Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Selena
Balthazar?
The name made me break out in goosebumps. A chill crawled down my spine and settled in my bones.
He was evil. Pure evil. The kind of ancient darkness that made even the most powerful vampires tremble.
Hadn’t he proven that time and time again?
The stories I’d heard at Red Rose Academy—the massacres, the deals gone wrong, the souls he’d dragged screaming into the pit—they weren’t fairy tales. They were warnings.
And Rose wanted to summon him?
I looked at their grim faces, my blood thumping in my throat so hard I could barely breathe. “You’re not serious? He can’t be trusted.”
“No one said we were going to trust him,” Valentin said, his eyes hard. “But I believe he’ll protect Noelle.”
I wanted to laugh. Or scream. Or both. Trusting a demon to protect an innocent baby? It was madness.
Rose must have seen the panic in my eyes because she crossed the room and crouched in front of me. “I know it’s scary. He’s... terrifying. But he protected Angelo’s daughter before.” She reached out and squeezed my trembling hand. “I’m betting he’ll do it again.”
I pulled my hands away from her and sat on them to stop them from shaking. My mind raced, trying to find another way—any other way. “How do you know that?”
Valentin poured himself a glass of red wine. His hand was steady, but I noticed he filled it to the brim. “Dimitri told us.”
Not the most trustworthy person in the world.
But what choice did we have?
Angelo wanted us dead. The vampire mafia king who had spies everywhere, who had already sent his limo racing toward the houseboat to find us.
And murder us.
Costin wanted us dead. Dracula himself. The most powerful vampire in existence. The one who had vowed to protect his wife at any cost—and now believed I had helped steal the very thing keeping her safe.
And somewhere out there, some creature had the shard—the only thing that could protect Noelle from whatever darkness was hunting her.
My stomach churned. An innocent baby. Caught in the middle of all this.
And to keep them from killing us. Split it? Was that even possible? Could a shard that had already been broken from a larger stone be divided again and still hold its power?
It sounded insane. But so did summoning Balthazar, and here we were.
Rose straightened and moved back to the table.
She turned the page of the ancient book, her finger tracing symbols I couldn’t read.
“It’s going to take at least a couple of hours for me to prepare the spell.
” She looked up and gave me a small smile—warm, reassuring, like she wasn’t about to summon one of the most dangerous beings in existence.
“Do you want to change? I brought some extra clothes. They’re in the closet of the bedroom across from ours. ”
I’d washed Rocco’s blood off my face at the houseboat, but the dress was beyond saving. Rocco’s blood. My blood. The evidence of everything that had gone wrong in the last twenty-four hours.
I looked like a nightmare. I felt like one too.
I gave her a grateful smile. “I’ll take you up on that.”
Valentin tilted his head toward the bedroom. “There’s some clothes for you too, Rocco.”
Rocco clasped my hand. His fingers were warm, solid—an anchor in the chaos. “Come on.”
I allowed him to lead me into the bedroom that was across from Valentin’s and Rose’s.
I caught a glimpse of their room through the open door—a couple of suitcases on the floor, Rose’s spell components scattered across the dresser.
Then Rocco pulled our door shut behind us, and the low murmur of Rose’s voice and the rustle of ancient pages faded to silence.
I exhaled. The quiet settled over me like a blanket, and I was grateful to escape that book and the madness of what we were about to do—even if only for a little while.
The room was simple. A queen bed with a blue comforter, a small dresser, clothes hanging in an open closet. Normal. Safe.
Everything we weren’t.
Suddenly we were alone.
“Rocco, Balthazar. He’s—”
“I know what he is.” He turned to face me, still holding my hand. “But if a demon took it, he’s the one who would know where. And the only one that’s halfway on our side.”
“I’m not sure I believe it.” I looked into his deep eyes, searching for some reassurance I couldn’t find. “He… he scares me.”
The words felt childish the moment they left my mouth.
I was a vampire. I’d faced down enemies, fought for my life, survived things that would have broken lesser beings.
But the thought of standing before Balthazar—of being in the same room as that kind of ancient, unfathomable evil—made my knees want to buckle.
Rocco’s expression softened. He slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me close, pressing me against his chest. I could hear his heartbeat, steady and strong.
I should have pulled away. Every rational part of me knew that.
But I was exhausted and terrified and the warmth of him felt like the only solid thing left in a world that kept crumbling beneath my feet.
So I let myself have it — just for now. I'd sort out what it meant later, when we weren't running for our lives.
“I won’t let him hurt you,” he murmured against my hair. “I promise.”
I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to believe him so badly.
But Balthazar was so powerful. Even Angelo knew better than to pick that fight.
What chance did we have?
Rocco kissed me.
Softly at first—so softly it barely counted. Just the brush of his lips against mine, tentative, like he was asking a question he was terrified to hear the answer to. His mouth trembled. Or maybe that was me. I couldn't tell anymore where I ended and he began.
Then something shifted.
His hand slid to the back of my neck, his fingers threading into my hair, and the kiss deepened.
The gentleness didn't disappear—it caught fire.
His lips moved against mine with a hunger that tasted like two years of silence and loneliness and wanting.
All those nights I'd lain awake, pressing my hand against the hollow ache in my chest where the bond pulled and pulled and pulled toward a man who wouldn't have me—this was the answer to every single one of them.
His hands roamed down my back, slow and deliberate, like he was memorizing the shape of me.
Every place he touched came alive—sparks trailing beneath my skin, heat pooling low in my stomach, my blood singing in my veins with a sound that was purely, unmistakably him.
His blood was still in me. Mine was still in him.
And the bond between us—the one he'd denied, the one he'd tried to destroy—roared to life like a beast that had been starving in a cage.
I felt everything. Every wall he'd built. Every crack in those walls. The guilt he carried like chains. The loneliness that mirrored my own so perfectly it made me want to weep. And beneath all of it—buried so deep I almost missed it—something fierce and fragile and desperately, achingly tender.
He felt it too. He had to. Because a sound escaped him—raw, shattered, desperate—like something inside him had finally broken open and he didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified.
"Have faith," he whispered against my mouth. The words vibrated against my lips, warm and raw.
I pulled back just enough to look at him. His eyes were dark, glassy, stripped of every mask he'd ever worn. I raised my hand and pressed my palm against his cheek—rough with stubble, warm beneath my fingers, real in a way that made my throat close up.
"I've always had faith in you."
His eyes squeezed shut. His jaw flexed beneath my palm. And for one fleeting, fragile moment, I felt the bond between us hum with something that felt dangerously close to whole.
“Get dressed.”
I stood there, still tingling from his kiss. My lips felt swollen. My skin still hummed where he'd touched me.
There it was.
Rocco had lost faith in himself. And nothing I said—no kiss, no touch, no whispered promise—was going to change that. Not until he forgave himself for what he'd done.
I sighed and turned toward the closet, my heart aching for a man who was too broken to see that he deserved to be whole.
I rifled through what was there. A couple of T-shirts, a pair of jeans, some sandals near the bottom. Rose and I were about the same size, so hopefully the jeans would fit. I pulled them out and pressed them against my hips. Close enough.
Something rustled behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder, and every coherent thought I'd ever had evaporated.
Rocco had taken off his shirt. The muscles in his back flexed as he reached for a T-shirt—sculpted ridges shifting beneath tanned skin, his abs carved like they'd been chiseled from stone.
A faded scar traced along his ribs, and I wanted to know the story behind it.
Wanted to trace it with my fingertips. With my mouth.
He was beautiful. Infuriatingly, devastatingly beautiful.
I could still feel his lips on mine like a brand. I could still taste him—his blood, his mouth, the low groan he'd made when I'd sunk my fangs into his throat. My body hadn't come down from any of it. Every nerve was still lit up, still reaching for him like a compass needle swinging north.
He pulled the T-shirt over his head and the show was over. I nearly whimpered at the loss.
He glanced up.
I snapped my gaze away, heat flooding my cheeks so fast it was almost painful.
Stop drooling. Stay focused.
He'd made me his prisoner. He'd bitten me without my consent and dragged me into a nightmare.
That kiss—that earth-shattering, soul-wrecking kiss—didn't erase any of it.
For all I knew, the desire he'd shown me was just the blood bond talking.
A chemical reaction. Something his body couldn't help, not something his heart had chosen.
I wanted it to be real. God, I wanted it to be real. But wanting something didn't make it true. Two years of rejection had taught me that lesson in the most brutal way possible.
I turned my back to him and slipped off the straps of my ruined gown, letting the fabric pool at my feet. The air hit my bare skin and I shivered—not from the cold.
I could feel his eyes on me.
His gaze settled over my shoulders, my spine, the curve of my waist, hot and heavy as a physical touch. I didn't turn around. Didn't need to. The bond hummed between us like a live wire, and I knew—knew with absolute certainty—that he was watching every move I made.
A flush spread from my burning cheeks down through my chest and all the way to my curled-up toes. My fingers trembled as I reached for a red T-shirt.
Part of me wanted to turn around and catch him looking. Wanted to see that raw hunger in his eyes again and know it was meant for me.
The other part—the part that had spent two years putting myself back together after he'd shattered me—was terrified of what I’d do if I saw it.