Chapter 17
UNDER HER SPELL
Baird was hyperaware of Mira—blame it on his nature as a vampire. He was so attuned to her now that sensing her felt no different than sensing himself—her body, her reactions, her rhythms blending seamlessly into his own. Almost.
Mira was all graceful limbs and lush curves, her whisky-colored eyes catching the light, a faint scatter of freckles dusting her nose. Dark waves framed her face, and there was that dimple in her chin—absurdly, perfectly shaped to cradle his thumb.
Desire explained some of it. Love, perhaps, even more. But not all of it.
There was the connection he'd forced on her—the one he'd tricked her into with silence when he drank her blood.
He couldn't blame it on hunger or desire alone, but something far more dangerous.
Something deliberate. A compulsion. A binding.
A way to tap into every emotion that moved through her body and mind.
A bond that could only take root if love already existed between them.
He had done that. Or the part of him he still thought of as the monster had.
He’d spent centuries believing he knew where that line was.
Mira had blurred it beyond recognition. Even now, he wasn't entirely sure which part of him had been in control that night.
Deep down, he suspected it was he, not the beast, who had wanted it all along—a way to claim in Mira the part of someone that remained untouchable, no matter how close two people came.
The Sanguis Amantium bond was only meant to form when a vampire drank the blood of his mate, but he'd never truly believed the stories. He'd dismissed them as folklore. Myth.
Until that night. Until one impulsive, selfish act proved they were real.
Most of the time, he didn't think about it.
But lately, as Mira changed, he could feel things he shouldn't have been able to.
That dark, fragile place inside her—one even his love hadn't been able to fully reach—was healing.
Slowly stitching itself closed, as though something long broken had finally found its missing piece.
It was an extraordinary thing to witness—humbling even—and yet the guilt of being able to feel it happening inside her never quite left him.
With every hour she spent poring over the Garvie grimoire—alone or under Sorcha's careful guidance—she grew more certain of herself.
More whole. He'd seen it just the other day, watching from a distance as Sorcha helped her learn to control the light and fire that had once erupted from her without warning.
Mira had been steady then. Focused. Changed.
As if loving him—and discovering the magic that had always lived within her— were the final elements she'd been missing all along.
Then, the other night, it had caught him completely off guard—her hunger for his blood, sudden and insistent.
Violent in its need. He told himself he hadn't had time to level the playing field for Mira, to complete the bond the proper way by letting her take from his jugular or the vena cava—the great arterial paths that, in humans, returned blood to the heart, but in vampires played some mysterious role in the formation of the Sanguis Amantium bond.
Was it surprise that made him bite down on his wrist instead?
Mira's hunger hadn't cared. She'd only wanted her thirst sated, and he'd obliged without hesitation. But later, in the quiet that followed, he wondered if it had been more than instinct that made the decision.
Fear, perhaps. Fear of what it would mean to truly let her in.
Of what would happen once the bond was complete—when he would no longer be able to keep parts of himself hidden.
Not the darker truths. Not the emotions he told himself he buried for her own good.
The ones he believed, maybe foolishly, were acts of protection.
One truth had become impossible to ignore—every day with Mira drew him further under her spell. He'd gambled once before, let her walk away, not knowing if she'd ever return, even as the Sanguis Amantium bond burned with the certainty of her love.
Never again would he let her slip from his grasp.