The Courtship #3
One week ago, my sister advised me to consider all of my options. It was to her benefit, my sacrifice to the Hive, but I wondered what she’d say if she saw me now. Not a maid or a slave, but on the lips of Rhazien Kyrell.
I laid my head on his chest and looked up to the ethereal constellations.
“It’s good you can forgive him.” Rhazien stroked my hair. “He’s…he’s like a son to me.”
A son.
Guilt slithered in my gut. I knew Dommik was loyal to Rhazien, but I hadn’t realized their relationship was deep enough to consider him family.
“Technically, I won him. Fought a duel with Eryx that he’ll never forget or live down to bring Dommik back with me.”
Illica was filled with stories of Rhazien’s prowess in battle, but I hadn’t seen him even holding a weapon in my time with him.
“Why?” Rhazien looked at me with raised brows. “Why fight for him?”
Rhazien continued, “His potential was being wasted in the Northern Hive. He was nothing more than a glorified thug. And he was on trial. If found guilty, he would have been left out to meet the sun.”
“What did he do to almost earn such a terrible death?” I’d heard Dommik lie and I’d seen Dommik kill. And I’d only known him a short while. Who knew what kind of atrocities he could have committed in his prolonged life.
I imagined the worst but my heart stopped when Rhazien said, “He was in love with the wrong person.”
My mind clung to the word person.
Then Rhazien confirmed my suspicion. “A human woman. A slave.”
“Oh.” Was all I could muster. As I thought about what Dommik Thorne might be like as a vampire in love, Rhazien’s blood swirled around the musing and snatched it away.
“There’s a stark difference in beliefs between our two communities. We believe in progress and growth, which means forging collaborative relationships with the human realms.”
If that were true, I hadn’t seen the evidence of it.
The Illica Crown did everything possible to keep us afraid of vampires.
At all of the balls, private dinners, and business trips I’d been on with my late husband, there had never been talk of partnership or alliances with vampires.
If anything, it was the exact, ferocious opposite.
Confusion lined my brow as Rhazien continued.
“The Northern Hive believes humans are meant for positions of service. Sustenance or slavery.”
“That’s awful,” I breathed, thankful I’d been brought into his care, and not Eryx’s.
“It is.” Rhazien nodded. “But I saw good in Dommik. Not everyone who resides in the Northern Hive is so lucky. It takes an immense amount of mental grit not to submit to the darkest parts of our nature.”
Pieces of a puzzle were beginning to fall into place. Dommik had said he was referred to as a monster. Comments from Gorvin and Valta that, at the time, were out of context now made sense.
Dommik was different. Living here and serving Rhazien as a transplant from the Northern Hive must have been a shock. Too kind for the Northern Hive. Too cruel for the Southern. An ‘other’ anywhere he went.
“Like Vaspar,” I mused in a hushed whisper.
“Like Vaspar,” Rhazien breathed, irritation strangling his tone. I tensed in his arms. “You won’t have to worry about him. He’ll see out his sentence under lock and key. And will repeat his sentence until he repents for his actions.”
“Repeatedly?” I stammered.
“Mhmm.”
My stomach dropped.
“Because it heals…” I was putting the pieces together out loud.
“Correct.”
I picked at my nails as the scene echoed through my memory. “I won’t have to watch every time, will I?”
My arm was beginning to tickle from Rhazien’s slow, repetitive strokes. “Oh no. That first time was for show. To make a point.”
“And when he repents?”
“If he repents,” he corrected, eyes filled with a sense of knowing I hoped I could trust.
“If he repents? Then what?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when it comes.” Rhazien moved to sit and pulled me up with him. He reached for a basket, its contents clinking as they shuffled inside.
A cork popped and Rhazien filled a glass with an amber liquid.
“Cider, my lady.”
Its crisp contents were sweet, bubbly, more refreshing than the thick, heavy wine I’d been over served since arriving.
I waved away the grapes Rhazien offered and pulled my knees into my chest as I thought about Vaspar in the dungeon. His final declaration wasn’t just a threat, it felt like a promise. He’d regretted not draining me, and I believed, if given the chance, he would finish the job.
Rhazien’s blood cradled my fears, giving me a sense of safety I hoped wouldn’t fade as it left my system.
I pursed my lips and asked, “Couldn’t you kill him? For what he did?”
The night went still, and so did Rhazien, as if I’d just said something so taboo that his hundreds of years of immortal life hadn’t prepared him to respond.
“No,” he answered in a low rumble. “These tensions have been brewing for quite some time. We need to be extremely cautious with how we proceed.”
I could only imagine with immortality comes opportunity for discourse to fester.
“Isn’t what Vaspar did to me worse than what Dommik did?” I pressed, wondering why love would deserve the most permanent punishment over aggravated violence.
Rhazien nodded at that. “It would seem that way. But we’re trying to build a better world where love won’t be punished. That’s why your gift matters so much.”
And it all comes full circle. Had I not still been riding my blood high, I might have had another panic attack. Luckily, the blood lulled my anxiety and I sipped my cider next to its master. I was the picture of calm and collected.
“We need to find Lorana’s stone before Eryx.” Rhazien nodded and pursed his lips.
I’d located dozens of pieces of jewelry for women of the Illica court using my gift. A stone would be similar enough to that, as long as I could see an image or access a memory. “What will it do?”
Rhazien’s stubble scratched under his palm. “It will wake my maker.”
I pushed my rebellious hair behind my ear. “Lorana?”
Rhazien’s gaze flicked from me to the dark horizon. “To wake a sleeping sister, a descendant of the Original must offer their shadow to an unbitten boundling. The balance between the immortal darkness, the light from the stone, and the willing human can wake an Original.”
My mind raced as it reached for scraps of information from Dommik, Oddo, and Rhazien.
“Waking Lorana would help prevent the war?”
Rhazien nodded and turned to face me. “Will you help me, Reyva?”
His eyes filled with pleading hope, and I suddenly wanted to promise him the world, but promising the outcome he wanted to hear felt irresponsible.
I licked the cider from my lips and leaned in to give him a gentle kiss.
“I will try.”
Creases framed Rhazien’s almond eyes as he smiled at me. “Thank you.”
Stars danced above us, like Rhazien had known the sky would be active tonight for an evening picnic.
“What’s it like?” I asked after a quiet minute. “Tasting someone?”
I thought of Vaspar’s disgusting comments about drinking more from me. Why, if I was so palatable, hadn’t Dommik had the same reaction?
My head rose and fell with the heavy exhale from his chest. “It’s like…
a glimpse into someone’s soul. The blood is your essence.
Your lived experience. It’s—” he paused, finding the words and I sat up fully to listen “—with the right person, in the right circumstances, it’s a transcendent experience. ”
“Hmm,” I hummed as he leaned in to kiss me. The gesture felt like an apology wrapped within a vow. That when he eventually did feed from me, it wouldn’t be like what happened with Vaspar.
We were quiet then, until I noticed his eyes sweeping across my features and body. The corner of his lips tugged beneath his gray-speckled stubble.
“What ever are you looking at?” I teased as I tucked a loose curl behind my ear.
“Honesty?” He raised his brows.
“Always,” I encouraged.
A soft knuckle brushed down my cheek. “I like seeing myself on you.”
“Like an oil painting,” I repeated his description from our first dinner together.
He chuckled softly. “Precisely. Except now, I only see my traces.” His fingers dropped to my shoulders and continued their descent down my arms, dancing across my skin.
“Because I’m yours.” I leaned my forehead to his now.
He closed his eyes and pulled my chin up to give me a deep, lasting kiss. It was the kind of kiss that warmed you to a spiritual level. Full of passion and meaning. A kiss you could fall into and live in forever.
When he released me, he gazed at me, just as deeply and echoed, “Because you’re mine.”
My eyes searched his, almost desperate to find an inkling of malice or deception. Something to keep me tethered to reality. Something to act as a lifeline so I wouldn’t be lost in the haze of new romance. But only pure, genuine affection radiated from the deep green hues.
I was losing the battle. Of sense and sanity.
And if I was honest with myself, I wasn’t sure why I was still fighting it.