The Worst Mistake
Ilearned to swim at a young age. I had strong legs and keen instincts for navigating the bodies of water across the land my father owned. But Dommik’s memories made me feel like I was drowning in violent whitewater rapids.
The small book first appeared in my bedroom, then as he tucked it in his bag before he brought me to the Southern Hive. The memories were going backwards. There was a sense of overwhelming discordance as he lay flat in the bed I sat on now, injured but healing, content listening to me read.
Seeing myself through his eyes, gaunt and dirty from the keep and ambush, was like looking at a stranger. I still had so much in common with that woman, but so much had changed since then.
In a blink, I was gasping, following the book back to the beginning, to its origin.
A reluctant Dommik ignored the pleas of the human slaves he guarded, except her.
Kaia. She held more similarities to the withered version of myself than the bathed, fed, and finely dressed version I was now.
Her thick, wild hair overpowered her lean frame.
Even though her cheeks were hollow and her skin sun-deprived, warmth radiated from her mahogany gaze.
“Can we trade? And get something new to read?” she’d asked, handing Dommik The Forest and The Flame through the bars of their enclosure. The simple request was a determined droplet that burrowed within him, making a path for a creek to grow into a stream. A stream to broaden to a river.
This river of feelings led to stolen kisses through the bars and long shifts, guarding as Kaia read to him and the other humans who shared her cell.
“I’ll get you out of here. We can leave this place.” Dommik’s heart was full and heavy. The only emotion he carried more than his affection for Kaia was the fear that someone would find out.
And someone did.
Vaspar.
Without the memories tethered to the book, the vision became blurry, but Kaia’s face was a constant as I overstayed my welcome in Dommik’s memories.
Shadowy figures loomed in judgement during a pointless trial.
Dommik’s despair deepened as he waited for his punishment, and his heart shredded as he watched Kaia be publicly drained in front of the entire Northern Hive.
The light went out of her eyes to the sounds of hungry hissing and a chorus of cheers.
This wasn’t justice. It was cruelty personified.
I gasped as I fell back into my body.
Dommik’s shoulders were slumped and his thumbs tumbled over each other. I’d never seen him so defeated. A glimmer of light reflected from the corner of his eye. I cradled his face and wiped the tear away with the pad of my thumb.
Too weak for the Northern Hive, too monstrous for the Southern. No wonder Dommik was a lone wolf. He didn’t quite fit in anywhere.
I was looking at him with new eyes. Seeing him more wholly than I had before.
“I’m so sorry,” I said and he lifted his hand to meet mine, still cradling his cheek.
It wasn’t the death that bothered him. Death didn’t affect Dommik. But a loss of this magnitude is one that leaves a person scarred, wrecked, broken, and the depth of vampiric feelings were more vast and consuming than I’d ever experienced before.
“Thank you for showing me.”
He nodded and blinked, curling his fingers around mine. His traces would be on my hand, and that would need explaining. But he’d also carried me, saving me from Eryx’s thralls. Surely Rhazien would understand.
Rhazien had to understand. He’d understood Dommik and why he had a relationship with a human woman.
“I realize now why it must be so hard to be around me. What you felt for her was profound.”
“By the fucking Four, Reyva.” He stood and paced away. With his back to me, he leaned his forearms on the cellar wall.
I twisted my body to follow his movement, but my stomach threatened to empty its contents if I remained contorted like this. I stood and moved to him, unable to contain my need to comfort him after what he’d shown me.
“Dommik.” I reached for his back and stroked his spine, the same way he’d consoled me earlier. “Don’t push me away.”
“Stop.” His dark hair shook.
“What’s wrong?” I ducked my head beneath his raised arms, trying to capture his gaze. Wild, unraveling eyes peered down at me from his rigid stance.
“You don’t get it.”
I wanted to reach for him, hold him the way he’d held me, but that would probably only make things worse. I huffed out a breath and said, “Then explain it to me.”
Dommik’s nostrils flared.
“You scare the shit out of me.”
Had the cellar ground just fallen out from underneath me, or did Dommik say what I thought he said?
“Me?”
“Yes, Reyva.” I knew just from the way he said my name that his seriousness was not to be toiled with. Dommik stood to his full height, towering over me as he said, “You’re right. When I look at you, I don’t see just you. I see her too.”
I rolled my lips together, intent on listening and ignoring the jealousy that stirred beneath my nausea.
“I. Failed. Her,” he bit out. “I failed my father, I failed Eryx, I failed her. I have lived a life of constant failure. I’ve served Rhazien faithfully for five decades, and it’s only a matter of time before I fail him too. And you…”
He’d had my blood, I’d lived in his memories. We’d both shared more of ourselves than we’d ever intended. But the weight of perpetual unmet expectations was all too familiar. I’d crumbled underneath the feeling dozens of times and I could see now he was crumbling from them too.
I shook my head softly. “You’re not—”
My sentence was cut short when Dommik opened a palm and slammed it against the wall.
“I cannot fail you, Reyva. I could not bear it. But I’m trying to be better than I was before.
Leave that old version of me behind. But when I think of you, when I am with you, I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t do to see you safe.
To protect you from danger. There’s a darkness in me that threatens to break free when it comes to matters concerning you. ”
He was more animal than man and I panted beneath him, reveling in the weight of his words. A twisted piece of me didn’t only believe him, but had yearned for it to be true. For him to be completely consumed by me.
“Do you realize I haven’t had a SINGLE moment's peace since I met you? And the SHIT I’ve had to go through to keep you safe? More than I’ve ever had to do for any one person in my two hundred years.”
The calm, cool, collected commander was unraveling before me as he recounted the memories. “The—the—the fucking shade in the Moon Garden would have stripped your soul from your body!”
Dommik’s eyes darted, unsure where to aim his next complaint. I folded my arms over my middle, embarrassment creeping over me and chilling my skin.
“Let’s not forget when you were nearly dined on publicly by the court of the Northern Hive.” His voice crescendoed, “That same night I whored myself out to a woman I despise, and now, just tonight, had to track you down TWICE and save you from this latest…attempt.”
Dommik spat the last word like it was poisonous.
I tilted my chin up to him. “I remember that night not being entirely horrible for you.”
That gave him pause.
“Do not misunderstand me.” My words were steady. A calm in his chaos. “I appreciate all you’ve done, but those were all scenarios born of duty. Your duty to your regent as you’ve described before.”
His gaze darkened and he placed his hands on the stone, framing my face.
“Yes,” he growled, bringing his mouth lower to mine. “My duty. My duty and…” Dommik ran the tip of his nose down the length of my neck “…this insatiable craving.”
Chills raced over me and my heart stopped. As if my fear controlled the room, a lantern faltered.
He is going to bite me. Feed on me.
I was certain.
My mind recalled tapping into Talia’s memory and the elation she’d felt as Eryx fed on her. It was possible Dommik could feed and not kill me. He’d tasted me before. He’d stopped before. He could stop again.
Breath returned to me after he pressed off the wall and paced away. I watched his form through fluttering lashes. Dommik was tense, as if battling himself. His rigid, heavy steps carried him until he turned and leaned on the wall across the room.
I clutched the fabric of his shirt like a child would a stuffed toy.
Dommik stood, leg propped on the wall, examining me. His next words were covered by the hand that rubbed his mouth and chin. “I thought tasting you was the worst mistake of my life.”
My face scrunched in silent question. “It wasn’t?”
“No.”
The cellar air was thick like the weight that hangs just before a destructive storm. I swallowed hard and had to look away as he continued studying me.
Agonizing seconds passed before he finally said, “No, I realized there hasn’t been any singular moment. You’ve been tormenting me since I met you and every moment after.”
He pushed off the wall and began pacing again.
“Tormenting you?” I whispered.
The accusation felt entirely unfair. It was go with him, or death. Heal his wounds, or death. Help Rhazien ascend, or allow a cruel ruler to pillage and plunder and inflict death across all of Atoris. My choices, what few I was given, were barely choices at all.
“Yes, Reyva.” Dommik aimed his body at me and I tensed again. He waved in my direction. “It’s everything about you. Everything you do.”
I hugged my body tighter. “If I’m so insufferable, why don’t you just…stay away?” I knew the suggestion was preposterous given his position.
“I’ve tried,” he stated plainly. “I asked for reassignment. Many times.”
A slap in the face would have hurt less. He had tried. Really tried.
“What happened?”
“Rhazien claimed the timing wasn’t right. He needed me. For his great matter.” He let out a strained laugh as he ran a hand through his hair. “His great matter. A matter that had also been great to me until I fell in love with his prospect.”
Time stopped.
I stood there, dumbfounded, in complete shock at his admission.