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I hear the deep, classical strains of “The Poet Acts” start to swirl in my head, sinking into my heart, which is blooming bigger by the moment. My eyes grow wet, my chest expanding, my jaw sore from holding back sudden tears.
He reaches out with his other hand, cupping it against my cheek, and he’s gazing at me with wonderment and adoration, like he can’t believe it, that I’m here, and he’s here, and we’re together.
“I love you,” he whispers, his voice breaking. “I truly do. And I always have.”
A smile cracks my face, spilling the tears, and I’m crying.
“I love you,” I manage to say but it comes out like a sob.
I’m a fucking mess.
But he knows I’m a mess, and somehow he loves me anyway.
God, he loves me.
Solon loves me.
He leans forward, kissing me on the forehead, and I’m grabbing his shirt, clawing at him, needing him, and then he’s fully on the bed now. He lies beside me and gently pulls me up into his arms. Cradles me. Holds me.
And I cry because I love him and he loves me, and I cry because I almost died and I almost lost him, and I cry for all that I did lose.
He just holds me and keeps me safe until I’m falling asleep again, my heart finally feeling free.
* * *
“Lenore?”
I move my head to the side, blinking.
Solon is sitting in an armchair right next to the bed, a steaming cup of coffee on the side table.
I automatically smile at the sight of him, my grin from ear-to-ear. “Hi,” I say softly.
“Good morning,” he says, the tone of his voice matching mine. He nods at the table. “I brought you some coffee. We have a brand-new espresso machine and Angelo is still getting the hang of it, so my apologies if it’s not up to snuff.”
I slowly sit up, noticing for the first time that I’m in a white nightgown, similar to the one that Solon first put me in. “How long was I asleep this time?” I ask, voice groggy.
“Just a day,” he says. “You’re looking much better, but you’re still weak.”
I reach over for the coffee and have a sip, but the hot bitter liquid in my mouth feels wrong. “Well, you can tell Angelo the coffee isn’t weak,” I tell him, swallowing. “Whoever that is. But I don’t think it will help me.” I put it back on the table with a shaking hand.
“Angelo is the groundskeeper here,” Solon says, getting up and sitting on the edge of the bed beside me. “He’s been taking care of Odin. He’s like Yvonne, minus the warm personality. But he’s also a vampire, so that’s probably why.” He runs his fingers through my hair. “And you don’t want coffee because you don’t need coffee. You need me. You need blood, Lenore. It’s been too long.”
I glance at him. “What about you? Were you able to feed on me while I was asleep?”
His jaw clenches together as he shakes his head, eyes sharp. “I would never do that without your consent.”
“You could have. I wouldn’t have minded. I would have understood.”
“No.”
“Then you’re even more weak than I am,” I tell him. I think back to him at the barn, when he was in the grasp of the Dark Order. I felt like something was holding him back in his struggle. If he was weak then, how is he now?
“You need your strength first,” I tell him, sitting up straighter, and before he can do or say anything, I raise my arm to my mouth and bite into the soft flesh of my mid-forearm. Blood immediately pools at the wound and spills over.
“Lenore,” he says gruffly, trying to move back, but then I can see the smell of my blood has already taken hold of him, his pupils turning red.
I raise my arm out to him and he grabs it, his fingers sinking in, his mouth latching on. Sometimes I forget that he’s a vampire—sometimes I forget I am too—but here I’m reminded of exactly what he is.
And I love him anyway.
So he drinks, and drinks, and when I feel myself growing weaker, I pull my arm away, and fall back into the bed, and he stops.
Next thing I know he’s pressing his arm against my mouth, his blood spilling on my open lips, a few drops, enough to make me fully open my eyes, and then that hunger roars inside me and I let it go. Because with him I can be a monster, but one on a leash. He holds me back, keeps me in check, as I do for him.
I drink and let it fill the well, fill my veins, fill my heart until it’s pumping with him, pushing his life source through my circulation.
The world returns to me, a littler clearer, a little brighter. My muscles come to life, my brain switches back on, I feel like I’m glowing, floating.
