Rain drips down the cracked glass of the observatory dome, tracing pale rivers through the dark. The world smells of lightning and blood and something softer beneath it…hope, maybe, or the first breath after drowning.
Lucien lies beside me, half-upright against the headboard, his body streaked in ash—the last traces of the coven he tore apart—spellfire, sigil dust, and the ruin of their magic smeared across his skin like warpaint.
My skin still hums where he steadied me, where his blood filled my mouth and fed me back into myself.
For the first time since waking in the nunnery, the silence inside me is mine. No whispering voices or hollow, greedy hunger.
Only him.
He studies me through the dim light, his eyes a molten gold. “You’re shaking.”
“I can still feel its echo,” I admit, touching the faintly glowing sigils along my ribs. “Like smoke in my blood.”
“Then we will keep going until we end it.” His voice is velvet over iron.
He reaches for the small iron knife on the bedside table, the relic used to bind me, to carve the sigils into my spine. The coven brought it with them to reclaim their hold, to carve me open again and drag the Shackle-Soul back into dominance.
Lucien has claimed it for himself.
“You once vowed yourself to silence,” he murmurs. “Tonight, you vow yourself back to me.”
The words shouldn't make me tremble but they do.
He slices his palm first. His blood spills hot and thick, filling the room with the scent of iron and monsters and old wine.
I mirror him, the blade singing through my skin, and when he presses our hands together, the warmth of our mingled blood burns through me like a second heartbeat.
“Do you remember,” I whisper, “the night in Rouen? You swore I’d never outlive your desire.”
His smile curves slow and dangerous. “I told you, I am a man of my word.”
Our blood begins to glow, gold unfolding through the cracks between our fingers, seeping into our skin, binding. The vow unfurls in ancient language, older than the coven’s power, older than sin, older even than him.
Magic settles over us like dusk.
Lucien leans close. His breath warms my throat. “Say it.”
“I am yours,” I murmur, “and you are mine.”
The power pours through us in heat and in exquisite pressure, igniting the bond between us until every nerve feels strung with fire.
He touches me then, my throat, my spine, my hips, the contact reverent and bloody and devastating. My pulse stumbles. Every place his hands touch sparks memory.
“Remember when you swore you’d never kneel?” he says softly, brushing his thumb over my lip.
I laugh, breathless. “I lied.”
I kneel then to demonstrate, bending low to take his massive, beautifully veined cock between my lips in worship and in adoration. And he stays there, half-reclined against the headboard with his clawed fingers in my hair, demonstrating his power and his gentleness as he directs my movements, pumping into my mouth, then my throat, making us both groan when he slips a little deeper with a little force. And when he pours his vampiric essence down my throat, I gleefully swallow him down.
He gathers me into his lap, our blood still mingling between our hands, the magic wrapping around us like a second skin.
The world narrows to warmth and breath and the echo of two hearts, one living, one un-alive, finding the same rhythm again after centuries.
As the vow settles, the pale silver scars tingle and dissolve, evil smudged out by pleasure and blood and the bond reforged between us.
“You’re warmer than before,” he whispers, touching my cheek.
“Hmm.”
