Chapter 12 Penelope
PENELOPE
As of late, Elias made habit of staying beyond the lessons and the letters.
And, to her own surprise, she found herself wishing he would stay a moment longer when he left.
She enjoyed their conversations and felt as though she did not have to hide herself away, or bow her head before him.
She did not need to cower or make herself quiet.
The letters sat discarded as they laid down on her bed, staring up at the ceiling.
Henry had been so sure of his view of vampires.
They were killers, monsters born from death.
Yet everything about Elias screamed life.
How many vampires had Henry killed that were just like Elias?
And how many had Elias slain that were no different from her—innocent, unaware, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Her chest tightened at the thought. The line between predator and protector blurred with every moment shared with him. And she, impossibly, found herself longing for it all—the risk, the forbidden closeness, the reckless pull that held her attention.
“Have you ever killed someone?” she finally asked, her voice barely audible above the hush.
He turned to her. “What?”
“I am curious. I promise I will not judge.”
Elias did not answer at once. He only looked at her, the way someone might look at a painting they could never touch. Something he wanted to hold and yet feared to ruin. His expression was stiff as he took in a breath, releasing it with what seemed like unease.
“Yes,” he whispered finally, voice tight. “But… it was centuries ago. When I was first turned.” He swallowed and clenched his hands in the sheets beneath him. “My maker… he was cruel. Unmerciful. And at first… I was like him.”
“Like him?”
“Yes,” he said, jaw tight, eyes dark. “I was reckless, cruel, unthinking. I drank from the living without care. I hurt, because I could, because I knew I could. Because I knew humans were weak and I was never going to be weak again. I reveled in the power, the hunger, the fear. I was… a perfect monster. And eventually I realized, I had become even worse than my father.”
He turned his face away. “I cannot speak of it lightly… because what I was, what I allowed myself to be… it haunts me. It waits beneath my skin despite years of trying—futilely—to teach myself restraint, to teach myself mercy. Kindness.”
Her fingers brushed his arm, running down his skin until she covered his hand in hers hesitantly, and he flinched, though he did not pull away. “But… you aren’t like that now,” she murmured.
“No,” he breathed, voice low, almost breaking, while turning to meet her gaze.
“Not entirely. But when I am near you…. what I feel is no longer mere hunger. It is something I cannot contain with will alone. And it terrifies me. I could hurt you. I could kill you. And it would be so easy. And worst of all, if I hurt you, I could enjoy it. And I never wish to know what it feels like to take pleasure in your agony.”
He leaned closer, the heat between them palpable, sheets warm beneath their weight.
“I should not feel this for you. I should not touch you. I could ruin you in an instant, and yet I…” he broke off, his eyes flicking from hers down to her lips causing her heart to fall into the pits of her stomach. “I cannot stay away.”
Her hand moved to his, fingers trembling as they lingered over his. “Then let me be here,” she whispered. “Neither one of us has to be alone in this.”
She drew a shaky breath, the scent of him—oak and pine, parchment, and that subtle thread of blood—curling through her senses. The bed beneath them seemed suddenly too small, the space too intimate, yet impossibly necessary. His fingers hovered over her skin, trembling, barely daring to brush.
“Sounds complicated,” she managed.
“Perhaps, complicated would be the preferred answer. How I feel about being what I am, of what I was, is nothing short of complicated.”
Her voice trembled. “Are you… afraid of me?”
Elias gave a quiet, humorless breath. “Terrified. Question is, why do you not fear me, when you are the very thing I hunt? The very thing I desire to devour?”
They sat like that for a long moment—their hands interlaced as they laid on her bed, his eyes unable to stay away from her neck, from her lips.
Then, without speaking, she moved closer. Just a fraction.
So did he.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered.
“Neither do I,” he whispered back.
“I… am scared,” she admitted under her breath.
His large hand found the underside of her chin, pulling her forward only just. Testing where her boundaries were. “I am terrified.”
Penelope tilted her face toward his. Just enough. Barely. And still, it felt like falling.
He found her lips, and with a reverence and fear he had never known before, he kissed her.
It wasn’t a kiss meant for passion. It was a kiss meant to ask if.
If this could be real.
If he could touch her.
If she would flinch.
If he would survive it.
She didn’t breathe. Couldn’t. And yet, the moment his lips brushed hers, he swore something inside her did—like a gasp held for too many years.
When their lips parted, the air between them had changed. It was no longer safe. Her pulse raced in her throat. Her fingers curled against the sheets as if to anchor herself to the moment.
Penelope’s eyes lingered on his mouth, tracing the line of his jaw, the way his lips had felt against hers. Elias didn’t move. He looked… fractured. Frightened. The shadows in his eyes deepened, as though they held centuries of restraint, violence, and longing too dangerous to release.
“I should go,” he finally choked out.
“Did I… do something wrong?” Her voice was barely a whisper, fragile but insistent.
“No,” he rasped, the word hollow and strained. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Then—”
“I need to go.”
Penelope stared at him, her pulse a frantic drum in her ears. “Why?”
Elias stood, too fast. The sudden motion made her flinch. But she steeled herself, chasing him across the room, grabbing his hand as he reached the window.
Elias stopped, but he did not turn.
“I don’t understand,” she said, voice trembling yet firm. “Why are you pulling away? What have I done wrong?”
And then he laughed. Mirthless, hollow, a sound that seemed to scrape the walls of the room. Slowly, he turned to face her, shadows twisting across his face. “What have you done wrong? You stand before a vampire and think you have committed some kind of mistake?”
“Then why?”
He let out a breath that sounded almost painful. “Because…” His voice cracked as he said, “my maker’s voice echoes in my ears whenever I let myself be near you. She would forgive you, he says. She would let you. She trusts you. Take her. Bite her. Devour her. Ruin her!”
“Will you take my choice from me too?”
He stepped back. Shaking now. “You don’t understand, Penelope. I… can’t.”
Slowly, she reached for him again, but this time he backed away.
“Please,” he whispered, voice breaking like he was truly scared of her. “Before I stop caring what happens next.”
That was when she finally truly saw it. The shadow in his eyes. The tension in his shoulders, like a predator barely leashed. Her lips parted, but she said nothing. Her breath clouded the space between them.
“Then don’t,” she said softly, voice steady despite the storm in her own chest. “Stop caring about what happens next. Just what happens now. Here, with me.”
He stared at her, breath hitching. “I’m nothing but hunger around you.”
Her lips curved into the faintest smile. “Then let me help you, Elias. That was our deal, remember?”
The words slipped from her like a surrender.
Elias’s hand trembled as it rose, hesitant, hovering near her throat—the delicate pulse beneath her skin like a fragile drum.
“Are you certain?” His voice was barely a whisper, filled with fear and awe.
“Take me,” she breathed.
He lowered his face slowly, reverence in every movement. His lips brushed the hollow at her throat, warm and tender in a way that belied what was to come.
Her skin shivered beneath him as heat pooled in her sex, throbbing—aching for his bite.
And then his fangs found her flesh.
The bite was careful, hesitant at first, as if he feared breaking her. But when the hunger took hold, it was fierce and exquisite—an agony mingled with the sweetest of ecstasies.
Penelope’s fingers tangled in his hair and a soft sound escaped her lips as his hand found her waist, holding her with an almost crushing grip.
Without releasing her, he guided her back until her legs hit the edge of her bed, causing them to fall back onto the soft sheets. He caged her beneath him like a beast that had been starved. He moaned against her skin causing a shiver to wrack her body.
But before she could lose herself in the ecstasy of his bite, he released her.
He stared down at her, blood dripping from his lips, with pure desire.
“I am okay,” she whispered, assuring him as she pulled his head down.
His lips met hers as the taste of her own blood coated her tongue. Yet, she did not despise it. Did not despise him. Instead, she pressed closer, letting the sharp sweetness mingle with the warmth of their closeness, a surrender threaded with trust, daring his restraint.
And as they kissed, she knew one thing to be true.
Everyone was wrong.
Henry was wrong.
Elias was not a monster.