15. Stellan
STELLAN
Bryony didn’t look away after her heartbeat gave her up.
Her hands stayed on my shoulders. She stood between my knees, warm against me after a century with no one close enough to touch.
“Good.”
Her fingers slid into my hair and tightened at my nape.
I put one hand around her waist and pulled her against me. The other settled along her jaw. Her pulse jumped under my thumb, but she moved closer and lifted her mouth.
I kissed her.
The first touch was slow. I’d imagined taking her mouth since she walked into the throne room with a torch raised and blood on her hand. The reality was warmer and far less careful.
Bryony opened for me. I angled her head and kissed her deeper, keeping my fangs away from her lips. Her grip tightened in my hair as my tongue met hers.
She tasted of tea and the bread she’d eaten earlier. I could also taste how close her blood ran to the surface. Hunger stirred, controlled and separate from the need pulling her closer between my thighs.
The chain at my waist tightened. I ignored it.
Bryony pressed against my chest. Her breasts softened against me, and the sound she made went straight through my body. I moved my hand from her waist to the curve of her arse and held her where I wanted her.
Her hips shifted forwards.
She pulled at my hair, and I let one fang touch her lower lip. No bite. No blood. The small scrape made her shiver in my arms.
I wanted her on my lap. I wanted the chain gone and a locked door between us and the rest of Harrowmere. Neither was available, so I took the kiss until my control began to thin.
Then I eased my mouth from hers.
Bryony followed for half an inch before stopping. Her lips were swollen, her cheeks warm and her breathing uneven.
I hadn’t kissed anyone since the night Adrian took Harrowmere. I still remembered how. Bryony made me want to continue until the chain broke or the court dragged me away.
“Was that another vampire ability?” she asked.
“No. That was entirely me.”
Her mouth curved. “Good.”
I kissed the corner of it once and made myself release her. The chain had gone rigid behind me, and hunger was beginning to notice how close her throat remained.
“We need to go back to the sitting room. The court is pulling harder, and I’d prefer to end this lesson while I still remember what we were discussing.”
Bryony glanced down between my legs. “Your attention appears to have moved on.”
“I can manage several subjects.”
She laughed and stepped back far enough for me to stand, her face still warm as we left the pool.
We returned along the silver path with our hands linked. The waist chain loosened as we reached the sitting room, although it didn’t give back the ground it had allowed me to cross.
Harrowmere had added a plate of sliced apple and cheese to the table. Bryony sat in the chair near the fire and started eating. I lowered myself to the rug beside her, where the chain could lie loose across my lap.
The red rose I’d taken from the garden remained in my hand. I put it beside her plate.
She touched one petal. “You said becoming Blood King changed some things. Which parts of you were already vampire, and which came with the title? Give me the useful version.”
A direct question deserved a complete answer. I gave her the useful version without a history of every king who had carried the same powers.
“The senses are vampire,” I said. “So are the fangs, strength, speed, healing and need for blood. Compulsion is vampire as well. Becoming king tied me to Harrowmere. I can feel its wards, open some of its doors and draw power from the court when it recognises my authority. Sharing my senses with you comes from the link Harrowmere made between its heir and king.”
Her gaze moved from my eyes to the chain across my lap. She was sorting what belonged to me from what the court had added, exactly as she’d separated hunger from desire.
“Could every vampire hear Adrian from the garden?”
“Most could hear movement at that distance. Age, feeding and practice make the senses stronger. I could separate Adrian’s breathing from the guards because I knew what I was listening for.”
She considered that while eating a piece of apple. “How fast are you?”
“At full strength, faster than a human eye can follow for a short distance. At the moment, I’m well fed enough to frighten you and chained tightly enough to make the demonstration embarrassing.”
“I’m not frightened.”
“You would be if I moved at you without warning. Speed feels different when a predator uses it in your direction.”
Her expression became serious. “Would you?”
“Never as a game. If I move that quickly near you, there will be danger in the room.”
She nodded and accepted the answer without moving her hand from mine.
Bryony looked at the scarred wrist resting across my knee. “How much blood does healing take?”
“It depends on the wound. The blood you gave me was enough to close old damage and repair what the chains opened today. A broken bone would take more. A wound to my heart would require immediate blood, and losing my heartblood would kill me even if a human offered enough to replace it.”
I turned my wrist so she could see the skin. The cuff had split it to the muscle earlier. A dark red line remained, but the wound had closed.
She leaned down and ran one finger over the mark. “Does being king make you heal faster?”
“Inside Harrowmere, yes. The court won’t let its Blood King die while the title remains his. It kept me alive when Adrian starved me, although it couldn’t stop the pain or give me enough strength to escape.”
Her touch stopped.
I didn’t soften the truth. “Outside the court, I heal like any old vampire. Blood makes the difference.”
“You keep saying old. How old?”
I smiled. “Old enough to know better than answering that while a woman is deciding whether she finds me attractive.”
She pinched the skin beside my scar.
I caught her hand and laughed. “Three hundred and eight.”
Her eyes widened. “You’ve spent more than a third of your life chained to that throne.”
It sounded worse in her voice. “Yes.”
She turned her hand in mine and held on. There was no joke to soften that answer, and she didn’t try to find one.
The fire shifted in the grate. Bryony watched it for a moment before speaking again.
“Sunlight?” she asked. “Do you burn immediately, or have films exaggerated that along with the coffins?”
“Direct sunlight weakens me first. Then it burns. A few minutes won’t kill a healthy vampire, but staying outside would. Right now, after years without enough blood, dawn would be dangerous much sooner.”
Bryony ate the last slice of apple and wiped the juice from her thumb. Concern stayed in her expression, but she didn’t turn the answer into another reason to pity me.
“And the coffin?”
“Uncomfortable, unnecessary and difficult to share.”
Her gaze met mine. “You’re assuming I’d share a bed.”
“I’m remembering the way you kissed me.”
Colour warmed her throat. She ate another piece of cheese and let me enjoy the result.
“We sleep,” I continued. “A bed works. So does this floor. Hunger makes rest shallow, and the court wakes me whenever someone crosses the lower boundary.”
“Does a bite turn someone?”
“No. Feeding takes blood from a human. Turning requires a deliberate exchange. The vampire drains the human close to death and gives blood back while the heart is still beating. It can’t happen by accident during sex or feeding.”
She absorbed that in silence. Her thumb passed over the two marks on her wrist, and some of the tension left her shoulders.
She looked up. “Would your blood heal me?”
“Yes, but it would also make you sensitive to me for several days. You’d feel where I was and whether I was injured. Too much could let me influence your body more easily. I won’t give it to you unless an injury makes the risk necessary or you choose it knowing what follows.”
“Good. I’m already sharing enough.”
I rubbed my thumb over her knuckles until the tension left them.
Her foot touched my thigh. “Did becoming king make you want people to obey you?”
“No. It gave me the power to demand obedience inside this court. Power doesn’t create the desire to use it. Adrian wanted control long before he stole access to the wards.”
“What did you want?”
The complete answer included the plan I’d made before I met her. I didn’t give her that part.
I answered with what was true now. “I wanted the court safe and its human families free to live outside it. I wanted a queen who could tell me when I was wrong without fearing the result. Right now, I want Adrian away from you and every chain off my body.”
My gaze moved over her mouth and lower. “I also want you back between my knees.”
Bryony’s pulse quickened. “That part sounded less royal.”
“It’s the most honest part of the job.”
She smiled, but her eyes stayed on me. “I want you too. I’m still deciding what I trust.”
“Take the time you need.”
The answer hurt. I’d promised direct answers, and the truth I still held could break the alliance we’d made in the garden.
Her hand remained in mine while the fire burnt lower. I kept my grip loose and stayed beside her.
Bryony yawned and tried to hide it behind her hand.
“You need sleep.”
“You don’t need vampire hearing to reach that conclusion.”
“No. I needed the yawn.”
She finished her water and stood. The old key, her phone and Edith’s case were locked in the bedroom, and her knife waited beside the bed. We’d done everything we could to make the room safe without pretending a locked door could stop Harrowmere.
Bryony paused beside me. Her fingers brushed the red mark at my throat, then travelled into my hair.
I tilted my head back. She kissed me once, slow and warm, and stepped away before I could pull her closer.
“Goodnight, Stellan.”
“Goodnight, Bryony.”
She crossed the sitting room and shut herself inside the bedroom. The lock turned.
I sat beside the fire with my back against her door. Her breathing slowed on the other side. The court remained quiet, and Adrian’s guards stayed beyond the garden gate.
For the first time since the Claiming began, I slept.
The bedroom lock opened.
I woke at once.
Bryony stepped into the sitting room barefoot. Her eyes were closed, and her arms hung loose at her sides. A thin red line ran from the throne room and curled around her feet.
“Bryony.”
She walked past me without turning.
I caught her wrist. The line flashed, and the chain at my waist locked hard enough to tear her hand from mine. Iron dragged me back against the wall.
Bryony kept walking.
The throne room doors stood open. The Crown had lifted from the carved chair and waited in the air above it.
A woman’s voice moved through the court.
“Come to me.”
Bryony crossed the threshold without waking.