24. Nicholas
Nicholas
So. Helene is searching for information on vampires.
The scent of The Fenlight trails me, dragged into the apartment, but she’s too wrapped up to notice or to see me standing beside her.
The damn place has shrunk in the hours I’ve been gone.
Strange, then, how engrossed she is.
How she doesn’t recognize the constant drip anymore outside the bucket under the leaking faucet tap. She doesn’t care about the lack of space between the mattresses, the absence of furnishings that don’t wobble and how none of the walls are straight.
A compact grin pricks my lips. She never has.
Strange how the small things are the same. She’s never cared for fineries.
Wren used to think he could change that. The man is a sucker for luxury and haughty grandeur. And Forest, shit, if he could make an entire vault of shiny treasures to dive into, he would.
I shift my weight when Helene clicks on a paranormal romance book site.
Fuck, really?
Trying not to roll my eyes does nothing. They circle on their own, getting stuck in their sockets.
Her scent tickles my nose. When I inhale, a burst of rosemary and subtle sweetness slides across my tongue—floral and bright and more potent than I expect.
She smells delicious. It’s the one thing those bullshit books have right. My gums ache, and my mouth waters, my tongue pressing against the sharpened tips of my canines.
Another continuity.
Her blood, gods, her blood is like the fucking holy grail.
Nothing else tastes as addictive, divine, intoxicating, as her.
I move closer but she’s too focused on the computer, typing away, doing her research. She’s got tabs open on Fae, too. And raven shifters although good luck finding too much about them in today’s literature. They aren’t as popular as wolves now.
Probably smell a little better though.
“Anne Rice got a lot wrong,” I finally say.
Helene jolts out of bed, the laptop flying off her lap.
“Stephanie Meyer, too. Bram Stoker was a fan boy.” I step back and we lock eyes. “But JR Ward has some nuggets of truth in her work. That’s mostly about the warrior lines, and their dedication to their mate.”
I’m scaring her. Helene’s gone white, her heart racing.
I follow my words with a wink to soften the blow. I’ve never been good at those kinds of things.
My own heart aches with an incomprehensible need. Being around her starts it beating again, as though she has the power to crush it in her hands. She does.
I swallow over the unconscious urges, pushing aside the imagery of her blood rushing down into my stomach. We can’t afford to fuck up now.
Not when the gods are working against us.
My bloodlust is nearly as mighty as the AllFather.
Helene’s throat works. “You’re a closet paranormal romance fan. Got it. A collector?”
I shrug. “I have to keep up with the latest. It’s a personal goal to own every paranormal romance known to man.”
Her lopsided grin tugs at the lowest core of me, her eyes lifting to meet mine. “What do you think about the glittering skin, really?”
I hold out my own hand to examine my flesh in the mechanical glow of the laptop screen.
The books all get it wrong about your wounds healing when you’re turned. Or maybe it’s because my maker is different. But the scars and callouses I had as a man came with me to the other side of mortality.
I turn my hand over and hold it out to her. “No sparkles here. Care to inspect?”
Watch yourself.
The warning is for me alone.
She’s backed up against the wall with her spine pressed flat and her legs crossed. Another loud gulp echoes between us before she gets herself under control. By the time our eyes lock again, color returns to her face, and damn it.
She’s adorable when she blushes.
She tenses on her bed, and I monitor her carefully, afraid to spill my secrets too soon, to give her more to fear than she already does.
Or maybe I’m feeling guilty about her catching up.
I shuck aside the ache, the scent of her blood, how I can borderline taste it through her skin.
“Ask me.” I stare her down, drawing my hand back. “Whatever you want. I won’t ever lie to you.”
“So the others would? Lie?” she asks.
Her tongue slicks over her lips and a groan rattles my chest. Would they lie? Yes. Have they? Have we? Yes.
Wren is a master manipulator. And Forest, when he has the full use of his mental faculties, has been known to skirt around the truth without stating it. It’s not a lie exactly but with a memory as long as his, then yes.
To her, though...
“Not this time,” I admit with enough begrudging slowness for Helene to notice. “They are men of honor. But I can’t answer on their behalf. Only my own.”
She nods. “Sounds fair.”
I should leave. It wasn’t right to sneak up on her this way. Helene doesn’t ask how I got into the apartment, or spout some bullshit about rescinding my invitation.
Instead, she pats the mattress beside her. “You want to sit?”
“...You want me to—” I start.
“Yes.” She’s quick to interrupt. “I think I do.”
"Even if I'm not as sparkly as other vampires?"
"You have a tan."
I huff out a breath. "Followed me into death. Not much I can do about it now. I've gotten used to it."
Her gaze scours my face the way she should search the room for the exits. But whatever it is she finds there softens the line of her posture when she needs to be louder, harder. Stronger.
“You haven’t been spooked by your light reading tonight?”
The internet has some awful things to say about our kind. All of us.
She shrugs and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “What can I say? I’m an idiot.”
“Oh, Helene.” Her name is a prayer, a song. “Never.”
A muscle at her jaw ticks. “You don't have to pretend for my benefit. I know it. I’m made up of one hundred percent stupidity. It’s never been more apparent than it is these last couple of days.”
“Since you met us.” Again.
"I'm not used to male attention." Good. "Or magic." Less good. “But you’re not going to hurt me.”
There’s enough of a question in her voice to stop me from reaching for her the way I want to. My fangs poke out from beneath my upper lip. I cover their appearance with a cough, shuffling nearer.
I say nothing. She notices, a crease flickering between her brows and higher, grooves spanning across her forehead.
She’s driving me wild. The closer I get, the harder it is to control the awful throbbing hollowness inside of me.
“You’re nervous.”
For the bravest soul I’ve ever encountered, nerves are an oddity, although in this case they’re expected.
“Wren told me his story last night. About how he met the shieldmaiden,” she murmurs.
She can’t accept it yet. Instead of pushing the issue, force her to admit it, I nod.
“Was it a good tale?” I ask.
“No. But I needed to hear it, I think.” Her voice is a quiet whisper, a brush of air on a dry leaf, and my lungs shudder.
I’d rather her laughter than her confusion, her dimples and her freckles than the ragged look in her eyes like they’re showing an echo of loss she doesn’t recognize.
“Good. Hopefully he kept it short. He’s been known to spout a fucking sonnet if you let him.”
This close, the individual patterns of those freckles are a temptation. To kiss each one and to taste her skin, to be that flush to the blood pumping in her veins—
“He’s a smooth talker and charming,” Helene replies, and her blush, her scent, both ripen.
Ah. Got it. Selfish asshole. “Yes, he is.”
“He didn’t try to convince me of anything.” She lifts her chin. “I, uh, I made a choice. To talk to him.”
She coughs on the word talk.
“Why do you sound defiant?”
She blows out a breath, and the small crease between her brows shifts into a V. “I don’t know. It’s strange.”
I want to feel the comfort of her in the unfamiliar touch of this body. I refuse to move. “Then talk it out.”
I keep watching her and memorizing the smallest fraction of movement, the way her hand flows through the space.
The way her gaze wanders faintly along the lines of the room, the path memorized.
A drop of sweat trails from her hairline down the glide of her cheek and she swipes it away, smearing it over her freckles.
How many nights have I stayed awake and dreamed of being with her this way? How many days have I woken alone with a wave of grief so intense there’s no air.
Reaching for her is the most natural thing in the world, and a hunger I’m powerless to stop. And because it is, I keep my spine straight, my leg over the side of the bed and my foot firmly planted on the floor.
“You drink blood?” Helene blurts out.
I draw a shaky breath. We’re running out of time and weakness is not a luxury in my budget. Not here, not with her, not until we’ve beaten this cycle.
If we push her too hard, it will make the entire situation more stressful for us all. The last thing I want to do is manipulate things more. The pressure of time shouldn’t touch her yet.
Not if I can help it.
“Yes, I do. Although I don’t need it as much anymore. I’m too old.”
But I want it. I need it more than I need anything except her.
Helene searches my face. In the following beat, she pushes away from the wall and kneels beside me, our legs touching. “So why do you look at me like I’m your next meal?”
“I don’t.”
“That’s when you can actually stand to meet my eyes. Most of the time you’re staring at a wall. Or the floor,” she says.
I tear my gaze free of the opposite wall to prove a point.
We need a fucking chaperone.
Through all the years, all the lifetimes I’ve waited and watched the world rot and hope decay, she is still the singular bright spot.
Her life hasn’t been easy. The anguish of it is written in her eyes as much as the expectation she still harbors.
“You died in my arms first,” I tell her softly. It’s a confession that will cause us both pain. “When you opened your eyes again, in a new body, in a new life, you didn’t remember me. You never do.”
She still bled, though.
I’m bleeding. It’s love against inevitability, tenderness against cost, and truth against the decay of the god’s reign.
“Will you tell me what happened? Please, Nicholas?”