Chapter 66 #2
She didn’t answer, nor did she object as he took over cleaning the cut. Not deep enough to require stitches, but large enough to stain his rug.
Foolish, a voice shouted in his mind, but in that moment, Lorkan’s bloodthirst didn’t rise within him. He only thought of Blair, her pain, and the insatiable need to protect her.
Blair didn’t object as he dipped the cloth into the bowl of water mixed with her oils and ran it across the cut, cleaning out dirt and debris. Smaller cuts lined the tops of her foot and shins, and—
Beautiful thighs.
For she wore no pants. A sleeping tunic, tattered and dirty, too, reached just past her hips.
He followed the slope of her muscular legs, watched the slow rise and fall of her chest, her peaked nipples pressing against the thin fabric.
Stars above, had she run through the forest in the dead of night?
But how could Lorkan focus on the right questions to ask when the exquisite slope of her neck beckoned him to lay kisses up it?
His gaze snapped to hers, and Lorkan’s grip on her ankle tightened. The heat in his study rose. Midnight clashed with honey. A storm raged in her eyes and ensnared his inner wolf, conjuring a beastly hunger inside him.
“Blair—”
“I’m surprised”—she tilted her head, studying him with a level of intensity that tugged his world out from under him—“it isn’t more difficult to be around blood, seeing as you’re a vampyr.”
Lorkan’s secret out loud turned him to stone like Blair had uttered a spell. He blinked. Swallowed. Tried to convince himself he’d misheard. How did she know? He opened his mouth—
“Don’t waste your breath denying it.”
Lorkan’s heart cracked at the emptiness in Blair’s voice.
“I saw you tonight in the forest, and I believe the blood you shared with Alvin was rabbit, right?”
His heart raced inside his chest, the rapid thump echoing in his ears. Blair tugged her foot back, and Lorkan let her go, the simple act feeling far more damning, like he stood on the precipice of losing her forever.
“I can explain,” he managed.
“There’s no need,” she said, expression void of anything.
Blair stood on steady legs, forcing Lorkan to his full height.
She stepped forward, and Lorkan matched the distance by retreating back.
The fire hissed and embers popped, but the heat at Lorkan’s back was nothing compared to the cold radiating deep in his bones.
His heart ached, and Blair’s next words chilled him in place.
“I followed you, down the tunnels and deep under Vísdómr. I walked the village—”
Lorkan growled, angling closer. “What? That is a cave full of vampyrs—”
“Ah.” Blair’s brow shot up, like they were having a conversation over ancient texts, not a decade-old truth now out in the open. “That confirms my suspicion. Every one of them has been turned, then? Even Mya?”
Lorkan gritted his teeth, sensing everything he tried to control was slipping through his fingers. “Yes, it’s a safe haven for those who were once werewolves and witches.”
Blair nodded, and the darkness of her stare wasn’t the fathomless beauty of night, but a vacant oblivion. Lorkan couldn’t breathe. His hands itched to reach for her, but his mind warred at the notion.
“When were you turned?” Blair whispered.
The curse snaked through his veins, hissing and mocking at his predicament. He thought he had time to tell Blair these secrets himself. To be honest. To come clean. Now he was robbed of choice, the when and how.
His next words rose up his throat like shards of glass. “Ten years ago.”
Blair scoffed and blinked back the glistening in her eyes. “Answer this one question, and I’ll never ask anything of you ever again.”
“Blair—”
“Is that why you never met me in Fika?” she whispered.
There it is was—the ugliest truth of all. It wasn’t Lorkan’s vampyrism, his bloodthirst, or the curse. It was the choice he’d made to not go to Blair, to not seek her out when he needed help.
“Answer me.”
“Yes!” Lorkan roared. “But I stayed away to protect you—”
“There’s nothing righteous about breaking my heart, Lorkan,” she hissed. “Lie to yourself all you want.”
Lorkan shook his head, and it was his turn to invade Blair’s space and make her step back as he peered down at her.
“I was attacked on my way to meet you, and as the scáths fed from me, my instinct to live reached something I never thought existed—my wolf. I shifted for the first time, and overcome with that transformation and the venom in my veins, the rest is an absolute blur. I awoke two days later, unsure where the fuck I was, let alone that I was a vampyr. My skin burnt when the sun touched it. I had a new ability, wild and hungry. Not to mention that insatiable thirst and haze of red, and the chanting of the curse in my mind. Then, there were the bodies. Their blood covered my clothes, stained my fangs and filled my belly. I’d slaughtered a home, Blair.
A farmer. His wife. Their child. There was no way to deny it. Their blood coated my new fangs.”
“Are you telling me this to scare me?” Blair said through gritted teeth.
“You should be,” Lorkan breathed.
“No. I won’t let the way you feel about yourself be thrown at me.” Blair jabbed his finger into his chest. “You should’ve come to me. I could’ve helped. Goddess, I love you, Lorkan, and you shut me out.”
Love. Not loved.
Lorkan’s heart cracked, and he almost fell to his knees. “We were seventeen, Blair. You would’ve been frightened. Being near me was a danger.”
“And? I’m frightened now, and yet I’m here. Regardless of what you are, I’m here.”
Lorkan exhaled. “Your perspective is jaded by everything you know now. Sorin was a different place then, we were different people. What about Evelyn? Your sister is the Daughter of the Goddess—destined to kill those like me.”
“I know that. Perhaps you’re right. But you didn’t give me a choice.” Blair clamped her eyes shut, and when they sprang open, tears brimmed at the edges. “You were my anchor in this world. Everyone has cast me aside, but you made me feel seen for the first time in my life.”
“I’ve never stopped, Blair.” Lorkan grabbed her hands and lay them on his chest.
Blair sucked in a breath, eyes landing where right over his pounding heart.
“You are all I see. During my days, thoughts, and dreams. It is you, and only you. I hear your name on the wind. Think of your midnight stare on a constant measure. Trace the shape of your smile with ink throughout my notes—”
Blair snatched her hand away, chest heaving. “Those are all just pretty words.”
“Then what do you want? Need? Tell me, and I’ll give it.”
Lorkan waited. Silence threatened to swallow him whole, and his heart hardened as he studied the pain he’d caused in Blair’s midnight eyes.
“Space . . . Time,” she finally whispered. “I . . . I accept what you are, Lorkan, and I don’t want you to think for a second this is because you’re a vampyr. It’s your lie I must come to terms with, and I need to process your reason. Please.”
Lorkan swallowed, fisting his hands at his sides and fighting his inner wolf raging at Blair’s request. His body warred with the idea of time.
He’d spent enough of it away from her, but that had been his own damn fault, hadn’t it?
She was right. He’d not given her a choice then, but he’d not dare make that mistake again.
“If that is what you wish,” he said.
Tears brimmed at the edge of Blair’s eyes as she stepped back. “There is still the prophecy and what we learned. We need to meet everyone back at the Drengr Village—”
Fear jolted through Lorkan like a zap of lightning.
“You must not speak of this to anyone,” Lorkan said. “They can’t know.”
Blair scoffed. “Have you learned nothing tonight?”
“It’s different. Eldrick must keep the Earl vote. If the other alphas discovered what my father has hidden—” Lorkan stopped short, raking his hand through his hair. Stars above, he hadn’t meant to reveal that.
“But your brothers have loved you unconditionally all these years. Will you make their decision, their judgment for them?” Blair asked, her ire rising in her voice again.
“For now, it is what best.”
Blair shook her head, blinking back tears. She stepped closer—one, two, three strides—until she placed a gentle hand on his cheek, making Lorkan look at her. “You can’t hide forever, not even from yourself.”
She rose on her tiptoes and gave him one last parting kiss before she left him alone.
The instinct to crawl deeper into the mountain and hide roared to life now more than ever.