Chapter 29
Killian
Since that fateful night when Blaise wrongfully kidnapped Aimee instead of Aurora, bringing in the right sister without even knowing, her captivating amber eyes have gripped my soul in ways that were beyond my comprehension.
They twinkle when she’s happy. They gleam like liquid gold when she’s in ecstasy.
Turn molten lava when she’s furious. And they always have a swirling shade of black calling to me like a dark beacon.
A sign of her trauma, surely, but also of her tumultuous depths, of her powers and the soul-binding, death-defying connection we share.
I’m not sure I’ve wrapped my head around the truth yet.
Our story.
Maybe I never will. But the rightness of it is etched deep into my being, woven so tightly into the fabric of my essence, that I don’t need to fully understand it to believe in it.
I was Akaori. She was Aeon.
Imiryion itself has bled for us, just like we shattered ourselves for this realm.
And it gave us a second chance.
To find each other.
To love each other.
To restore the balance.
“Talk to me, Killian,” Aimee says, tapping her finger lightly against the side of my face. “What’s going on inside here?”
How can I tell her the fear that tries to swallow me at the thought of ever losing her again?
Not because of my own stupid ego, but at the hands of the malevolent creature that broke us apart for almost two millennia.
I mourn every second we lost, every kiss we didn’t share, every dawn and dusk that passed without us in each other’s arms.
I grieve a past we cannot change, in fear of a future that seems uncertain at best.
My only certainty is her.
“You have nothing to worry about when it comes to Mael, or anyone else for that matter,” she says, wrapping her arms around my neck and resting her forehead against mine. Her sweet yet dangerous midsummer storm scent floods my senses, making my body stiffen with hunger.
Hunger for her. For her blood. Her lips. Her brave heart.
“I was never truly interested in him, Killian. Just a mere distraction from the heartbreak you were causing me.”
She’s mistaken my silence for brooding over that insufferable human. He’s as insignificant as a speck of dust in the vastness of the desert he calls home.
Puny.
Forgettable.
Just an annoying afterthought.
“I don’t care about him, umbra. He can lust after what is mine all he wants,” I say, capturing her lips with my own. “He’ll never know the pleasure of your affection, of your ruin. Only I will.”
Her breath fans deliciously around my jaw as she drags her nails through my hair.
“Then you promise you’ll be on your best behavior once he arrives?”
“When have I ever not been on my best behavior?” I grin, and she huffs a laugh that I swallow whole with another heated kiss.
“My menacing Vampire King.”
“Your everything,” I whisper against the column of her throat, my fangs screaming to sink into her.
“My everything,” she murmurs back, her back arching until we’re molded together like one.
“Can I feast now?” I ask, nuzzling my nose against the mark I left on her neck.
“Not until you tell me what really troubles you,” she answers with a kiss on my temple, her lips brushing my disheveled locks of hair. “Complete honesty, Killian. I know the irony of me asking this of you, but it’s the only way forward.”
“Complete honesty,” I grumble, the words strained.
“The thought of losing you again terrifies me, umbra. I’ve never held fear in my heart before, not like this.
Hell, for a long time I didn’t even care if I had a heart anymore.
I had a duty, a responsibility—I still do, now more than ever—but I also didn’t have something so precious to lose. ”
I pause, choking on the intense disquietude seizing my insides. Is this how she feels during one of her panic attacks?
“I can’t stop thinking that we lost each other to Morweena—to Arwan, once. She tore us apart for thousands of years. What if we underestimate her again?”
“She won’t, Killian,” Aimee says, placing her warm hands on either side of my jaw. I revel in her soothing touch. “It’s bigger than us, former selves included. We have an entire realm to liberate.”
“We did so in the past too, and we failed. And if you want absolute honesty, umbra, I don’t give a damn about Imiryion, not when I weigh it down against you. I have half a mind to whisk you away from harm, to let it all perish around us, just to keep you safe.”
“We can’t, love,” she murmurs gently, without judgement.
“I know we can’t, damn it, but oh how I wish we wouldn’t bear the responsibility of an entire world.” My voice rises, and I immediately regret it. I press my forehead to hers, my breath ragged.
“Would you, uhm, would you consider becoming a vampire?” My voice is low, barely a whisper, but it clangs loudly in the tense quiescence of the chamber.
Aimee stills in my arms, her shoulders stiffening as she closes her eyes.
“I know what I said in the cave, Killian,” she answers slowly, dragging the words out one by one.
“But?” I sigh, bracing for her refusal.
“But I am not sure that’s a choice I’m prepared to make. I hate what my kind have done, the deceit, the massacres, but I am not like them. Fae can be good, and I wish to retain my nature to prove that.”
My heart sinks. She is good; she is the best thing that ever happened to me. In every incarnation.
“I cannot lose you,” I utter desolately. “I would bring to naught the very realm we’re trying to save if anything happened to you, Aimee. Your undoing would be my actual villain origin story. To the pits of hell with it all.”
She laughs, a sound of pure denial and too much faith in me.
“No, you wouldn’t, Killian. There’s so much virtue in you, love, even if you refuse to acknowledge it.
Despite what they’ve painted you to be. You’re honorable, even when you’re slaying your enemies.
More so when you quietly accept this villainous role that was thrust upon you, just so your people stay safe. ”
My chest rumbles at her compliment. She thinks too highly of me.
“But,” she says with a heavy exhale, “I’ll give you this compromise. If I’m ever close to death’s door, you can turn me then.”
“What if I’m not next to you in that dreadful moment? A full-on battle is unpredictable, umbra. I cannot leave such a thing to chance.”
“Then,” she says, baring her teeth and casting a wicked gaze at my throat, “let’s make sure I always have a drop of your blood in me.”
I slice my throat with my shadows in the next moment, blood dripping from the cut just above her crescent moon mark.
“Drink up, menace.”
She closes her lips on the wound, sucking mouthfuls with wild abandon, just as I sink my fangs into her pulse point. My cock hardens instantly at her throaty moans, loving how obsessed she is with my blood, just as I am about hers.
She might not want it, but she would make a brilliant vampire.
The first pale rays of sun at the crack of dawn are not what awaken me. It’s Aimee’s excited jolt from beside me, the way her naked body disentangles from mine in a rush, and the vanishing warmth of her skin leaving my limbs.
“Umbra,” I rasp, searching the bed for her in vain. She’s already on her feet, slipping on her white chemise and searching for her leather boots in the heap of clothes strewn haphazardly on the floor. “What in Aka—uhm, my name—are you doing at this ungodly hour? We barely slept an hour ago.”
“Who’s fault is that, you insatiable vampire?” she says with a laugh before throwing a crumpled black shirt in my face. “K’haram, he’s almost here. I can feel him. They’re arriving, Killian.”
“Of course it’s that toad’s fault,” I grumble, sitting up in bed and catching the rest of the clothes she throws my way.
“Killian!” she fake gasps, before bursting into laughter. “Don’t call my dragon that.”
Am I a little irrational, a pang of jealousy squeezing my heart at the ease with which she calls that beast hers? Probably.
Do I give a shit?
Not really, no.
“What is he going to do? Roast me and have me for dinner?”
“Tempting as that might sound, no. He says you’re too old and stringy for his delicate palate,” she answers in a singsong voice.
What the actual fuck?
“Can he hear me?”
“No, but I am having a conversation with him right now.”
She ties her fur-capped cloak and grabs my hand, summoning her shadows that coax mine like bees to fucking honey.
“Shadow walk us, Killian. The gardens. Now.”
I grouse, half pissed, but oblige without haste. The polished wood floors vanish from under us, solid ground coated in a thick layer of snow forming beneath our feet.
There’s an eerie calmness in the air; the deserted garden slumbering under the white dust that blankets everything. The sky bleeds soft pink hues, only a black dot blotting the horizon, growing bigger with every passing moment.
I hear the thunderous flapping of his wings before that blurry speck of coal becomes a beast in all its glory.
“Majestic,” Aimee whispers in childlike awe, her eyes transfixed on the approaching dragon. From its claws, a contraption dangles in the wind like a massive, gilded bird cage, two silhouettes strapped inside.
The creature lowers the cage gently to the ground before circling the castle once, twice, and landing in the middle of my garden.
His enormous tail knocks over the marble fountain in the middle, snow and chunks of stone flying everywhere.
That fucking fountain has been there for centuries and he tore through it like it was made of straw.
“Show off,” I mutter through clenched teeth as Aimee snickers.
“That’s for calling him names,” she giggles before breaking into a run toward the dragon.
The cage door opens with a creak, and Kahlya and Celine step out of it. The redhead claps with unrestrained excitement, while her lover looks like she’s about to hurl the contents of her stomach all over the place.
“I’m never doing that again,” she says in between heaves.
“Why in Imiryion’s name have you done it in the first place?” I ask, puzzled. “Couldn’t he have carried you on his back?”
“A dragon only allows his soul bonded to ride him,” Aimee answers from where she’s scratching K’haram’s jaw, the creature nuzzling its giant snout against her dainty palms.
She presses her forehead against his scaled muzzle, a silent conversation passing between them. She then turns her head toward us, an excited glint of mischief shining in her eyes. Whatever has her bursting with giddiness, I already know I’m not going to like it.
“Welcome to Sangeries, Kahlya, Celine.” She nods at them reverently before continuing, “Killian will escort you to your chamber to rest. We can discuss our next steps after you’ve regained your strength from the voyage.
” She unties her heavy cape, letting it fall to the ground in the puddle of muddied, melting snow at the creature’s paws.
Steam is coming out of his nostrils, and I swear his mouth extends in what could only be described as a challenging grin.
“What are you going to do?” I ask suspiciously.
“Fly with my dragon, but of course,” she says before lifting her chemise, baring her toned legs to the frigid air and climbing up K’haram’s leg to nestle between his shoulder blades.
Only my umbra would think to ride a dragon in nothing but a nightgown and a fierce smile.