Chapter 26 #2
“After I was wounded, some stayed behind to burn the bodies. I haven’t confirmed yet, but I’m almost certain there were more tunnels, ones rooted through the ceiling of the main cavern. I can only guess that the smoke had not reached it yet.”
“Tyber will have to remedy this,” I noted.
“Yes,” Orin agreed. “Every nest’s complexity differs. We cannot risk our sentries; we either draw them out or we make certain those inside fully succumb before we breach.”
Vastion nodded, realizing the same thing I had. The reserves would never last if our forces required the amount of blood he had just drunk to survive this extermination expedition.
“And the others?” I had hoped there were no losses to speak of.
“Minor flesh wounds, mostly from the Forlorn who fled the cave immediately before the smoke could subdue them.”
I breathed my first sigh of relief since being awoken.
“It’s ok,” Vastion comforted me, patting a hand briefly on my knee. “By all accounts, this was a success. The Parcaetes will be most pleased to hear of their accomplishment.”
“Well, that was the last accomplishment you will be leading,” Orin proclaimed.
Vastion shook his head and smiled at his friend. “We will discuss that later.”
“Orin is right, and you need rest,” I added.
“I have no use for rest,” Vastion argued, acting as if he were actually going to join Orin.
“There are other purposes for a bed,” I stated flatly, a memory replaying in my mind.
Orin raised an eyebrow at Vastion and quickly took his leave. After he made his exit, I instructed him to lie down. He slid himself back onto the bed, and I propped up the pillow hoping it would be more comfortable on his still sensitive back.
“Is that alright?” I asked, tucking them under his arms and bare chest.
He nodded, and I moved to the other end of the bed, patiently untying his soiled boots and removing them one by one.
“Are you doting on me, Es?”
“Am I not merciful?” I replied with a sly wink, echoing his prior sentiment. I made my way into the bed beside him, covering myself with the blanket to ward off the chill they’d let into the tent when they burst in.
“I am sorry to have worried you so,” he apologized, his voice tapering into a whisper.
Before I could respond, he added, “Your heartbeat, it was pounding in a rhythm of which I’ve never witnessed before.
I thought I knew the sound of your fear, the scent of it, but this was different—and I am sorry. ”
He had laid me bare, denying me any sort of confession.
There was no use arguing or deflecting with some dry remark.
He was right. I had thought I was losing him; I thought I had lost him.
When I witnessed his destroyed flesh, I believed we might not be able to save him.
Because in that moment, I was looking at a man.
A human. And wounds like that take lives easily.
For a moment, I forgot I was married to the Vampyr King of Devana.
I’d never witnessed the healing power of blood and, for the first time in my entire existence, I felt a guilty thread of gratitude for Vassals tug at my heart. For saving his life.
My bashful silence gave way to another unexpected remark. “I heard your speech.”
My eyes widened in shock and worry that I was about to be in deep trouble. “Calm down. Gods, your heart flutters so easily,” he laughed.
“You were supposed to have been long gone,” I admitted. “Why did you stay?”
“Esiree, in the short time I have been your husband, there is one thing I know for certain.”
“And what is that?”
“You never do as you’re told.”
I smiled at the inescapable truth of his assessment.
“It was amusing to see Lord Elek display a rare presence of emotion, even if that emotion was aggravation.” He placed his hand atop mine and I did not pull away from his touch. “Even if that is becoming the foundation of yours and his relationship.”
“Are you cross with me?” I asked, knowing that I’d never actually cared before if he disapproved of anything I did.
“Far from it. In fact, I couldn’t be prouder. I only wish that you could let me know you the way you’ve welcomed all of Muir into your heart.”
I dipped my chin in realization that I’d shared more about my past with a room full of strangers than I had my own husband.
“I am very sorry for your loss,” he added.
My thoughts drifted off to a parent whose memory was only solidified by a small painting my father had. A sort of melancholy wrapped itself around me like a cocoon and, before I ever understood the gravity of the words that left my mouth, I said the unthinkable.
“If only someone like you had been there, perhaps I could have known her.”
Vastion shifted nervously beside me but kept his back firmly against the pillow as to not further agitate his wounds.
“Even if we could have turned your mother, I wouldn’t have. We are a blight on this world, and that is why no one shall make more Vampyr as long as I reign.”
His words were cold, but they were what I needed to hear.
To separate me from the delusion that my mother could have been saved for us to love, despite her immortal curse.
I drifted toward painful memories, ones I hadn’t truly comprehended until I was old enough to recognize the signs of grief on another.
The same traces of which circled like storms in Vastion’s intense stare.
He may have masked it to others, but I’d begun to see through it.
“How does one survive the grief of losing a spouse?” I questioned, more to myself than him.
Thoughts of my father raising us alone, companionless, while he spent every waking hour trying to find a way to avenge her by eliminating the enemy that had taken her from him. From us. Vastion withdrew his hand.
“I have watched my wives come and go. Some aged gracefully and peacefully. Some clung to life, begging to be turned in their final moments. I have watched the years etched into their skin with each new wrinkle. These—the things they despise—I admire. Long for. Things I will never know. I have seen how age steals from us the things we take for granted and sometimes robs us of clarity of the mind. Their lifetimes were entrusted to me, and by their side I have sat, time and time again, as they pass on. All the while wondering if I will ever see the next realm, or if anyone would be there to hold my hand when it’s time. ”
Tears pricked at my lashes whilst he confessed the grief that the treaty had chained him to. I had never considered that you could feel the loss of someone you didn’t love. And I pitied him. I grabbed his hand and kissed it gently, welcoming the way his cool touch contrasted my heat.
I rolled over and curled into the crux of his arm, looking up at his sharp cheekbones, noticing how he clenched his jaw a few times in between the bobbing of his throat, as if seeking the right words for my rare show of affection.
“The last time you kissed me, on our wedding day, it was duty. If you ever kiss me again, it will be by your choosing. You’ll have to be the one to act, Es. I’ve already made my affections known.”
My chest tightened at the proposition. He’d no longer pursue me, because I had been the one who’d placed a mountain between any chance of us.
And I sat atop that mountain every day, teasing and taunting him with the possibility of more.
Because I liked being in control. And I liked that he let me pretend to be.
But I was tired of sitting atop the mountain alone.
I was tired of looking down at him from this false sense of security.
Was it grief or longing that compelled me to crawl out from under the covers, my nightdress riding up my bare legs, and suddenly straddle him?
Either way, it stoked a heat beneath my skin that began to surge and spread.
At once, the rules and ideals I’d clung to were consumed by flames, leaving me breathless atop him.
Leaning in, my lips hovered just above his.
“I’ll be damned for this.”
I clasped his face tightly before crashing my lips to his. I’d seized the moment, and now there was only one thing left to do.
Let it burn.