Chapter Twenty-Five
Annika
I wasn’t sleeping. I felt Lucas’ arm draped around me, his fingers lazily tracing circles on my bare shoulder. My head rested against his chest, listening to the sound of his heart beating.
I turned my face up to look at him, studying the sharp angles of his jaw, the deep set of his eyes. He looked different now… softer, almost human. The vulnerability in his gaze made my chest ache in a way I wasn’t ready to examine.
“Lucas,” I began, my voice barely above a whisper, “what’s it like?”
He shifted slightly, his hand stilling on my shoulder. “What’s what like?”
“Being a vampire,” I said, my words hesitant. “I mean… really being one.”
For a moment, he didn’t answer. His fingers resumed their gentle motion, as though he was collecting his thoughts. I could feel the tension under the surface, like he was weighing how much to say.
“It’s… complicated,” he finally said, his voice low and thoughtful. “It’s not like in the stories, Annika. There’s no romance to it, no allure. It’s survival. Hunger. Control.”
I stayed quiet, sensing that he needed the space to continue.
“The hunger is always there,” he admitted. “Even when you’re full, even when you’ve fed, it never really goes away. It’s this… constant pull at the edges of your mind, reminding you of what you are. What you need to stay alive.”
I shivered slightly, and he tightened his arm around me, his touch grounding despite the weight of his words.
“But it’s more than that,” he added after a pause. “It changes the way you see the world. Time becomes… fluid. Days, years… they start to blur. The things that used to matter don’t anymore. And the things you never noticed, like how the stars look brighter when you’re not running out of time to see them, those become the only things you hold on to.”
His voice was steady, but I could hear the undercurrent of sorrow, of longing for something lost. “And then there’s the loneliness,” he said, his tone softening. “No matter how many people you’re surrounded by, no matter how much you care about them, there’s always this… distance. Like a part of you is frozen in place while the world keeps spinning.”
I reached up, my fingers brushing his jaw. “You don’t seem lonely now,” I whispered.
His gaze dropped to mine, his expression unreadable for a moment. “I’m not,” he said, his voice carrying the weight of something unspoken. “Not when I’m with you.”
My chest tightened, a flood of emotions threatening to overwhelm me. “Lucas…” I started, but he leaned down, pressing his lips to my forehead in a gesture so tender it stole whatever words I was about to say.
“I’ve lived a long time, Annika,” he said quietly. “Long enough to know that moments like this… they don’t come often. So, I hold onto them. I hold onto you, for as long as you are here.”
His honesty broke something in me, and I pressed closer to him, burying my face in his chest. For a while, we just lay there in silence, his hand stroking my back, his steady heartbeat the only sound I needed to hear.
Lucas' arms were warm and solid around me, his breath brushing softly against my hair as we lay there on the couch. The flickering candlelight painted golden shadows across the room, and everything about the moment felt… safe. Peaceful. Almost perfect. Almost.
But my mind wouldn’t quiet.
I stared at the faint lines on the ceiling, my body cradled against his, and felt the tug-of-war happening inside me. The life I had before seemed so distant, like it belonged to someone else entirely. My mother’s face haunted me. I could see her tired smile, the way she’d laugh despite the pain, her voice telling me to be careful. She was the reason I had taken this case, the reason I had put myself in harm’s way to make sure we could afford her treatments.
But what if I couldn’t go back? What if she was gone, and I hadn’t been there when she needed me most? My throat tightened, and I pressed my lips together to keep from breaking. The thought of her dying alone, wondering why her only daughter was not back, by her side, was unbearable.
Yet, staying here felt like an option I hadn’t considered until now. The thought of leaving Lucas… it clawed at me, an ache I didn’t know how to soothe. How could I just walk away from him after everything we’d been through? After all the times he’d risked his life to protect me, comforted me when I felt like I was breaking, and made me laugh when the world around us felt like it was falling apart?
I glanced up at him. His face was calm, his eyes closed, the faintest trace of contentment on his features. I’d never seen him like this before… unguarded, vulnerable. He trusted me, I realized. In a world that had given him every reason not to, he had chosen to trust me and I trusted him.
How could I leave that behind?
But how could I stay?
I closed my eyes, trying to push the questions away, but they only grew louder. This fight was bigger than me, and the truth was, I didn’t even know where I fit in anymore. The old Annika, the one who had a plan, a purpose, a career to go back to, felt like a stranger. Almost as if she were just a friend with whom I’d lost touch. And now, I had no idea if I wanted to rekindle that friendship.
In this tangled mess of thoughts and emotions, all I knew was that, here, in Lucas’s arms, I felt like I was where I was supposed to be.
But was that enough?
Lucas stirred slightly, his fingers brushing my arm. Sometimes, it felt as if he were able to read my mind, asking the questions I had been trying to shove into the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind.
“Are you awake?” he murmured, his voice low and warm.
“Yeah,” I said softly, afraid to speak too much, to betray the storm of thoughts swirling inside me.
He pressed a kiss to my hair. “You’re thinking again.”
A weak laugh escaped me. “Guilty as charged.”
I couldn’t believe it, but he knew me so well. Sometimes I thought that he knew me better than I knew myself, if such a thing were possible.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
There it was. The question that I dreaded. Yet now, that he had asked it, it didn’t feel so frightening.
I hesitated. Part of me wanted to spill everything, to tell him how torn I felt, how much it hurt to think about leaving, how terrified I was that I might never find my place again. I couldn’t stop thinking about my mother and how much she needed me, while I was here, fighting and making love. How strikingly different those two things were, yet for me, intertwined, one unable to exist without the other.
Then again, there was another part of me that didn’t want to ruin this moment. It was fragile, fleeting, and I wanted to stay in it just a little longer.
“Not yet,” I whispered.
He pulled me closer, his embrace like a shield against the chaos in my mind. “Whenever you're ready,” he said softly.
I nodded, grateful for his patience, even as my thoughts refused to quiet. Still, I managed to sleep well, which was what I considered an impossible feat in this place. Safely in his arms, I completely relaxed, waking up to peaceful thoughts. At least for a moment. Then, the storm inside of me started to rage again.
We got dressed, occasionally exchanging mysterious smiles, neither of us willing to break the magic of the silent moment we shared. Nothing needed to be said.
About half an hour later, we were in the main room. I could sense the tension in the room immediately. Maps were spread across the long table at the center, dotted with markings, circles, and hastily drawn arrows. Everyone moved with determination, their faces set with grim resolve as they worked to finalize the plans for the biggest attack yet. The sound of voices layered over each other, strategizing, debating, confirming details.
I hovered near the entrance for a moment, taking it all in. The gravity of what we were about to do settled on me like a weight I wasn’t entirely sure I could carry. Lucas stood at the head of the table, his posture commanding as he spoke with Callum, Lena, and a few others I didn’t recognize. His presence seemed to steady the room, as it always did. His voice was calm but firm, cutting through the noise with authority.
When his gaze found mine, his expression softened for a fraction of a second. He didn’t say anything, but the brief flicker of reassurance in his eyes was enough to anchor me. I stepped further into the room, my arms wrapping around myself as I moved closer to the table.
“Annika,” Lena said, nodding as she jotted something down on a notepad. “We’re working on splitting the teams for the initial push. Lucas thinks—”
“I think we need a clear fallback plan,” Lucas interrupted, his focus shifting back to the group. “We can’t afford to lose anyone because we don’t have an exit strategy.”
“Fallback?” Callum scoffed, his tone bristling. “We’re going in to win, not to run.”
Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “We’re not throwing lives away, Callum. If things go south, we need a way out, especially for the civilians we’re trying to free.”
I stayed quiet, watching the exchange. The stakes were so much higher now. It wasn’t just about strategy. It was about all lives, human, vampire, and even shifter. I couldn’t help but feel out of place amidst all these warriors, but I was here, and somehow, I had to contribute.
“Annika,” Lucas called, pulling me from my thoughts. “Come here.”
I stepped closer, my pulse quickening as the attention in the room shifted to me. “What do you need?”
“You’re going to be with me,” he said firmly, his tone leaving no room for argument. “We’ll be part of the central group, heading for the main stronghold.”
My stomach twisted. I wasn’t sure if his insistence on keeping me close was because he trusted me or because he thought I needed protection. Maybe both.
“Okay,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt.
“And Evan?” I asked, glancing around. The boy was sitting in a corner, flipping through one of his comics, seemingly oblivious to the chaos around him.
“He stays here,” Lucas said without hesitation. “It’s too dangerous to bring him.”
“Of course,” I immediately agreed. “But someone needs to stay behind with him and the others.”
“I’ll take care of it,” one of the women close by suggested. Lena nodded at her, placing a reassuring hand on the woman’s shoulder.
The conversation shifted again, back to logistics and details, but my mind was stuck on what lay ahead. The thought of facing the shifters in their main stronghold was terrifying. It would be much more dangerous than any of the times before, and I realized that I was petrified. Only, not for myself, but for others and mainly for him.
Losing Lucas was not something I dared to think about, and yet, the danger was there, all around us, like the air we were breathing. When he urged me to leave him behind and bring all the prisoners to safety, it took all of my conscious effort not to go back for him. But what could I do?
Still, they were all right. The idea of doing nothing, of letting the shifters continue their reign of terror, was worse than anything I could imagine doing or not doing.
As I stood there, taking in their voices, their energies, I had no idea if I was ready for all of this or not. But I knew I had to try. For Lucas, for Evan, for all the people we were trying to save.
And, maybe… for myself as well.