Chapter 9 Iris #2
"And if we fail? If I lose control? If I hurt you?" His voice breaks. "I couldn't live with that. I've done terrible things, but I did them under orders. If I hurt you of my own free will, if I hurt you because there's no bond to stop me, I don't know how to survive that."
We stand there, two people terrified of opposite outcomes, neither willing to back down.
"I won't dominate you," I say quietly. "I won't strengthen the bond the way she did. I won't treat you like a weapon or a tool or anything other than a person. I can't. Even if it means the bond breaks. Even if it means we don't know what happens next."
"Even if it means I might hurt you?"
"You won't hurt me."
"You can't know that!"
"No!" I'm shouting now too, frustration and fear boiling over.
"I can't know that! I can't know anything for certain!
But I trust you, Cadeon. I trust that the person who brings me tea and makes me laugh and holds me when I'm cold is real.
I trust that the man who's terrified of hurting me won't hurt me. And I'm asking you to trust that too."
"What if I'm wrong? What if you're wrong?"
"Then we'll deal with it. Together. But I won't enslave you just because I'm afraid. I won't become her just because it's easier than believing in you."
He stares at me for a long moment, and I can see him breaking. Can see the centuries of conditioning warring with the fragile, new hope that maybe he could be something other than a weapon.
"I need to patrol," he says finally, his voice flat. "The wards need checking."
"Cadeon, please."
"I need to patrol," he repeats, and he's already moving toward the door. "I need to be useful. I need to... I just need to go."
And he's gone, disappearing out the door with that supernatural speed, leaving me alone in the library surrounded by books that suddenly feel like accusations.
I sink back into my chair, hands shaking.
That went badly. That went so, so badly.
Through the bond, that gossamer-thin thread that's barely there anymore, I feel him. Panic. Fear. Guilt. Shame. And underneath it all, a desperate, aching need to be something. To have purpose. To matter.
"Damn it," I whisper to the empty room.
I thought finding answers would help. I thought understanding the bond-weakening would make everything clearer.
Instead, I've just made everything worse.
He doesn't come back.
Hours pass. The sun sets. I try to work, try to read, but I can't focus. Through the bond, I track his movements. Patrol patterns around the estate, over and over, mechanical and precise.
He's coping the only way he knows how. By being useful. By doing what he's trained to do.
By avoiding me.
I should give him space. Should let him process. Should respect that he needs time to deal with what I've told him.
Instead, I go to the kitchen and start baking.
Not regular bread this time. Something else. Something Grandmother used to make, back when I was very young and she still sometimes smiled. A recipe I found in her journals, written in her early hand, when she still had a mother teaching her, before she became The Terror of the Northern Kingdoms.
Nightmare bread. Not the kind that gives nightmares, the kind that chases them away.
Rosemary for protection. Honey for sweetness. Lavender for peace. And magic, so much magic that the dough practically glows under my hands. It flows out of me in a steady current. If all goes well I’ll be tapped out by the end of this.
*Safety,* I pour into it. *Peace. The courage to choose. The strength to believe in yourself. Rest for the weary. Hope for the hopeless.*
I knead until my arms ache, until the dough is smooth and perfect and humming with intention. Then I shape it into loaves, three of them, and set them to rise.
While they do their thing, I make tea. Chamomile and valerian, the same blend I've been leaving outside his door every night. My own blend that hopefully says: I see you.
A few hours later, the bread emerges golden and perfect, filling the cottage with the scent of herbs and comfort. I slice one loaf while it's still warm, slather it with butter and more honey, and set it on a plate.
Then I sit at the kitchen table and wait.
Dawn is starting to break when he finally returns.
I'm half-asleep at the table, my head pillowed on my arms, surrounded by cool loaves of bread. The fire in the stove has burned down to embers, and the cottage is quiet except for the soft sound of snow against the windows.
I hear him before I see him, the whisper of displaced air, the soft footfall that means he's trying not to wake me.
Through my lashes, I watch him pause in the doorway.
He looks exhausted. There's snow in his white hair, mud on his boots. His hands are raw from the cold, unnecessary for a vampire to feel cold, but he's let himself feel it anyway. Punishment, maybe. Or just a way to feel something other than fear.
He stares at the bread. At the tea I left for him. At me, slumped at the table.
I stay very still, feigning sleep, giving him space to react without being observed.
He moves into the kitchen quietly, shedding his coat and boots. Then he stands there, looking at the bread like it's a puzzle he doesn't know how to solve.
Finally, finally, he reaches out and breaks off a piece.
He eats it slowly, and I watch through barely-open eyes as his face transforms. The magic hits him, all that intention I poured into the dough, and he staggers slightly, catching himself against the counter.
"Iris," he whispers, and his voice cracks.
I could pretend to wake up. Could let him think he's been caught.
Instead, I stay still. Give him this moment of privacy. Of being able to feel without being watched.
He eats another piece. Then another. And I feel the way the magic settles into him. Soothing the panic. Easing the fear. Not erasing it, but making it bearable.
*You're not alone,* the bread tells him. *You're not broken. You're not a monster. You're allowed to be afraid. You're allowed to not have all the answers.*
*You're allowed to just be.*
When he's finished half the loaf, he moves toward me carefully. I hear the soft rustle of fabric as he settles the sitting room blanket over my shoulders, gentle and careful.
He stands there for a moment, and I feel his hand hover over my hair. Not quite touching. Not quite pulling away.
"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm so sorry."
Then he's moving again, and I hear the soft scratch of pen on paper.
When his footsteps finally fade, heading toward his room upstairs now, I assume, I allow myself to "wake."
The blanket is warm around my shoulders. The tea is cold, but there's a fresh cup steaming beside it. And on the table, under the plate of bread, is a note in his precise handwriting:
Thank you. For believing I can be more than what I am.
I'm sorry I can't believe it yet. But I'm trying.
I'm sorry.
-C
I hold the note carefully, and something in my chest eases slightly.
We're not okay. We're not fixed. We might not even be on the same page about what we want.
But he's trying. He ate the bread. He left me a note.
He's still here.
Through the bond, I feel him settling into rest. Not sleep, but something close. And underneath the fear and guilt and confusion, there's something else now.
Something small and fragile and golden.
Something that might, eventually, be hope.
I fold the note carefully and tuck it into my pocket. Then I carry what's left of the bread up to my room, wrap the remaining loaves for later, and fall into bed as the sun rises over the snow-covered forest.
Later, we'll talk, and we'll figure this out.
Tonight, I let him rest. Let the magic I poured into the bread do its work. Let both of us believe, just for a moment, that maybe we can navigate this impossible situation.
That maybe choosing each other, every day, is enough.
Even when we're both terrified of what that choice might mean.