Chapter 8 #2
“Alive?” She laughed—a silvery, echoing sound that made my teeth ache. “You’re generous, love. I prefer undefeated.” She strolled forward, her boots clicking on the hard ground. “And look at you. Awake. Brooding. Somehow even paler than you were in 1650. Sleep has done you wonders.”
My first instinct was rage. Before she could take another step, I had her by the throat and drove her backward into the shadows between two houses.
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t fight me. She smiled through the chokehold. “Oh, Cristian, you’re still so handsy. I missed that.”
“This is your doing.” My fingers pressed harder. “All of it.”
She gave a strangled laugh, amused rather than afraid. “You make it sound so personal.”
“The Sovereign Court put me to sleep,” I said. “Buried me. Left me to rot. Your court.”
Her nails brushed my wrist as if she was soothing a lover. “We did what was required. You wouldn’t join us. The court extended every offer—status, blood, dominion. You could have ruled beside us.”
Her smile turned faintly cruel. “But you refused. You always thought yourself above us.”
I said nothing, my jaw tight. If I were to agree to join them, any hope of autonomy would be lost for eternity.
She sighed, almost wistful. “They didn’t want to kill you, Cristian. They wanted to use you. All that strength, all that control—wasted on your principles.” Her tone dipped lower. “If we couldn’t have your power, then neither could you.”
The old fury stirred inside me.
I let go enough for her to breathe.
She adjusted her collar, graceful even in near-strangulation.
“I felt it, you know,” she said. “The moment you woke. That awful bond of yours burned through me. I’ve always been attuned to you, darling.
Unfortunately. So, I had to see for myself.
And yes—here you are. Very much awake. Very much doomed. ”
I stepped closer. “You will tell no one.”
She tilted her head, feigning offense. “Oh, Cristian. You think I gossip?”
“You live to gossip.”
“That’s rude.” She pouted. “And accurate.”
“Ambrosia,” I warned.
Her eyes gleamed with something sharp and satisfied. “Relax. I won’t tell everyone. Only the people who’ll make it entertaining.”
Before I could reach for her again, her body began to dissolve, the edges of her form unraveling into mist.
“Goodnight, my little rebellion,” she purred. “Do send my regards to your human.”
In a dark flutter of wings, and a trail of perfume that smelled faintly of roses and malice, she was gone.
I stared after her, jaw tight. “Of course, she still flies.”
The street was silent again. The anger that had slept beside me all these years stirred awake, crawling through my bones.
The Sovereign Court knew I was awake.
I was not safe.
And worse—Nadia was not safe.
I dreamed that night.
I despised dreaming. It was a habit of mortals, of men with hope. But sleep had never been restful for me—it was simply another kind of prison.
Tonight, the prison bled.
I tossed, the sheets twisting around me like restraints. A sharp pressure built behind my ribs, spreading outward. The bond pulsed, warning me that something was wrong, but I couldn’t wake.
The air changed. My eyes opened—or I thought they did—and I was standing in the ballroom of my ancestral manor. The walls were velvet. The chandeliers dripped blood. Violins floated in the air, playing Vivaldi—badly.
“Gods preserve me. She’s here.”
From the shadows, the nightmare took form.
Ambrosia glided forward in a gothic gown so elaborate it could have bankrupted a small kingdom. The black lace and crimson corset displayed cleavage that had never once been subtle.
“Oh, Cristian…” she sighed, voice trembling with tragic romance. “My brooding, wounded stallion…”
I backed away slowly, dread pooling in my gut.
Anything but this. Ambrosia had the terribly unfortunate power of controlling dreams.
I tried to summon control of the dream—bend it, shatter it—but she was already giggling, skipping toward me like a demented debutante.
“You looked at me so intensely earlier when we spoke,” she purred. “Do you remember Paris, 1603? You said my presence was ‘tolerable.’”
“I also said your presence was headache-inducing.”
She ignored that. “I brought your favorite—goat blood with a twist of laudanum! Don’t make me drink it all alone… again.”
She drifted closer, fingers curling around my sleeve. Disgusted, I peeled her off.
“Ambrosia,” I warned, “if this is my punishment for past sins, I repent.”
She vanished in a puff of rose-scented smoke, only to reappear, weeping dramatically in a clawfoot tub that materialized mid-air.
“You never choose me,” she wailed. She scooped up rose petals and hurled them at my face.
I made for the door, except the ballroom kept stretching, endless and cruel.
Ambrosia appeared ahead of me in an instant, this time in a wedding gown that glittered. The violins switched to a grotesque version of Here Comes the Bride.
She smirked. “Running makes you look so... virile.”
I stopped walking. “If I throw myself into the nearest fire, will you vanish?”
Her tone shifted, silk turning sharp. “You can run, my love. But we’re a solid match. We are meant to be together.” Then she leaned in, lips curling. “Tell your little human she woke up more than just you.”
The blood drained from my face. “God help me.”
The world fractured. I woke with a snarl, fangs down, chest heaving.
For a long moment, I sat there in the dark, gripping the sheets, trying to slow the riot of my pulse. My throat burned with her name and the taste of bile.
I ran a hand down my face, furious. Exhausted. “She’s still watching.”
My gaze drifted to the hallway—toward Nadia’s door. The bond hummed softly between us, steady and alive. I could sense her breathing, her warmth, the fragile peace of her sleep.
A flare of something protective—feral—rose in my chest.
Ambrosia could haunt my mind, crawl through my dreams, twist the past all she wished. But if she so much as looked toward Nadia…
I bared my fangs in the dark, whispering to no one, “Over my dead body.”
Then, after a pause, I sighed. “Again.”