7. Chapter Seven - Desiree
My feet barely touch the ground as I race toward our rendezvous spot, pushing my vampire speed to its limits.
The wind whips through my short hair as I run through the blackout-stricken city.
Vyvyan’s impatience is legendary.
If I am a second late, I will find myself locked out of the Nest forever, cast adrift in this cold, dark metropolis.
As I pass a group of teenage male witches tagging a department store window, the streets pulse with sinister energy.
Veering off the main roads to avoid potential threats, I plunge into the relative safety of Equinox Park.
The sudden absence of urban noise is jarring, replaced by the soft crunch of snow and grass beneath my feet.
Patches of white glisten beneath an impossibly bright moon.
I approach the designated meeting spot outside the Iron Parthenon, and the air thickens.
The wooded area surrounding the Parthenon reeks of death—a sickly sour odor—and my senses scream.
A chill that has nothing to do with the temperature crawls over my body.
Every instinct urges me to flee, but I force myself forward.
“Vyvyan? Vane?” I call out, my voice sounding fragile in the vast darkness.
The silence that greets me is absolute, swallowing my words whole.
I’m about to call again when a feeble cry for help pierces the stillness, sending my feet charging through a thicket of oak trees.
“Vyvya—” The name catches in my throat as I freeze at the sight before me.
The fierce and indomitable Vyvyan lies crumpled on the ground; her usual regality reduced to something fragile and broken.
Vane cradles her in his arms.
Tears mingle with the blood on his cheeks, the crimson streaks glistening.
A sizable wooden stake protrudes from Vyvyan’s chest.
“Holy shit.” I drop to my knees in the damp grass beside them.
“What happened?”
“Desiree, finally!” Vane gasps.
“I need your help.”
How long have they been like this?
Vyvyan gasps, the sound wet and painful.
My attention snaps to her wound.
The stake narrowly missed her heart—there’s a chance, slim as it may be, to save her.
And I’m damn well going to take it.
“We need to move fast.” My voice is steady.
“Hebe isn’t too far from here. My mom is there. She can help.”
Vane shifts as if to follow, but Vyvyan’s hand shoots out, gripping his bicep with surprising strength.
“N-no,” she wheezes.
“You’ll k-kill me if you move me.”
I groan.
Even facing death, Vyvyan clings to control.
“You’ll die if you stay here. You need blood. Lots of it, if you’re going to heal.”
“I’ll die anyway,” she rasps, her red eyes flickering with a chilling resignation.
No , I think.
She can’t die.
If she does, I’ll never forgive myself.
As a healer, I took an oath.
“She needs blood,” I repeat.
Vane’s brow furrows.
“You said that. But in case you haven’t noticed, there’s no one ar?—”
Before Vane can finish, I tear into the flesh of my wrist with my fangs.
The pain is sharp, but I barely register it.
Vane gasps in horror as my blood, so dark it looks almost black in the moonlight, wells up, and begins to drip onto the dirt.
I shift toward Vyvyan, but Vane twists to shield her.
“What the fuck are you doing? You aren’t giving your blood to her.”
“Do you have another suggestion?” I snap, meeting his gaze defiantly.
Vampires do not share blood outside of mating purposes.
A blood bond links a pair together empathically.
However, there’s also a risk that a bonded pair could become addicted to each other’s blood or have one swap a mate for a master.
Vane hesitates, then rolls up his sleeves.
“Let me do it. She’s already my sire.” He doesn’t sound excited.
For a moment, I’m tempted to accept his offer.
It would certainly make things less complicated between Vyvyan and me.
I know she hates me and having her feel how uneasy she makes me on a visceral level for all eternity sounds terrible.
But another part of me—the part that still resents Vane for his rejection, for the pain he’s caused, for how close he and Vyvyan are—decides for me.
“No,” I say firmly.
“I’m the one with medical training. If this doesn’t work, you need to be at full strength to address the vampires in her place. We can’t have both of you weakened.”
Vane’s jaw hardens, but he nods reluctantly.
“I promise you,” I say, my voice softening, “I’d much rather be doing this with a potential mate if I had one, but I know how much Vyvyan means to you and the other vampires.”
Something flickers in Vane’s eyes.
“You want to find a mate?” he asks, surprise coloring his tone.
I shift uncomfortably.
It was mostly a joke, but suddenly, I feel exposed.
Yes, deep down, I hope that someone—someday—will love me enough to choose me over everything and everyone else.
That being with me is worth the potential consequences the blood bond creates.
I push past the moment of vulnerability.
“Am I doing this or not?”
Vane holds my gaze for a long moment before nodding.
“Do it.”
I press my bleeding wrist against Vyvyan’s lips, urging her to drink.
Despite her weakened state, her survival instincts kick in.
She latches onto my wrist, her fangs sinking into my flesh with a greedy swallow.
I gnash my teeth against the initial pain.
As Vyvyan drinks, an unexpected sensation washes over me.
With each gulp of my blood, a fraction of my vitality drains away.
But it’s replaced by building pressure, an intoxicating euphoria that starts low in my core and radiates outward.
A soft moan escapes my lips before I can stop it, and my eyes lock with Vane’s.
A jolt of electricity sparks through my body.
His pupils are dilated, nostrils flared, and I can see the rapid pulse in his neck.
I realize with a start that he’s affected by this, too.
The air between us feels impossibly charged.
Vyvyan’s lips are scorching, and my breathing quickens.
I find myself imagining Vane’s lips on my body, his fangs in my flesh instead of hers.
The fantasy is so vivid I can almost feel his hands on me, his body pressed against mine—wetness pools between my clenched thighs.
My free hand claws the dry grass, seeking an anchor as the sensations threaten to overwhelm me.
“What do you feel?” Vane asks.
His low voice sends warmth across my skin.
“ Everything ,” I breathe, unable to look away from him.
A small, knowing smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.
In the euphoria of the blood exchange, the hatred and resentment I’ve harbored toward him seems to melt away, replaced by a primal, urgent need.
He leans closer.
“Desiree?—”
Whatever Vane is going to say dies on his tongue as Vyvyan’s wounds gradually heal.
Her color returns to normal as her body expels the stake.
It rolls into the grass, her skin knitting itself together.
But I barely notice, lost in the anguish of Vane’s gaze.
I want him to touch me, to taste me like Vyvyan is.
The desire is so strong it’s almost overwhelming.
“That’s enough, Desiree,” Vane commands suddenly, his tone sharp.
I shake my head, not wanting this feeling to end.
It is the first time I’ve felt happy since he and Vyvyan outed me in front of Misty.
Vane cups my cheek.
The contact sends my body into a spiral.
I rub my cheek into his palm.
“I said, that’s enough,” he repeats softly, his thumb caressing my lower lip.
My tongue darts out to taste him.
Just as I remember, he tastes sinful, like pomegranates and red wine.
“Don’t let her take anymore from you. Leave some for yourself.”
The intimate gesture, combined with the authoritative tone of his voice, sends another rush of heat through me until Vyvyan stops feeding from me.
Emptiness caves through me like a void.
The world spins slightly off-kilter as I sit back, lightheaded from blood loss and arousal.
I blink to steady my attention as Vane fixes his gaze on Vyvyan, cradling her with so much reverence I want to scratch his eyes out for looking at anyone other than me with such adoration.
I want to .
.
.
Shit.
What have I done?
I hate Vane, yet here I am, acting like he belongs to me.
“It wasn’t you. It was the blood,” Vane tells me.
I nod, unable to meet his gaze.
The chasm within me threatens to swallow me whole.
“I know,” I lie.
Vane stares at Vyvyan.
Already, she looks stronger.
Her chest rises and falls with vitality, and the blood on her clothes is the only sign there’d been a struggle.
In awe of Vyvyan’s transformation, Vane’s expression shifts from concern to profound gratitude.
With Vyvyan stabilized, I pick up the stake, rising to my feet to throw it further into the trees.
Anything to get away from the intimacy passing between them.
“Who attacked you?” I ask.
“Balam,” Vane mutters.
“Balam? As in the daemon?” Surprise heightens my pitch.
“Yes. Caught us by surprise.”
The pieces fall into place—the claw marks on Vane’s body, the overwhelming sense of wrongness I felt upon arriving.
Balam, a daemon with the strength of ten men whose curse is to obey its summoner, is not a force to be trifled with.
The fact he was here, in our world, means someone summoned him.
The question is, who?
And why?
I push to my feet, swaying as I scan our wooded surroundings.
“What are you doing?” Vane asks, lips pursed.
“Daemons always leave behind some sort of signature related to their summoner,” I explain while I search the ground.
At first, I see nothing, but then— there .
Faint impressions in the mud and leftover snow catch my eye.
“What is it?” Vane calls.
“Tracks.” I crouch to examine them more closely.
“Like from a dog, but bigger.”
“How big?” The urgency in Vane’s tone makes me look up.
I place my hand beside one of the prints.
“Big.”
Vane curses.
“Not dogs. Wolves.”
“Wolves as in?—”
“Werewolves,” Vane confirms.
An owl hoots, causing me to flinch.
Wolves haven’t set foot in Corona for hundreds of years, but their hatred for vampires is no secret.
Our kind’s history is fraught with betrayal and bloodshed, stemming from the time when rogue vampires fled to Lua, leaving destruction in their wake.
Vyvyan’s refusal to call them back, branding them traitors and deserters, deepened the rift.
Still, a werewolf attack is not a laughing matter.
The other vampires may be at risk.
“Who else knew you were meeting me here?” I ask, folding my arms.
Vane’s silence speaks volumes.
“Who?” I press, watching him wince.
“No one,” he insists, but there’s a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.
“What aren’t you saying?”
Vane’s gaze grows distant before he nods.
“Well, we sent word to the Council that we were on our way, but no one answered.”
I open my mouth to say more, but Vyvyan stirs more insistently in Vane’s arms.
We need to get her inside where it is safe.
“I think she’s going to be okay,” I say, bowing my head.
Vane nods, his gaze holding mine.
“Thank you.”
The heat that pulsed between us earlier returns, a tangible thing in the cool night air.
I look away.
Vane lied to me.
He manipulated me into thinking he cared about me.
Vane is the reason Misty is angry with me.
Whatever I feel when I am around him is left over from before.
He’s grateful I helped Vyvyan, nothing more.
“If you were a minute later, Desiree,” Vane continues, “I’m afraid of what might’ve happened. If the Balam came back, or?—”
“We can’t stay here,” I interject, turning on my heel.
“But Vyvyan?—”
“Is healing.” I’ve never known Vyvyan to have a lover.
I’m uncertain if she and Vane were ever together.
He never shared intimate details about his past.
Still, I hate seeing them together.
“Until she stands and speaks coherent sentences on her own, we’re not out of the woods. She’ll need monitoring for any side effects, though.”
“You were amazing tonight,” Vane says, a shy smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
“Vyvyan owes you her life.”
“Let’s hope she sees it that way when she wakes up.” Vyvyan is going to kill me.
I don’t feel much of a pull toward her.
That would change if she gave me her blood in return, but when she wakes up, she’ll have a front-row seat to my life that resembles a melodrama.
“Let’s go home,” I say.
Vane adjusts Vyvyan in his arms.
We move swiftly through the darkened park, neither of us speaking.
As we reach the entrance to Little Death, I gather myself, and face Vane one last time.
I wait for him to say something—anything.
The silence becomes uncomfortable.
“Keep an eye on her, and I’ll check on you both tomorrow,” I tell him in a rush, then hurry down the stone steps into the club before Vane can respond.
As I lock myself in my coffin, I shut my eyes, and offer a silent prayer to whatever gods are listening.
Vyvyan is going to be okay.
She has to be.
Because if she’s not, I won’t be either.
The weight of what I’ve done—the blood bond I’ve created, linking myself to her, the lines I’ve crossed—settles over me like a shroud.
I may never truly be free of tonight’s consequences.