Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sunlight pierces through my eyelids. The muscles around my eyes pull inward, and I bring an arm up to shade my vision. A light blue sky stretches above me, flecked with pixies flying about. A gentle breeze swirls around me, kissing my skin and moving strands of hair across my face.
A heaviness settles on my mind, the twinge of a headache forming as I turn on my side to find Mikael propped up on an elbow, lying next to me. He’s shirtless, but wearing his favorite black satin sleep pants.
“Hello gorgeous.” He runs a finger along my hairline, moving the loose strands behind my ear. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake.”
The thick velvet blankets spread out around us bunch up as I shimmy closer to him and bury my face in his chest. A strong arm wraps around my shoulder and pulls me closer.
I breathe in the scent of him, the way he always smells of leather and burning wood because of all the time he spends in his workshop.
Held in his arms is my favorite place to be; it’s comfort and peace. His embrace lets me know I’m safe, that he’ll never let harm reach me.
I never thought I would be so blessed to find a love like ours.
I blink away the haze coating my vision and pull back. “Where are we?”
“At the surprise I planned for you. You fell asleep on the way last night. I didn’t want to wake you, so I set everything up for us.
We’re on sacred pixie ground. They approved my request to speak our vows on their land.
Only those destined to be together are granted access to the everlasting waters. ”
I look up at him, at the white-blond hair that falls into his face, framing his slender nose and full bow-shaped lips. He smiles and leans down, planting a kiss on my forehead.
I move on top of him, placing a leg on either side of his hips. He’s beaming, full of life and love.
I place my hands on his chest and return his smile. “It’s finally the day we’ve been waiting for.”
“Then let’s not wait any longer.” He sits up, gripping my hips, and kisses me quickly.
He secures an arm around me and lifts me as he stands. My white nightgown flows down my legs before I hitch it up and wrap my legs around his waist.
A giggle escapes as I throw my arms around his neck and bring my lips just below his ear.
He hums in pleasure.
Mikael’s long strides bring us into the pristine water within seconds. He sets me down in front of the waterfall, turning me around so my back is to his chest. He slips the sleeve of my gown off my shoulder and brings his lips to my bare skin, gently kissing me.
“I’ve been waiting far too long for this day. You own my heart and are the keeper of my soul.”
My head arcs back, and I sweep my hair around, giving him access to my neck.
I inhale sharply as his fangs pierce my skin, sinking into me.
Mikael’s hand on my hip, even through the fabric of my thin gown, causes my body to thrum with need. I grip the top of his thigh in response, needing a physical anchor to him as his name comes out in a moan. “Kai.”
His bite is intoxicating, and I revel in the ecstasy that flows through my veins, my vocal cords vibrating with the breath that leaves my body.
A vampire’s bite is meant to ravish and drain, taking without permission. But when access is freely given, especially from another immortal, the blood is more sustaining and fulfilling for them, and vampires can go longer between feeds.
The first time I allowed Mikael to feed from me, it was like nothing I had experienced before.
We were already bonded, but when his fangs pierced my skin, every nerve ending surged.
Our emotions and pleasure amplified. The bond intensified, deepened, and we became infinite—our souls intertwining so thoroughly I knew I could never be without him again.
He removes his teeth and trails kisses up my neck. “I love when you call out my name. I’ve been craving the way your blood tastes. How your pulse, and your body respond to my bite.”
Before I can say anything, he spins me around, lips consuming mine. His kiss devours me, hard and passionate. He doesn’t hold back; his want and need are clear in the way he sweeps his tongue over mine, claiming me. I reciprocate, matching his movements.
His hand cups my breast, rolling my peaked nipple between his thumb and finger before slowly moving down my stomach and pulling up the fabric of my gown. He slides a finger inside me and curls it up before slowly pulling it back out.
“So wet for me,” he says against my lips.
“Don’t tease me,” I say through panted breaths, sucking in the cool air when his finger slides between my legs again.
“I’d never tease you. Only make you want things you didn’t even know you craved,” Mikael says, the thumb of his other hand lightly running across my lips.
“I want to reach the edge together.” I look up into those gray eyes—the color of steel, the blade at my back, always protecting me.
I run my hands down the planes of his muscular chest. It’s almost like I haven’t felt his skin under my touch in a long time, yet I know my way around the curve of his pecs and abdomen. I trail my fingers along those lines, moving lower, until they slide under the band of his pants.
My brows pull together when my fingers only find smooth skin as I move lower, wrapping a hand around his length. He drops his head to mine, then pulls mine back and gently eases it to the side.
“May I?” he asks, wanting to bite me again.
I nod, wanting it just as much as he does.
Just as his teeth sink into my neck, I notice, in the distance, an empty throne perched within a tree.
His smooth skin.
There should be a scar just below his hip bone, a deep cut from when he was a teenager, that stretches to the middle of his pelvis.
My stomach twists, pulling me from the haze of pleasure.
Even though my mind fights, wanting to stay within the euphoria of his bite, I push against his chest, and he withdraws.
I drop my head to Mikael’s chest, pressing my ear against his skin, listening to his heartbeat.
It’s wrong, faster than it should be, a detail I noticed earlier but didn’t process until now.
My gaze goes to the waterfall, watching it, lingering on the way it flows and falls. There is no mist or foam.
I pull away from him. “How did we get here?”
“What?” Confusion laces his expression.
“Is this my dream or yours?” I ask coldly.
Almost as if he was in a trance and it’s slowly breaking, he blinks, brows creasing. “This…it’s… not…wait…”
Mikael looks around as I step away from him. Does he not realize this isn’t right? The pixies grant no one access to these waters. Only one couple in our history has ever been deemed worthy, and that is not us. We are not worthy, not after…
He betrayed me before we could take our vows. There is no way the last two hundred years were a dream. That kind of heartbreak can’t be overwritten by what we once wanted. One of us—not me—still dreams about what could be.
“How did they know about this? Know we wanted to come here?” I yell at him.
“Bryn…” Mikael pleads. “Can we just stay in this moment and let me finish worshipping you?”
“No… Do you often dream about this day that we never had? Why this?” I’m almost in tears as I ask him.
I know I haven’t dreamt of him in this way over the past two hundred years. In the aftermath of the battle, my nights became filled with terrors.
It was always the same; few nights did I get a reprieve from the screams of the past and the faces of those who would no longer heal from their wounds.
The broken and dead bodies slowly decaying into the red-brown dirt, immortal no longer. Guilt for my role and the pain of loss.
“I never stopped thinking about you. Thoughts of you have filled every waking moment and dream over the last two hundred years. I constantly plotted, considering which paths would lead me back to you. To explain.”
“No. No. No.” I step away from him, confused, no longer wanting to be near him.
Mikael grabs my hand and pulls me back to him. “I wish I could explain.”
I rip my hand away from his. “You can’t. Hundreds of my friends died because of what your king started.”
His voice darkens, and he grips my shoulders, forcing me to hear his words.
“I also lost friends. But more than that, I lost my soulmate, the one I bound myself to. You weren’t the only one who suffered.
You are the very air I breathe. I have been suffocating these last two hundred years without you by my side. ”
“Stop saying things like that.” Tears roll down my face, unable to handle his admissions. They’re wrong. There is no way they can be true.
“I’d worship at your feet for all eternity, doing anything you wished, if it could make up for what I did. I’d serve your every whim and desire—kill your enemies, destroy empires, or simply make you tea.” He wipes the tears away and says, “Whatever it takes.”
I can’t look at him anymore, so I divert my gaze to the fluffy clouds amid the blue sky, and scream, “End this nightmare!”
But the old female pixie is nowhere to be seen, and there are no more pixies flying about. What had she said? What was the damn riddle? Fade with the ending light of day. Stay or find your way.
“I would stay in this dream, if you wanted to. This is what I dream about. I want you back in my life. Need you. No rules to follow, no one to judge our relationship. No one to oppose it.”
I shake my head. “We can’t stay here. Remember the last line of the riddle. Let it sink in.”
“Stay and fade away. Fuck.” He spits the last word out. “Well, maybe you need to let me finish what we started,” he suggests.
“This isn’t the time for your jokes. If we stay here, we’ll die.”
I leave the water and storm toward the tree, pacing beneath it. How do we end this nightmare? Do I want to make love to him? Yes.
“Do you hear that? Can you read my thoughts?” I speak aloud, then turn around to see Mikael sitting on the rocks near the water. He’s deep in thought, staring into the soft waves caused by the waterfall pouring into the pool. He looks sad, distraught.
No.
I don’t want his explanations to ruin all the work I’ve done to hate him, even though I know I never truly could. But it’s how I was able to breathe after the battle, how I was able to get out of bed.
I hated him, so I didn’t have to hate myself.
I whisper, barely audible, hoping whatever magic has us in a hold here will let us go by my admission. “I have missed him. I do love him. But going back is too painful. How would I even forgive him in order to move on?”
He looks up at me and rises, walking back in my direction. When he reaches me, he snaps off a branch and places it in my hand. “Kill me, Bryn. It’s the desire of your mind.”
“What? No.” I drop the branch and shake my head.
“Yes. Do it.” He picks it up and holds it out to me. “You have to.”
“I…” I try to speak, but words fail me.
“You stabbed me in the heart with your blade. I know it’s what you desire. I understand it, too. I’d want the same if I were in your place.”
“But… what if it really kills you? I won’t be able to finish this quest on my own. You have the other half of the riddles.”
“I don’t know how curses work, but they can always be broken. You might just end up with all the clues.”
“I can’t. Otherwise, I already would have.”
Do I have to admit to him that I don’t actually want him dead? Maybe I can convince myself it’s because I don’t want another person’s blood on my hands. The citizens in Varithen think I’ve killed again, but since the battle, I’ve only taken another’s life when it was the only choice.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve had to do that.
Years after Mikael’s betrayal, when Varithen was in its infancy, I was betrayed again. I dragged the female to the city square and slit her throat when I found out. It was vicious and wrong, but I was angrier back then. The rawness of what had happened was a dark pit of misery I was festering in.
But now? I send someone else to do it if the need arises.
“What about your idea?” I suggest.
“I’d never want you to do something so intimate that you don’t actually want.”
“Why choose this moment to be so chivalrous?” I roll my eyes.
“Do you trust me?” Mikael asks.
“I… I…” I’m unsure of how to answer. I’m not sure if I can. “How can I?”
“I can’t answer that.” He pushes the stake into my hands. “I’ll be over on the blankets waiting for whatever you decide.”
I watch him walk away. Unsure of what to do, I drop my head into my hands, my skin scratching against the rough wood.
My options are to kill him now and we wake, continuing on this quest to restore my soul. Or kill him now and he’s dead when I wake. Then I either continue on my own and get my soul back or slowly die anyway.
I thought these trials would be physical, making me face down a legendary beast or climb a mountain. Not this emotional torment that’s making me face things I have buried for centuries.
What does our relationship have to do with this curse? Even if I admitted everything to him, it’s too late for us. For me. There is no going back.
Decision made, I return to where we first woke up in this magical trap, dream, illusion—whatever the pixie created for us.
Mikael has his hands folded behind his head, staring up at the sky.
He offers a slight smile. “Hello, darling. Have you decided to kill me?”
I can’t help but laugh quietly at his ability to joke in such circumstances. Another thing I forgot I had loved so much about him.
I straddle him, still holding the stake.
He rises onto his elbows. “Do it.”
I lean my forehead down to his, and before I can change my mind, I shove the wood into his chest. Mikael chokes on the breath he sucks in.
I force the makeshift stake through his body and into his heart as I scream out in anguish. His veins bulge, and his skin slowly turns the color of ash and smoke.
When the last of his pale skin turns, I lean down and whisper into his ear. “I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving you. We were always playing a losing game.”