Chapter 29 Vidar
Chapter twenty-nine
Vidar
Afull hour goes by before Kai can calm his nervous tic and the tears on his cheeks dry.
He doesn’t leave my arms—not even as he drifts in and out of sleep, while I carefully remove his blood-stained clothes.
After much internal debate about whether the towels in my bathroom are soft enough, I grab the softest one and take my time ensuring his body is clean of any leftover pain, all the while whispering how brave he is, especially since he doesn’t believe it himself.
Then I help Kai into one of my white T-shirts.
It’s too big on him. The loose collar exposes one of his shoulders, and the hem falls above his knees. But seeing him wearing my clothes, sleepy and clean and safe, hits something primal within me with the force of a cannonball.
“Is this your room?” Kai murmurs, nestled in my embrace and cocooned under heavy blankets.
“Mhm,” I hum, laying a kiss on the red irritated skin at his hairline. “Do you like it?”
He peeks over my shoulder to scan the dark wood floor and warm, creamy white walls—the large brown-leather sofa with fat pillows near long double door windows, draped in cashmere curtains.
Kai ducks back to snuggle into my chest, his sleepy jade gaze gentle as a kiss. “It’s cosy. I was expecting more swords on the walls, to be honest. Maybe a bear skin or two.”
A deep chuckle leaves me. “You aren’t wrong. Ramy decorated, I believe he wanted me to have a ‘relaxing environment’, as he called it.”
Kai’s head bobs up and down, his gaze full of regret.
I tuck a hooked finger under his chin to ensure I have his full attention. “I understand why you gave the spellbook to Emma.”
He scoffs.
“Kai, stop this and forgive yourself. I can imagine how you were feeling when she cornered you. Rejected, alone? Hurt? This is on me, not you.” Kai’s eyes dip, but I won’t let him withdraw. “I hurt you too much, and Emma took advantage of that.”
After a pause, a whoosh of air slips from Kai.
“I know she did, but...I mostly made that stupid fucking deal for…for you, Vidar.” Eyes that carry too much sadness search mine. “So you’d be free of me.”
Kai gasps as I roll him onto his back, caging him with my forearms sinking into the mattress on either side of his head.
“Never.” A single word—a promise—heavy and hot enough to make diamonds in mountains. “I never want to be free of you.”
A tear rolls down his cheek. “But—”
“Back at Sucker, I wasn’t rejecting you. Far from it.” I sigh and stroke back his braids to cup the left side of his face, so Kai can see all my scars laid bare. “Do you know what vampire apathy is?”
“A really bad depression?”
I roll onto my side, pulling Kai with me.
“Yes, little prince. But it doesn’t start that way.”
Kai’s fingers tangle in mine. My heart lifts, and I realise the cocoon I created wasn’t just for him.
“First, you’re happy all the time. But there’s a manic edge to that happiness,” I explain. Unwanted memories of when I drank and fucked and fed as if I was running out of time play in my mind.
“I’m an old vampire and rarely need to sleep; however, who doesn’t enjoy a nap? But I couldn’t rest, couldn’t stop. Even taking a breath felt like wasting time, for what, I couldn’t tell you.”
Kai burrows closer, sharing his strength with no expectation that it should be returned. When I call Kai my little prince, it’s a way to remind him that he also deserves the love, kindness and support that he so freely gives.
He hasn’t learnt yet. I don’t mind, I have forever to remind him.
“What came next was the crash, and this clawing sadness that’d rip chunks out of me. Then stuff me full of a nothing so dense it dragged me to the floor, until…”
I inhale Kai to ward off the memories of everything and nothing threatening to take me back. Kai’s lips brush my chin, and it all just…quiets.
“Remember what you said to me in the car? We don’t have to continue, Vidar.” And he looks at me with so much understanding that I want to punch my past self. How could I not love this man? “But if you want to, I'm not leaving your side.”
I turn to press a kiss to his palm. Holding myself there, filling my lungs with his scent and my skin with his warmth. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Probably not,” Kai teases and I have no choice but to steal a kiss. His gaze is soft, and his cheeks a little flushed when I pull back.
“One day, I stumbled into a small shop that sold herbs and medicinal teas, hurting and desperate to fill that emptiness, and I found Ramy. He asked if he could help and…” I let loose a breath.
“It was impulsive to make him into a vampire. But he was beautiful and soft, a comfort. The others—Sen, Lucero, Rurik—I love them, of course, but they’re hard. ”
“Did turning Ramy help?”
I shake my head, my shame still hot for what I did to my youngest. The boy was desperate to be loved and for a family after being by himself for so long, and I promised he’d have one with me. But Sen had left before I brought Ramy home, Rurik and Lucero were both a mess.
“In my apathy, I forced Ramy to take care of me when he should’ve been out enjoying his new immortality. The whole time making promises I was too broken to fulfil.”
My head drops to Kai’s.
“Nothing helped. So one day, when the world was too loud, I slunk into one of our old mansions, and for eight years I didn’t come out.”
Kai holds me tighter.
“You could ask me what happened at that time, and the answer would be the same for every second, every minute, every hour, of every day.” I close my eyes to find only darkness. “Nothing.”
Kai squeezes me tighter. “That’s awful, Vidar…”
“For eight years I was nothing.” When I open my eyes this time, I find Kai’s soft, kind, stunning face.
“Never,” he says. And if my single word forged diamonds, Kai’s fierce insistence polishes them radiant. “You could never be nothing, Vidar.”
I drop my head in the centre of Kai’s chest, his heartbeat a song I’ll never tire of. The scent of him—lavender and pencils and…
And finally, I understand the scent which is purely Kai.
Freedom.
Kai smells like freedom.
“One day, there was a little intruder in the mansion. People had broken in before, and I never cared. But…this person, Golden, made me curious. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because he burned that shithole to the ground.”
Kai chuckles, and I smile with him.
We hold each other, and as the wind blows outside, seizing trees to shake leaves off their branches, I know that with Kai I’m… safe—free—to be happy, and return that happiness to him.
“About what we shared at the club—”
Kai lays his hands on my chest, stopping me. “It’s okay, you don’t need to explain yourself.”
“I do.” I gather his palm in mine and lay it over my heart. “I want you, Kai, even when I couldn’t explain why; I wanted you and not like I’ve wanted women in the past. More. So much more. So after we had sex, it was…overwhelming.”
“In a scary way?” Kai asks, and even after everything I’ve put him through, he sounds as if he’s ready at any moment to bandage my hurts.
But it’s my turn to heal him.
“Because, little prince…” I trace the whole of him, etching his every detail into my soul—like he would with a needle and ink. Whether my soul is still connected to him or not, I’ll always belong to him. “I love you.”
Kai sucks in a breath.
“I love you,” I repeat. “And not in a quiet, steady way I’ve loved others. You consume me, Kai.”
His eyelids flutter shut. Long black eyelashes brush across his cheeks as a tear rolls down. I kiss it away, tasting a flood of emotions in that single drop of salt.
“I’ve wanted those words for so long. But I can’t…if you ever took them back, I couldn’t take it.” His gaze finds mine—pleading me to let go, yet imploring me to hold on. “I can’t forgive you again…”
“Then don’t. Never forgive me, Kai. Hold every mistake over my head. But please,” I beg—plead—“please, allow me to spend the rest of eternity making it right.”
“Vidar…” How perfect my name sounds on his lips.
“Say you love me back,” I demand, voice low, rubbing my nose gently against his. “Say it. My love is yours, completely.”
He pauses, chewing on his lip.
“I…I’ve always wanted kids, ya know.”
A smirk tugs at my lips. “I can certainly try to get you pregnant.”
He chuckles wetly, shaking his head. “What if I wanna get you pregnant?”
I root to the spot, unsure what to say.
“Erm…” The image pops into my head, somehow making sense yet leaving me speechless. “I’m not so sure…”
He grins. “We’ll see. But…kids?”
Unshed tears glisten on his lashes, and unable to help myself, I kiss each one away. “We can adopt immortal children.”
“Really?” He sounds shocked, though I don’t know when I gave the impression I wouldn’t want to grow our family. “Even though you already have children? Who I want to meet, by the way. Oh, and you need to meet my parents and brothers.”
“Of course. Little prince, if you want something, it’s yours. And I love being a father, why else would I have so many annoying offspring?”
Kai’s face breaks into a big grin. “Really? Because I want a big family—”
I toss my head back, laughing. “Are you going to say you love me back anytime soon?”
Kai tilts his head to the side, thinking. Lips twitching up.
I growl playfully, grab hold of him and lay him flat on the bed.
He laughs, but it slowly dies. “Can I love without…my soul?”
I roll on top of him, our bodies pressed close. “Summer will help us, or she’ll find someone who can.”
Kai nods. Then his hand reaches for my face, stroking along my jaw. “I always knew I had a one true love, Vidar. When I saw you, it only confirmed that truth, like the clouds finally parting so I could see the top of mountains.”
I brush a kiss to him, hungry for the words. “Say it.”
He grins. “So demanding.”
My tongue flicks over the corner of his mouth. My hands run down to his hips. “You’re damn right I am.”
“Vidar?”
His hands in my hair, he tilts my head so our foreheads touch. Lavender, pencil shavings and…freedom. Kai.
“I love you.”
My heart swells to bursting, and this time, with Kai’s support, I’m able to hold its weight.
“And I love you, too. So very, very much.” I press my mouth to his, in a kiss hot enough to sear our fates.