Chapter 29 A Mother’s Madness #2
“When?” He huffed a faint laugh, leaning close enough that his breath brushed my skin.
“Soon, just not when you're sitting on the cold surface of my bathroom sink.” He said with a small grin, and despite everything, the fear, the blood, the chaos, I couldn’t help but mirror the emotion.
Or the small, shaky laugh that escaped me.
The absurdity of it all hit me at once, tangled with exhaustion and the heavy ache of wanting to believe him.
He smiled then, faint, crooked, but real, before resting his forehead against mine once more.
“Let’s get you somewhere warm,” he whispered.
“Then we will talk. I promise.”
And though part of me knew promises were dangerous things in his world, the way he said it, soft and steady, like a vow spoken from the ashes of everything he had lost, made me believe him anyway.
He didn’t give me time to argue. Before I could protest further, his arms slid beneath me. He put one around my back and the other behind my knees, before I was up in his arms in one smooth motion. Then he lifted me from the countertop as though I weighed nothing at all.
“You know, last time I checked, my feet were fine.” I started, half laughing, half exasperated. His mouth curved into a faint smirk as he adjusted his grip, holding me closer against his chest.
“Are you sure?” he murmured, the teasing warmth in his tone making my pulse skip. I rolled my eyes, but the sound that left me came out softer than I intended, almost breathless.
“Completely sure,” I said, though I didn’t miss the way his fingers flexed slightly, tightening around me, as if daring me to challenge him again.
“Then humor my need to hold you a little longer,” he replied quietly, and there was something about the way he said it that made any protest fade before it could form.
I felt the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath my palm, the warmth of him, the faint scent of rain and something unknown clinging to his skin. He looked ahead, eyes dark and unreadable, his expression caught somewhere between control and something far more fragile.
My eyes instantly went to his bed again, the one that dominated the space with all its carved dark oak and its sheets black as the night sky. It was masculine, powerful, but strangely comforting too, as though the room itself had been shaped by the man who now carried me into it.
“Vas, really, I can walk,” I tried again, though my voice was softer this time, my body already melting into the warmth of his hold.
“I know,” he said, his gaze flicking down to meet mine.
“But I’m not ready to let you go yet.” Something about the way he said it made my heart twist. There was no arrogance in it, no playful command, just quiet truth.
He reached the bed and lowered me onto it with careful hands, his movements slow, as if afraid that too much gentleness might break the moment, but too little might break me.
My laughter, the playful protest that had been forming on my lips, died the second his hands left my body.
The mattress dipped beneath his weight as he sat beside me. The teasing warmth that had danced between us only moments ago vanished, replaced by something heavier, something significant.
The flicker of the firelight caught his profile, and I realised then that I had never seen him look more human, or more dangerous.
For a long while, neither of us spoke, the silence thick and trembling, broken only by the soft crackle of the fire. I could feel his eyes on me, heavy with thought, and I knew the moment had come.
“Vas, please, I need to understand. You told me your mother died that night. How can she still be here?” I whispered, my fingers clutching at the blanket.
His body tensed beside me, the movement subtle but unmistakable. He looked away, the flickering light throwing sharp shadows across his jaw. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and rough, like the words were made of gravel.
“In a way, she did die that night, but not in the way you think,” he said quietly. I turned to face him, my heart pounding. He stared into the fire, its reflection burning in his dark eyes.
“When my father fell, I thought she had too. I didn’t remember much, not after my brothers tried to end my life.
I just know that she was the one who came to our family crypt, she found me and dug me up.
I always wondered if my brothers questioned why my body hadn’t turned to ash like our father’s.
Perhaps they believed the curse still lingered.
Kept my body whole. Either way, my mother had been the one to pull me back from death.
” His jaw tightened, the muscles in his throat working as he swallowed.
My breath caught, disbelief warring with dread.
“She saved you?” He nodded, his expression hollow, haunted.
“I remember the sound of her voice, soft but wrong, like something had broken inside it. I thought I was dreaming, that I had finally gone mad. But then she touched me, and I realised she wasn’t gone.
Not truly. She begged me to take her away, to hide her from the world, from the memories, from them. ”
He glanced at me then, and I saw something flicker behind his eyes. Grief, guilt, love, all tangled into something that looked like torment.
“She couldn’t forgive Victor and Talon. She told me that before everything went to ruin, she had begged them to come home.
Begged them to see what he was doing to her, what our father had become.
But they didn’t believe her. They left her to face him alone.
” His voice faltered, and I could almost see it.
A woman broken by pain and betrayal, a son driven by vengeance and guilt.
“So I did what she asked. I took her far from there. We hid, for years, until the world forgot our name. They all believed we had both died that day. And for a time, maybe it was true. She was never really herself again after that.” I swallowed hard and asked sympathetically,
“What do you mean?”
“At first, she was fragile, frightened. I cared for her, kept her fed, kept her safe. But over time, something began to change. She grew restless. Hungrier. The more blood she drank, the less human she became.” His gaze lowered, fixed somewhere far away.
“I brought her those who deserved it. Thieves, murderers, those who preyed on the innocent. I told myself it made a difference, that I was sparing the world of monsters to feed one I still loved. But soon she refused to feed from men at all. She called them tainted. She said she could taste their wickedness, and it only made her want to act on the crimes of those she fed from.” A chill crept down my spine as his voice grew quieter, steadier.
“So then she began to want something else. Something purer. She wanted the innocent, the untouched, the untainted. I refused her. Every time she asked, I refused. So she began to disappear. Some nights she would be gone for hours, others for days. I would find her after, her lips stained red, her eyes wild. When her hunger took her completely, I had no choice but to lock her in her room.” I gasped at this, my hand covering my mouth at how hard his life must have been, having to be his mother’s keeper.
To watch her mind deteriorate as the years went by.
He looked up at me then, and the devastation in his eyes was clear as day.
“She spoke of revenge even then, whispering through the cracks in her door. She said she would reclaim what was stolen from her. She said the darkness that lived in me was hers, that it was meant to belong to her. And that one day, she would take it back.” The room seemed to grow colder, the fire dimming as if the shadows themselves were listening.
I reached out before I could stop myself, my hand brushing his.
“Vas,” I said softly, my voice trembling.
“I understand, after all, she’s still your mother,” I told him, and he closed his eyes, his hand curling around mine, rough and warm.
“She was,” he murmured, barely audible.
“But what’s left of her now… I don’t even know if she remembers who I am.
” For a long moment, neither of us spoke, the silence stretching taut between us, heavy with all the things that could no longer be unsaid.
The fire had burned lower, its glow soft and golden now, casting a fragile peace over the room that felt entirely false.
“But the parts she does remember are the feelings of being betrayed. She believes that it will happen again.”
I wanted to tell him about the necklace.
The words trembled on the edge of my tongue, begging to be spoken.
I wanted to tell him that it was still there, beneath my bed, that it seemed to call to me in a voice I couldn’t quite hear but could always feel.
That it had a pulse, a life, and that sometimes it felt like it was breathing through me.
But when I looked at him, really looked, I couldn’t bring myself to say it. The exhaustion in his eyes, the quiet torment beneath the surface, the guilt that had carved itself into the lines of his face, it was too much. I couldn’t add to it.
So instead, I asked softly,
“Is that why she attacked me, because she sees me as a threat?” He lifted his head, meeting my gaze, and the answer was already there before he spoke it.
“Yes, I believe so,” he said quietly. His voice carried a sadness that sank deep into my chest.
“She doesn’t think like she once did. The hunger rules her now. Not for blood, not really, but for something far worse. For purity. For innocence. The more she feeds, the more she craves it. And in you…” He trailed off, his jaw tightening.
“She must have seen what she could no longer have. What she has lost.” I swallowed hard, my throat aching.
“You mean humanity.” His nod was small but certain.
“Yes, and everything you represent. The light she can’t stand to see anymore,” he confirmed. My hands trembled slightly in my lap, my mind circling back to the haunting scream that had echoed through the halls only nights before. The one that had chilled me to my bones.
“Then that night… the screaming I heard… it was her, wasn’t it?” Vas hesitated, his gaze falling to the fire. For a moment, he didn’t answer, but when he finally did, it was with quiet resignation.
“Yes.” He said, but it looked like he wasn’t eager to say more, and my stomach turned.
“What happened?” I asked, needing to know. To see this through to the bitter end.
“She must have lured another to the house,” he said, each word measured, weary.
“I never know how she finds them, or what draws them in. It’s as if she can reach through the walls and call them, the same way the darkness calls to me. I keep her locked away for that reason, but sometimes… she finds a way out.” A cold shiver slid down my spine as his words sank in.
“That night, when you pulled the curtain back,” he continued, his voice deepening, roughened by memory.
“That is what you nearly walked in on… my mother trying to murder an innocent.” My breath caught as realisation hit. The shadow behind the curtain. The faint, guttural cry. The feeling that something was there, watching me through the dark. It hadn’t been my imagination.
“She had already caught someone,” he went on, his tone low.
“I managed to stop her before she could finish what she started, but it was close. Too close.” My hand flew to my mouth, horror settling deep in my stomach. He turned toward me then, his expression carved in pain and guilt.
“That is why I kept you away from the east wing, Nessa. I thought it was enough to keep her from reaching you. But you will be safe here with me, she won’t dare try to get you again, not now she knows you’re under my protection.” He said firmly, his tone absolute.
I could see it then, the war behind his eyes. The son who loved his mother. The man who hated what she had become. The monster who still blamed himself for both.
And though part of me wanted to press further, to demand answers he wasn’t yet ready to give, another part, the part that loved him despite everything, simply reached for his hand.
He looked at me, startled at first, but didn’t pull away. His fingers curled around mine, strong, warm, trembling slightly. I held his gaze and whispered,
“Then we’ll find a way to help her. Together.” He stared at me for a long moment, then shook his head slowly, a soft, broken sound escaping him.
“You don’t understand,” he said, his voice no more than a whisper.
“Some things can’t be saved.”
And though I wanted to believe otherwise, the way he said it made my heart ache.
Because I wasn’t sure if he was still talking about his mother.
Or if he was talking about…
Himself.