Chapter Nineteen
IVAN
The fire had burned low, shadows stretched long across the stone walls, and still, hours later, I held my beautiful girl in my arms. I couldn’t close my eyes. If I did, I feared I’d wake to find her gone—lost again to centuries of loneliness and darkness.
Clara stirred, lashes fluttering, her hair tumbling across her cheek as she tilted her face up to me. Silence lingered as her fingers traced idle patterns over my chest.
“I never want to leave,” she whispered. “Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Never.”
A sound rumbled low in my chest, half growl, half vow. I pressed my mouth to her temple, unwilling to tell her what I already knew… that she would never escape me again. Instead, I said, “Good. Because this is where you belong. With me. For eternity.”
Her hand splayed against me, tentatively. “It doesn’t feel real. I keep thinking I’ll wake up back home, far from this life and from you. But when I touch you, it’s like…” Her voice broke. “Like I finally have forever.”
“You do.” I caught her chin, forcing her gaze to stay locked with mine. “We were torn apart once. Never again. You’ve always been mine—across lifetimes, across death.”
I kissed her softly, then pulled open the nightstand drawer and handed her the phone. “You are free, Clara. Call anyone, go anywhere you like, anytime. You stay not because you’re chained but because you choose to. Because you are my wife. My equal.”
Her eyes shimmered. “Thank you.” A silence fell, heavy and uncertain, before she whispered, “And me? Will I… become like you?”
The question pierced deeper than any blade. I cupped her face, my thumb brushing her cheek. “No. Time will claim you as it does all mortals. Your body will tire, your breath falter, and death will come. That is the natural order.”
Her lip trembled. “And you?”
“I’ll follow.” My voice was iron. “When your heart stops, mine will, too. I am strong enough to tear stone apart with my hands, to hear a heartbeat across a mile of forest, to scent blood beneath the earth. But even my strength has limits. When you go, I will follow. I will burn until nothing but ash remains, or I will take the blade to my throat and cut myself clean through the bone. Not out of weakness but out of devotion. I have waited lifetimes for you, Clara. I will not endure another without you.”
I thought of the centuries I might have surrendered to despair.
But I did not. I endured because I knew this darkness was no accident.
It was not merely a curse. It was fate’s design.
A covenant carved into my soul. Why else would I have been given this unholy gift if not as proof that I was meant to wait for her return?
Tears welled in her eyes as she buried her face in my neck. “I don’t want to think about that.”
I kissed her hair, holding her tighter against me. “Then don’t. That day is far away. All that matters is now.”
She shuddered against me, clinging tighter, and I held her until sleep dragged her under.
I remained awake, watching the fire crumble to ash, every sharpened sense attuned to her—the cadence of her breath, the flutter of her pulse, the warmth of her skin against my cold.
My sight pierced the dark as easily as daylight.
My hearing caught the faint shifting of stones far below.
Every instinct, every heightened sense, existed for one purpose: to protect her.
By dawn, I felt the sting of sunlight pricking beyond the shuttered windows. Clara stirred, a sweet smile tugging at her lips as she rose. Even that slight gesture stoked desire in me until it roared like a beast.
Later, dressed, I heard the murmur of her voice beyond the chamber. I followed and found her in the courtyard garden, seated on the familiar stone bench where she once fed birds, only now a phone was gripped in hand instead of seed.
“Yes, Buni. I’m safe,” Clara said softly, warmth in her voice that made me smile. “I can’t explain it all right now, but I will soon. Ivan is good to me. You don’t have to worry.”
My senses sharpened, honing like blades. Even at a distance, I heard her grandmother’s faint but steady voice.
“Be careful, Clara. Shadows can protect, but they can also consume.”
Clara’s reply was raw. “It’s not like before. Not like with Laszlo.”
The name pierced me like steel. I heard the catch in her throat, felt her fear as she confessed to her grandmother. Laszlo had come here searching for her. She’d broken from him, but he had touched her with cruelty, with aggression.
The world dimmed, narrowed to that name echoing through my skull. Laszlo.
A threat left breathing was a threat not ended. He still lived. Which meant he could still find her. Still crawl into her nightmares. Still lay claim to her fears.
I would not allow it. She had been hurt and torn from me once. Never again.
The beast in me woke, hungry and merciless. Laszlo still drew breath.
It was time to hunt.