“This morning, Konstantin was there. He’d been watching me practice.” I keep my eyes on his. “He was faster than anything I’ve trained against. I threw everything I had and he stepped to the side and took the ring before I could track the movement. He said he’d been there all six mornings. That he could have taken me on any of them. He wanted me to know he chose not to.”
Maximus stands up.
He reaches for the pants on the chair beside the bed. Steps into them. Pulls them up. Boots next, by the footboard.
A flash of emotion ripples through. Deeper than fury. Then the control slams back and he’s just still.
He crosses to the window and stands with his back to me.
A long silence.
“Six mornings,” he says, finally. “He was in those woods for six mornings.”
His voice is very quiet. The quietest I’ve heard it. “While you were out there alone. While every vampire in this compound was dormant, and there was no one to hear you and no way to reach me.”
I let that sit. The answer is on the sheets between us.
He turns from the window. Profile against the glass.
“You claim you were going to tell me.” His eyes slide just past mine. “When you understood it.”
“That was the plan.”
“After how many more mornings, Celeste? After what?”
I don’t answer that. I can’t.
“He was close enough to touch you, and you couldn’t stop him, and you were alone out there, and I had no idea.” His voice stays quiet. “What if he had taken you? Killed you?”
I stay silent.
“And the ring.” He turns fully. The muscle at his temple jumps. The crescent mark on his chest is dim. Barely pulsing. The two hearts that beat in sync between us faint in it. “You understand what that ring means to me.”
“I know.”
“I gave you that ring.” A pause. “I don’t give pieces of myself away lightly.” The flatness in his voice is worse than volume. “And now Konstantin has it. Because you were out there alone.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” He crosses back toward the bed but doesn’t sit. “Because from where I’m standing, you made a decision about what I could handle, and you made it alone. You kept it for six days, and the only reason you’re telling me now is that the choice was taken from you.”
“Yes,” I say. “That’s true.”
He picks up the chain from the sheets. Looks at it for a long time. Then he sets it on the nightstand.
He pulls his shirt from the back of the chair. Draws it over his head. The mark disappears under dark fabric.
He goes to the door.
“Maximus.”
He stops. He stays facing away.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
A pause. Long enough that I count it. His hand on the door frame.
“I am too,” he says.
