Page 44 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

We stood there, bodies inches apart, breathing the same air, trapped in the same gravitational pull that we’d spent centuries trying to ignore.

“You think magic scares me?” I whispered. “It doesn’t.”

He didn’t blink. “Then what does?”

“Losing you,” I said. “And not because I die… but because you never let yourself be mine.”

The words left my mouth before I could think about them, honest and carved straight from the part of me I didn’t expose to anyone except Rene and Raven.

Con’s eyes burned.

His voice broke again. “You already have me.”

“Not the way I want,” I said.

Red flickered in his gaze. A tremor moved through his shoulders, as if he were fighting himself, not to touch me, not to reach for me, not to give in to something we both knew was inevitable.

The silence stretched, thick enough to drown in.

Then Con took one slow step back. It felt like he was ripping away from gravity itself.

“We can’t do this tonight,” he said. “Not when you’re exhausted.”

“You’re exhausted too,” I said softly.

“Yeah,” he answered. “And if I touch you when I’m like this… I won’t let go, and you need time to adjust.”

My pulse stumbled.

The air between us hummed, alive with everything we were holding back.

“Con—”

“No,” he said, but it wasn’t rejection. It was restraint. Fierce, shaking restraint. “Not tonight.”

He moved to the door.

Every step looked like it cost him.

Before he left, he turned back.

“But hear me,” he whispered. “You’re not alone in this. Not ever. Even if you hate me for how I protect you.”

“I don’t hate you.”

He inhaled hard. “Good. Because I feel like I’m losing my mind around you.”

Then he slipped out of my room, the door clicking softly behind him.

I stood there in the quiet darkness, heartbeat too loud in my ears, magic still simmering under my skin, body aching with everything we didn’t say.

And it hit me⁠—

For the first time in centuries, Constantine was the one running.

And I wasn’t letting him get far.

CHAPTER 9