Chapter 12
Talin
My heart hammered against my ribs so hard I thought it might crack bone.
Elias stood in front of me, taking up way too much space in my small apartment to ignore, his broad chest rising and falling with quick breaths, but those dark eyes steady and patient, waiting for me to trust him with the truth I'd hidden from everyone but those closest to me.
"Okay," I whispered. Then louder, "Okay."
I reached for the buttons on my vest with trembling fingers. But my hands were shaking hard. So hard. I'd never undressed in front of a man before, or anyone, for that matter. After fumbling with the first one, Elias's hands covered mine.
"Let me," he said softly.
I nodded, dropping my arms to my sides. Then I closed my eyes tight because I couldn't watch his face while he undid each button with careful precision. I didn't want to see the shock, the disgust, when I was bare in front of him.
But he was having none of that. "Eyes on me, little witch," he commanded.
With a shuttering breath, I forced them open and met his gaze, holding it while he finished with the vest and slipped it off my shoulders. The temperature in the room seemed to suddenly drop. Or maybe that was just me, already feeling exposed.
"This too?" he asked, fingers at the hem of my shirt.
My eyes fell to the tips of his fangs, barely showing between his parted lips. "Yes."
He lifted it slowly, giving me every opportunity to change my mind. I raised my arms and let him pull the fabric over my head. The cool air hit my skin, and I shivered, standing before him in just my bra.
The black one. The one designed to hide the truth.
Elias's eyes never left my face. "You're shaking."
"I'm terrified," I whispered honestly.
His heavy brows lowered over his dark eyes. "We can stop," he said.
"No." Fresh tears burned my eyes. I'd come this far. We may as well keep going and rip the band-aid off. "I don't want to stop."
"Talin, look at me." His large, warm hands rested lightly on the bare skin of my sides, his thumbs rubbing back and forth just below the elastic band of my bra. "There is nothing about you that could ever make me regret this bond. Nothing."
"You don't know what you're saying."
"Why don't you let me be the judge of that." He raised his hands to my shoulders, tracing the straps of my bra with his fingers, but making no move to remove it. "Show me what has you so convinced I'll run."
The bond pulsed between us, a living thing that demanded honesty. Demanded vulnerability. I'd spent years building walls to keep people out, but Elias was steadily knocking them down, stone by stone.
"The clasp is in the back," I whispered when I couldn't bring myself to do it myself.
Eyes on mine, his arms reached around me and his long fingers found it, popping it open with a single flick.
The cups fell away, and my hands automatically rose to catch them.
But I couldn't hide from him forever, so I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and forced myself to drop my hands back to my sides, letting the straps of my bra slide down my arms until it fell on the floor between us and I stood before this perfect male with my torso completely bare, unable to hide anymore.
The left side of my chest was normal. Full. The areola and nipple a pretty pink. The breast I'd been born with, untouched by the cancer that had tried to kill me.
The right side was gone. Nothing there but a long scar and some puckered skin, leaving me asymmetrical and wrong.
Bracing myself for what I'd see, I opened my eyes and watched Elias's face as his eyes traveled down my throat and over my chest. Waited for the disgust. The pity. The barely concealed disappointment that I wasn't whole.
His eyes went wide when he saw me. Then filled with fiery red fury that quickly changed to tears. His upper lip lifted, exposing his long fangs.
"Talin," he breathed, voice breaking on my name.
"Don't." I tried to cover myself, but he caught my wrists, gently but firmly pulling my hands away.
"When did this happen?" he asked roughly.
"When I was fourteen." I said it haltingly, each word a struggle.
"They found cancer. They said it was rare in someone my age, but.
.." I swallowed hard. "They had to remove the breast tissue.
All of it. Magic couldn't fully heal it because—because, I don't know, it might have been connected to this power trying to manifest. Or maybe it was my body rejecting the magic I was born with. No one really knew."
A tear tracked down his face. "You were a child."
The old shame rose up, choking me. "While other girls were discovering boys and hanging out together, I was in hospitals.
Having parts of me cut away. Wondering if I'd even survive.
" I forced myself to keep talking, to get it all out.
"And when I did survive, I had to figure out how to live in a body that wasn't the same. That was ugly."
"Stop," he said fiercely.
"It's the truth! Look at me—I'm a freak. I'm—"
He dropped to his knees in front of me.
I froze, staring down at him as he knelt there, this powerful vampire humbling himself before me. His hands rested on my hips, holding me steady.
His eyes traveled over my body before rising to meet mine. "You are the most stunning, beautiful thing I have ever seen," he said slowly, voice raw with emotion. "And I have lived for a very long time."
"Elias—"
"The most beautiful," he repeated. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to the scar tissue on my right side.
I gasped. The touch was so gentle it barely registered, but the emotion behind it hit me like a tidal wave. He kissed the scarred skin again. And again. Each press of his mouth a benediction, a claim, a promise.
"Every part of you," he murmured against my skin. "Every scar. Every imperfection you think you have." Another kiss. "It's all mine. And you’re perfect."
"I'm not," I choked out, my voice breaking on the words.
My throat felt like someone had wrapped their hands around it and squeezed until I couldn't breathe.
The pressure built behind my eyes, tears threatening to spill over as I stared down at him.
How could he possibly think those things?
How could he kneel there and call me beautiful when every time I looked in the mirror I saw the horror that was my body?
He stared up at me, those dark eyes blazing. "You survived something that tried to kill you. You wear the proof of that survival on your body. How could I see that as anything but perfection? I'm honored that you're sharing this with me. And I'm not worthy of being with you."
The tears came then, hot and fast. Great heaving sobs that shook my entire frame. Elias rose and pulled me against him, one hand cradling the back of my head while I fell apart in his arms, his shirt soft against my bare skin.
"I've got you," he whispered. "I've got you, little warrior."
I cried for a long time. Minutes. Hours.
Days. I cried until there was nothing left inside me.
All the fear that had wrapped around my ribs like iron bands.
All the terror that had clawed at my throat every time he looked at me with those dark, knowing eyes.
All the shame I'd carried like a second skin since the day I woke up from surgery and saw what they'd taken from me.
Every emotion that had been building and building inside of me since the moment he'd taken my blood and I knew—knew with absolute certainty—that this moment would eventually come.
That he would want more than blood. That he would want all of me, scars and asymmetry and broken pieces included.
It all came pouring out of me in great, shuddering waves that left me gasping and trembling against his chest.
And Elias just held me through it all. Never loosening his grip.
Never pulling away. Never once making me feel like my breakdown was too much or that I needed to pull myself together.
His hand stayed steady at the back of my head, fingers buried in my hair, while his other arm banded around my waist like he was afraid I might shatter completely if he let go.
When the worst of it finally passed, when the sobs turned to hiccups and then to shaky breaths, I pulled back just enough to see his face. To search those dark eyes for any sign of regret or discomfort.
What I found instead made my heart clench.
His own tears had dried, leaving faint tracks down his cheeks that caught the dim light filtering through the window. He'd been crying with me. For me.
"You're not disgusted?" Even with the truth written all over his face and the way he held himself, I still couldn't believe it.
"Never." He brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. "The only thing I feel is rage that you had to suffer through that without me. Sadness that you've spent your life thinking you're anything less than perfect. And gratitude that you're still here. That you survived."
"My family never looked at me the same after." It was so hard to see the pity in their eyes every time they looked at me that had never really gone away.
His eyes flashed dangerously. "Then they're fools."
"My family—"
"Is wrong." He cupped my face again, forcing me to hold his gaze. "You are not damaged. You are not less than. You are not someone to be pitied. You are exactly who you're supposed to be."
I felt his conviction wash over me. And in his eyes, I saw it. Desire, yes, but also protectiveness, possession, and something deeper that terrified me even more than exposing my body had. Something that tugged at the center of my chest and made my blood burn.
"I want you," I said. "So much it scares me."
"Then let me have you." He kissed me softly. "Let me worship every inch of you until you believe what I already know."
I nodded, and that was all the permission he needed.