simultaneously.
“Well,” she says before raising her head up a little.
“A cure doesn’t exist.” She caresses my soft blonde hair back, and the tenderness in her touch undoes me.
“You’re gonna have to settle for eternity with me in this life. I hope you’re okay with that.”
Eternity with Talulla.
The words settle into my chest like a promise, like a vow, like the answer to a prayer I didn’t know I was making.
I chuckle at her words before bringing her lips to mine once more. Eternity with Talulla is all I could ever dream of. And the thought of her bringing it up makes my heart melt even more. “I am absolutely okay with that.”
“You’re going to have to drink from me for that to happen,” she says, and there’s a question in her voice—not just about the blood, but about everything. About forever. About whether I’m truly ready to bind myself to her in the most intimate way possible.
I nod. “I know.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
I smile, knowing exactly where this conversation is going. It might not happen now—she’s still healing, still processing the loss of her father, still finding her footing in this new life. But it will happen. It’s inevitable as the sunrise, as certain as the stars.
“Yes, I am.”
Because I would drink from her every day for eternity if she’d let me. I would bind myself to her in blood and bone and soul. I would choose her in every life, every existence, every possible version of forever.
She is my eternity. She always has been.