The Forest and The Flame
When Dommik instructed his stallion to bring us home, I’d assumed the Hive was our destination. Not some decrepit manor.
The prelude of daylight seeped through the treeline as Asher ambled toward the deserted estate.
From the look of it, this was once a grand home.
The roofline sat two stories high on a threatening, deteriorated slope.
The structure’s walls were teeming with verdant vines, invading the shattered windows to the interior.
Surely, Asher had made a mistake.
“Where are we?” I turned in the saddle. “Dommik? Dommik!”
Pale and unconscious, Dommik slid from Asher’s back. An alarmed family of birds fled their nest with his resounding thud. I fought for balance as I met the ground from my own clumsy dismount.
“Dommik! Wake up!” I patted at his stubbled cheeks, aggravating my own wound. “Damn it. Wake up!”
One of his stormy eyes cracked open and fixated on my bandage.
Blood.
“Blood? Do you need blood!?” Any relief in discovering what could aid him cowered in the fear of what it meant. He needed blood, and mine was most readily available. Dread gnawed at my gut as I contemplated any other source. A small animal maybe.
Who was I kidding? I didn’t have the skills to trap or catch an animal.
A faint groan snaked between his languid lips.
“What?” I asked, pushing back a curtain of my fallen hair. “What are you trying to say, Dommik?”
The Eckwood held its breath with me as I listened.
“My…pack…”
I bolted upright and repeated, “Your pack?”
He blinked his one barely-open eye in response.
“Your pack,” I repeated in a panicked whisper as I rushed to Asher grazing on a patch of grass.
I thought about running then. Taking Asher and escaping…somewhere. A heaviness slammed into my heart—I didn’t have anywhere to go but with Dommik. My sister wouldn’t welcome me. My former estate was absorbed by the Crown. Nowhere to go but forward. With him.
I tore through one rucksack, finding only clothes, then the other.
“Come on…” I grumbled as I tossed useless item after useless item over my shoulder. My breath faltered as my fingers met the edge of something hard and smooth. I pulled it from the pack. A canteen.
“This?!” I waved it as if it were a prize. There was no time to wait for a response from Dommik. The night sky yielded to the pink and orange hues of morning.
I knelt behind the paling, wounded vampire and guided his head onto my lap. He didn’t stir at my touch. The cork made a satisfying pop as I released it with my teeth, assaulting me with the metallic aroma of blood.
Saliva filled my mouth and I tried not to gag as I held the container to his lips.
“Here,” I said, angling his head with one hand and pressing the canteen against his lips with the other. Birds began whistling their morning songs around us, nature’s reminder that I needed him to drink, and fast.
I didn’t know what—if anything—would happen if sunlight touched Dommik’s skin.
Would he disintegrate? Or burst into flames?
Or maybe a vampire’s preference for the darkness was just that, a preference.
Everything I knew about vampires was a rumor, after all.
What I knew for sure was I didn’t want to test any theories. Not like this.
I had no idea where we were. I could retrace our path south, back to Illica, back to a world that had already tried to kill me.
That choice could also lead me back into the clutches of the Veilbreakers.
Or I could wander north, but knew well enough I was more likely to be killed by exposure, starvation, or an animal before reaching the Hive.
That is, if I didn’t miss it and find myself at the uninhabited northernmost coast of Atoris.
Everything depended on Dommik surviving.
I needed him to wake the fuck up.
“Come on.” I pried his lips open with my thumb and poured a small amount of blood into his mouth. An appreciative groan rumbled from his chest. His tongue lazily ventured across his lips to capture a lingering droplet.
A relieved exhale escaped me as I gently poured more blood and watched his vitality grow with each conservative swig. Dommik cupped my hand in his and pressed the canteen harder to his hungry lips. Blood spilled from the corners of his mouth, down his cheeks, and onto my lap.
“Slow down. You’re wasting it.” Words I never thought I would say.
I wiped what I could onto my finger, leaving red smears on his colorless cheeks.
The blood gathered into a bead before dripping down into his waiting mouth.
I’d been so fixated on his fangs and tongue that I didn’t see both of his eyes had opened.
The storm in his gaze was dark, ominous… dangerous. Ready to wreak havoc.
My breath hitched as he gripped my wrist and slowly lowered my finger to his mouth, his eyes fixed to mine. My heart stuttered when he wrapped his lips around the tip, taking in every drop of blood with a delicious, heated swipe of his tongue.
Tingles rippled from my core and up my spine as he suckled. I wanted to pull away, but I wanted more. The gentle, yet sharp, sensation as his fang grazing my flesh quelled my unwarranted desire. Instinctively, I tore my hand from his grasp.
“I’m to be delivered alive and unbitten!” I screeched, backing away and letting his head thud to the forest floor. Dommik mumbled something about me being too loud.
In my haste to escape his grasp, I’d dropped the canteen. Its contents were quickly emptying, staining the grass.
“Shit,” I hissed, scrambling to plug the container. I dropped my head back and groaned to the sky. What a fine mess this was.
A similar sound rumbled from Dommik, who had turned onto his side. Tendrils of smoke were lifting from beneath his leathers.
The sun.
I cannot catch a break.
I ran to him and hooked my hands beneath his shoulders.
“Dawn above, you’re heavy.” I grunted as I pulled him foot by agonizing foot toward the shelter of the empty estate.
He attempted to help, using his feet to push against the earth beneath him.
My limbs burned from the effort. Manual labor was never a part of my routine and any muscle I might’ve built from riding had deteriorated in the keep.
My wound threatened to tear further with each heave of Dommik’s smoldering body.
“Just. A bit. Farther,” I grunted, coaching myself as I pulled the heap of leather and brawn. My annoyance overflowed that I had to work so hard to keep him alive. Wasn’t this his job?
Up one stair, then two. The sunrise seemed to speed up as my muscles begged for me to slow down.
I practically roared as I collected every ounce of effort for one final heave through the ajar door and over the threshold. We’d made it. I panted there, flat on the floor, beneath the weight of a still-weakened Dommik.
“Thank you,” he mustered between labored breaths.
“You’re so very welcome,” I echoed his tone from earlier in the evening on my own shaky breaths. Thin streams of light began to seep through the broken windows. Dust swirled in greeting, basking in their translucent yellow rays.
High ceilings and wide walls held grit-covered furniture and torn, forgotten portraits. Spiders tucked themselves into shadowy corners, leaving only their magnificent webs on display. Time and dust stole the likeness of each painted face, no matter how hard I squinted at their features.
The naked branches outside swayed, dancing with a fast-approaching morning storm. Pattering rain and rolling thunder lulled me, but my instincts held my exhaustion at bay. Not yet.
“There are—” he managed to roll off of me and onto his stomach “–supplies—” the floorboards groaned as he pressed himself to his hands and knees “—in the cellar.”
I prayed he could manage a set of stairs on his own. I wasn’t confident I could even carry myself another step.
“What about Asher?” I jerked my chin to the stallion outside.
“He prefers to roam.” Dommik strained as he pushed a bookcase aside, revealing a hidden stairway. “I’ll tend to him tomorrow. I need to get to ground. After you.”
I stood and took a step in the opposite direction.
“Reyva…” My name rode the waves of his concerned tone.
“I’m just shutting the door.” The worn hinges groaned as I closed us into the space. “Not that it matters, this place is decrepit.”
He chuckled and gestured weakly to the opening again. “There’s a railing just there. Mind your step.”
My life had taken many unexpected turns, but I never thought I would willingly let a vampire lead me into the hidden basement of an abandoned estate.
I swallowed hard before descending the ominous stairwell, unsure what would greet me at the bottom. A torture chamber? Other prisoners of the Hive? Vampiric deviancy?
Dommik’s shoulder brushed past mine and a moment later, an oil lamp bloomed to life across the room.
Rather than a neglected, damp, moldy sub-floor, was a fairly tidy and dry cellar. Casks upon casks of barrels were stacked, creating the illusion of walls. Unlike the main entryway, this room wasn’t covered in a thin layer of dust. It was well kept and had everything a solo traveler may need.
A dining table and chairs. Stores of self-hardy harvest, including potatoes, squash, and bright red apples. And a bed.
A tiny, one-person bed. Even as a child, my bed was never that small.
“What is this place?” I cradled my injured arm, eyes still fixed on the one bed.
Dommik let out a loud, pained groan as he shuffled two dining chairs to face each other. “It’s a safehouse. On the outskirts of vampire lands.”
“So, it’s deteriorated by design?” I blurted. My homemaker reflex was a tenacious weed. Even during our chaotic arrival, I’d begun compiling a list of things that needed tending and fixing from the moment I laid eyes on the estate.
“Charming,” Dommik grumbled to himself.
“What are you doing?” I asked as I watched him arrange a makeshift sleeping arrangement with two dining chairs and a laughably small blanket. “Get in the bed.”
“I’m fine,” he declared, but his stumble betrayed his lie. I wished for nothing more than his statement to be true, but what little strength the blood had given him was fading quickly.
“You’re weak and you need rest.” After the events of the evening, a long sleep in a proper bed sounded like a greater treasure than all the precious gems in Illica. But my wound was minor in comparison to his, and between the two of us, his health mattered more.
I placed a guiding arm around his waist. “Please. Lay down.”
His gaze flicked down to where my hand met his middle and back to my eyes. His stare was tense, measured, hesitant. After a long, silent moment, he finally let out a surrendering breath and did as I asked.
I pulled the blanket over his shoulders and he grumbled something about ‘not being a child’ and ‘never calling him weak ever again’.
On a nearby shelf, I discovered a small cache of books and reveled in the idea of erasing the traumatic memories of the night. I pulled a thin red novel boasting a great tree printed on the cover.
I helped myself to an apple and returned to the improvised nest beside the bed. The book crackled open, mimicking the storm outside. Its pages were yellowed and fragile. I held the apple in my teeth as I flipped to chapter one.
Dommik’s eyes slid to me. “You’re humming,” he grumbled.
“What?” Apple juice spilled down the side of my mouth.
He chuckled, winced, and then sighed to the ceiling. “Read to me.”
I couldn’t tell if he was telling or asking me. A sarcastic retort bubbled in my throat, but as he strained, I decided he was in enough pain. I swallowed my snarky comment along with another bite of apple.
I cleared my throat and read the opening pages aloud. A tale of a woodland princess, the guardian of the forest, whose betrothed was killed in a battle with the neighboring human realm.
“That’s not what it says.” Barely halfway through the first chapter, Dommik’s interruption sliced through my narration.
I laid the pages face down on my lap. “I’m tired, I paraphrased.”
“Don’t,” he insisted softly, eyes falling shut. “It’s a devastating love story. Each word deserves attention. Don’t rush it.”
My heart softened at the romantic sentiment from the wounded vampire commander.
“You’ve read this before.” I narrowed my eyes.
“Many times,” he admitted with a small smirk twitching his pale lips.
I tipped my head, stretching my neck muscles. “I’ll read quietly to myself then.”
“No.” His insistence was clear and immediate.
“Are you always this full of demands?” I asked, lifting the book. My comment earned a pained chuckle from Dommik.
“You have no idea.” He sighed and turned his head to me. “Keep going, please.”
His plea was simple. His gaze was soft. Laying there in his vulnerable state, he almost seemed…human.
For one fleeting moment, my armor slipped, and I fought the urge to push loose strands of obsidian hair from his forehead.
Instead, I licked my finger and dramatically turned the page. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth at my theatrics and I returned a subtle smile.
The woodland princess had just admitted she was falling for a human to her father when I noticed Dommik’s lips moving. He was silently reciting the words along with me. His eyes were shut and sweat beaded at his brow.
“Dommik?” I whispered. When he didn’t answer, I slowly laid my hand flat against his wet forehead. A hearthfire’s heat radiated from him. I chewed on my cheek, my worry compounding.
“Dommik. What can I do? What do you need?”
“Just rest,” he muttered through a rigid breath. I wanted to believe him, but I knew more blood was what he really needed. I just wasn’t ready to give him mine and what he hadn’t drunk from the canteen outside had spilled onto the earth.
I was the only option.
If he’s not better by sundown, I thought, I’ll give him mine.
“Okay.” I pushed his hair back, wiping away the fevered droplets.
An appreciative hum rumbled through him. “You remind me...”
Stroking his forehead instinctively one more time, I asked, “Remind you of what?”
His lips pressed together and his eyes fell shut.
“Please don’t die,” I whispered before returning to the book. I softly read aloud, hoping the familiar story would keep him tethered to the realm of the living.
After two more pages, gentle snores rolled from Dommik. And by the time the heroine of the story declared she could never love again, I slipped into sweet unconsciousness beside him.