19. Chapter Nineteen #3
“Please. I live for the drama.” He pushes off the counter, walking backward to the back door. “But hey, if you decide to actually talk to her like a normal person and not a haunted Victorian ghost, let me know. I’ll light a candle for you. Wing-man type shit. You feel me?”
I roll my eyes, placing my hand on my forehead. But even after he leaves, I don’t move. Because this idea is crazy, but I’m not ready to let it go.
The upstairs loft smells like old paper and solitude. My kind of sanctuary, usually. I drop my book bag onto the table. Dust puffs out in protest as the bag hits a hard stop on the surface. I run a hand through my hair, pacing once before I gave in to the pull.
The shelf behind my bed creaks as I yank one of the older tomes free.
Bloodbound, Rituals, and Rites: Ancestral Bonds Among the Turned.
The gold lettering has long since flaked off, but the truth I need is buried in here somewhere.
I flip through brittle pages with a practiced urgency.
Mating. Blood resonance. Soul markers. Most of it is metaphor, or myth, written in the way old vampires liked to tell bedtime stories to keep younglings in line. But I kept digging.
Sino.
“In rare unions, a vampire may come across a being whose presence nullifies the hunger for others, stills the storm, and evokes long…” The text is rubbed off here.
I can’t make out what it originally says.
“These beings are not seers, nor witches, but anchors. Perfectly sculpted for their other part. Often mistaken for an encounter with sirens in early texts, they do not lure intentionally. They quiet.”
I read it again.
They quiet.
I let the book rest on the table, fingers still braced on the edge.
That’s what it was. That’s what she does.
Not magic. Not blood. Just her. I lean back in the chair, closing my eyes.
Her voice still echoes in my head: dry, unimpressed, stern, and cutting through my charm like it was nothing.
She doesn’t exactly flirt, hasn’t fawned over me, anywhere other than in her mind. She challenges me.
I’m ruined. Beau Drewitt is ruined.
I pick up another book, this one older, leather-wrapped, etched in symbols few can still read.
I can, thankfully. “A vampire who meets their anchor (sino) is said to feel time slow. To breathe fully even without the need for oxygen. To hunger less, not for lack of desire, but for the presence of something stronger. The urge to be seen and endeared. To be made whole again by their anchor. This bond works both ways whether the opposite party is mortal or immortal. Immortals may never meet their true mate.”
I run a finger under the next phrase. Recognition.
She doesn’t even know what she is to me.
But my soul has known her before my brain could catch up.
I exhale sharply, slamming the book shut.
This is dangerous. This is nothing I can afford.
But when she looks at me, I’m not thinking about the consequences.
I’m thinking solely about how she was made for me.
I’m already pondering how she will argue to submit to me as I shower her with affirmations.
She doesn’t even know I’m a vampire and I already know she is my other half, my sino.
I’m starting to believe that might be the real danger of all.
How quickly all of this will add up and just be a mountain of unknown information to her.
I can’t even fathom how I would explain all of that.
Will I have to lie? Allow her to absorb each small set of facts one at a time?
Great, let’s begin the relationship on a foundation of lies.
That has always worked out fantastically.
The books stay open on my desk, but I’m not reading anymore. I stare past them, through them, seeing only her. Even her name fits too well in my mouth. Like I’d spoken it long before. Like I’d waited lifetimes to say it again.
This has to be infatuation. A temporary glitch in my senses.
An echo of something unresolved in my psyche.
Surely. That has to be it. But then, why does her scent still live in the back of my throat?
Why does her voice replay with perfect clarity, every clipped word and reluctant smile preserved like scripture or code?
I push the books aside, pulling the drawer open with more force than necessary.
I notice the crumpled sketch and move it to a safer drawer.
Charcoal. I race to retrieve my sketch pad.
I haven’t used it since last night. The first lines come quickly like they first did.
Already I’m sketching her like she stands right in front of me.
Almost as if she was never a woman at all, but a symbol. Elowen is my own personal prophecy.
I turn the sketchbook away from me, but the lines still call. I should burn it.
But instead, I whisper her name under my breath, just to hear it again. “Elowen.”
If I knew how to fix this. If I knew how to erase her from my memory. Would I? Or would I keep finding excuses in an attempt to try to figure this shit out?
And the silence that follows doesn’t feel like solitude anymore.