37. Bastian
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
BASTIAN
B astian didn’t know when it had happened, or how, but he was utterly, irrevocably in love with Isolde Renault.
It had hit him the moment she withdrew from his touch at the banquet, and his heart had plummeted into his ass. He’d been trying desperately to deny it to himself since then, to tell himself that she didn’t want him, and he didn’t want her, and he’d just imagined that look she’d been giving him.
But then, as they sat on the roof of town hall, she blurted out those words— Why haven’t you touched me since we got back from Wolf territory? —and it all came crashing back.
He loved her. He loved her.
He loved her clear blue eyes, the silvery spill of her hair, the preternatural grace with which she moved. Her persistence, her intelligence, her surprising gentleness. Her taste, her scent, her presence.
More than that, he loved her for the way she never took away his choice.
She understood his pain, and even before he’d told her what Anselm had done to him, she’d never forced him into anything.
The way she’d refused to feed on him until he gave his express permission—even as the hunger made her shiver and she panted at the temptation of his vein—made it perfectly clear that she never would.
With Isolde, there were no conditions that he had to meet.
To her, he was a predator, a Wolf, a danger to her in every sense of the word, but that hadn’t scared her off.
She took him for what he was, and didn’t expect him to become something else.
Not like Anselm, who hadn’t been able to accept Bastian’s choice to remain human, or Everett, who didn’t see Bastian as family until he became a Wolf.
Bastian recognized that look in her eyes now—the look no one but his mother had ever given him.
It was protectiveness, and fondness, and hope all rolled up into one. It was clear, and pure, and raw. Though it had been twenty-two years since he last experienced it, and his memory was hazy, he thought— hoped —that look was love.
Pure, unconditional love.
That was what he felt for Isolde, he knew now. After last night, he could only pray he was correct. That she felt it back.
Despite the fact that he knew Isolde was right, that it was completely, utterly foolish for the humans to be celebrating the Night of the Bleeding Moon with the Wolf still on the loose, Bastian was desperate for the festival to begin. He was desperate to see her again.
He spent the whole day trying to catch up on the barrage of orders he’d received since the full moon—all knives and swords, commissioned by frightened villagers.
No matter how hard he tried, though, he couldn’t focus on a single one of the blades he attempted to make.
Instead, he’d ended up working on the daggers he’d been designing for Isolde, which he’d sketched about a dozen times—and he still wasn’t satisfied with the result.
Then, when late afternoon had begun to creep toward evening, he’d spent an embarrassing amount of time debating which shirt to wear, only to decide on the first black one he’d put on.
The scent of her, which clung all over him from those stolen moments on the roof, and then on her porch, was making him antsy.
He couldn’t wait to have his nose buried in her hair and his mouth crushed against hers.
He wanted her cool hands on his skin and those shimmering blue eyes locked with his.
So he’d struggled to focus and fretted over his clothes, and now he was standing in the town square before dark had even completely fallen, going mad with anticipation as he watched the first of the festival-goers trickle out into the streets.
Like on Burning Night, the humans had built fires on every corner to roast meat over.
The tavern doors were flung wide despite the chill, and the scents of crisp ale and mulled wine poured out.
A couple of string players were setting up in the square, along with a man holding a pan flute and two girls with hide drums.
All around, everywhere Bastian looked, was red: crimson ribbons hung between the buildings, red wax candles clustered along the streets, garlands of scarlet winterberries draped over doorways.
Even the gowns and tunics of the villagers were red, and as the night grew darker and more people arrived for the festivities, it began to look as though the streets ran with blood.
An hour after night fell in earnest, there was still no sign of Isolde. In the hour after that, Bastian turned down half a dozen village girls begging him to dance, each with more irritation than the last. By the time the moon appeared above the trees, he found himself in desperate need of an ale.
You never agreed on a time to meet, he reasoned to himself as he shoved off the wall of the town hall and began to elbow his way through the undulating crowd of dancers in the square. She’ll be here.
“Dance with me,” begged a woman with long, dark braids and a red smock, sliding her hand up Bastian’s arm as he passed.
She was pretty—the type of woman Bastian would usually go for. Warm, tall, with a sensually curving mouth.
But she wasn’t Isolde.
“No, thank you,” he told her, extracting his arm from her grasp.
Bastian made it to the tavern doors without any more interruptions, other than having his boots sloshed with ale by a man who could barely put one foot in front of the other.
The inside of the tavern was packed full of humans.
He braced himself to step inside, feeling the eyes of several barmaids already appraising him.
Just as his boot crossed the threshold, Bastian caught a glimpse of a familiar shade of silvery blonde on the other side of the square.
Without wasting a single second, Bastian plunged back into the crowd.
He shoved his way through the mass of people, hardly caring when he knocked a cup out of someone’s hand or brushed rudely past another woman asking him to dance.
All he could see was that spill of hair, long and sleek and glimmering in the firelight.
She was moving away from him, weaving her way effortlessly through the crowd in a gown of deep burgundy velvet. Her hair was unbound, her cloak pushed back over her shoulders so the crimson lining showed, and Bastian could smell the bright, sweet scent of her even with a sea of people between them.
“Isolde!” Bastian called over the laughter and the music and the chatter. She didn’t hear him, and he nearly knocked a man off his feet as he closed the distance between them and caught her elbow in his hand. “Isolde.”
She startled at his touch, her hair flying out around her as she spun to face him.
She peered up at him, her eyes flashing with some emotion that was there and gone again before Bastian had time to identify it.
That look he’d come to love so much was still there, but something else swirled in her eyes, too. Something shadowed.
Then she looked away, and Bastian’s heart dropped.
“Hello, Bastian,” she said quietly, staring at something beyond him.
Bastian frowned, studying her face. “What took you so long to get here?” he asked. “Did something happen?”
“No.” Isolde tugged her arm gently out of his grasp. “Everything is fine.”
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, Bastian.” She still didn’t look at him. “I’ll find you later for patrol, okay? I need to feed.”
Without so much as lifting her chin in Bastian’s direction, she started to walk away.
“Isolde, wait,” he implored, grabbing her hand this time and tugging her back. His heart pounded painfully against his ribs, his stomach churning with dread. “Clearly something happened since the last time I saw you. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I told you I’m fine,” she snapped. “And I need to feed before all the humans are too drunk, so if you’ll excuse me…”
Again, she tried to walk away, but Bastian held tightly to her hand. “You’re going to feed on a human?” he demanded, fighting past the tightness in his chest to keep his tone as calm as possible.
“Who else would I feed on?”
“I seem to recall you telling me that my blood was better than anything you’ve ever tasted .”
Isolde’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. “So?”
“ So, if you need to feed,” he said, taking a step closer so she had to crane her neck to look at him, “feed from me.” He didn’t care that he was begging.
That look flitted across her eyes again, still too fast for Bastian to identify, but he didn’t miss the way her gaze dropped to his throat. To the place where her fangs had pierced him all those weeks ago.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
“You can’t? Why not?”
“I just… I can’t , okay?”
Bastian shook his head. “If you don’t want to feed from me, that’s fine. But please, at least tell me why you’re so upset.”
“I’m not upset, Bastian. How many times do I have to tell you that before you’ll leave me be?”
With that, she yanked her hand free of his and darted into the crowd.
“Isolde!” Bastian chased after her. He hated to follow her when she’d told him to leave her alone, but he knew in his bones that something wasn’t right. That look in her eye, like fear, or dread, maybe… “I’m sorry, alright? But please?—”
“I’m immortal!”
The word burst out her, carrying over the din of the crowd like the crack of a whip as she whirled to face him once more. Her shoulders heaved, the crowd parting around them as they stared at one another. And Isolde’s face…
It crumpled with devastation.
“I’m immortal,” she repeated, softer now. “And that means…”
Bastian took one step towards her, and she took one step back.
He froze in place, struggling to breathe past the sensation of his chest being flayed open. “It means what?”
“I can’t be with you, Bastian.” The space between their bodies yawned, suddenly seeming insurmountable. “I can’t kiss you anymore, and I can’t feel things for you, and I can’t want you. I can’t .”
Her voice cracked on that last word.
I’m immortal, she’d said.
I can’t want you.