Tell Me
My hands shook as the news of Dommik’s reassignment settled over me. Three steps forward, turn, three steps back. I gnawed on a nailbed and anxiously awaited the chime of the Hive’s morning bell. The idea of my temperamental companion taken from me overrode any sense of logic to quell my panic.
Once freed by their song, I darted from my chambers and down the empty halls of the Hive.
Servants must have taken leave to rest. The demands of Solstice preparations didn’t cease, but slowed during daylight hours.
The two human attendants—dressed in chambermaid grays—didn’t pay me any mind, they were busy managing a cart of laundry. Blood-stained clothing and bedsheets.
I stifled a gasp behind my hand and my throat went dry. It was so much blood. I never forgot that vampires fed, but so rarely did I see evidence of it. A curious warmth filled me as I considered what must happen in private during the most intimate acts.
Go back, a small voice whispered to me. Against its wishes, I pressed forward, doing my best impression of someone on official business.
Dommik was to be reassigned immediately and I wasn’t sure when or even if I would get another chance to speak to him.
And I needed to tell him…
But this visit wasn’t sanctioned. Alba didn’t even know I’d left my chamber.
A choice I was regretting as I grew more lost by the second.
Beyond the hallways I was familiar with, the scenery became less decorated, more repetitive.
It was still grand, it was the floor that housed Rhazien’s court and trusted advisors.
I’d assumed I would find a sign. A symbol. Something to confirm I’d found it.
His room.
If I were a vampire, I could have picked up his scent.
Leather and pine. But I’d made multiple passes up and down the hall to no avail and couldn’t risk searching much longer and possibly getting caught.
If someone asked, I planned to say I was inspecting Solstice decor but would need to quickly return to my chambers, squandering my mission.
Until I saw a familiar portrait. It had been weeks since the audience when Dommik had asked me to find the mate to the hairclip with white petals. But I was positive Dommik had shown me this hall, this particular painting, and this door…
I lifted my hand to knock but was quickly pulled into the dark room before my knuckles met the wood. A hand was over my mouth and a dagger was at my throat as I fell into the unlit space. My heart thundered and I whimpered beneath the broad hand.
“What. The fuck. Are you doing here?” the voice growled in the dark. The cold metal of the blade fell away along with the hand that had been bracing me.
A match hissed to life before lighting one candle, then a second.
The warm flames illuminated a shirtless Dommik. Their shadows accentuated the creases between his broad, muscled chest.
“I was looking for you,” I said as I struggled to pull my gaze away from the heat-inducing mounds of his build.
“You shouldn’t be out of your room at this hour. Unguarded no less,” he grumbled as three more candles bloomed.
My fingers fumbled as I struggled to refasten my robe. The silk rebelled against any knot I tied, like it longed to reveal what was underneath.
“I had to come see you. Rhazien told me you were reassigned,” I breathed, hoping I’d heard him wrong or it had been a misunderstanding.
“Yeah, reassigned,” he scoffed, shaking his head and haphazardly tossing his dagger to a nearby table.
“What?” I cocked my head and wrapped my arms over my middle.
“He could have approved my request the first time, the second, or the third,” he said, not mincing words or wasting breath. “But he waited until now. The timing doesn’t feel like a coincidence to me.”
“But—you asked for this.” I scrunched my brows.
His head fell. I understood. And I didn’t. Dommik had charmed me. Pushed me away. Pulled me back in. Pushed me away again. And now, after he’d bared himself to me, he was reassigned.
“To where? Another post within the Hive?”
“No. Overseeing interests to the East.”
I wracked my brain. There were only the peaks and caverns of the Irriset Mountains to the East. And after that, a barren, jagged shoreline. It didn’t make sense.
“It’s not a reassignment. It’s a banishment.” Dommik’s stern facade was fading and the hurt he tried to hide peered through its cracks. “He’s punishing me.”
Dommik wasn’t moving to another floor or wing or even a nearby outpost of the Hive. He was being sent across the mountains to a deserted place.
The thought of him being so far away nearly ripped me in half.
“What if—” I began, knowing what I said next had dire consequences. His eyes lifted to mine, sharp as the steel of his blade. Fear told me to stop. End this now and leave. I ignored it. “What if I don’t want you to go?”
He took a calculated step. Then another.
“What if I wanted you to stay?”
“To what end?” He loomed over me.
The answer to his question pressed from behind my lips, clawing at them to part. To say what he needed to hear. What I needed to say.
“Reyva, this is not a game,” he growled. “It would be best for us both if you spoke clearly and told me exactly what you want.”
The heat coming off his bare chest was like standing next to the sun. The corded muscles of his forearms danced beneath his skin as he clenched and unclenched his hands, waiting for me to respond.
“What I want—” I tilted my chin to hold his gaze. My lips parted slightly to make way for more air. My breathing stuttered, unable to satiate my pounding heart. “It changes day to day. Three weeks ago, I thought I was falling in love with Rhazien.”
The blues of Dommik’s eyes were coated in a jealous fury. “And today… Today, I was fitted for all of my ceremonial gowns. And what I thought about the entire time wasn’t what I’m going to say when I get to that altar.” He looked down at me, questions treading water behind his concerned stare.
“What you said in the cellar…” I bit my lip and held my breath. “Do you regret it?”
I wrung my hands, waiting to be denied by the commander who time and time again put his duty above all else. Infuriating as he’d been, I respected him for it.
“No,” he said, his resolve evident in his postured, unwavering stance. “But you’re with him.”
“I’m not—I haven’t been—” I said, tripping over my words as I corrected him. “Not since before the Northern Hive.”
“But you’ll forgive him. Take him back. Move forward and become bound. Become—” he swallowed hard “—his queen.”
The word sent a shiver through me, straightening my spine.
“A queen to all vampires,” he rasped. “My queen.”
“I don’t know that yet,” I said a little too enthusiastically, like I wanted to give him hope if it meant he would quit making that face. His frown lines were so profound, I could careen into their depths. “What if I want something different for myself. Someone different.”
A spark flashed across his gaze. I reached out and gently took his hand. He looked down to my palm in his, and then back up to me.
“Do not play with me, Reyva.” His tone was all gravel and desperation. “I love you. And my heart is not a toy.”
I could see him so clearly then, as if all his masks had been lifted.
This was Dommik. Beyond the charm, behind the muscle, underneath the hurt.
He was a man who wanted to be seen, just like me.
Someone not defined by their failures or missteps, just like me.
Chosen for who he was, not what he could do for others, just like me.
I squeezed his hand and whispered, “No games.”
He blinked away an expression that looked like something between hope and fear.
“I won’t do it. Be the one to cross the line.
I need to know, entirely, that it was your choice.
That I’m not reading this wrong. Better yet, show me.
Show me I’m not reading this wrong. It’s not a challenge, it’s an invitation.
One you can decline. And I’ll walk away.
It will be the most difficult thing I will ever be asked to do, but if it’s what you wanted, I would walk away.
” Dommik’s throat bobbed as he spoke. The invisible leash restraining him was waning, fraying with each passing second.
When I hesitated, he huffed out a disappointed sound and dropped his hand to the side. Then, the commander turned his back to me before becoming very, very still.
All the air left me as I realized I'd captured the crook of his elbow. A gesture marking my decision when I couldn’t form the words.
“Shaw asked who you were to me, and I’ve been trying to define it ever since,” I breathed, gently tugging, encouraging him to come back.
“I thought I could boil you down to a single word. To simplify you and keep what I feel for you uncomplicated. Neat. Tidy.” I lifted my free hand to meet his cheek and he pressed his face into my palm. “But we aren’t simple. We’re complicated. A mess even.”
Dommik scoffed softly, the puff of hot air sending a delicious shiver down my arm.
“But you. You see me.” My body went molten as it fell under his heated glare. “And I see you. All of you. And I’m here anyway.”
An exhale left him that reminded me of the way a cat purrs. Dommik lifted our joined hands and brushed my knuckles with his lips.
I withdrew my touch, earning a low groan from the immortal commander. I relished the power I held in the moment, but didn’t intend to withhold my touch for long.
“It’s the subtle way you care for me.” The silk of my robe was soft between my fingers as I pulled slowly at the fabric. When I turned to face him again, Dommik’s bed was behind me.
“The way you know what I need before I even realize.”
I lifted my fingertips to remove the robe entirely. It fell silently into a heap at my feet. What was left was a thin, sheer sleeping gown barely long enough to reach the tops of my thighs.