I lean in, my voice a dark whisper. “Then watch me try and fucking succeed this time.”
For a moment, we stand there, two ruins masquerading as lovers, trapped in the same breath.
Then, quietly, she says, “You haven’t changed.”
“Neither have you. I’m not entirely sure whether to be heartbroken or maddened that you still choose to fight this alone rather than by my side.” I can’t help smoothing my fingers over her soft skin. “But you also know me well enough to know that I will triumph over this. Even if, for the sake of our eternity, I need to triumph over you.”
The words sound like a promise and a threat.
Tears fill her eyes but she keeps them locked on me. “My prideful, beautiful vampire.”
I catch the traces of resignation in her voice and I lower my hand, step back before I can do something I’ll regret. The hunger clawing at me isn’t just bloodlust anymore; it’s the ache of over two centuries’ worth of unsaid things, of wanting and hating in the same heartbeat.
She looks away, gathering the shirt tighter around her. “I didn’t come back to fight with you. Or maybe I should say,justto fight with you.”
“Then why elsedidyou come back?”
She hesitates. “To warn you.”
“Of what?”
Her gaze drifts to the ivy-shadowed window, to the bar of sunlight reaching through the curtains. “Escaping Saint Obscura wasn’t the end of my tribulations, Lucien.”
I frown. “What does that mean?”
“When the seal weakened and the doorway opened, something else crossed through with me when I fled.”
The words slither through me like coldest mercury. “Something else?”
She doesn’t answer.
I step forward again, so close she can feel the threat in my silence. “What? Who?”
Before she can reply, the old grandfather clock down the hall begins to chime.
The sound breaks the moment, reverberating through the stone. When it fades, she’s gone—slipped past me like mist.
I stand there, staring at the space she occupied, the scent of lilies lingering in her wake.
It should make me furious that she still eludes me.
It does. But beneath the fury, something darker coils: fear.
Because I recognize that tone in her voice.
The edge of inevitability.
Somethingiscoming.
And this time, it won’t just take her.
It’ll attempt to take me, too.
And IknowI’ll die before I allow it.
Elara
I can still feelhis eyes on my skin long after I leave the solarium.
